How politically correct are people in your country?
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Political correctness is a regional thing, in the US. Its big in states like CA, NY, (in the city mainly) , and other North Eastern regions. In the area of NV I live in being PC is considered a character flaw. A serious one. Anyone who feels they have to tiptoe around things needs help. However, a short drive down to Sacramento puts one in a different world.
Just , flat, spit out what you mean there, and you get looked at like you just stepped off a flying saucer. Ha!
Yeah, even in those states it's more a city thing. Seattle is hyper-PC, but the rest of WA has little interest or time for it. Portland and greater OR to an even greater extent. Even in CA, outside of the major metros, you find that people are more open and blunt. San Diego isn't overwhelmingly PC, even for a big CA city.
Finns are quite straightforward and even blunt, so not very politically correct. In coffee-table conversations you can say pretty much what you like, if you can back up your words. Part of this stems from the traditional distrust for the "elite" and also from the height of the Cold War when some topics couldn't be discussed openly in the media, mainly about the USSR.
Of course politicans have to balance with words sometimes, but you can speak openly about certain topics, like immigration, religion, elderly care, the military, same-sex marriages, crime and so on. A person who is handicapped is handicapped, or in popular street-speech - a retard. When speaking about jokes, nothing is holy, and they can be pretty nasty.
While i agree with all of this, there is still some pieces of legislation in place that shoo people in the public spotlight to self-censor themselves. Some say that a publication similar to Charlie Hebdo might have faced legal troubles had they operated here, maybe nothing as severe as avant garde artist Seppo Lehto, who did over 2 years in jail for his bigoted one man internet serial blogging performance, but legal troubles none the less.
While the Halla-aho court case is debatable, I don't think so in Lehto's case. A big chunk of his offenses were not only insulting, but a one man spam wave that had continued since the late 90's. One big charge was "viestiliikenteen häiritseminen" which had nothing to do with his opinions.
Sure the media and politicians can be weary and have to apologise sometimes, I don't either think it's bad here. Well, at least... well look there in the west.
But the question was how politically correct people are and not how cautious the media generally is. That's what I was mostly referring to.
American media never published the Mohammed cartoons in the 2005-2006. I don't think it was a form of caution but political correctness calling them in poor taste:
This country is awfully politically correct. It's so bad you can't even cough into your closed fist anymore without people looking at your sideways. It's "cough into your inner elbow" now. Oh-k.
"Sorry, stranger! Didn't mean to poke you in the eye with my elbow. I'm trying to work out the awkward dynamics of our new American elbow-cough. Excuse moi."
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