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PC Equals Puritanical Control

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PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 09:10:17

PC Equals Puritanical Control

I was struck this morning reading through the posts recently about PC and how it seeks to restrict speech and behavior just how closely it resembles the Puritans of Plymouth Colony in the early 1620's.

If you strip away the kind of things the modern PC movement objects to and just look at the tactics they follow the two systems come out of the same mold. Puritans could not talk about sex in public, or curse, or many other things that the leaders thought were offensive to God.

The PC movement wants to strip out all talk they consider racist, sexist, offensive to women or minority people. The goal of both systems is the same, suppress the free expression of speech because in one case God and in the other case Women and Minorities will be offended.

It didn't work out to well for the Puritans in the 1600's and how will it work out for the PC crusaders of the 21st Century remains to be seen.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 13:34:57

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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 16:34:35

I suspect that is correct Tanda.

The object may be different, but the thought control is the same.m Just another bit of what it means to be human.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 17:56:48

Excuse me, but the approximately 21,000 Puritans migrated to America after 1630 and by 1790 numbered 700,000. Their legacy lives on today in America in various Christian Congregationalist sects, where they number in the tens of millions.

Most of what people think they know about the Puritans is wrong. For example, they did not forbid alcohol and even stood up for the "right" of Native Americans to drink: "It is not fit to deprive Indians of any lawfull comfort aloweth to all men by the use of wine."

The American Puritans were "Seperatists" who had given up the idea of "purifying" the Church Of England until it was again Roman Catholic, which was why the English Crown both persecuted and prosecuted the Puritans and also why they escaped this attention by coming to America. The Puritans were also known for their own severe persecution of Quakers and other pacifists.

The strict codes of behavior, the severe black dress, and the harsh preachings and outright bigotries were pretty much mainstream Christian/Catholic thought in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Puritans were entirely conventional in this regard. (Note that there have always been secular people and they were beating feet West in the 17th and 18th centuries, away from those Bible thumpers.)

I don't mean to be critical, but I have been a member of the Nantucket Historical Association since 1977, and these topics are popular in the newsletter, second only to emancipation and anti-slavery.

Modern Political Correctness is IMHO an attempt to exercise thought control by applied semantics. There exists the belief that if one substitutes a euphemism for an emotion-laden label, you will also have banished those same dark thoughts. It works quite well with young children in Sunday School, but not at all with teenagers or adults.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby dissident » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 19:41:51

Oppression is always enacted in the name of goodness. But for some reason people think that there will be some sort of obvious "evilness" which they can reject. Then they wake up living in a totalitarian nightmare.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby Cog » Tue 25 Aug 2015, 20:47:57

If you can control the language, who can control the debate. That is what PC is about. Take for instance the phrase illegal alien. It accurately describes the person and the situation. A person that is here in the US from another country illegally.

The PC folks prefer the term undocumented immigrant. As if the person simply lost their papers and are here legally.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Thu 27 Aug 2015, 10:55:46

Walking thru campus yesterday a table of papers & sellers- Green Left Weekly. Though such earnest looking folk they appeared to be, I could not venture to entertain a conversation with people so mathematically retarded. I know full well as a run of the mill worker where I am now I am at least 10 times better off than 90% of humanity, who you grelef mob reckon need me to share my disgustingly fat cat middle of the Oz road wages, while I can just barely keep my version of a life going... Omg, we could take all night...
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby ralfy » Thu 27 Aug 2015, 14:23:05

Given their articles concerning peak oil, global warming, and financial crises, I think their views are very similar to those raised in this site.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Thu 27 Aug 2015, 16:00:45

& their solutions amount to confounded logic. Open borders & protectionism.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby ralfy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 02:48:35

Those aren't solutions.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 02:52:09

Your obfuscation is apt.

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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby evilgenius » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 13:14:28

Ok, so where does PC come from? Isn't it more or less directly extrapolated from an expansion of the suffrage? What gives it any gravitas? Isn't the only power it has the power of the pulpit? As such nobody has to listen to it. It has about as much authority as all of the conspiracy theorists. In fact, seeing as how the conspiracy theorists are increasingly organized under the umbrella of an increasingly common creed of misinformation and guile (possibly funded by various right-wing interests to boot), maybe they are a far greater enemy of the people. Oh, that's right, expansion of the suffrage would intimate that the voice resonating from it would have something to do with speaking for more people, if not for a majority then for an increasingly important minority. Maybe the real problem lies within, where people have trouble respecting and understanding those that lie outside of themselves and their sphere of power? It isn't that PC has any power over you, except that you can't stand the competition.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby evilgenius » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 13:18:37

And, if you think about it, this thread should be placed where guests can see it!
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 13:35:20

evilgenius wrote:Ok, so where does PC come from? Isn't it more or less directly extrapolated from an expansion of the suffrage? What gives it any gravitas? Isn't the only power it has the power of the pulpit? As such nobody has to listen to it. It has about as much authority as all of the conspiracy theorists.

With respect evilgenius, I think it's more complicated than that.

I believe at its roots, it's trying to address a real world problem. Basically, that people tend to be collectivist a**holes, and abusive toward other people different than them. Modern society (as a whole, at least in the first world) is increasingly tending to find that attitude unacceptable. Sad as that is, it's one group of people at a time, and the process takes a long time.

So in decades past it was about slavery, the woman's vote, the color of peoples' skin, etc. and today it's more about things like people's sexual orientation, their sex, their reproductive rights, their handicaps, and even how they look.

Now, the problem, IMO, is where you find the balance? The PC movement is an attempt to keep groups who are treated badly FROM being treated badly.

Example: I have a male friend (who wants to be called by the female pronouns, which makes my 56 year old head hurt, due to deeply ingrained HABIT, not intolerance) because she identifies herself, including dressing, as a woman. It's clearly wrong that this person is physically attacked and chased (and verbally abused) by examples of said a**holes, and any civilized person would agree to that. The PC movement is also against things like calling this person disrespectful names based on her lifestyle -- trying to get rid of the negative mindset.

So I don't see the intent as bad, when practiced with some sort of moderation. Where do you draw the line? Making it practically a hate crime to, for example, call a blind person blind instead of "sight challenged" on some college campuses, seems beyond what is reasonable to me. Especially in a country where free speech is supposedly a basic right.

I don't claim to have the answers, but I think just blanket assuming the whole PC concept is just bad is missing an important broader point as society moves toward being generally more tolerant of a wide range of differences between groups of people who SHOULD be free from abuse, discrimination, etc.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby evilgenius » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 14:45:45

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
evilgenius wrote:Ok, so where does PC come from? Isn't it more or less directly extrapolated from an expansion of the suffrage? What gives it any gravitas? Isn't the only power it has the power of the pulpit? As such nobody has to listen to it. It has about as much authority as all of the conspiracy theorists.

With respect evilgenius, I think it's more complicated than that.

I believe at its roots, it's trying to address a real world problem. Basically, that people tend to be collectivist a**holes, and abusive toward other people different than them. Modern society (as a whole, at least in the first world) is increasingly tending to find that attitude unacceptable. Sad as that is, it's one group of people at a time, and the process takes a long time.

So in decades past it was about slavery, the woman's vote, the color of peoples' skin, etc. and today it's more about things like people's sexual orientation, their sex, their reproductive rights, their handicaps, and even how they look.

Now, the problem, IMO, is where you find the balance? The PC movement is an attempt to keep groups who are treated badly FROM being treated badly.

Example: I have a male friend (who wants to be called by the female pronouns, which makes my 56 year old head hurt, due to deeply ingrained HABIT, not intolerance) because she identifies herself, including dressing, as a woman. It's clearly wrong that this person is physically attacked and chased (and verbally abused) by examples of said a**holes, and any civilized person would agree to that. The PC movement is also against things like calling this person disrespectful names based on her lifestyle -- trying to get rid of the negative mindset.

So I don't see the intent as bad, when practiced with some sort of moderation. Where do you draw the line? Making it practically a hate crime to, for example, call a blind person blind instead of "sight challenged" on some college campuses, seems beyond what is reasonable to me. Especially in a country where free speech is supposedly a basic right.

I don't claim to have the answers, but I think just blanket assuming the whole PC concept is just bad is missing an important broader point as society moves toward being generally more tolerant of a wide range of differences between groups of people who SHOULD be free from abuse, discrimination, etc.


I'm not assuming it's bad. If anything, I think the real challenge with PC is the finding of balance. I only co-mingle it with conspiracy theory in order to show those right-wingers most apt to rail against it the import of it, by associating it with something they tend to really love.

PC is not law, so why do so many rail against it as if it were? It's only argument. What causes a person to become so upset by it? Aside from overthrowing a nostalgic impulse to see the world a certain way, if may be that it gets at people because it assaults their world view. Not everybody can take that kind of assault, but if your world view is actually well thought out, and you constantly re-examine it to make certain it's valid, you should be able to. George Carlin was like that (that whole personhole cover schtick), and he essentially sought balance. Otherwise people need to rethink their selves and wonder why it is that they aren't in control of everything.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 16:09:43

evilgenius wrote:I'm not assuming it's bad. If anything, I think the real challenge with PC is the finding of balance. I only co-mingle it with conspiracy theory in order to show those right-wingers most apt to rail against it the import of it, by associating it with something they tend to really love.

PC is not law, so why do so many rail against it as if it were? It's only argument. What causes a person to become so upset by it? Aside from overthrowing a nostalgic impulse to see the world a certain way, if may be that it gets at people because it assaults their world view. Not everybody can take that kind of assault, but if your world view is actually well thought out, and you constantly re-examine it to make certain it's valid, you should be able to. George Carlin was like that (that whole personhole cover schtick), and he essentially sought balance. Otherwise people need to rethink their selves and wonder why it is that they aren't in control of everything.


If only that were true, unfortunately we have everything from 'hate crime' legislation to workplace human resources rules that turn poor taste into a firing offense.

Hate crime has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever invented, if someone murders me it does not matter if they did it because of my gender, ethnicity or religious beliefs. Murder in the first degree in our current culture often gets an 11 year sentence commuted to 7 with time off for good behavior. If you convict the perpetrator of a 'hate crime' they will get double that, but if both people are the same ethnicity/gender/religious conviction then that does not come into play. How does that promote a just society? If you kill your own its OK, just don't cross that 'hate' line or we will really get you?
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby ralfy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 16:17:04

Solutions involve finding a viable replacement for oil, a process that will reverse global warming, and policies that will reign in the financial industry. In short, things that will allow for "business as usual."
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby ralfy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 16:21:43

About the origins, there are several given here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... nd/399356/
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 21:40:42

ralfy wrote:About the origins, there are several given here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... nd/399356/


I saw that article a while ago, and this is one of these guys that makes a living attacking the education system for conservative think tanks etc.

Wherever the GOP has taken over state governments they have slashed the university system, and $500,000,000 seems to be the quota each of them must meet, That money is then funneled to wealthy donors or in Wisconsin to build a new stadium.

Follow the money! Professional hucksters are used to justify slashing the universities and the money gets diverted to build luxury sky boxes.

It really is just that easy to swindle people. Tell them they are fighting a mythical powerful "Left" and they will happily cut their own throats. And it will work even better in the next generation, because people will be that much dumber without schools. I actually feel a bit better since concluding that there no hope for homo sapiens, we are an evolutionary failure, and it's not my problem.
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Re: PC Equals Puritanical Control

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 22:10:52

Unless carbon death was going to be a real problem soon unless we came along? In 50 more years we will have released about 2/3 of all stored carbon. At which point we are redundant for a couple billion years, rinse, repeat. Carbon digger monkeys.

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