Dude...that's so not PC

Supposedly I can’t say the word fat anymore…hold on…didn’t I just say it.

How about a little experiment: deaf, retard, fat, fag, nigger, heifer, darkie, gay, slopes…should I keep going.

Where are the thought police? Why aren’t my hands bound and my ankles tied, being led down the street like the foaming, rabid dog that I am? Supposedly that is what happens when we transgress the omnipresent, omnipotent rules of the PC god.

What I want to know is how many here have been sued or had legal proceedings initiated against them because of political correctness, and I know a lot of you aren’t exactly PC compliant?

We don’t want you to be. We don’t want muesli for writing or cardboard for thoughts and we don’t want to neuter language, making it limp and Viagra addicted (I can’t get it up unless I get context). We don’t want to speak around things rather than just speak them.

The fact is that language hasn’t become any less potent or any more sterilised. Listen to Hip-Hop one of these days and you realise exactly how nasty language can still be. Before anyone starts claiming that Black rappers have some sort of diplomatic immunity, listen to Eminem or listen to all white metal bands or watch a Quinten Tarantino film or read a Bret Easton Ellis novel or watch a Michael Moore documentary or listen to Ann Coulter and gag on the utter filth and wonder why these people haven’t been shot, let alone imprisoned.

But there still is a feeling out there that our ability to speak what’s on our mind is a little less limber these days, a little less flexible. Why is that? Is it because of the PC police are out to get ya? Is it because of the surveillance and the never ending litigation?

In America I really see the problem as being a litigious problem. You people just want to sue everybody and you’ll find whatever excuse necessary to do it. Who would want to deny themselves free money? I can’t emphasis this enough – THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PC AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT YOU ARE TURNING INTO A NATION OF F**KING LAWYERS!!!!!

I think that people feel less free in their language because they make themselves less free, because PC more than anything else has brought about the age of the panopticon.

For those of you not familiar with the panopticon is a design for a prison originally conceived as a real prison by Jeremy Bentham, but most effectively turned into a social theory by Foucault. Architecturally it is a building not unlike the pentagon, with an inner court yard but the courtyard has a tower with mirrored windows that houses a single guard. The walls of the building facing the courtyard are transparent and in this way the guard has an uninterrupted view of all prisoners 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The guard cannot look at all the prisoners at once but the mirrored windows doesn’t allow the prisoners to know who the guard is looking at in that moment. The prisoners alter their behaviour because they have to assume they are being watched. Soon no guard is required in the tower if you don’t tell the prisoners there isn’t one. They’ll continue to self-regulate their behaviour based on the assumption that there still is a guard watching them from that mirrored tower.

This is what happened with PC. We all started self-regulating and self-censoring even though there never was a guard in the tower and now we are starting to suspect that there isn’t and people are starting to talk and argue and it’s all coming back to us, what it used to be like, even though it never used to be like that for us but why can all the others trash talk while we’re still self-censoring, being the model prisoner.

We start listening to all the anti-PC arguments and start thinking “yeah, that’s goddamn right” like we’re listening to the revolutionary honey of a prisoner planning a break out. What needs to be realised is that the arguments that are so swaying us against PC are usually coming from people who never were and want others to join them and usually for a reason or reasons.

Let’s face it, we’re living in an age when we’re being taught to hate again, where it’s alright to hate again and where it’s politically expedient to hate again. It starts with language and sooner or later it becomes political capital for someone or other.

Language is often used without thought but that is not to say that its use is not systematic or that its use is not strategic. That was the real reason for political correctness – to pry back language from the grids of power and abuse that has kept so many people down for so long. If we are not careful now the world will soon be populated with “towel heads” and “savages” and “filthy Arabs”. Not really populated with people who measure up to the words, but just the words themselves and words are so much easier to kill and a “bitch” or “slut” is so much easier to rape.

What worries me is that people think PC has actually won a war and now we’re its political prisoners and we want out all of a sudden. PC never won. It has a hold in the “official” lives of institutions, but that’s mostly static language on paper and this hold is tenuous at best. Living language is out there and it’s dirty and we like it dirty, I just don’t like it when it’s used like a club against a seal pup.
20,295 views 25 replies
Reply #1 Top
I suppose language is often used to create distance in some way, like you say a "bitch or a slut is so much easier to rape." I always feel language is inevitably restrictive, or sort of removed from reality to some extent...I think there's too much of a gap between the thing you want to define and the words you have to define it.

Anyway, sorry i have no idea what I'm talking about. What I meant to say of course was- so we're a nation of lawyers. So sue us!

I gave you an insightful instead, since my words, as usual, have all died horrible slow deaths. So you can enjoy a slight increase in those silly numbers in the top right hand corner.

Dyl xx




Reply #2 Top
Well done! And I might add... ouch!

Alas, I, for one, have already come to my senses. You are right -
listen to Eminem or listen to all white metal bands or watch a Quinten Tarantino film or read a Bret Easton Ellis novel or watch a Michael Moore documentary or listen to Ann Coulter and gag on the utter filth and wonder why these people haven’t been shot, let alone imprisoned.
- right again
Let’s face it, we’re living in an age when we’re being taught to hate again, where it’s alright to hate again and where it’s politically expedient to hate again. It starts with language and sooner or later it becomes political capital for someone or other.

Language is often used without thought but that is not to say that its use is not systematic or that its use is not strategic. That was the real reason for political correctness – to pry back language from the grids of power and abuse that has kept so many people down for so long
- of course you, are SO right.

And furthermore, you pegged ME right. It was a spoiled, whiney, not very well-organized position I was taking.

omnipresent, omnipotent rules of the PC god.

- THIS, however, exists. And it exists right here at JoeUser (at least in one member). As a matter of fact, THIS is precisely what set me off to begin with. It is the almost-militantly holier-than-thou, righteous, dictator-voice that simply rubs me the wrong way and makes me want to behave in decidedly pollitically INcorrect ways. Imagine. When, oh when will people learn that you can catch more flies with honey?

We all started self-regulating and self-censoring even though there never was a guard in the tower and now we are starting to suspect that there isn’t and people are starting to talk and argue and it’s all coming back to us, what it used to be like, even though it never used to be like that for us but why can all the others trash talk while we’re still self-censoring, being the model prisoner.


In the end, I think, it's not out of fear of those darned PC police that should make us mind our manners, but rather out of consideration to those for whom it might really mean something. For me, it winds up being as simple as that, anyway. I think you pegged that one too.

Again, well done. And nice reading, as usual.
Reply #3 Top
Whenever I say anything, it is on behalf of Muggaz inc. and everyone knows Muggaz inc. is a not for profit organisation, and you wont get a dime out of my broke ass!!!

so... sue me

Good article mate.
Reply #4 Top
Dylan - Your always the hand that reaches down from the surface and drags me back up - so cinematic, so heroic *Ferris Bueller you're my hero *

More than anything else you always let me know that someone is listening. I know you're not much of one for these politico-wankerish type articles, but you always say hi and you're always so damned nice, which makes me suspicious because I thought that nice people were dead, all eaten away by the zombies, whole families devestated and it just don't make sense because you're a New Yorker but you might just prove yourself to be a soft centred, marshmallowed Cali girl after all - a soul with a tan and a smooth drawl.

Hamster 311 - You're quickly becoming a favourite of mine. Damn! I never knew I could be so...what's the word...right! I'm sure my mother would disagree, prefering my usual designation as a very silly young man.

THIS, however, exists. And it exists right here at JoeUser (at least in one member). As a matter of fact, THIS is precisely what set me off to begin with. It is the almost-militantly holier-than-thou, righteous, dictator-voice that simply rubs me the wrong way and makes me want to behave in decidedly pollitically INcorrect ways. Imagine. When, oh when will people learn that you can catch more flies with honey?


I agree with you, like, totally (sorry. just couldn't help myself). Serious though, I do. Someone tells me not to do something and can't come up with a concrete reason not to...man, I just want to so bad.

Yes the PC god does exist and if he's not careful he's going to get the same treatment the first one got, because when it comes to ego overruling all else, humans are evolutionary gold. We don't like anything except our own image over the alter and PC ain't no exception.

By the way, thank you for getting me to finally post something, anything, again.

Muggaz, sometimes you can just be a very, very funny man.
Reply #5 Top
Be careful when you point the finger at America - did you know that Sydney is the second most litigious city in the world behind LA?

But besides that... There has to be some line between PC and outright prejudiced idiocy. As you say - you can't say fat anymore. But fat is a adjective (or a noun, I guess). If someone fills the requirements to be described that way, why can't you say it? They were wrong when they told us that 'words will never hurt me' when we were little. It just depends on how skilled your opponent is with their weapon.

Hmmm... rambling. Great article. Glad to see you writing stuff!

Suz xxx
Reply #6 Top
Be careful when you point the finger at America - did you know that Sydney is the second most litigious city in the world behind LA?


Yeah, this is a problem. There used to be a time people had to be forced into courts.

As you say - you can't say fat anymore. But fat is a adjective (or a noun, I guess). If someone fills the requirements to be described that way, why can't you say it?


This was one of my points Floozie, you just said (wrote, whateva) the word "fat" twice. I say it all the time - fat, fat, fat, fat, ad nauseum. It's not that I can't use it as part of my language or writing or fiction or communication, I just shouldn't walk up to people who carry a little weight and spit in their face the bleeding obvious - "hey fatso, did you know that you're fat!" I also shouldn't use it in official communication when I'm representing someone else's interests, like a corporation or other organisation that operates within the strict confines of commercial and civil law.

I guess in Australia the biggest problem we have, and the one that ties in most coherently with the whole PC issue, is defamation. We need to look at it because, like you said, if the shoe fits than you just have to say it.

Hmmm... rambling.


But we love your rambling

Reply #7 Top
Why would you call a fat person fat? That's just mean. If you're gonna insult someone call them something neutral..like asshole. Everyone has one, nobody gets sued.

And marco, I'm not nice, I'm sick. Sick-as-a-dawg. The New Yorker part is screaming at me to get my ass up and out there and flu bug be damned, and the cali girl just wants to go home and sleep in the sun.

I do feel marshmallowy though, mostly in my brain. How are you? What time is it in Sydney?

Dyl xx
Reply #8 Top
12:25 AM and the heat's a second, amphibian skin - slimey and toxic. It's beach weather. The salt's still on me and all i needed was a drink but somewhere along the line I forgot. Damn I love this city when the sun shines on it.
Reply #9 Top
Do you sleep?

You should write something about Sydney, I don't know squat about it, and I'll probably never see it.
Reply #10 Top
Yeah, I have a problem with words and teaching the correct way to use them to my daughter. Or, at least trying to teach her when it's not right to use it. Lord help me in trying to explain why 'gay' is wrong, pointing at my fat and saying 'mom, your fat tummy is so niiice is 'wrong' without scarring her in some way.
Reply #11 Top
Whats the difference tween catfish and lawyers? One is a slimy, scum sucking bottom feeder, the other is a fish.


Little Whip - I notice all the ROFL's and 's and people spitting coffee onto their monitors (which never seems to do it any harm) around here. I, on the other hand, rarely break a smile - being such a serious young man when reading. At this, however, i positively shrieked.

I concur with your diagnosis, as stated here,

The PC Police ARE the lawyers.


which is why I find it such a hard time to hear so many arguments against the so called PC monster with nary a word uttered against the civil court system that has bastardised and abused it.

Lord help me in trying to explain why 'gay' is wrong, pointing at my fat and saying 'mom, your fat tummy is so niiice is 'wrong' without scarring her in some way.


Thank God I don't have children. I would find myself uttering the word "conundrum" a great deal.

Thanks so much, both of you, for commenting.
Reply #12 Top
Wow. I caused one of those annoying little smilies without even realising it. Is it just me, or is he a condescending little f**k, or what? *oops. excuse the french*
Reply #13 Top

Well it IS her job to keep you in line, after all. I suppose it's no small task.


Hey...wait...are you allowed to say that?

Damn, I'll be happy to take an immature and ignorant position on some other issue, if it'll get you to post. It's worth it.
Reply #14 Top
An excellent article, bringing Foucault to the mainstream! I had no idea that anyone had tried building a panopticon for real. Where was it built?
Reply #15 Top
Here i was idly checking out the forums and this pops up again. Thanks Champas.

I don't think it was built for "real". It was an idea that skipped becoming corporeal altogether. The walls no longer had to be built, a global media being built before the walls ever could be.
Reply #16 Top
Cool article....nice title.
So many words we can't say.
Of course, if you say "Bitch....you is PHAT!" this seems to be okay.

I don't get the "eenie, meenie, miney, mo....." thing.....what was wrong with that?

And why don't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy.
What's furry, brown and looks good on a lawyer? A German Shepherd.
Reply #17 Top
I reserve Bitch for men that annoy me is that politically incorrect?? and if it is too bad . I posted a blog about how america is being nuetured by the pc police, and joeuser by the spelling cops. Tehn I deleated all my blogs when I thought I did not belong here, and then changed my mind came back and started a new one.
Reply #18 Top

Reply #17 By: Rightwinger - 12/30/2004 5:28:48 PM
Cool article....nice title.
So many words we can't say.
Of course, if you say "Bitch....you is PHAT!" this seems to be okay.

I don't get the "eenie, meenie, miney, mo....." thing.....what was wrong with that?


Because the original childhood rhyme had the "n" word in it. So someone on the plane (probably a black person) thought it offensive. Even though the stewardess didn't use the "n" word in *her* version of the rhyme she still got gigged for it.

And why don't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy. What's furry, brown and looks good on a lawyer? A German Shepherd.

Naw, it's because lawyers taste bad!

Reply #19 Top
So someone on the plane (probably a black person) thought it offensive.


I have heard them call each other that...so why can't someone of another race call them that...

It doesn't make sense...
Reply #20 Top
"What up, mah Niggah?"
Like when Jackie Chan said it in the first "Rush Hour", only imitating Chris Tucker, who said it right before him?
Reply #21 Top
Because the original childhood rhyme had the "n" word in it. So someone on the plane (probably a black person) thought it offensive. Even though the stewardess didn't use the "n" word in *her* version of the rhyme she still got gigged for it.


That's just completely ridiculous. What a world we live in.
Reply #22 Top

Reply #22 By: Rightwinger - 12/30/2004 6:15:06 PM
Because the original childhood rhyme had the "n" word in it. So someone on the plane (probably a black person) thought it offensive. Even though the stewardess didn't use the "n" word in *her* version of the rhyme she still got gigged for it.


That's just completely ridiculous. What a world we live in.


I agree. Someone should have been slapped for it and NOT the stewardess!
Reply #23 Top

Reply #20 By: Silver_and_Jade_Tears - 12/30/2004 6:09:55 PM
So someone on the plane (probably a black person) thought it offensive.


I have heard them call each other that...so why can't someone of another race call them that...

It doesn't make sense...


No it doesn't! They find it *highly* offensive when someone of a different race uses the word which I think is waaaaaay stupid.
Reply #24 Top
I understand the "n" word to be like "honey" or "baby." I'm sure a man's wife wouldn't mind him calling her "honey" or "baby," but if a stranger were to call her that, it wouldn't be as well-received. Like with many other words, the relationship is a factor.
Reply #25 Top

Reply #25 By: messybuu - 12/30/2004 8:05:47 PM
I understand the "n" word to be like "honey" or "baby." I'm sure a man's wife wouldn't mind him calling her "honey" or "baby," but if a stranger were to call her that, it wouldn't be as well-received. Like with many other words, the relationship is a factor.


I concur with that. But what I find strange is a black person could come up to another one on the street, not know them from Adam say that and get away with it.