Someone asked how PC is bad for the left, or something like that, like what sorts of things should we talk about that we don't because of PC. As I've said before, I don't think PC itself is the problem, if PC is simply good manners with respect and empathy to those whom we may have little in common culturally. The problem with PC is it's abuse, by idiots and aholes who think anything they disagree with on race, sex, gender, religion, etc., amounts to disrespect and offense to one marginalized group or another.
That perverted use is not only evidence of closed-minded orthodoxy and a signal to others of solidarity with the "cause", but a blunt object to shame and push out those who would question or challenge the party line. This is dangerous, not only because it leads the "cause" down ever indefensible paths, but because it creates a space for opposite, antagonistic orthodoxies to do the same thing - and then those antagonists are held up as evidence of the need for such strict adherence to the "cause" to begin with, to pick a side, to fight the good fight. A vicious circle surrounding an anxious center.
Freddie DeBoer points out something I've tried to discuss here once or twice to the typical cries of "scientific racism", which is really just one demonstration of the above.
https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/05/
Quote:
It matters that progressive people reject blank slatism because blank slatism is incorrect and we should tell the truth. But even from the most pragmatic or consequentialist perspective, we should accept the contemporary science on intelligence and heritability because doing so is the only way to effectively fight racism and white supremacy. By refusing to engage with the extant science on individual variation, we leave that field of argument entirely to those who would use it for the worst possible ends. As the authors say,
The left has another lesson to learn as well. If people with progressive political values, who reject claims of genetic determinism and pseudoscientific racialist speculation, abdicate their responsibility to engage with the science of human abilities and the genetics of human behavior, the field will come to be dominated by those who do not share those values. Liberals need not deny that intelligence is a real thing or that IQ tests measure something real about intelligence, that individuals and groups differ in measured IQ, or that individual differences are heritable in complex ways.
This is precisely my position. Don’t play to the alt-right frame; don’t help them make the case that progressives are anti-science or resistant to facts. Fight bad science with better.
Nobody should be physically attacking Charles Murray or the alt right, advocating to shut down those voices. That only strengthens them, and this ought to be evident by now. They should instead be arguing with such voices, patiently adhering to scientific evidence and reason. Nor should people be abusing PC, accusing those who explore those lines of argument of rote bigotry. That mindset, or mind block, leaves many of those arguments effectively unchallenged, whatever truths they may yield to be misinterpreted and manipulated, and that serves no good cause, least of all the vulnerable groups the left seeks to protect.