Somehow I missed this 9-minute video at the time.
It’s fantastic.
A few highlights:
1:04: Maher gives his definition of political correctness and then Peterson gives his. Both are good but I think Maher’s is better.
1:50: Peterson: Not thinking is a bad idea.
2:25: More on political correctness.
2:40: Peterson blames political correctness on the universities, especially departments of education in the universities.
3:35: Maher makes a good point about freedom of speech including the right to be disrespectful, even to Barbara Bush after she died. Take that, Fresno State University president.
4:45: Maher has a great term to refer to college students who find nothing funny in humor from many comedians: “emotional hemophiliacs.”
5:30: Peterson on how to raise children so that they are resilient, which they absolutely need to be.
Note that this gets me only 60% through the video. There’s much more on how to raise children.
Personal note:
I remember first hearing about political correctness. I was living in Oakland between August 1979 and July 1980. (I was working at the Cato Institute in San Francisco at the time and commuting.) I had found a group of fun-loving people in Berkeley who played softball every Sunday morning. I was one of the worst players but I gradually moved from the 0 percentile to about the 25th percentile. One day in January–I remember because it was just after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan–someone made a comment about something–I’ve forgotten what–and someone else responded that that wasn’t politically correct. There was no tone of irony or humor in his voice. I looked around and saw people either nodding or looking blank, but no one challenged it.
At the time, I thought it was a strange term. The person wasn’t saying the statement wasn’t correct. He was saying that it wasn’t politically correct. In other words, he was introducing some vague unspecified criterion for judging a claim, a criterion that only coincidentally would match a simple truth criterion. I thought at the time that that way of thinking would get someone into a trouble. I was too kind. As Peterson points out, it’s not a way of thinking: it’s a way of not thinking.
READER COMMENTS
Scott Harris
Aug 2 2020 at 12:08pm
The old Soviet line:
“Ah, but comrade, that’s not scientifically correct.”
“No, comrade, but it is politically correct.”
Idriss Z
Aug 2 2020 at 12:27pm
Both definitions are poor and incorrect. Remember, both of these people have fallen into the same trap you accuse those focused 0n being PC (and they exist, I’m with you on this). The trap being not thinking, for example Bill Maher defended fat shaming on the basis we shouldn”t be PC when considering health problems, the problem is he never brought up any evidence on why fat shaming would help with the problem, the net result? He was just being a jerk
Peterson’s attempt at being correct, but not PC was worse. He explained that giving insular benefits to a certain culture/community was the point of those institutions (correct). He applied this reasoning to why it’s okay that Black people have a hard time being accepted in traditionally (wealthy) white positions and defended it with the idea that’s okay Chinese people benefits from the Chinese government and culture. Somehow, he confused nationality and race, because Chinese people are a nationality; White and Black Americans are Americans, thus if White culture is preventing Black Americans from American freedoms we indeed have a problem.
I can find those videos for you if you want to hear from their mouths. But, let me hazard a (legalistic) definition of PC and tell me what you think:
Political Correctness is a combination of “political” and “correct.” PC speech is one that limits one’s speech so as to not offend any insular group recognized differently in political thought for reasons including, but not limited to, being harmfully incorrect about that group (I can list more but you can probably think of em). For this reason we can typically expect a private citizen to not always adhere to its rules, but it is reasonable to demand a member of the political class to do so. Members of the political class swear an oath to the Constitution and this country’s citizenry as equals under the law, offending a group is in direct violation of this oath. This oath confers a salary, prestige, non-public info and varying degrees of civil and criminal immunity. A demand for policing their speech is thus reasonable because they receive due compensation in return. PC is of course not limited to speech; historical (and unfortunately current) examples of non-PC, non-speech behavior include: infidelity, “insider” trading, bribes/graft, dress norms, targeting PoC with law enforcement, etc…
I mean, I frequently get my posts disappeared likely because they were not politically (libertariannally?) correct enough for this forum. It’s fine (and important!) that people can police their own community’s message boards. I lose no rights and there is no undue governmental restriction when a post of mine doesn’t get approved. On the other hand if a politician, or member of the political working class, or an political appointee is trying to do that, then Constitutional and philosophical considerations must come into play, which, I posit to you, is a good thing. We cannot forget the “correct” part of PC.
Mark Z
Aug 6 2020 at 5:19am
I think the concept of ‘policitical correctness’ today generally extends beyond words to views as well, and is in fact more often deployed to censure the latter than the former. That, I think, is the source of most concern, because pretty much everyone believes, by definition, that those they disagree with hold views that are (if the basis of public policy) harmful to various groups, and the expression of such views, however politely or respectfully, even by people who aren’t politicians. I think the concept of the Overton Window is more useful than the ill-defined ‘political correctness,’ and I would describe the current trend being described as an effort to narrow the Overton Window, which I think is a bad idea. But that’s a more coherent description of the phenomenon than ‘political correctness.’
Using inoffensive terminology is far less controversial, but I do think we should grapple with the reality that what is offensive is entirely subjective. Someone using the term “colored person” would be censured today because semantic trends have changed and everyone is aware of that, so most would assume someone using the term is doing so with the intent to offend, while someone using the nearly identical term “person of color” would not be. Where ‘political correctness’ re words can go awry is when people try to use newly proliferating semantic trends that don’t enjoy organic consensus as litmus tests for social acceptability, both because everyone cannot be expected to keep up to date on trendy terminology, and because the proliferation of rules for its own sake seems pointless and amounts to gratuitously laying social minefields. I expect, for example, that linguistic innovation of specifically capitalizing the word ‘black’ will be the source of a lot of pointless conflict in the next few years if the trend persists.
Scott Sumner
Aug 2 2020 at 1:36pm
I really like the final paragraph of your post. I had never thought about the term “politically correct” in that way.
David Henderson
Aug 2 2020 at 11:42pm
Thanks, Scott.
Todd
Aug 2 2020 at 3:06pm
Peterson has a lot of good advice and some insightful takes; however, when it comes to his take on children, I’m left cold.
What does he mean when he says “Don’t let your children do things that make you not like them.” What is the specific, corrective (or preventive) measure(s) he would suggest in the event that a child goes awry?
David Henderson
Aug 2 2020 at 11:42pm
Good question. I wondered about that too.
Mike
Aug 3 2020 at 10:38am
Once you have multiple children for several years, you become much more humble in giving parenting advice. I judge other parents less every year that I perform the role myself. However, I think Jordan’s comment here is very valuable. At least it has been to me. I’ve taken it to mean when you see your kids doing something that you think could be harmful to them long term, (say too much screen time for example), you need to do the work to address it even though it is hard and continuous work. Otherwise, (in my example), you end up being upset at your kids every time you see them on the phone. Really you are upset at yourself for not grinding on a tough problem.
I see this often when talking with peers or neighbors. Their complaints about their kids are often complaints about themselves. This breeds real animosity.
Fred_in_PA
Aug 3 2020 at 9:19pm
I thought at first it was just snide humor.
Thinking again, I wonder if he didn’t mean “Don’t let them do things that make you not like them.” That is, speak up! Don’t just let it slide. If it makes you — their loving parent — not like them, there is a high likelihood it will have similar effect on some non-loving stranger at some future date. Don’t let them punch you when they’re peevish. Ten years from now, they’ll try that stunt on some stranger in a bar and get a knife between their ribs. In this story, the parent’s “loving” tolerance ultimately did the kid no favors.
To become capable of living in adult society, children have to learn that their own preferences aren’t the only preferences they must consider. Parent’s who won’t stand up for themselves fail to teach that.
Mark Brady
Aug 2 2020 at 10:15pm
You may be surprised to learn that the Oxford English Dictionary finds an example of the phrase ‘politically correct’ from as far back as 1798, an example of ‘politically incorrect’ from 1876, and examples of how we use the word now from the nineteen-thirties.
Rob Humphreys
Aug 4 2020 at 6:40am
Peterson chooses his words carefully. He has taken time to say this repeatedly in talks and interviews. As we know from the Cancel Culture that infests all areas of public discourse, words can be weapons that are turned on the speaker. Few public figures have experienced more of this evil than Jordan Peterson.
Note that Peterson uses “like” and not “love” in “Don’t let your children do things that make you not like them”. Few people in any child’s life are more tolerant of their behavior than a loving parent. If a child repeatedly does things that make a parent not like them, meaning not like their behavior under certain circumstances, people outside the home are almost certainly going to be much less tolerant of that behavior. This is unlikely to be good for the child in the long run. A loving and nurturing parent will do their best to help the child modify socially unacceptable behaviors before they become detrimental to their future interactions outside the home, where the parent has little control.
We all have heard the term “helicopter parent” and probably have had some less than pleasant experience with their offspring. Such parents do let children do things that make other people not like them. Their excessive tolerance is setting their child up for a difficult life. Collectively, such parenting produces some of the problems we see and experience today in our fractured country.
David Seltzer
Aug 4 2020 at 3:20pm
As a parent, certainly there were things my daughter did that made me not like her. As a teenager she was sometimes indolent and openly disrespectful. I told her I didn’t like her, her tone or her behavior. There were times when it was so contentious, I couldn’t stand being in the same room with her. Of the many parents to whom I’ve spoken, their experience was similar. That never meant I didn’t love her.
Fred_in_PA
Aug 6 2020 at 11:56pm
David;
I’ve wondered if obnoxiousness in teenagers isn’t biologically adaptive.
We love our children dearly and want to keep them; Yet they need to grow up and become independent of us. It is necessary to somehow get the parent to turn loose — to let them fly.
I’ve wondered if obnoxiousness in teenagers isn’t a bit like bitterness in worms; It gets the once eager bird to spit it out — “Oh, yuck!”
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