Toast Saints introduce Reconciliation Action Plan

[Joffaboy]

When did this forum morph into 8chan?

Next it will be infested with incels

 

[Crusty Undies]

I'd like to know the details of this poll if you could be bothered clarifying. There are a lot of things you'd need to think about before you claim that 78% of Australia is not PC.

For instance you'd have to consider the context of the media platform the poll appeared in, I'm guessing something quite conservative like Herald Sun.

You'd have to also factor in the wording of the poll question and answer options, both of which tend to polarise issues and erase nuance.

Finally, you'd have to ask yourselves what types of people respond to poll questions: generally people who feel very strongly about an issue, enough to bother giving their opinion. Letterwriters, ranters, the furious unheard masses that would gladly march in lockstep together but would think very differently when faced with the "victims" of the alternative to political correctness.

Then evaluate the intersection of these elements: folks who don't fully understand what they are being asked, who hear triggers like Political Correctness and steam up on cue.

In short, I wouldn't be quite so confident that an overwhelming majority of Australians want to return to the days when you could say or do what you liked without reproach.

The wording of the question was "has Australia become too politically correct?", completed in a news.com.au article. More conservative than the Guardian or the Australian for sure but Australia is also a relatively conservative country. Response bias is also not typically very relevant in polling as the effort to click yes or no is very minimal so people with moderate or weak opinions are still inclined to respond. Response bias is most evident in surveys that require extended answers or optional reviews etc.

I also don't think an "overwhelming majority of Australians want to return to the days when you could say or do what you liked without reproach" you goose. Again, as I said before, there is more than just being PC or being a bigot. There is middle ground. That is where most people sit and want to sit. Thanks anyway.

 

[Crusty Undies]

When did this forum morph into 8chan?

Next it will be infested with incels

It didn't.

It won't.

 

[Kildonan]

I really enjoy how you just attach ideas to me without knowing what my opinions are. I'm actually quite left wing, I was a strong advocate for gay marriage, I think Australia should be putting more money into hospitals, schools and universities so that everyone has a chance at a healthy life and a decent education. I've been one of the biggest Labor/Green advocates around here, I'm pro-equality and I think society should be judged on how well we treat those on the bottom of the social ladder.

how about looking at it this way...I don’t agree with it but I concede that you may have a solid ethical basis behind your anti-political correctness stance; but I’m concerned about the people you enable. There are many who may not understand the nuance you bring but they will jump at joining your stance. Many simply want to carry on being the bully they have been all their life critical of women, of homosexuality, of foreigners, of any difference they perceive as inferior to them. They are in the lifeboat with you. You keep them afloat by justifying their stance.

 

[Crusty Undies]

how about looking at it this way...I don’t agree with it but I concede that you may have a solid ethical basis behind your anti-political correctness stance; but I’m concerned about the people you enable. There are many who may not understand the nuance you bring but they will jump at joining your stance. Many simply want to carry on being the bully they have been all their life critical of women, of homosexuality, of foreigners, of any difference they perceive as inferior to them. They are in the lifeboat with you. You keep them afloat by justifying their stance.

Yeah fair enough and I get that. I just don't like that social discourse has been reduced to this tribalistic "with us or against us" mentality and I think people need to be exposed to nuanced positions to start becoming more capable of justifying why they believe something rather than just going with the herd and throwing out insults. There is no black and white in these sorts of discussions so to paint positions as if there is helps no one and prevents any further discussion. But if it makes it any easier to accept, I'm much, much closer to the side of PC than the unabashed bigots. I just don't like the way PC and identity politics has been turned into this game of social point scoring based on "privilege".

 

[Drake Huggins]

Piffling poppycock.

Full marks for reviving some antique words. An elephant stamp for the alliteration.

 

[From 45]

This is along the same line of thinking as people who say third wave feminism is about "equality". It's so wrong. I'd step in if I saw a mate getting beaten up not because he's part of a minority group but because it's the right thing to do. Again with the low key accusations of bigotry, really? Is that all you've got? I'm not bigotted, I think everyone deserves an equal opportunity in life no matter their background, gender or race. What I don't think we should do is make exceptions for some people or make rules for some groups but then not make the same exceptions or the same rules for other groups. Seriously I'm getting real sick of woke people calling me a bigot because they see political correctness as this black and white dichotomy of being either a racist, sexist, homophobe or a white knight. There are other options. Political correctness and as From 45 pointed out, identity politics, is no longer about equality. It's about trying to shame people for things they had no part in. I refuse to feel shame because some white people from a different continent did something awful hundreds of years ago. Just the same as Chinese exchange students refuse to feel shameful for Tienanmen Square. Just the same as Muslims refuse to feel shame about the biggest slave trade in history that even now is still going. Just the same as aboriginals refuse to feel shame because their ancestors were some of the worst offenders of infanticide in known history. Just the same as South America natives refuse to feel shame because their ancestors cut out the hearts of human sacrifices.

It's not the "essence of humanity", it's making people feel bad for having a sense of humour. It's about gender quotas, reduced admissions requirements to uni, excessive intervention and being offended on someone else's behalf for a joke that even the target group find funny. Get over yourself and stop taking yourself so seriously, if you can't have a civil discussion without calling me a horrible person for disagreeing about the meaning behind a social movement then block me or something because it's really quite petty.

I really enjoy how you just attach ideas to me without knowing what my opinions are. I'm actually quite left wing, I was a strong advocate for gay marriage, I think Australia should be putting more money into hospitals, schools and universities so that everyone has a chance at a healthy life and a decent education. I've been one of the biggest Labor/Green advocates around here, I'm pro-equality and I think society should be judged on how well we treat those on the bottom of the social ladder. But that's ok, you keep calling me a selfish libertarian, maybe if you say it enough times it will come true.

I think you've really missed the crux of my argument altogether. I'm saying we should do away with labels entirely. I don't care what the colour of someone's skin is, what they identify as or anything else. It's not because I lack empathy, it's because I judge people by the way they act, not how well they can virtue signal or whinge about how hard their life is. Everyone has a hard life. Life is hard, but to pretend that everyone of one group has it harder because they're a part of that group is just ******* ridiculous and exclusionary of everyone who has a hard life and happens to be part of a "privileged group".

It's a football club. Not a social movement. Remember the kickback for Gillette's ad? That was because they stepped out their lane and started virtue signalling while still charging women more for products than men. It's not a football club's responsibility to try and enact social change, it's their responsibility to win games. Leave the social movement to society instead of trying to manufacture fake woke points by saying how accepting we now are of everyone. It comes off as fake, and a cheap way to score points.

And stop with this bullshit, "political correctness is just about being a decent person" line because it's not. Maybe it used to be, but it's not anymore. It's a load of "Pure Horseshite".

What a brilliant post.. Just brilliant.. this is what is wrong with society with the radical leftist ideologue. It's all about the equality of outcome rather than equality opportunity. Anyway I could go on all night but what'sthe point because you'll be called a bigot,misogynist, sexist,racist etc if you have a difference of opinion .. and I really I CBF .

 

[Kildonan]

What a brilliant post.. Just brilliant.. this is what is wrong with society with the radical leftist ideologue. It's all about the equality of outcome rather than equality opportunity. Anyway I could go on all night but what's the point because you'll be called a bigot, misogynist, sexist, racist etc if you have a difference of opinion .. and I really I CBF .

Did you just use a label? After agreeing with that post so vehemently??
Of course, because labels convey meaning, help define our position or stance.

With all due respect to Crusty, I think the most outstanding post in this thread was austinnn's

Political Correctness is a pejorative term for a cultural revolution against systematic and historically accepted discrimination against minority groups. It started with groups affected speaking out, then gained support from a wider sympathetic public, (the same as if you saw your mate being beaten up by a bully at school, you'd speak up, not just leave him to his fate because it was nothing to do with you.)

It finally spread to the establishment and then became partially encoded in our laws and forced resistant little bigots to check their shameful behaviour. Because some needed to be forced. But of course no one likes to be told what to do and some are too proud to accept that they're wrong, and this is where we are now.

It is far from a "plague on humanity", it is the frikking essence of humanity, the togetherness and unity it encourages might just save humanity, and if you think that sounds like hippie rubbish then I'd rather pin my colours to that mast than that of some hollow libertarian excrement about every man for himself, and I am proud of my football club for taking a similar stance.

Football clubs are the reason that people who would have otherwise nothing to do with each other can connect, and the wider those networks are, the more likely the chance that people who only see each other as labels and headlines might have some empathy and understanding for each other.

It's not a political science degree weve signed up for, not an expensive artificial meaningless ceremony being foisted upon us, just a few programs for more kids - the paying footy fans of tomorrow - to get involved in a sport that overtly or subconsciously has traditionally been too hard for them to access. Who the hell would have a problem with that besides incredibly spiteful contrarians?

 

[Kildonan]

I believe that unfortunately there is a complication to political correctness, that it relies on empathy somewhat. Empathy sees us relate more closely to persons who physically resemble us and share other traits. Studies have shown that empathy was shown towards victim participants who fit the criteria of resembling the empathic responders until they were told that the victims were democrats (v republicans) or barracked for the other team in a rival sporting club. They were even able to then demonstrate that after the disclosure, the pleasure centres of the now non-empathic responders were lighting up suggesting these people in this study had seen these persons treated badly in some way, felt empathy then discovered they were members of the enemy camp and actually now enjoyed seeing them treated badly.

There is an argument that empathy is bad for humanity. It is empathy that leads us to respond to the starving child on the cover of a pamphlet, but somehow look away from the suffering of a much larger group.

Feeling that you want to help the large group takes a higher order of thinking. It takes compassion. I think it was Paul Bloom who wrote a book on this.

 

[austinnn]

The wording of the question was "has Australia become too politically correct?", completed in a news.com.au article. More conservative than the Guardian or the Australian for sure but Australia is also a relatively conservative country. Response bias is also not typically very relevant in polling as the effort to click yes or no is very minimal so people with moderate or weak opinions are still inclined to respond. Response bias is most evident in surveys that require extended answers or optional reviews etc.

I also don't think an "overwhelming majority of Australians want to return to the days when you could say or do what you liked without reproach" you goose. Again, as I said before, there is more than just being PC or being a bigot. There is middle ground. That is where most people sit and want to sit. Thanks anyway.

Right so what you meant was the most accessible platform of the Australian branch of the Murdoch empire - famous for biased coverage of current affairs - conducted a survey and of the readers motivated enough to even bother participating to such a loaded question, ONLY 78% actually agreed with the premise?

That is actually a surprise, and I'm sure a few Editors will be apologising to Mr Murdoch for these disappointing results. He won't be happy until it's back to the way things were and any opposition to the status quo is automatically ridiculed and discredited.

 

[CursingFijian]

This is along the same line of thinking as people who say third wave feminism is about "equality". It's so wrong. I'd step in if I saw a mate getting beaten up not because he's part of a minority group but because it's the right thing to do. Again with the low key accusations of bigotry, really? Is that all you've got? I'm not bigotted, I think everyone deserves an equal opportunity in life no matter their background, gender or race. What I don't think we should do is make exceptions for some people or make rules for some groups but then not make the same exceptions or the same rules for other groups. Seriously I'm getting real sick of woke people calling me a bigot because they see political correctness as this black and white dichotomy of being either a racist, sexist, homophobe or a white knight. There are other options. Political correctness and as From 45 pointed out, identity politics, is no longer about equality. It's about trying to shame people for things they had no part in. I refuse to feel shame because some white people from a different continent did something awful hundreds of years ago. Just the same as Chinese exchange students refuse to feel shameful for Tienanmen Square. Just the same as Muslims refuse to feel shame about the biggest slave trade in history that even now is still going. Just the same as aboriginals refuse to feel shame because their ancestors were some of the worst offenders of infanticide in known history. Just the same as South America natives refuse to feel shame because their ancestors cut out the hearts of human sacrifices.

It's not the "essence of humanity", it's making people feel bad for having a sense of humour. It's about gender quotas, reduced admissions requirements to uni, excessive intervention and being offended on someone else's behalf for a joke that even the target group find funny. Get over yourself and stop taking yourself so seriously, if you can't have a civil discussion without calling me a horrible person for disagreeing about the meaning behind a social movement then block me or something because it's really quite petty.

I really enjoy how you just attach ideas to me without knowing what my opinions are. I'm actually quite left wing, I was a strong advocate for gay marriage, I think Australia should be putting more money into hospitals, schools and universities so that everyone has a chance at a healthy life and a decent education. I've been one of the biggest Labor/Green advocates around here, I'm pro-equality and I think society should be judged on how well we treat those on the bottom of the social ladder. But that's ok, you keep calling me a selfish libertarian, maybe if you say it enough times it will come true.

I think you've really missed the crux of my argument altogether. I'm saying we should do away with labels entirely. I don't care what the colour of someone's skin is, what they identify as or anything else. It's not because I lack empathy, it's because I judge people by the way they act, not how well they can virtue signal or whinge about how hard their life is. Everyone has a hard life. Life is hard, but to pretend that everyone of one group has it harder because they're a part of that group is just ******* ridiculous and exclusionary of everyone who has a hard life and happens to be part of a "privileged group".

It's a football club. Not a social movement. Remember the kickback for Gillette's ad? That was because they stepped out their lane and started virtue signalling while still charging women more for products than men. It's not a football club's responsibility to try and enact social change, it's their responsibility to win games. Leave the social movement to society instead of trying to manufacture fake woke points by saying how accepting we now are of everyone. It comes off as fake, and a cheap way to score points.

And stop with this bullshit, "political correctness is just about being a decent person" line because it's not. Maybe it used to be, but it's not anymore. It's a load of "Pure Horseshite".

Some entitled egocentric ignorance in here, Crusty.

 

[austinnn]

Some entitled egocentric ignorance in here, Crusty.

This "equality regardless of context" idea is a nice simple stance, but some people will never recognise how unfair it is until they are given an equal (rather than weighted) opportunity from a disadvantaged position.

I think the defensive stance Crusty is taking (sorry to not reply directly Crusty but for some reason I can't find your original post) is common with a lot of people who are given reports and hear accusations, who are given explanations and think that the objective is to make someone feel guilty.

I don't know I can't really explain what i mean, im freezing cold and tired, so I think I'll have to go with that sorry if it makes no sense.

 

[gringo2011]

Yeah fair enough and I get that. I just don't like that social discourse has been reduced to this tribalistic "with us or against us" mentality and I think people need to be exposed to nuanced positions to start becoming more capable of justifying why they believe something rather than just going with the herd and throwing out insults. There is no black and white in these sorts of discussions so to paint positions as if there is helps no one and prevents any further discussion. But if it makes it any easier to accept, I'm much, much closer to the side of PC than the unabashed bigots. I just don't like the way PC and identity politics has been turned into this game of social point scoring based on "privilege".

There is definitely a very black and white set of opinions these days. I'm very much left wing and even I get that sometimes the discourse is idiotic and unhelpful. You get dickheads on both sides who troll and bait.

Not much common ground is ever met by ridiculing others opinions. Most Australians are pretty fair minded and you can definitely have a middle ground opinion without being a campaigner. There are unhelpful voices on both sides. I think most Aussies believe in not being racist or removing bullying language but find there are times that there is bracket creep happening. It doesn't surprise me that a majority think it's gone too far. To me the alternative of Andrew Bolt or Sam Newman as moral guides is vomit inducing though.

 

[Highlander35]

Yes, the problem is radical leftist dialogue, not the literal reemergence of fascism in western society.

There's a reasonable place for many of these discussions, as they are layered and nuanced. As already shown, with a couple of exceptions, many people's opinions don't reflect that depth of thought the discussion require, and when people start making ludicrous statements, it's clear that this certainly is not the place for these things.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I believe that unfortunately there is a complication to political correctness, that it relies on empathy somewhat. Empathy sees us relate more closely to persons who physically resemble us and share other traits. Studies have shown that empathy was shown towards victim participants who fit the criteria of resembling the empathic responders until they were told that the victims were democrats (v republicans) or barracked for the other team in a rival sporting club. They were even able to then demonstrate that after the disclosure, the pleasure centres of the now non-empathic responders were lighting up suggesting these people in this study had seen these persons treated badly in some way, felt empathy then discovered they were members of the enemy camp and actually now enjoyed seeing them treated badly.

There is an argument that empathy is bad for humanity. It is empathy that leads us to respond to the starving child on the cover of a pamphlet, but somehow look away from the suffering of a much larger group.

Feeling that you want to help the large group takes a higher order of thinking. It takes compassion. I think it was Paul Bloom who wrote a book on this.

Hollywood love it, the city is destroyed , people dying in troves, but its ok, cos that little kid and his pet dog made it out.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

The lines are blurry.

Its OK to say, "this coffee is for that bald guy with the red beard over there "
But its not OK to say, " this coffee is for the dark skinned guy over there "?

In reality both is OK.
Its not OK to say i'm not making a coffee for that guy because he's black, or I'm not making coffee for that guy cos he's a ranga.

Lots of racial and other types of stereotyping exist, i see a fair bit of it on these forums with the assumptions people make about other posters.
Middle aged white guys are all conservative.
Indigenous Australian footy players are quick with lots of X factor.
People from Moe wear moccasins when they go shopping.
Collingwood supporters have no teeth.

To me its more about the influences of society.
Its a fact that there are a lot of Blacks in jail in the USA. Its not because they are black, its because of the society they have been exposed to and influenced by.
We have the same thing with the refugees from Sudan. Some of them have had horrific upbringings, and as a result are horrible people.
What we need to be mindful of is that we don't assume that they are horrible, because they look like someone who is, otherwise they never have a chance to rise up.

 

[CursingFijian]

To me its more about the influences of society.
Its a fact that there are a lot of Blacks in jail in the USA. Its not because they are black, its because of the society they have been exposed to and influenced by.
We have the same thing with the refugees from Sudan. Some of them have had horrific upbringings, and as a result are horrible people.
What we need to be mindful of is that we don't assume that they are horrible, because they look like someone who is, otherwise they never have a chance to rise up.

What does this even mean?

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I thought it was obvious.

People come in from a war zone, they tend to congregate together because they are in a strange country and don't speak the same language as most people. lets say a few of them are rotten to the core, totally desensitised to violence and crime. To the people living nearby, they look visibly different to most of the people they know.

How many people does it take to make a bad neighbourhood. Just one "bad family" living near you can make you feel like you are in a really crappy area.

Crime starts to get committed, and the trap the existing people make, is to think all the new people are bad, because some are. People can be pretty simple , in the old days they thought that a witch could turn a bag of cheese into living mice.

 

[Crusty Undies]

There is definitely a very black and white set of opinions these days. I'm very much left wing and even I get that sometimes the discourse is idiotic and unhelpful. You get dickheads on both sides who troll and bait.

Not much common ground is ever met by ridiculing others opinions. Most Australians are pretty fair minded and you can definitely have a middle ground opinion without being a campaigner. There are unhelpful voices on both sides. I think most Aussies believe in not being racist or removing bullying language but find there are times that there is bracket creep happening. It doesn't surprise me that a majority think it's gone too far. To me the alternative of Andrew Bolt or Sam Newman as moral guides is vomit inducing though.

I don't think we need to accept either of those flogs as moral guides by rejecting excessive political correctness though. I want to believe that people are smart enough to be able to decide for themselves whether something is acceptable or not without just taking someone else's word for it.

 

[Crusty Undies]

Some entitled egocentric ignorance in here, Crusty.

Ok boomer.

 

[Crusty Undies]

This "equality regardless of context" idea is a nice simple stance, but some people will never recognise how unfair it is until they are given an equal (rather than weighted) opportunity from a disadvantaged position.

I think the defensive stance Crusty is taking (sorry to not reply directly Crusty but for some reason I can't find your original post) is common with a lot of people who are given reports and hear accusations, who are given explanations and think that the objective is to make someone feel guilty.

I don't know I can't really explain what i mean, im freezing cold and tired, so I think I'll have to go with that sorry if it makes no sense.

My problem is more that it's impossible to accurately weight for each individual person how far in front or behind the pack they start. Precisely how much help does a black, disabled, transgender person deserve over everyone else? Everyone's situation is different so why should we make group statements about what people do or don't deserve? I can guarantee that my life has been harder than the life of plenty of kids with different colour skin, of a different gender or a different identity so am I entitled to extra help or reduced university admissions? Also I should probably clarify that I'm not explicitly against intervention policies to help out those who are actually genuinely disadvantaged, of course I support giving aid to remote indigenous communities to help with food, medicine, education and whatever else they need. They wouldn't have any chance of an equal opportunity without it and even with it they need more help. I just don't really think it's the prerogative of a football club to get involved in that honestly, it's outside the scope of the business and it's really something that should fall to our government, hence why I'm so critical of our god awful government. Although I can see the arguments you've made regarding making a supportive environment for indigenous players and making football more accessible admittedly even though I don't necessarily agree with all of them, and again that's probably more the AFL's responsibility rather than individual clubs.

 

[gringo2011]

What does this even mean?

I think he's saying that because some Sudanese commit crimes, that we shouldn't judge all Sudanese as criminals. Just in a less diplomatic way than some might expect. He's not saying anything too controversial but possibly getting judged because there is an assumption he's racist because his opinions are more in line with those of other people who are racist. He's probably just experienced what it's like to be profiled himself.

 

[gringo2011]

I don't think we need to accept either of those flogs as moral guides by rejecting excessive political correctness though. I want to believe that people are smart enough to be able to decide for themselves whether something is acceptable or not without just taking someone else's word for it.

It's an interesting debate. It seems like society slipped the shackles of religion and built an new moral code based on the individual's "rights". I remember in the book Sapiens the author suggests that as a an animal species there is actually no such thing as human rights, they are purely a construct of our civilisation and others that accept them. It's a moral code that we have replaced religion with. Technically we don't have any rights to anything. We are still an animal that fights others for food, territory and mating rights. Realistically society as a unit has rules put in place to make coexisting in a manufactured environment less likely to cause friction.

Honestly I bristle when people start saying anti PC stuff, but it's generally because of the rhetoric that is spread by people with extreme viewpoints.
I also bristle when I hear some of the idiotic things people come out with that are totally illogical and unhelpful. Like the woman who came out and said that firefighters would go home and beat their wives in a Greens press conference, they are helping no-one.

 

[CursingFijian]

I think he's saying that because some Sudanese commit crimes, that we shouldn't judge all Sudanese as criminals. Just in a less diplomatic way than some might expect. He's not saying anything too controversial but possibly getting judged because there is an assumption he's racist because his opinions are more in line with those of other people who are racist. He's probably just experienced what it's like to be profiled himself.

I wasn't judging SaintsSeptember and I hope he doesn't feel that way. I just don't know how anyone can make a judgement about a person based on what they 'look' like. What does a hardened criminal or a rapist or a paedophile look like? Does he mean people that demonstrate similar behaviours?

 

[Drake Huggins]

Sporting clubs are amongst the most powerful influencers we have. They have a responsibility to act ethically and in accordance with the values the broader community accepts as reasonable.

Sporting heroes are powerful role models, whether they like it or not. Sport and politics not only mix, but are inextricably locked into a symbiotic relationship where they each influence, and can benefit each other.

Sport will always have the power to influence society because so many individuals are so heavily invested, psychologically, financially and emotionally in them.

The dismantling of apartheid was a classic example. Soorting boycotts played a significant role. The very fact that sporting clubs, bodies and individuals command enormous sponsorship dollars is an indication of how powerful they are as influencers