For an article with this headline, it's rather surprising that it never says why Stephen Fry is arguing against political correctness.
Here's why, I think: because Stephen Fry is, among other things, a comedian. And comedians are highly sensitive to political correctness and its ills. They are the canaries in the coal mine of wokeness.
I think he's arguing from the most superficial level. That shaming people for things like use of language is ineffective at actually convincing them to change their minds. FWIW, I think he's actually wrong. Just by observing my kids and their school-aged peers, they are incredibly accepting of different types of people and lifestyles without a second thought. And they enforce "political correctness" of speech without being told because they understand the principles of why it's wrong. When I was a kid "gay" was one of our go-to pejoratives for almost anything uncool. With my kid's cohort, it's not acceptable because they don't think being gay is insulting. This is obviously anecdotal, but I've heard the same from lots of other parents. If enforcing language wasn't effective at changing minds, propagandists wouldn't make such strong use of it.
It says why (because he feels it's counter-productive to achieving the goal of a more inclusive society), but I'd highly recommend just going and watching the full debate yourself.
I remember it, and it was basically a warning of all the things that have happened in America. Thankfully we're always a little behind America here in Europe.
Fry is also bipolar like me. When I get manic I say provocative things that I regret later on. The cultural climate is much less forgiving of that sort of thing. I think Fry would agree with me, if you think you might be bipolar seek help. Modern meds are really good and don't make you stupid like the old days.
Are there any examples of discussions or arguments having to do with political correctness that are actually thought-provoking? Seems like it's always the same ideas that come up whether the people involved are for it or not.
Most arguments come strongly down one side or another to the exclusion of any sane discussion. Allow me to quote a quote. From pseudalopex on July 3, 2020.
> Stewart Lee: "What is political correctness? It's an often clumsy negotiation towards a kind of formally inclusive language. And there's all sorts of problems with it. But it's better than what we had before."[1]
I've read a ton about it over the years and my conclusion is that it's just not that deep of a concept.
One side says: "We need more inclusive language" where the other side says "we need free speech". Pretty much any and every conversation or article I read has boiled down to these two points.
The reason it gets discussed so much is that it's easy for both sides to point to "violations" on the other side. One side keeps ranting and raving that that the other side is being homophobic/transphobic/racist/classist/etc, the other side looks at that outrage, and responds in kind with it's own outrage going "look how wild this is". But every conversation just ends up with each side presenting examples of what they consider to be strange behavior by the other side.
The real interesting part is not what the talking points are, but who is pushing then and the distribution of those talking points. My theory is the number of people that actually care about political correctness is vanishingly small. But because their ideas are so over the top to the other side, their opponents amplify their talking point. This amplification on social media results in the issue being perceived as a much bigger issue than what it actually is.
And as a result of that amplification, people outside of that "culture war" start looking at the signals and assume the issue is much bigger than it really is and respond accordingly. Your HR manager might browse twitter every morning and gets the impression that racism in the workplace is a massive problem because "everyone on twitter is talking about it". So they institute a new diversity training policy to respond to that.
TL;DR: The political correctness crowd is very small, but through amplification on social media, their ideas are being falsely perceived as being a much bigger issue than they really are.
The first side is those who support political correctness. This side is singular. Simple.
The other two sides are those who don't. This is where it gets interesting. One side that doesn't support it actually has hatred for marginalized groups. They aren't politically correct because of actual raw hatred. These people include racists, nazis, the KKK, etc. This group is a huge minority of the population.
The third group are those that are not racist. They are normal people who respect other races, genders, sexual orientations but do not support political correctness. The argument here is more interesting.
Why should I have to refer to a male with a penis as a "she" when objective reality and scientific truth defines this person as a biological "he"? Why do I have to redefine and complexify well established and obvious vocabulary, to make it fit someone else's perception or reality as we know it? That is the core of the argument. Which is more important? Emotional well being and social harmony Or Objective Reality/Truth?
The answer is not clear. Scientific studies show that well-being is associated with lying to oneself. People who are happier are less aware of the objective truth and people who are brutally honest with themselves tend to meet the clinical definitions of depression. The majority of people you meet lie to themselves.
Do we construct a reality that allows us to be happy or do we face the horror of objective reality? It's too late for me already. I've chosen the later and I can't go back. But the question is still interesting to me; given some aspect of the knowledge I have now and the ability to go back to the cross roads before I made that choice.... Would I be better off going down the other path? What is more important? Happiness? Or Truth?
That to me is a profound question, and the core central question that's being asked by this culture war. We'd all be happier if everyone was politically correct. But of course we'd also be, in a way, lying to ourselves.
> "I'm very, very... I won't say dreading, but I'm, hmm, somewhat tentative about this whole thing
That's the problem. Shaming and shunning is an ancient technique for punishing transgressors, but social media enables it to be applied too broadly. All transgressions are put on full blast. If I were a full on Nazi I would get the same treatment as I would if expressed that I'm glad my son doesn't want to be a girl. It gets tiresome, shuts down free speech and punishes people who don't deserve it. It allows otherwise powerless people to become powerful in their faux outrage and hurt others that don't deserve it in the process.
I left social media 5 years ago, and haven't looked back. Facebook, Twitter, and especially LinkedIn, because I don't want the mob to know where I work. Let them find an easier target.
It became a liability, because of just how mercurial the outrage mob is. They will dig up something you said 15 years ago, or something your father said, and you'll lose your job because of it.
The only exception is HN, which I use under an assumed name, because I can't bring myself to leave you all :-)
This is also the problem I see behind critiquing cancellation / shunning when the act is often based upon either the freedom of speech or the freedom of association. People must agree to stop shunning each other, but they cannot be compelled without cutting back on their freedom of speech or freedom of association.
> "I'm very, very... I won't say dreading, but I'm, hmm, somewhat tentative about this whole thing. I don't think Jordan Peterson is a man with whom I necessarily share an enormous amount of, you know…
I don't know, an I'm an enormous fan of both men.
Both are academic types, Peterson has a love for the natural world, Fry for history.
They both believe in values - Peterson focusing on self-discipline, Fry on kindness.
The only thing I can work out that's different is that some people have decided that Peterson is evil for not supporting compelled speech, or acknowledging humans are animals, or some other nonsense - Fry could absolutely be in Peterson's position if the cards had fallen differently.
I don't think that's quite right. If you were a full-on Nazi you'd be generally ignored by the sort of people who spend their time calling out minor transgressions among their fellow travellers.
> If I were a full on Nazi I would get the same treatment as I would if expressed that I'm glad my son doesn't want to be a girl.
If that were true, either no one would be on social media except perfectly politically correct people, or everyone would be desperately trying to be perfectly politically correct. But instead, social media is filled with racist, homophobic, sexist jerks who constantly say things that hurt other people and reinforce stereotypes. So...
This PC cycle is interesting. Bill Maher and "politically incorrect" ended 20 years ago. Paving way for real time, but omg I'm feeling old. The PC cycle must exist, it will come and go in strength. Here's what happens when the cycle breaks.
Tautological by definition, for 'politeness' to exist, you must have impoliteness. If you have a culture whose population has shifted more polite, like Canada, then democratically you end up going down this road of lawfully mandated politeness. Canada is jailing impolite people: https://thepostmillennial.com/rob-hoogland-canada-prisoner-o...
This is in essence what Jordan Peterson warned about and why he came to fame.
This wasn't the first law to jail/punish impolite people in Canada; but also why Canada has a reputation of politeness. You in return get an intentional shift in the zeitgeist of Canada. If you were given the option in front of you to actively boost the politeness of your fellow countrypeople, you probably would do it.
However, the consequence was political prisoners and the abolishment of free speech.
For whatever reason, most of those who challenge the orthodoxy on this go downhill, I mean Jordan Peterson used to be a 'quixotic person with an opinion', but this popularity made him a hero to 'one side' and so he's gone down a really odd path.
There is no meaningful debate on the issue because nobody (or rather very few) is willing to dump their career to challenge the orthodoxy. Therefore only voices challenging the system are far-right wingnuts like Matt Gaetz, the Trump sons etc.
I order for the issue to be taken serious, people need to be a few notches above 'Joe Rogan' and there just not that many.
Also, if they are reasonable, neither Fox nor CNN/MSNBC want to carry them.
[+] [-] SeanLuke|3 years ago|reply
Here's why, I think: because Stephen Fry is, among other things, a comedian. And comedians are highly sensitive to political correctness and its ills. They are the canaries in the coal mine of wokeness.
[+] [-] tootie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghusto|3 years ago|reply
I remember it, and it was basically a warning of all the things that have happened in America. Thankfully we're always a little behind America here in Europe.
[+] [-] nailer|3 years ago|reply
> it's po-faced, sanctimonious, self-righteous occasionally ... it's not effective.
[+] [-] michaelwww|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bakary|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewOMartin|3 years ago|reply
> Stewart Lee: "What is political correctness? It's an often clumsy negotiation towards a kind of formally inclusive language. And there's all sorts of problems with it. But it's better than what we had before."[1]
> [1] https://youtu.be/x_JCBmY9NGM
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23727838
[+] [-] _fat_santa|3 years ago|reply
One side says: "We need more inclusive language" where the other side says "we need free speech". Pretty much any and every conversation or article I read has boiled down to these two points.
The reason it gets discussed so much is that it's easy for both sides to point to "violations" on the other side. One side keeps ranting and raving that that the other side is being homophobic/transphobic/racist/classist/etc, the other side looks at that outrage, and responds in kind with it's own outrage going "look how wild this is". But every conversation just ends up with each side presenting examples of what they consider to be strange behavior by the other side.
The real interesting part is not what the talking points are, but who is pushing then and the distribution of those talking points. My theory is the number of people that actually care about political correctness is vanishingly small. But because their ideas are so over the top to the other side, their opponents amplify their talking point. This amplification on social media results in the issue being perceived as a much bigger issue than what it actually is.
And as a result of that amplification, people outside of that "culture war" start looking at the signals and assume the issue is much bigger than it really is and respond accordingly. Your HR manager might browse twitter every morning and gets the impression that racism in the workplace is a massive problem because "everyone on twitter is talking about it". So they institute a new diversity training policy to respond to that.
TL;DR: The political correctness crowd is very small, but through amplification on social media, their ideas are being falsely perceived as being a much bigger issue than they really are.
[+] [-] coldtea|3 years ago|reply
Which is usually the case.
[+] [-] naasking|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|3 years ago|reply
https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...
[+] [-] deltasevennine|3 years ago|reply
There are actually three sides. Not two. Three.
The first side is those who support political correctness. This side is singular. Simple.
The other two sides are those who don't. This is where it gets interesting. One side that doesn't support it actually has hatred for marginalized groups. They aren't politically correct because of actual raw hatred. These people include racists, nazis, the KKK, etc. This group is a huge minority of the population.
The third group are those that are not racist. They are normal people who respect other races, genders, sexual orientations but do not support political correctness. The argument here is more interesting.
Why should I have to refer to a male with a penis as a "she" when objective reality and scientific truth defines this person as a biological "he"? Why do I have to redefine and complexify well established and obvious vocabulary, to make it fit someone else's perception or reality as we know it? That is the core of the argument. Which is more important? Emotional well being and social harmony Or Objective Reality/Truth?
The answer is not clear. Scientific studies show that well-being is associated with lying to oneself. People who are happier are less aware of the objective truth and people who are brutally honest with themselves tend to meet the clinical definitions of depression. The majority of people you meet lie to themselves.
Do we construct a reality that allows us to be happy or do we face the horror of objective reality? It's too late for me already. I've chosen the later and I can't go back. But the question is still interesting to me; given some aspect of the knowledge I have now and the ability to go back to the cross roads before I made that choice.... Would I be better off going down the other path? What is more important? Happiness? Or Truth?
That to me is a profound question, and the core central question that's being asked by this culture war. We'd all be happier if everyone was politically correct. But of course we'd also be, in a way, lying to ourselves.
[+] [-] tim_hutton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richliss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenyoda|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boxmonster|3 years ago|reply
That's the problem. Shaming and shunning is an ancient technique for punishing transgressors, but social media enables it to be applied too broadly. All transgressions are put on full blast. If I were a full on Nazi I would get the same treatment as I would if expressed that I'm glad my son doesn't want to be a girl. It gets tiresome, shuts down free speech and punishes people who don't deserve it. It allows otherwise powerless people to become powerful in their faux outrage and hurt others that don't deserve it in the process.
[+] [-] RichardCNormos|3 years ago|reply
It became a liability, because of just how mercurial the outrage mob is. They will dig up something you said 15 years ago, or something your father said, and you'll lose your job because of it.
The only exception is HN, which I use under an assumed name, because I can't bring myself to leave you all :-)
[+] [-] threatofrain|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|3 years ago|reply
I don't know, an I'm an enormous fan of both men.
Both are academic types, Peterson has a love for the natural world, Fry for history.
They both believe in values - Peterson focusing on self-discipline, Fry on kindness.
The only thing I can work out that's different is that some people have decided that Peterson is evil for not supporting compelled speech, or acknowledging humans are animals, or some other nonsense - Fry could absolutely be in Peterson's position if the cards had fallen differently.
[+] [-] Joeboy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pandemicsoul|3 years ago|reply
If that were true, either no one would be on social media except perfectly politically correct people, or everyone would be desperately trying to be perfectly politically correct. But instead, social media is filled with racist, homophobic, sexist jerks who constantly say things that hurt other people and reinforce stereotypes. So...
[+] [-] incomingpain|3 years ago|reply
Tautological by definition, for 'politeness' to exist, you must have impoliteness. If you have a culture whose population has shifted more polite, like Canada, then democratically you end up going down this road of lawfully mandated politeness. Canada is jailing impolite people: https://thepostmillennial.com/rob-hoogland-canada-prisoner-o...
This is in essence what Jordan Peterson warned about and why he came to fame.
This wasn't the first law to jail/punish impolite people in Canada; but also why Canada has a reputation of politeness. You in return get an intentional shift in the zeitgeist of Canada. If you were given the option in front of you to actively boost the politeness of your fellow countrypeople, you probably would do it.
However, the consequence was political prisoners and the abolishment of free speech.
[+] [-] aquaduck|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melvyn2|3 years ago|reply
When you have to cite trash like this, it weakens your argument considerably. Maybe cite a better source?
[+] [-] jollybean|3 years ago|reply
There is no meaningful debate on the issue because nobody (or rather very few) is willing to dump their career to challenge the orthodoxy. Therefore only voices challenging the system are far-right wingnuts like Matt Gaetz, the Trump sons etc.
I order for the issue to be taken serious, people need to be a few notches above 'Joe Rogan' and there just not that many.
Also, if they are reasonable, neither Fox nor CNN/MSNBC want to carry them.