PC Dogma Rules

This post will briefly explain some of the rules PC dogma propagates. To see how logically valid these rules are, click here.

Don’t use certain words

Certain words are thought to have such negative historical associations that PC dogma deems them unutterable under any circumstances. Even naming the word for the sake of discussion raises ire, as is amply evidenced by the use of “n word”. The people who say “n word” never use it in a context that would offend someone who isn’t offended by PC violations themselves.

You never hear someone say: “you dirty n word! You look like a gorilla!” If someone were to say that, the substitution of “n word” in the stead of “nigger” would hardly soften the offensiveness. The speaker is still hating this person because of race and making stereotypical comparisons.

“N word” is only used in the most sanitized context: to convey to the audience what word the speaker is referencing. In that context, the only reason “nigger” is offensive is because the word itself is deemed unutterable. Not what the word means, not what the speaker was saying, but the mere fact that it was spoken violates PC dogma.

The only context which affects this rule is the color of the speaker’s skin. Blacks can use that word without repercussions as can many other non-whites.

Other words are added to the taboo list over time. And usually it’s acceptable for members of a group to which a banned word refers to use such a word.

But not always.

“Faggot” entered the banned list some time ago, but there were no social sanction to gay people using the term. Recently, a conservative gay man began speaking about politics and calling himself a “Dangerous Faggot”. Many on the Left expressed the same type of “offendedness” with this moniker as if a non-gay had used the term.

This goes to show that outgrouping can sometimes color the interpretation of banned words. I will note that this is related to another PC rule: that people who disagree with PC do so out of malice.

Define offensiveness objectively

Whether or not a person takes offense is a personal, subjective determination, but PC dogma treats it more as an objective standard. You are proscribed from doing anything which “is offensive”; as opposed to a proscription against offending people.

Determining what is “objectively” offensive usually boils down to: did this violate the rules of PC dogma?

So the definition of “offensive” in this context almost becomes tautological. You satisfy PC dogma by not offending anyone, and you avoid offending anyone by satisfying PC dogma.

This is often used to argue that PC isn’t a complicated set of rules, but rather a simple effort to play nice. However, the preceding paragraph highlights how “playing nice” is another way of saying “complying with PC dogma”.

Grant favoritism based on ranking in oppression hierarchy

PC dogma holds that certain groups of people are more “oppressed” than others, and the more oppressed groups deserve favorable treatment. But we’ll see that a group’s ranking on this oppression hierarchy is due to more esoteric reasons than a straightforward oppression analysis.

Right now, in August of 2016, somehow Muslim males are at the top of the hierarchy. Females in general are seen as more oppressed, but since the primary oppressors of women today are Muslim males, a lot of discussion on how to improve the lot of women comes back to the behavior of Muslim males.

And any criticism of Muslims reeks of xenophobia. So PC adherents find themselves defending women’s lack of choice to drive, get divorces, or appear in public without an escort. The rationale usually turns on an unwillingness to criticize other cultures or religions. It relies on the myth that all cultures are the same and all religions are the same, exempting for income inequality and how much the West has wronged them.

Also the rationale seems to conflate Muslims with brown people, because many Muslims are of color, so criticism of the ideology becomes criticism of a race.

So for somewhat bizarre and absurd reasons the ranking a certain group holds in the oppression hierarchy is not always related to how oppressed that group is. It is based on historically-generated dogmatic rules.

Maintain a level of knowledge on certain issues

It is a violation of PC dogma to lack knowledge in certain areas. For example, if you didn’t know that many incarcerated black people are there for “non-violent offenses”, that would be mildly bigoted.

Thinking that turbans are a Muslim garb would violate PC dogma, even if you took no actions based on that false knowledge.

There is a reversed version of this rule, where if you know the truth about something and such truth diverges from PC dogma, you can violate PC for having too much knowledge. For example, if you flush out the details behind the “women make 77 cents on the dollar” factoid, you are taking a bigoted stance.

One variant of this PC rule demands viewing the world through a race-conscious lens. This is a move away from the MLK vision of a colorblind society and toward a Malcolm X vision of racial groups contending against each other.

BLM is a manifestation of this point. Many in the movement view every aspect of life through a racial filter. White people become enemies who are working against you, perhaps consciously so.

If you make the point that resisting arrest greatly increases the chance of being shot (a race-neutral point), the BLM advocate will come back to how much more often blacks are pulled over (a race-conscious point).

If you were to discuss any aspect of life and not bring it back to how it affects one race more than another, many of these race-conscious PC adherents would see that as a violation. You are exercising privilege by not viewing everything on racial terms.

Attribute noncompliance with PC dogma to malice

PC dogma has a hard time accepting that other people have other points of view. Such alternate viewpoints are attributed to hatred, or evil, rather than an honest disagreement of the minds.

If you believe that a fetus’s right to live trumps a mother’s body autonomy, you are likely to be labeled a “misogynist”. That means you hate women. It’s not that you think one right should be favored over another, it’s that you hate a group of people and are surreptitiously trying to ruin their lives.

If you disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage, many take that to mean you hate gay people. Questions on Justice Kennedy’s interpretive methods are seen as a façade for anti-gay hatred.

It is sometimes difficult to have an arms-length discussion with a PC adherent because any disagreement turns into an ad hominem. If you arrive at any solution other than theirs on a complicated logical question, it’s due to a personal failing. A moral failing.

When PC adherents are feeling generous, they might call you “ignorant”, instead of hateful or evil. Note that this still prevents the PC adherent from addressing the issue on its merits.