Don't Insult Crazy People

[BPSCG]

People have issues with the name of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LUNATIC_ASYLUM?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US):
"It's like turning back the clock to a time we don't want to go back to," said Ann McDaniel, executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council, one of several mental health advocacy groups to object. "I think they could still do what they want to do without being offensive."

Scott Miller, director of Mountain State Direct Action Center, said one former patient burst into tears after seeing the name on a sign.

"It's not just that I'm a liberal and I think it's not a good idea; it's seeing people physically hurt," he said. "That's about all I needed to know."
:biggrin: I like the idea that only "liberals" should be offended. As if everyone knows that "conservatives" call people lunatics, retards, kikes, micks, wops, and ********* when they know there aren't any liberals around...

Anyway, what's amusing about this piece is, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum has been closed since 1994; the name is a relic of another age.
Historian Joy Gilchrist-Stalnaker has worked for nearly a decade to save the building where three of her ancestors died. She said the new name serves as a reminder of a past no one should forget. The genealogy society she founded, Hackers Creek Pioneer Descendants, worked for six years in the Weston Colored School, another National Historic Landmark.Uh-oh...

[Darat]

People have issues with the name of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LUNATIC_ASYLUM?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US):
:biggrin: I like the idea that only "liberals" should be offended. As if everyone knows that "conservatives" call people ....snip.... when they know there aren't any liberals around...




All down to the success of the "political correctness" strawman created by right wingers back in the 70s to smear their political opponents.

Many people today are seemingly concerned not to be labelled as "being politically correct" when they object to (especially) language which causes unnecessary and quite often unintentional offence to others especially when used without thinking. When really all you are doing when making an objection to such a use of language is acting in a civil and well mannered way.

[BPSCG]

All down to the success of the "political correctness" strawman created by right wingers back in the 70s to smear their political opponents.IIRC, the term "politically correct" was an invention of the political left, and intended as a compliment; the thing backfired when the sane world saw it for the heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech that it was. Writing before researching here; I'll try to check and get back.

ETA: A wikipedia entry on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_correct).

[fuelair]

What color is weston? (as in the Weston Colored School). If it's a really nice spring shade, I might want some for my house!!

[linusrichard]

IIRC, the term "politically correct" was an invention of the political left, and intended as a compliment; the thing backfired when the sane world saw it for the heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech that it was. Writing before researching here; I'll try to check and get back.

It was used as a positive thing by the far left, but I don't think it ever was by liberals. For what it's worth, wikisomebody agrees with me.

I don't see it as an attempt to stifle free speech. It's a thing you hear a lot of whining about, but I'm not aware of an example of that actually happening. Some people may feel stifled because they're afraid of what other people might think or say in response to their "un-PC" comments. That's not suppression of free speech; that's just living in society.

[Darat]

IIRC, the term "politically correct" was an invention of the political left, and intended as a compliment; the thing backfired when the sane world saw it for the heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech that it was. Writing before researching here; I'll try to check and get back.

ETA: A wikipedia entry on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_correct).

It was used as a positive thing by the far left, but I don't think it ever was by liberals. For what it's worth, wikisomebody agrees with me.

...snip...


http://www.answers.com/topic/political-correctness

...snip...

US History Encyclopedia: Political Correctness

Originally used by old-guard communists to mean toeing the party line, the term "politically correct" was resurrected in the 1970s and early 1980s by rightist writers and activists, who used it in an ironic sense to mock the Left's tendency toward dogmatic adherence to "progressive" behavior and speech.


...snip...

[dahduh]

As usual Monty Python has the definitive word on political correctness, and perhaps a more compelling reason for never being rude to crazy people:

http://www.last.fm/music/Monty+Python/_/Never+Be+Rude+To+An+Arab

[godofpie]

People have issues with the name of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LUNATIC_ASYLUM?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US):
:biggrin: I like the idea that only "liberals" should be offended. As if everyone knows that "conservatives" call people lunatics, retards, kikes, micks, wops, and ********* when they know there aren't any liberals around...

Anyway, what's amusing about this piece is, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum has been closed since 1994; the name is a relic of another age.
Uh-oh...
The professor from Cal Polytech thinks they are sending a mixed message by having mud bog racing at an insane asylum? I guess she has never been to WV. They go together like strip clubs and chainsaw repair.

[Safe-Keeper]

If it was a current hospital, I'd agree with them. Stigma against mental illness and those suffering from it, not to mention the horribly low standards of many mental hospitals, is a very real problem and names like these only serve to worsen it. It goes far beyond simple 'political correctness' when it has an actual effect on society's views on a needlessly stigmatized group.

But since it's a closed-down place, I say keep the name. Let it stay as a relic of how people were even dumber back then, and let it remind us never to sink that low again.

Many people today are seemingly concerned not to be labeled as "being politically correct" when they object to (especially) language which causes unnecessary and quite often unintentional offense to others especially when used without thinking. When really all you are doing when making an objection to such a use of language is acting in a civil and well mannered way.I do so agree.

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

Oh, those crazy lunatics with all their wacky PC craziness.

[Madalch]

Okay, so we don't want to insult the insane by calling them insane....

[UnrepentantSinner]

A. I think the word is archaic but conveys a humorous context in jokes "X lunatic asylum and prison for the criminally insane".

B. It's a factually incorrect word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic) and should be relegated to archaic status.

[The Painter]

http://www.answers.com/topic/political-correctness


http://www.answers.com/topic/political-correctness

Political Dictionary: political correctness


Term, originally derisive, but accepted by some of its targets, for an influential movement on US campuses beginning in the late 1980s. Appealing to the principle of affirmative action and to various understandings of‘multiculturalism’, the movement for political correctness sought changes in undergraduate curricula to emphasize the roles of women, non-white people, and homosexuals in history and culture, and attacked the domination of ‘Western’ culture by dead white European males. It promoted anti-sexist and anti-racist speech and behaviour codes, which opponents denounced as illiberal.

Same site that Darat used, but an apparently opposite position.

[slingblade]

Okay, so we don't want to insult the insane by calling them insane....

Call me insane all you like. I came to the conclusion long before you did.

But don't call me a lunatic. The moon is not responsible for whatever's wrong with me. Besides, anyone who still thinks standing in the moonlight will make you insane is probably in the top bunk at the asylum, anyway. :cool:

[plumjam]

Hey Slingblade, quit tapping on the laptop, it's making the springs squeak down here.

[Polaris]

Don't insult crazy people? But Alex Jones is such a dick!

[NoZed Avenger]

Boy, if this advice is followed, there'll be about 6 posts per week in here, tops.



. . . and 5 of those will be recipes, kittens, or recipes for kittens. The last will be a warning from Darat that a recipe involving "crockpot" was inadvertently written as "crackpot" and therefore violated the ban against insulting crazy people, and was therefore sent to AAH and the poster/cook was banned,

[David Swidler]

Who you callin' a kook, NoZed?

[UnrepentantSinner]

B. It's a factually incorrect word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic) and should be relegated to archaic status.

But don't call me a lunatic. The moon is not responsible for whatever's wrong with me. Besides, anyone who still thinks standing in the moonlight will make you insane is probably in the top bunk at the asylum, anyway. :cool:

:)

[NoZed Avenger]

Who you callin' a kook, NoZed?


Hey -- if the shoe fits if the recipe for kittens au grautin fits in your 5 x 7 greased pan . . . .

[Darat]

http://www.answers.com/topic/political-correctness

Political Dictionary: political correctness




Same site that Darat used, but an apparently opposite position.

Not the opposite - after all that starts with "...originally derisive...".