There are certain expressions which add very little light to intelligent discussions. As I pointed out yesterday, "fascist" is one, unless you're actually talking about fascists in history.
"Nazi," "racist," "homophobe," "sexist," "bigoted," "mean-spirited," are others.
Such phrases are sort of Humpty-Dumpty-in-the-Looking-Glass words that mean whatever the speaker chooses.
Whereas, words which are useful in public discourse have specific definitions that we can all run to a dictionary and look up.
For example, if you run to the dictionary to look up "fascist" you'll read about early 20th century political movements. If you want to go deeper, you'd need to drag out political science and history textbooks. But you won't read in a dictionary "people who say things I don't like" as the definition of fascist.
I nominate "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" for the category of epithets which don't advance public discourse, and are actually discourse-stoppers.
I have no idea what the phrases actually mean, personally, but my sense is that they mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean, and the meaning boils down to "something I don't like."
Not helpful. |
