> So, you have no problem with a weasel term like “PC”
> but one with what you call a broad-brush extensive exegesis by me.
Comparatively few natural-language words have really clear and distinct definitions. So it is with "PC". In my dialect -- based on my own limited experience -- the term denotes a phenomenon, centered on (but not entirely confined to) university campuses in the 80s and early 90s. Qua politics, it was not really very "left" as I understand that (equally vague) term, but constituted a kind of militant liberalism.
The praxis was largely, as far as I could tell, a matter of policing diction -- certain words and phrases were disapproved-of, including a good many ancient vernacular expressions.
Ideologically, notions like "identity" and "sensitivity" loomed very large, and distinguishing oppressed groups from oppressing groups seemed to be a fundamental heuristic.
This all seemed very shallow, moralistic, un-structural, and ahistorical to me. As such, it seemed like an awfully easy target for reactionaries, and so it proved to be.
American campuses are a very weird hermetic world, and I feel personally quite fortunate to have gotten over the wall when I did. Does it really make a lot of sense to spend much time defending these salons des precieuses?
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com