“Why is it that whatever you say online these days, wherever you go, there’s a Digital Dog the Bounty Hunter skulking close by, carefully policing every word you say, poised to pounce and call you a…”
You mean like when I make a comment on a political site and get called all sorts of names by conservatives, accusing me of voting for Obama because of white guiltor that I hate the rich? Sometimes when I post via Facebook they just ignore what I said entirely and make a snide remark about me living in Cambridge Massachusetts. Speaking of policing every word try putting up signs saying “Happy Holidays” in your store, or not putting “Merry Christmas” on your coffee cups, then you’ll really see some word policing.
“clogging up your social media feeds with indignant admonitions to use the right buzzwords”
I know what you mean there, come Christmas time my Facebook (the only social media I’m on) is clogged with indignant admonitions to “keep Christ in Christmas” and there’s very often a call to boycott this or that store because they had Happy Holiday signs up. I’m also constantly being told that I’m to call them “Islamic Jihadists” instead of “terrorists”. Also did you know that if a guy with a gun goes into a place where people are working and kills several of them that that’s not workplace violence?
“The real problem with PC is that is doing precisely what it claims not to”
PC doesn’t claim to do or not do anything. The only people who are constantly bringing up PC and whining about it are conservatives who cry “politically correct” anytime they don’t like something. They don’t like the Christmas greeting they got so they whine about political correctness. They don’t like Obama’s Christmas card so they whine about political correctness. They don’t like Starbuck’s coffee cups so they whine about political correctness. They don’t like the signage Target has so they whine about political correctness. They don’t like that Cheerios has a mixed race couple in a commercial so they whine about political correctness. They don’t like that another company has a same sex couple in a commercial so they whine about so they whine about political correctness.
“Political Correctness, and it’s guiding system of belief, New Leftism, I will argue, is not just not a political or moral philosophy fit for reasoned people, or the world as it is — it is not one at all. So what is it?”
What is it? That’s easy, political correctness is anything conservatives don’t like. Donald Trump has taken that to new heights, or lows, by claiming that he insults women because not to do so would be politically correct (first debate).
“What is the clear dividing line between someone who is Politically Correct, and who isn’t?”
That’s also easy. If you do or say something that conservatives don’t like you’re “politically correct, or accused of being such. But if you do or say something that abides by their “not politically correct” demands then you’re not politically correct. Thus it is “politically correct” to simply say “Happy Holidays” but saying “Merry Christmas” and even going so far as to demand that others also use that exact phrase, such as boycotting a store and urging others to do so because a store’s Christmas decorations or coffee cups don’t say “Merry Christmas” then that’s not being politically correct.
“By and large, there is no serious thought behind these words. They are not the products of careful research, science, or even theory. They do not refer to well-defined concepts, grounded in reasoned ideas about the world. They are simply made up…by people on the internet”
Simply made up? You mean like that story about Obama on Meet the Press? or him issuing a presidential executive order in 1962? Or Target not selling Barbies or G.I. Joes when in fact they still are and never stopped? How about the idea that Obama hates America because his father was born in Kenya? Not what I’d call an idea grounded in reason.
“The act of labelling is an oppositional one.”
Like “socialist” or “terrorist sympathizers” or “hates the rich” or “white guilt” or “they just vote for the black guy”?
“New Leftists will fight tooth and nail for gender free bathrooms”
I have never fought at all for gender free bathrooms, nor have I ever been urged to. Perhaps you’re thinking of this politically correct idea a lot of us liberals have that people with penises should use the men’s room and people with vagina’s should use the ladies room.