Being against political correctness is being against the idea that another fallible individual has the authority to say what it is moral for you to speak or write. This stance rails against the notion that anyone should have any power over your speech save arguing against it with speech or writing.
Political correctness, better termed "moral policing" always ends with the attempt to silence those judged to be "wrong". This is incompatible with the principles of liberty.
Me personally? I'm against political correctness because of what it really is, not because I wish to be rude with impunity.
Admittedly there is some overlap where people lose their jobs.
Of course there has to a collective standard for morality. The problem with purity spirals and witch hunts is that they stop looking at specific criminal acts - slavery, theft, murder, and rape aren't morally justifiable, however you slice it - and become more about group conformity and public professions of ideology.
Dissent, debate, and non-conformity become immoral acts in themselves - and that is not a valid moral position.
That's the classic left—right apology.
I find both wrong. Just as I don't think you get to burn down cars, just because other people are bashing other peoples' skulls in.
For some reason, a large part of the extreme left pays lip-service to non-violence, but is always quick to deflect criticism about left violence by pointing to (more extreme) right violence.
I don't find that convincing and believe both sides need to be locked up. Sure, the murderers longer than the car burners.
THIS! I'm not on the right but I've always felt that one of the right's biggest tactical errors was to allow their movement to be be seen as the violent side. Nothing in history that I've seen would suggest that the right, even the extreme right, is inherently prone to violence and yet this point is made frequently, casually by even fair minded people.
(warning, contains British Humour)
I think the error in your argument here is to always reduce the application of political correctness down to flawed individuals.
If there is consensus at a societal level that certain hateful speech should be prevented for the general good of society, (and there is) then enforcing that makes sense. We've evolved past bear baiting and public flogging (in most parts of the world), we can evolve past racism, sexism and other limiting behaviours.
I think we should enforce laws against behavior, not speech or thought. Political Correctness attempts to police speech and thought. This is dangerous, especially when armored with the force of government. You get tribunals in Canada charging people with hate crimes for writing books.
Government is people with power. It always, always comes down to flawed individuals. It is flawed individuals applying it to flawed individuals.
Should there be outcries against racism and sexism? Yes. Should there be laws that say if you act based on bias (denying jobs, housing... etc.) that you face consequences of punishment under the law? Yes.
Should there be someone allowed to decide that your facial expression requires that you be subjected to 2 hours (or 2 weeks) of "education"? No.
We can come to an agreement on what we as a society consider to be "nice" and "polite". That's part of how societies work. We must never enforce being "nice" (to Stewart Lee's take) because it is an ever-changing, subjective thing. How will we come to value the next societal advancement if we aren't allowed to hold and discuss opinions that differ?
This freedom is too important to a civilization dedicated to freedom to allow it to be sacrificed on the altar of propriety, anyone's propriety.
I would be interested to know (1) How you have determined such a consensus exists and (2) How you have determined that preventing hate speech is in fact generally good for society.
When you understand, you may well still not agree with it. (The idea that "understanding is agreement" is a very naive one, but popular nonetheless.) But you clearly do not understand it.
Something that offends someone else may not comprise a universal moral truth, but making an effort to consider how your words affect others, including others whose backgrounds you may not understand at all, does. And certainly, going out of your way to rail against others' sensitivities (political incorrectness) helps nobody.
It's possible that your personal definition of "anti-political-correctness" is different from mine, but I venture to say that the public at large, presented with the term, interprets it the way I do.
It helps the people who are being bullied or silenced, with those sensitivities used as a justification.
Typically those sensitivities aren't involuntary. They're inculcated and exaggerated, both individually and on a mass basis, specifically as a lever to gain power over other people. If that lever for power stopped working, the vast majority of those sensitivities would stop existing.
Anti-PC is helpful because it sets out the right incentives. Instead of incentivizing people to become helpless, mentally-ill wrecks who "can't even" in the face of the slightest emotional or intellectual challenge, it incentivizes people to be the most centered and independent version of themselves they can.
There is a certain soft bigotry in the assumption that differences in background account for as much as people think they do. The "perspective that I gained in the world" is that ppl are remarkably similar with some mostly surface differences.
The point is, there has to be room to ask "Is your taking offence to this legitimate under any reasonable standard?"
People always overcorrect. Always. One generation's parenting is too hands off? The next generation will helicopter parent. Political correctness getting too puritanical and histrionic? People react by literally embracing Naziism. Democracy shows signs of stagnation and corruption? We get neoreaction.
The Internet seems to intensify this too because all the social platforms are programmed to prioritize content so as to drive engagement. Maximum divisiveness drives engagement, not balanced opinions.
I think it only stereotypically goes farther. Consider the viewpoint of someone who sees no difference between an outspoken feminist and something at the head of one of these spirals, and consider whether you might be in the same position regarding the right wing. Certainly, the environment I grew up in was simultaneously disdainful of political correctness while demanding courtesy toward everyone.