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Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

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Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#31
post #23
post #2

In case it's useful to anyone on HN working in/on politics, I've been with some Trump supporting and voting people lately, and my takeaways: - They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people. A few strongly disliked, and most somewhat disliked, having to use non-traditional pronouns at all. - They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after usi…

> - "Don't force it down my throat and I won't force it down yours" > - They were concerned about the decline of religion, and worry that this will lead to more radical extremists (with the radical extremists converting people who feel disenfranchised and purposeless) I'm curious about how they envision remediation of the decline of religion without shoving it down people's throat.

Probably they don't. You can be concerned with something without government force being your proposed solution.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#32

In my humble opinion, America has fallen into a mindset of righteous indignation. This can be defined as simply one person's opinion is believed to be superior over another, but instead of an understanding that this can be true, or false, or neither, there is an overwhelming compulsion for people to demand their opinion reign supreme, even if it harms the other person. This goes beyond simple disagreement, and takes…

When you say "America has fallen into," it makes it sound like you believe that this is specific to America, and recent. Was there some historic golden-age that I'm unaware of when people didn't get emotional over political views? (consider the duel of our founding fathers)

I think there was, and it was pre-1990s. Something flipped after that. I feel like before the 90s, there was disagreement, but it didn't take on the extreme, vengeful tactics that it has today. This may be a result of the internet, or the 24hr news cycle, I honestly don't know. But something has changed. There's been a ratcheting up of attempts to silence dissent, and aggressively punish someone for disagreeing.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#33

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

Well let's try to understand it. This view must be rooted in the idea that such people have chosen their gender, and therefore chosen their gender pronoun. To not use it then would be like refusing to call someone by their preferred name. I don't know of widespread cases where people refuse to call others by their name after a name change, but I can imagine that if I changed my name and people refused to use my new n…

I think the issue is using the law to punish people for not agreeing to do this.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#34
I really want to know about the 9% that believe that MSNBC has a conservative bias and the 8% that believe that Fox has a liberal bias. Are they just trolling the interviewer, or are they so far to the left/right that anything and everything looks conservative/liberal.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#35

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

Well let's try to understand it. This view must be rooted in the idea that such people have chosen their gender, and therefore chosen their gender pronoun. To not use it then would be like refusing to call someone by their preferred name. I don't know of widespread cases where people refuse to call others by their name after a name change, but I can imagine that if I changed my name and people refused to use my new n…

This is really interesting because for example my mother tongue (hungarian) doesn't have grammatical genders. Like it's non existent (unlike in english, german, or any other germanic language).

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#36

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

Well let's try to understand it. This view must be rooted in the idea that such people have chosen their gender, and therefore chosen their gender pronoun. To not use it then would be like refusing to call someone by their preferred name. I don't know of widespread cases where people refuse to call others by their name after a name change, but I can imagine that if I changed my name and people refused to use my new n…

Annoying should not equal illegal.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#37
post #2

In case it's useful to anyone on HN working in/on politics, I've been with some Trump supporting and voting people lately, and my takeaways: - They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people. A few strongly disliked, and most somewhat disliked, having to use non-traditional pronouns at all. - They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after usi…

Let's ignore the cesspit that's Twitter for the moment, since I don't know how it works, and focus on interactions in the real world.

> They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people

Relatively rarely happens. Does tend to happen if you repeat it consistently and show no attempt at learning - at that point, it's subtle bullying and disrespect.

> having to use non-traditional pronouns at all

Most enby people I know are at least not actively uncomfortable with people using binary pronouns, although I'll continue to point out that singular they has been correct grammar for longer than anyone has been alive. They might decide to pursue activism towards greater awareness, and some of that is likely to be student activism - they're also likely to create and participate in social spaces where they're respected. It's generally not a problem in workplaces, since enby people are almost universally terrified of being out about their gender at work.

> They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after using the wrong pronoun

Doesn't appear to have actually happened. Some kid got sent to the Principal's office once, and I assume got talked to and sent back to class, since no news source says anything else. I can't figure out the actual details on what happened to cause the kid to be sent to the office, since every news story on the subject seems to have a different set of facts, strongly suggesting that at least some of those facts were partially made up. I suspect some teacher was on edge about potential bullying - which definitely happens - didn't realise the kid didn't already know, and the issue probably got resolved without any lasting harm to anyone.

> They were upset about a professor getting in trouble for wanting to only use male and female pronouns based on biological gender

Now that we're talking about adults in an educational setting where people are intended to interact professionally with each other, a failure to respect the adults you interact with - and the people who part-fund your job, at that - is likely to get you fired, yes. The only way you can twist this to be a bad thing is if you thoroughly believe that people with nonbinary genders are not worth respecting.

> They feel like they cannot express their views without being attacked

How do they think many of us feel, and have felt for decades? We spend ridiculous amounts of energy trying to calm their fears, anyway - I spend much of my social time explaining to people in real life why their (usually unintentionally) misguided ideas about trans people are based on incorrect facts.

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I don't know how to solve these problems. Most of it is continued education, but how are we going to educate people when there's systems in place - often religious and political - specifically intending to keep people in the dark about reality?

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#38
There were a lot of questions along the lines of:

> ...it’s hateful or offensive to say...

I would like to see more specific responses to this. It seems like people might say yes because:

- they are offended

- they think members of specific groups would be offended

- they think specific people they know would be offended

- they think people generally would be offended

Hateful seems a little more objective, but for many people, hate is a subjective feeling as well, so the above questions could just as easily be reworded about 'hate' instead of 'offense'.

I think breaking things down like that a bit more might help with better understanding. I can't say how many times I've seen people verbally kick sand at each other over what hypothetical third parties think or feel (veterans, immigrants, children, 'the poor', etc.).

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#39

In the Information Age most people with an interest in an issue will have already heard “your” opinion on it, because most people have off-the-shelf opinions that have already been widely circulated. Until etiquette and discourse norms evolve to incorporate this understanding conversations will be frustrating for everyone!

And even those who don't hold off-the-rack opinions may be inclined to pretend that they do, from fear of alienating others or getting hostile responses to heterodoxy, inability to communicate their position (due to their own or others weaknesses), or just an unwillingness to constantly invest the time required to explain a unique and nuanced opinion.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#40
post #21

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

We are starting to apply the techniques of Newspeak from 1984. By eliminating certain words from the language you can't even think incorrect thoughts anymore.

They banned ad banners with attractive people having nice toned bodies in London Tube, too bad you cannot outlaw being attractive in real life :).
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