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I got this column in my email. This guy nails what bugs me about the PC police. Here's a portion:



Specifically, I gave my thoughts about the origins of this notion of cultural sensitivity that is central to the political correctness movement. Those roots are to be found in the sociological concept of "ethnocentrism."



For years, sociologists have been using this term "ethnocentrism" to refer to the judgment of other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. And they judge this tendency towards ethnocentrism to be somehow undesirable. So they teach their students not to be ethnocentric because, of course, one should try not to be judgmental.



Few sociologists have the raw intelligence necessary to understand that the culture of anti-ethnocentrism is comprised entirely of sociologists and sociology majors. And, to the extent that one pushes this idea of anti-ethnocentrism on others, one is engaging in ethnocentrism – something that involves judgment, which, in the judgment of sociologists, is a very bad thing.



If you are beginning to think that I’m suggesting sociology is an essentially worthless discipline, you are judging me quite fairly and I approve of your judgment entirely.



Of course, the sociology major was confused when I told her she was being ethnocentric by judging Larry the Speaker Guy for using the term "Indian." He was raised in another region in another time (read: another culture) that accepted the use of the term "Indian." She should not impose her (post)modern cultural values on him. That would be judgmental, which would be really very bad.



Full Article

Interesting, its always struck me how we have been brainwashed over the past few decades to regard making value judgements on other cultures or peoples as being a negative thing, which I do not really understand. People make useful value judgements about their lives all the time, its important to be able to disciminate whats useful or what is good from what is bad, or dangerous. This is a basic survival strategy and if you don't use it, its likely you will not survive very long. But on the larger scale the conventional wisdom is that its wrong to criticize or discriminate (in terms of making a value judgement of) say a concept within an alien religion, or another country's musical culture, or someone from (for example) Africa as a white European as you are thereby involved in "oppressing" that person.

This is nonsense and its based on an inverse superiorty-complex of pseudo-liberal (in fact its not really a liberal mindset at all) white middle-class Europeans and Americans, and a hard core of intellectuals centred around the ideas of "Orientalism" which was so well expressed by Edward Said. These people can't make the imaginative leap to understand that their own particular attitude towards someone who is not like them is not a "definition" of that person or culture, and that just because there are multiple civilzations, religions, cultures, nations etc etc, that doesn't by extension mean that they are all equal.

So people can absolutley can use the values of their own society to judge another, and that free will and responsibility for ones actions applies as much to an indivdual from Uganda as it does someone from Hamspted Heath. Therefore Robert Mugabe is a tinpot dictator and murderer, and he is entirely responsible for what has happened to Zimbabwe since he took office, he is not a misunderstood African hero. Likewise Fidel Castro is (by the standards of his own people, let alone anyone elses) is a thug, a murderer and a despot, and whatever the "context" of his crimes against his own people its quite easy to come to the value-judgement that Cuba is not run by a very nice regime.

It's an interesting point ... but also reminds me of an SNL sketch:

Guy 1: What do we do about all these PC people ... that are zealous in stamping out bigotry and offensive terms?

Guy 2: I know ... we'll call them bigots!

Guy 1: What? That doesn't make any sense. They are bigots of bigots? Does that make them first order bigots?

Guy 2: Sure. No one will question that ... unless they're at least half Indian ... or full on Indian.