Unless I'm attaching more to your metaphor than is really there, it seemed to me that turds = groups of people, and picking up by the clean end = handling them in a politically correct ("clean") way. If you're saying that it's a bad thing to be told that you can pick up a turd by it's clean end, it stands to Reason you think there are turds who can't be picked up by their clean end :P
Or maybe... I am attaching more to your metaphor than is there: you were just trying to say that political correctness is as ridiculous as imagining a clean turd, and the metaphor aligned a little too conveniently in my mind with the subject matter of being PC for me to keep it cognitively separate :P It was probably the word "clean" that made the alarm bell go off erroneously, and the slight moral ambiguity that made me imagine the same tone as a closet bigot would use to seem unprejudiced. In which case I apologise for jumping on your back!
Anyway, back on topic. I do think it's good to be politically correct if you know how to be. No-one should get on your back about it if you have good intentions. At the same time I think it's wrong to ignore the fact that using certain language can be damaging to people, and also wrong to deflect the responsibility that falls on everyone's shoulders of avoiding that damage. I don't think it's the job of people who have drawn the short end of the social stick to deal with indirectly derogatory language which was created as a result of their position in society. Even if it's used without there being any conscious knowledge on the part of the speaker that the term is offensive.
So I think it's good to be PC if you know how, and it is important to realise that language does have power. On the flip side I don't think anyone should verbally assault people who don't have bad intentions, although it's not always easy to tell intentions when you have to rely on language alone.
Is it normal to believe that political correctness...
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Unless I'm attaching more to your metaphor than is really there, it seemed to me that turds = groups of people, and picking up by the clean end = handling them in a politically correct ("clean") way. If you're saying that it's a bad thing to be told that you can pick up a turd by it's clean end, it stands to Reason you think there are turds who can't be picked up by their clean end :P
Or maybe... I am attaching more to your metaphor than is there: you were just trying to say that political correctness is as ridiculous as imagining a clean turd, and the metaphor aligned a little too conveniently in my mind with the subject matter of being PC for me to keep it cognitively separate :P It was probably the word "clean" that made the alarm bell go off erroneously, and the slight moral ambiguity that made me imagine the same tone as a closet bigot would use to seem unprejudiced. In which case I apologise for jumping on your back!
Anyway, back on topic. I do think it's good to be politically correct if you know how to be. No-one should get on your back about it if you have good intentions. At the same time I think it's wrong to ignore the fact that using certain language can be damaging to people, and also wrong to deflect the responsibility that falls on everyone's shoulders of avoiding that damage. I don't think it's the job of people who have drawn the short end of the social stick to deal with indirectly derogatory language which was created as a result of their position in society. Even if it's used without there being any conscious knowledge on the part of the speaker that the term is offensive.
So I think it's good to be PC if you know how, and it is important to realise that language does have power. On the flip side I don't think anyone should verbally assault people who don't have bad intentions, although it's not always easy to tell intentions when you have to rely on language alone.