While in the supermarket, where I was buying Pringles to sustain 
barsine and myself during tonight's Gilmore Girls viewing (I have been very noble and not watched Tuesday's episode yet so that we can watch it together), I happened to glance at that awful magazine, the RTE Guide. The cover star was a man of roughly my own vintage called Ryan Tubridy, who presents a radio show that I never listen to but who is nevertheless kind of hard to avoid in this country. Anyway, I was flicking through the rag while in the checkout queue, and in the interview with Tubridy, he ranted on about how political correctness was "a scab on my generation" and, bewilderingly, how "one man's political correctness is another man's rudeness" and that it takes the "fun and chemistry" out of social interaction.
Sigh.
I'm sure I've said it before, but it bears repeating: political correctness just means not calling someone a nigger.
Got a problem with it now, Ryan? PC is not rudeness. It's simple politeness. It's about not using racist or sexist slurs. It's about not calling people by terms they don't use themselves. It's about a teeny tiny bit of sensitivity. As Bill Bryson pointed out nearly ten years ago, the most ridiculous excesses of PC that are cited by its opponents nearly all originate in a joke book of PC phrases which appeared in the early '90s and have never been seriously suggested by anyone. I just hate the idea that not tolerating bigotry, ignorance and plain old bad manners somehow takes the "chemistry" out of life. Ryan Tubridy, you're what we PC types like to call a fucking gobshite.
barsine and myself during tonight's Gilmore Girls viewing (I have been very noble and not watched Tuesday's episode yet so that we can watch it together), I happened to glance at that awful magazine, the RTE Guide. The cover star was a man of roughly my own vintage called Ryan Tubridy, who presents a radio show that I never listen to but who is nevertheless kind of hard to avoid in this country. Anyway, I was flicking through the rag while in the checkout queue, and in the interview with Tubridy, he ranted on about how political correctness was "a scab on my generation" and, bewilderingly, how "one man's political correctness is another man's rudeness" and that it takes the "fun and chemistry" out of social interaction.Sigh.
I'm sure I've said it before, but it bears repeating: political correctness just means not calling someone a nigger.
Got a problem with it now, Ryan? PC is not rudeness. It's simple politeness. It's about not using racist or sexist slurs. It's about not calling people by terms they don't use themselves. It's about a teeny tiny bit of sensitivity. As Bill Bryson pointed out nearly ten years ago, the most ridiculous excesses of PC that are cited by its opponents nearly all originate in a joke book of PC phrases which appeared in the early '90s and have never been seriously suggested by anyone. I just hate the idea that not tolerating bigotry, ignorance and plain old bad manners somehow takes the "chemistry" out of life. Ryan Tubridy, you're what we PC types like to call a fucking gobshite.
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The fucker even said something like "Now the DSPCA will be after me again." He's done this sort of thing before it seems.
Hey, being sensitive to his looks would be too PC, right?
And he's a Fianna Fáiler as well...the newphew of Niall and David Andrews, and grandson of Todd.
Is it any wonder your dislike of him seems to be natural?!
Word on the ears by the way. I had mine done, for the same reasons you suggest ;-)
And, I'm afraid I was little harsh on his ears. But hey, don't personal insults add spice and chemistry to conversation? That's what Ryan says!
Anti-PCness irritates me because it is so often (as noted above) unbelievably ignorant. I once had a discussion with a guy who didn't see the big deal about the apparent small increase in the number of Americans who believed that the Jews killed Christ (this was around the time the Mel Gibson movie came out), because after all, it was Jews who decided to have Jesus killed. When I said that it was particular Jews, not "the Jews," and that's why people object to blanket statements like that, he said I was being politically correct and he objects to political correctness, end of discussion.
I'm actually fed up with the phrase "politically correct." It should really apply to every euphemism used for political purposes ("collateral damage"), but it's most often used to mock liberal efforts to get people not to use racial slurs.
oh god, i totally have to bookmark that line.