PC thuggery :) (was Re: Country Related: Christmas)

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Padraic Brown wrote:
> > Once I became aware of what the PC proponents were after in other areas
> > (postal carrier, instead of mailman; Indigenous American, instead of
> > Indian), Happy Holidays just seemed another cog in the works.
>
> I see nothing wrong with those terms.  So-called "Indians" have nothing
> to do with India, and "mailmen" can be men or women (altho mailperson
> seems a little better to me).  Terms like African-American, tho, I don't
> really like.  It's inaccurate - most "African-Americans" have never been
> to Africa, and white people live in Africa as well, an white immigrant
> from Africa would have to be called an African-American as well, yes?
Well, I agree to some extent.  To me, if you're gonna create a new
terminology divorced from sex-dependent meanings, then you should
at least have some creativity with it. I mean, "postal carrier" seems a lot
less contrived to me than "mailperson" does; "indigenous Americans"
really begs the question, because even though they were the first people
here, they too were at one point merely arrivals.  I get kinda irritated
when people get themselves worked up about that kind of stuff, because
all too often, they don't even know what they're talking about.  The
feminist usage of "herstory" is a case in point.  It really doesn't matter,
because Sapir-Whorf effects don't have *that* much influence on how you
think.

But the main problem I have with PC is that what it does, in the grander
scheme of things, is stifle debate and discussion of some issues that merely
because these issues are unpopular, they get ridiculed as being uncaring
and insensitive.  The truth, sadly, is rarely a popular thing, as most would
rather live in their own little fantasy worlds than 'fess up to it.    All other
things being equal, if taken to extremes it's dangerous to the marketplace
of ideas that the American Founding Fathers and philosophers around the
world have always sought.