PC-ness is a reflection of where we are in our civilization.

[bling bling]

The more primitive Hunters and gatherers were busy people. Busy surviving. Every day hunting, every day gathering. Trying not be be killed by wild animals or mother nature, and searching for food and shelter to survive. No time to lay lazily gazing up at the sky.

Once people figured out how to store food, our civilization progressed. For the first time, humans had time to think and ponder and reflect on things that weren't necessarily related to their survival. So they dreamed. And they came up with more creative, innovative ways to hunt, gather, and store things, as well as other inventions.

The point is that the more safe people feel, and the less people have to worry about basic human needs, the more time people have to spend dreaming, creating and inventing.

Thus, I guess we ought to be thankful that people are so offended, insulted, and pissed off over words. If we had to go back to living to survive, literally living to survive, I don't think people would be spending any amount of time getting angry over someone saying "bitch" "happy holidays" instead of "Christmas", and Democrat Party, for a few examples.

Just different vantage point on the matter.

[jobycom]

1. I bet you're wrong. I bet the earliest fights between hunters and gatherers

were over verbal insults, once they learned to speak. People tend to be more willing to share food than to forgive an insult.

And there has always been "PC." It's just the definition of what is "PC" that has changed. Not to mention that some Republican jackasses have coined the phrase just so they could contine to be rude Republican jackasses, and raise their jackassery to the level of a virtue, in their pathetic little excuses for minds.

[Phredicles]

3. Besides, there's plenty of PC-ness on the Right;

they just don't call it that. A couple of weeks ago, for example, I got into a terrible argument with some righties for saying Bush owes more of an apology to the troops than Kerry does. And if that doesn't do it, try telling 'em Reagan DIDN'T single-handedly win the Cold War.:eyes:

[jobycom]

5. The Right is all about their brand of "PC."

Support the troops, put CHRIST back in CHRISTmas, you must pray in school the way they tell you... You can't say anything they don't approve of or they will label you a traitor or worse.

The irony of their complaints about "PC" are lost on their small minds, but are quite obvious to anyone with brainpower higher than a bonobo.

[ComerPerro]

7. "PC" was invented by the RW in the 90s as a talking point

that not only allowed them to be free to be bigoted, racist assholes, but also let them attack anyone who got tired of their bullshit as oversensitive whiners.

[951-Riverside]

9. Well said n/t

[bling bling]

10. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I was thinking the PC word was invented as a reaction against people who were seemingly coming out of the woodwork with requests for people to change the way we speak. Examples:

1. Instead of stewardess, flight attendent
2. Instead of secretary, administrative assistant.
3. Instead of actor/actress, call them all actors.
4. Instead of janitor, Custodial Engineer.
5. Instead of ALWAYS using "he" to describe everyone, use he/she, or he or she in a sentence. When I was first in grade school, all of the books we read always used the word "he" to mean he or she.

People would come up with a new way they wanted to be labeled, called, described, or whatever and then become offended/insulted when anyone used the old label, description, or whatever.

Then the word PC kind of expanded to being used by racists/biggots/sexists as a retort or way to dismiss people who were insulted/offended by something that was said that was legitimately racist or sexist. For example, when women talk about including WOMEN'S history in history schoolbooks, they are viewed by some people as demanding that history be "changed" in order to meet these women's demands for political correctedness. That to me isn't political correctedness. It's not the same ballpark. I guess this is where the RW would come into the picture in my mind.

I guess it hadn't occurred to me that it was the RW's who coined the term in the first place. I always kind of thought it was more of a reaction by people in the mainstream who started to roll their eyes at all the people who wanted new/different titles and became suddenly offended at the old ones.

I'm not sure what my point is, in case you were wondering.

[jobycom]

13. I see that as exactly the same as what Comopero and I said.

The reason people began to say "flight attendant" and "African American" and to oppose words like "co-ed" was to fight sexism and racism. Those who wanted to cling to a mysoginist, divisive vocabulary created the phrase "PC" as an insult to those who were fighting it. Language constantly changes, so the complaint wasn't against the change itself. It was against the attempt to use more polite, and more accurate, language. Republicans hate that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. It started off in China, probably came to the west via far left parties

For the Chinese connection (known in communist China, possibly used before then as well), see this post in another thread about PC: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2761987&mesg_id=2762414

Here's an entire dissertation for a master's degree, written by a woman who was previously the BBC's head of diversity:

The consensus among observers (Perry 1992; Berman 1992; Epstein
1992)1 seems to be that the term ‘political correctness’ emerged from the
circles of American Left activists in the 1960s and 70s. In turn, they
probably borrowed the phrase from the English translation of Mao’s
‘Little Red Book’ which attempted to adapt the concept of ‘correct
thinking’. Epstein has also suggested a link to ‘correct lineism’, a term
used in the Communist Party. (Cameron 1995: 126)
According to Perry, the earliest cited print usage of ‘politically correct’ in
the modern sense is to be found in a 1970 article by the African
American feminist Toni Cade Bambara which included the phrase: “a
man cannot be politically correct and a chauvinist too”. (ibid) As
Cameron points out, the meaning here would seem to be that sexism
had no place in radical Black politics but as time went on, this usage
became less and less dominant. However, at this point, the most
common use of ‘politically correct’ was ironic according to Maurice
Isserman:
“….it was always used in a tone mocking the pieties of our own insular
political counter-culture, as in “we could stop at McDonald’s down the road if
you’re hungry……but it wouldn’t be politically correct.’” (Isserman 1991 quoted
in Cameron 1995: 126)
This was also the meaning of the Communist Party’s ‘correct lineism’: a
‘correct lineist’ was a comrade whose ‘holier-than-thou’ espousal of party
dogma made other comrades want to spit. (ibid) Cameron’s assessment
of the growing confusion over the evolving language is worth quoting at
length:
“The terms ‘politically correct’ and ‘politically incorrect’ were used as in-group
markers and understood by insiders as a joke at their own expense. They
functioned on the one hand to differentiate the new left from the orthodox old
left, and on the other to satirise the ever-present tendency of ‘politicos’ to
become over-earnest, humourless and rigidly prescriptive, poking fun at the
notion that anyone could be (or would want to be) wholly ‘correct’. The meaning
of these terms on the left, then, was an ironic mirror image of the one now
attributed to them by the right.” (Cameron 1994:19)

http://virtualscholars.brad.ac.uk:8080/bitstream/10004/1362/1/Linda+Mitchell.pdf

She goes on to say the right wing use of the term seems to have started around 1990, and it spread very rapidly.

I can certainly remember using the similar term "ideologically sound", ironically, at university in the late 80s - not in explicitly political circles, but when we had a tendency to become over earnest. An example: the students' association sent a small donation to a charity fighting to save the black rhino. That's fine, but recording a resolution in the official minutes of how we all deplored the endangerment of the black rhino was "ideologically sound". Buying only Nicaraguan coffee was "ideologically sound".

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. Or, like, those people who didn't like being called niggers

Harrumph! Why do they keep trying to change the way we speak!

:eyes:

[bling bling]

32. You know, I never considered that word as being a part of poltical correctness

Someone who's insulted because they don't like the word nigger isn't being politically correct in my mind. That's a legitimate issue with a nasty word. I don't know what I'd call it, though, just not PC.

You know the uproar that occured when Bill Maher (sp??) was fired for saying the 9/11 hijackers weren't cowards? That to me was politically correct issue. I thought it was silly and I thought it was *reaching* at least to some degree for people to be insulted and offended by such a statement.

I'm having a difficult time explaining my viewpoint on politically correct in terms of:
what I thought it used to mean and those things it included and still do vs. those terms (such as nigger) that got grouped into the concept of being politically correct.

[bloom]

27. I've always seen the term as "being used by racists/biggots/sexists"

and maybe people that don't understand that the term is a favorite excuse of "racists/biggots/sexists" so they can be "racists/biggots/sexists".


To be against "politically correct" stuff is to be against social consciousness. To be against social change for the good.


There are, unfortunately, a lot of (male) comedians who think it's funny not to take meaningful social change seriously - maybe their audience is based on "racists/biggots/sexists" - and that's how they make their money. Or maybe they are just assholes.

[Sapphocrat]

11. I have always liked you, ComerPerro.

You cut right through all the crap. You always have. :) :thumbsup:

[blondeatlast]

15. Precisely. Thank you, CP. nt

[Marie26]

44. You've got it. nt

[Matariki]

2. I've read that people in hunter-gatherer societies work about 2 hours a day

After people figured out how to store food, along came food canning factories, 80 hour work weeks and corporate farms. Then OTHER people figured out how to raid and pillage the stuff that was now conveniently stored and thus began the long unhappy history of war.

I've read works by anthropologists who had their naive romanticizing of 'primitive' cultures shattered when they discovered that there's as much gossiping and back-bitting in those groups as there is in any office or high-school around the globe. Human nature.

Not that this has much to do with your post ;-)

[bling bling]

6. Gossiping and back-biting probably are human nature.

Humans are by nature competitive with each other, especially men with men and women with women. Just like in the animal world. Gossiping and back-biting are just verbal displays of competition for some people.

And that's ok if your post didn't have much to do with my post. My post wasn't really a researched and thought-out position. Really it was a rather hastily thought out post. It was ultimately the result of me just finding a way to procrastinate on getting back to cleaning my house for company we're having this week. Fortunately nobody responded right away so I was forced to get back to dusting and folding laundry. Right now I ought to be making a grocery list but darn it if there weren't a couple of responses to my post now for me to get distracted by....:P

[rman]

19. along with industralization came the rule of a specialized class,

class war and exploitation of workers (80 hr work week etc) by the ruling class; the owners of (large) corporations. There were no "corporations" in hunter-gatherer societies.

[Unrepentant Fenian]

4. It's so simple.....

It's so simple..... even a caveman could see it!

[BlooInBloo]

8. Yup. It's "The Empire Strikes Back" stage....

... where white men got fed up with catching crap from black folks and women about being sexist and racist - and they DAMN sure weren't going to right the wrongs they as an aggregate created, supported, and perpetuated. So their move was to create the faux-concept called "politically correct" to indicate how THEY were in fact the ones being wronged. This tactic had the fringe benefit of providing a plausible reason (to the willfully ignorant eye) for those "good whites" who felt uncomfortable dissenting from the white status quo to come back to the status quo's fold. So the end result was a smashing victory for racism/sexism: they won on the framing issue - you can't go anywhere (DU?) without hearing about the evils of "political correctness". And more subtly, and arguably more importantly, the status quo racist/sexist white folks won traitors in the anti-racist/sexist's camp - the "good whites" who oh-so-solemnly decry the evils of racism and sexism, but resolutely fight against any attempt to *fix* the wrongs done to women and black folks, and in fact deny that there IS anything wrong - the whole idea that there even so much as exists racism or sexism is in fact nothing more than an attack on white folks, termed "political correctness".

God I hope Return of the Jedi comes out soon. The Empire is kicking our ass at the moment.


EDIT: A thorough implementation of this abstract would also prominently include a discussion of the Empire's strategy of pretending history doesn't exist. That's mandatory for the Empire's strategy, which involves things like: using code-phrases for racism/sexism such as "states' rights", "New York values", and so forth. The tactic of saying things similar to "they're just words" is in the same vein. Words have a history of contextual/implicative use. Disappearing this history is a HUGE aid to the status quo racists/sexists.

[The Straight Story]

12. Point is, some people are still there

and such PC things they don't see as relevant.

[Toots]

16. I am just amazed at how far some here go to defend insulting people

To "bitch-slap" is an insult. The action is an insult as well as the description. It is as insulting to some as the Confederate flag is to others. Why do you insist upon insulting people? It is the same mind set as smoking in public. It is insulting and actually injurious to people yet some here continue to defend it. What is with these people that find that need to insult and cause discomfort to others? I would think this community especially would be above that behavior. :shrug:

[rman]

18. insult to who?

Insult to the one who's said to be bitch-slapped, i'd think.

[Toots]

20. The terminology is insulting to many including myself

Just the expression is insulting let alone the actual action. What do you not find insulting about slapping people? Making the expression accepted as common place is insulting to me. It is a coarsening of society. To me it is like saying Americans are nothing but a bunch of ignorant violent thugs....That is what "bitch-slap" represents to me. Violent thuggery and defamation of women. It offends me because I have better hopes and wishes for America than to sink to this level of discourse...When I hear such terminoligy I immediately think of Rush Limbaugh because it is how he relates to the masses. He thrives on belittling people and so apparently do many here at DU.

[rman]

21. How come it's insulting to some and not to others?

It seems that most people do not have a problem with it, as long as it's not directed at them.

[Toots]

22. Hmm the same could be said for the Confederate Flag

Or smoking in public... Some are offended and some are not so let's go ahead and offend because some aren't offended. Some are not offended by the Iraq war either so let's keep it going.... If something is offensive to some and you keep doing or saying it, what does that say about you?

[rman]

35. I'm pretty sure the issue with smoking in public is not that it's insulting to some,

but rather that is unhealthy.
Same thing with the Iraq war...

Really it seems that to you everything revolves about things being either offensive or not.

Regarding flags, no flag could insult me. Not just for being a flag.

[ms liberty]

24. A word only has the power YOU give it...

Are you aware that the word "toots" was (and still is, sometimes) used by sexist men as a derogatory and belittling nickname for a woman? As in, "c'mere Toots" ---just like being called "the little woman" or "the ball and chain" or "hon" or "sweetie"? I don't particularly like that nickname. If I were 20 years old, I might get worked up about it. But I'm 40-something, and I've learned there's a lot more important things to get upset about, and the word only has power if I allow it to have power.

I'm sorry you find it offensive - but YOU are the one who is giving it that power.

I reclaimed the word "bitch" long ago, therefore I do NOT find it offensive. And when someone uses it in an attempt to offend or belittle me, they discover their mistake - because I invariably laugh, and say "And?" Their intention is clear - but when they see that their word has no power over me, THEY are shown to be the fool. It all goes back to the old "sticks and stones..."

If we all went around obsessing over words like this all the time, we'd never get ANYTHING done!

This is one of those things that causes middle America to look at us and think we're all nuts.

[BlooInBloo]

25. I love how stupid people unthinkingly assume that everyone else....

... is as stupid as they are.

[bling bling]

29. Is that a politically correct thing to say?

Is it politically correct to call someone who has a different viewpoint "stupid."

If I get offended at people who attack the intelligence level of myself or others because we hold two opposing viewpoints would it then be a politically correct situation or would it be something else?

Serious question. Just curious.....and trying to prolong my breakfast/a.m. DU time so as avoid going to grocery store......

[BlooInBloo]

31. Sigh. The very concept of "politically correct" is intrinsically a bigot's concept....

... As several off us have tried to explain in varying ways.

If you're asking were my comments blunt, and to the point, then yes, they were.

[bling bling]

34. I'm not saying you're wrong about your view on the concept.

But I don't know that I completely agree.

In another example upthread I mentioned how Bill Maher (or whatever his name was) created an uproar by saying the 9/11 hijackers weren't "cowards." Ironically, he said it on a show that was named Politically Incorrect and people STILL got offended and insulted.

I considered their offense and insult to be of the "politically correct" variety. I don't consider myself a bigot, though. I think we just have different ideas of what fits into the politically correct concept. I would never roll my eyes at people who were offended at being called a racial or sexist term. But I did roll my eyes at how it became politically incorrect to dare say anything some might construe as not totally pro-American.

[Toots]

26. If we continue to accept offensive behavior then we are indeed all nuts

Words have intent. That is there entire purpose of being. If you intend to offend then it tells a story about you...

[ms liberty]

28. A question...

I'll ask one question: you think we should eliminate offensive behavior and use of words? Then, are you going to change your screen name? Because it IS offensive to many women who've been called "toots" in a belittling way by men.


Never mind...

I was going to continue this conversation, but the whole subject is getting old and tired. All this hand-wringing, for 3 bloody days is just too much nit-picking.

[BlooInBloo]

30. Just in case one day the truth is of passing interest to you...

... Your basic problem is that you have a 3rd grader's concept of what's involved with language and meaning, and more distressingly, you appear to be 100% unable to even *conceive* of the existence of a concept that better reflects reality.

On the other hand, you did at least make the right choice to not continue the conversation - so perhaps there is hope.

[ms liberty]

33. Thank you...

I'll keep that in mind.

[The2ndWheel]

23. If you say so

Civilization has also given us classism, racism, sexism, large scale organized warfare, the ability to exploit human and non-human life from any point on the globe, large scale starvation, large scale poverty, consumption and population problems, and a dying eco-system.

But hey, at least we get to have an attitude about words. We must be doing something right.

[Crandor]

36. And before civilization...

racism still existed, sexism still existed (rape was the norm rather than the exception), and starvation and poverty were nearly universal. Most people in America today who would be considered below the poverty line are still hundreds of times better off than the "rich" were 50000 years ago.

Yes we do have some environmental problems. You know why? Because of people like you who hate government and think that things like environmental regulations are destroying their "freedom" :eyes:.

[The2ndWheel]

37. I think environmental regulations

don't help because all they do is allow us to exploit more.

"racism still existed"

How? There was no race to ism.

"sexism still existed (rape was the norm rather than the exception)"

The norm?

"and starvation and poverty were nearly universal"

Yeah, if one person went hungry, everyone did. That's why you would work together. As opposed to today, when you don't have to lift a finger, and you can still eat better than an actual person pulling a plant from the ground.

"Most people in America today who would be considered below the poverty line are still hundreds of times better off than the "rich" were 50000 years ago."

Since there was no money 50,000 years ago, you'd be correct.

"Yes we do have some environmental problems. You know why? Because of people like you"

No, people like me do our best to stop exploiting human and non-human life. I'm not perfect, but I'm not supposed to be.

The reason we have environmental problems are because everyone wants, expects, and demands more. More of everything. Endless growth. "Progress". That means killing anything that stands in our way of attaining some perfect state of humanity.

Civilization is killing not only us, but all life, including the eco-systems. If you want that to continue, obviously nobody can stop it, because nobody has.

Just the opinion of one person like me.

[Crandor]

38. Do I even need to mention the utter hypocrisy of your using a computer to post this crap?

How? There was no race to ism.
So people just thought of themselves as one big happy family? :rofl:

The norm?
Without laws, women were the property of whoever was strong enough to subdue them (and kill their previous partners, of course).

everyone wants, expects, and demands more. More of everything. Endless growth. "Progress".
So we should all just be satisfied living a completely pointless existance where nothing ever changes?

That means killing anything that stands in our way of attaining some perfect state of humanity.
Ironic. Do you have any idea how many people would have to die before we could live like hunter-gatherers again? Probably around 99%. Now who's "killing anything that stands in our way of attaining some perfect state of humanity"?

Civilization is killing not only us,
That's funny. Do you know what the average human lifespan was pre-civilization? About 20 years. Hobbes said it best about life in the state of nature: "nasty, brutish, and short".

but all life, including the eco-systems.
If you somehow took away everything that civilization has created and left 6 billion humans to fend for themselves, in order to try to find food they would completely plunder the ecosystem like nothing that has ever been seen before. You thought people were insensitive about endangered species now? Wait 'till people need to eat them to survive.

[The2ndWheel]

39. Actually, no, you don't have to point that out

I'm well aware of it. I live in the reality that is 2006. Sue me.

"So people just thought of themselves as one big happy family?"

Didn't say that. But that also doesn't mean that racism existed.

"Without laws, women were the property of whoever was strong enough to subdue them (and kill their previous partners, of course)."

Talk about a civilized view point. Property came about with agriculture. Still, rape was the norm?

"So we should all just be satisfied living a completely pointless existence where nothing ever changes?"

I don't know, how does 2006 feel to you? We all seem to be fairly satisfied. We fight the same fights again and again. Nothing seems to change. The diminshing returns of increased complexity. That's why we always want more, and think what came before was pointless.

"Ironic. Do you have any idea how many people would have to die before we could live like hunter-gatherers again? Probably around 99%. Now who's "killing anything that stands in our way of attaining some perfect state of humanity"?"

I never said we should return to that life style. I know the scale of murder to go back to living that way would be massive. That's why I never said we should go back. There's nothing we can do other than to continue killing all life on the planet for our growth. We must do that, or we die.

"That's funny. Do you know what the average human lifespan was pre-civilization? About 20 years. Hobbes said it best about life in the state of nature: "nasty, brutish, and short"."

Coming from a civilized point of view, naturally.

If we didn't know we "only" lived 20, 30, or 40 years, what would be the difference? Today, we all basically live for retirement. The golden years. That's what, 10 years, give or take?

"If you somehow took away everything that civilization has created and left 6 billion humans to fend for themselves, in order to try to find food they would completely plunder the ecosystem like nothing that has ever been seen before. You thought people were insensitive about endangered species now? Wait 'till people need to eat them to survive."

Again, I never said we could do anything other than grow. 6.5 billion people are here artificially. We must keep that going by ever improved artificial means, or else, as we both fully understand, the scale of death would be unspeakable.

All I know is that the moment we don't have enough energy required to keep this thing going, it's going to collapse. That's entropy, and it always wins. There isn't anything we can do about it though. We have to continue consuming, we have to continue to pump more people out into the world. If we don't, then growth in every aspect of life stops, and that will lead to governments we will all hate, no matter what regulations they may come up with.

Just because I criticized our civilized way of life, doesn't mean I don't live in 2006 America. Like I said, I'm not perfect. Yes, I'd rather be talking to you face to face, and actually knowing who you are as a person, but that doesn't have to happen these days.

We don't go to the moon without civilization. However, the Holocaust doesn't happen either.

[Crandor]

41. If what you say is true then it doesn't even matter what we do

Didn't say that. But that also doesn't mean that racism existed.
Racism existed, "races" were just a lot smaller than. A few dozen people or so each.

Property came about with agriculture.
Only because most things that are owned didn't exist before then.

I never said we should return to that life style. I know the scale of murder to go back to living that way would be massive. That's why I never said we should go back. There's nothing we can do other than to continue killing all life on the planet for our growth. We must do that, or we die.
Or we could just take steps to reduce population growth and energy use...

There isn't anything we can do about it though. We have to continue consuming, we have to continue to pump more people out into the world. If we don't, then growth in every aspect of life stops, and that will lead to governments we will all hate, no matter what regulations they may come up with.
So this is your true agenda then. You want people to continue on the destructive path because doing otherwise would require "big government". After all, the catastrophic devastation caused by a collapse of civilization is nothing next to the horror of having "nanny state" regulations telling you you can't drive that 5mpg car!

[The2ndWheel]

42. Yes, I do tend to have a pessimistic outlook

"Racism existed, "races" were just a lot smaller than. A few dozen people or so each."

People had enough problems finding food, let alone have something called race. You didn't need race, because you didn't need mass control.

"Only because most things that are owned didn't exist before then."

Exactly. Finally we agree on something.

"Or we could just take steps to reduce population growth and energy use... "

We could, but we won't. Not voluntarily anyway. Not on a mass societal level either. Individually, yes. But the institutions that we've created require growth.

"So this is your true agenda then. You want people to continue on the destructive path because doing otherwise would require "big government". After all, the catastrophic devastation caused by a collapse of civilization is nothing next to the horror of having "nanny state" regulations telling you you can't drive that 5mpg car!"

Wow, that's what you got from our exchange?

First, I don't have a car. Don't plan on owning one any time soon either.

It doesn't matter if we shrink or grow, government will get bigger. It has to, because there will be more people if we keep growing. If we shrink, to keep some kind of order, government will have to crack down. The only reason we have any freedom today is because of cheap energy. As long as we have that, we'll keep growing, and the government will grow in relation, as will business. Again, they both have to, because there will be more people needing, wanting, and expecting more.

You think I want the destructive path to continue? I wish it didn't start in the first place.

Regulations and efficiency, in the long run, won't solve anything. They'll just make the problems we face worse.

"If what you say is true then it doesn't even matter what we do"

I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. We keep solving problems with more and more complexity. But that takes more and more energy to do. Whatever our next solution is, it will alter things somewhere. Other species alter their environments too, but not to the scale of humans. There are always unintended consequences to what we attempt. Those are the problems we try and solve with technology and increased complexity. Each time we solve a problem, we end up with a more complex problem to solve. We never catch up. We're always behind the 8-ball.

If we can keep this up, and not turn the living into the dead, I'm nobody to stand in the way. Couldn't if I wanted to, this machine is churning no matter what I think. I don't see how we'll be able to do it though. But then again I'm not all that smart. I assume much more intelligent people are running things. They better be. You have to hope they know how to stop entropy from here until...I don't know when. If they can't, at this point in our civilization, bad things will happen.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

40. so are antibiotics. if we didnt have time to sit around and think no progress would be made.

[Marie26]

43. That's a good thing.

Those early tribes spent most of their time figuring out how to kill & take over tribes that looked or acted different from them. "Tribalism" is in our genes, deep in our DNA, which is why it's so easy to revert to. Civilization made us all live together in relative harmony, and introduced fundamental concepts of diplomacy, human rights, etc. It's civilization that makes us pissed off when we see someone different disrespected or harmed. "Political correctness" is a result of a civilized society, and it helps preserve one.