This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

Example of political correctness destroying our culture

Scroll to see replies

hellohello12

A culture which has been one of the most influencial ever (Empire, the english lanague, magna carta, the wealth of English literature) etc is hardly going to be destoryed by Polical Corectness is it?

Exactly, and the aim of political corectness is generally to stop offensive phrases being used in a commonplace manner, and to remove the discrimination implicit in some of our language.

Reply 21

Arminius

Thats just complacency, any culture can be destoyed. the only way to keep ours great is never to be complacent and stamp out threats as we see them.

Reply 22

Giliwoo

Zebedee

Thats just complacency, any culture can be destoyed. the only way to keep ours great is never to be complacent and stamp out threats as we see them.

Culture doesn't work like that lol. For a culture to be destroyed there would have to be nobody left to practice it, whether through rapid acculturation or mass genocide (both could only occur as a result of some extreme and sudden cultural or social catastrophe e.g. the fate of Easter Island). Culture is the accumulated habits, perceptions and philosophies of a particulare society. It isn't a "thing" but a behaviour; a way of relating to and perceiving the world. To "destroy" British culture - hundreds of years in the making - would be almost impossible in the manner you describe. Indeed, so much of Britain's culture has spread around the world, that all too often, we only get back the pollen from seeds we sowed elsewhere! British culture is far too formidably entrenched to be supplanted as easily as you seem to believe.

Reply 23

Arminius

eh? what do you mean. Government is the guardian of culture, i know you probably don't believe that but thats what i stand for.

Reply 24

Giliwoo

Zebedee

eh? what do you mean. Government is the guardian of culture, i know you probably don't believe that but thats what i stand for.

Has government banned christmas? The Proms? St George's Day? Trooping of the Colour? Government is not the guardian of culture by the way - not unless we are suddenly Fascists - but society is. Government has better things to do.

Reply 25

creak

Zebedee

Thats just complacency, any culture can be destoyed. the only way to keep ours great is never to be complacent and stamp out threats as we see them.

Surely the only parts of our 'culture' being 'destroyed' by political correctness are those such as the remaining racist, sexist overtones inherent from our imperial past? Whilst admittedly some ridiculous measures have unnecessarily been enacted in the spirit of political correctness, does this still mean the idea and the positive effects it has had are honestly such a bad thing?

Reply 26

Jokerman

apd35

Exactly, and the aim of political corectness is generally to stop offensive phrases being used in a commonplace manner, and to remove the discrimination implicit in some of our language.

Is that why BBC airs a program called 'spooks'?

P.S. this is meant as a half-joke

Reply 27

madchick

Giliwoo

Some council's last year decided that people were not allowed to say Happy Christmas in case it upset people of other relgions and some other councils went as far as banning Father Christmas from making appearances at department stores.

The Proms will never be cancelled because they make it EU friendly and multi ethnic now

St Georges's Day.......Did no one else read the papers in the week leading up to it about trying to get the Cross banned from flags, schools, cars etc...due to the fact that it might upset other religions.

As for the Government having better things to do......trying looking at the 3000+ peices of new legislation that the Government have tried to bring in since they came to power.

Say I;m being cynical here (and I'm sure you will) but isn;t Mrs Blair a Human Rights Lawyer personage.......all this PC must be keeping her very busy and very well paid

Reply 28

apd35

madchick

This was the choice of a couple of individuals to refer to the Christmas time as Winterval, it was in somewhere like Bradford with a very high non-Christian population, and many of the events organise are not focussed around Christmas but Eid, Diwali or Hannukah instead, so the name made more sense.

madchick

The Proms will never be cancelled because they make it EU friendly and multi ethnic now

Which means this bastion of Britishness more reflects the make-up of Britain today.

madchick

St Georges's Day.......Did no one else read the papers in the week leading up to it about trying to get the Cross banned from flags, schools, cars etc...due to the fact that it might upset other religions.

I heard that "they" were, no one ever referred to who they were though, it was usually privately consulted people who were asked how to make somewhere have less antagonising features. This argument is similar to the Health & Safety gone mad one.

madchick

As for the Government having better things to do......trying looking at the 3000+ peices of new legislation that the Government have tried to bring in since they came to power.

Have they been stupidly PC?

madchick

Say I;m being cynical here (and I'm sure you will) but isn;t Mrs Blair a Human Rights Lawyer personage.......all this PC must be keeping her very busy and very well paid

You're being cynical her. Seriously though, most of the PC ideas are not legally binding but advice given by private consultation firms.

Reply 29

Oswy

Shouldn't we be proud of our history, and the fact that we crushed the rebellious Scots of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, and punished them with horrendous inflictions, the sores of which are felt even to this day? Down with PC Giliwoo.

We don't need to be 'proud' of 'our' history, but we should be interested in it.

For one thing, we need to be clear that it's not really 'our' history in that the actions of people in the past, motivated by political, social, religious, nationalist (and so on) motives isn't going to correspond to our motives or values (and I mean here 'our' as a contemporary society and as individuals).

We should also remember that political actions in past society, such as the Jacobite rebellion, and its defeat, were a product of conflicting interests - aligning our individual interests with that of the then British state for no obvious reason other than it was the state is not intellectually sustainable.

Finally, as I've said elsewhere, political correctness is everywhere, but it is generally understood popularly (and erroneously) as encompassing only minority or non-powerful interests. Believing that the Queen should be treated with a specific kind of greeting is as much 'political correctness' as is the belief that we shouldn't call black people 'nigger'. Think deeper - maybe start with some reading of Foucault and Gramsci - 'discourses' and 'hegemony' are two concepts to get to grips with if you're genuinely interested in what 'political correctness' really is about.

Oswy.

Reply 30

Trangulor