[PEN-L:33481] Re: Too much PC

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Eugene Coyle wrote a nice response to me, and I thought I would add some
clarification to my somewhat cryptic response to Carrol.  There is a good
metaphor from Spike Milligan who died this year.  Spike was a British
comedian post WWII who worked early on with Peter Sellers.  Anyway first a
little quip that I think funny,

Spike, I want on my epitaph "I told you I was ill!"

anyway Spike also created a sketch on the Goon show,

Quoting from the New York Times Sunday Magazine 12/29/02, page 54,

"in one show, Sellers and Secombe cautiously lower a boat into the Amazon.
When they reach land, Milligan is already standing, there.

"How did you get ashore?"  He is asked.

Milligan answers proudly, "I came across on that log."

The other two are baffled.  They shoot back: "Log?  That's an alligator!"

"Ohhhh,"  Milligan dimly explains.  "I wondered why I kept getting shorter."

Doyle
Which aptly summarizes my state of mind about quibbling with JKS about words

I say words damn it

anyway I digress.  About three years ago I started writing into lists.  And
Almost immediately I took up my words and disability theme with Max Sawicky.
I could see at the time the limited utility of this sort of discourse.  But
there are relatively little ways to bring up the subject in a meaningful
way.  So off and on over three years I've used various opportunities to
explore once again a familiar territory, or if you may permit a metaphor,
ride the hoppy hoppy hobby horse.  I have other hobby horses to ride, and
some of them on disability have more practical purpose to them.

In particular I work with a group in Web Accessibility Initiative of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) writing documents published on the internet
explaining accessibility for the disabled to the internet to the public.
This sort of common working together is a better model of how to advance
disability rights than trying to constantly 'Hector' Achilles (JKS).  The
group produces papers and individual like myself can't hope to match.  The
standards making process is extremely complex.  For example see the
relationship of the W3C to IPR (Intellectual Property Rights, and also see
what Michael Perelman has written in his books that cover the economics of
IPR).

I was admitting political defeat really.  For me the higher purpose of the
left is to build not tear down.  In many ways PC is criticism and
correctness.  But there are definite weaknesses to correctness.  It is
fundamentally an Enlightenment approach to brainwork.  PC is also a cover
for strong feelings.  I have strong feelings about disability rights, but
strong feelings can be plastic.  Admitting defeat, and accepting the
strength of others is a source of strength that PC doesn't allow.  How
refreshing from my point of view to put down something that I grow weary
using.  Perhaps I will use sometime again, but only in a minor way.  I
prefer to build the left.  To work together.  To let Achilles be Achilles.
Achilles was gyrating about, dancing with the freedom of saying what he
pleased in the face of PC methods.  And I would like to be wild and crazy as
Spike Milligan myself.  So I accept that a position that has given me much
in the end is so flawed I must put it down.  Not to mount that hobby horse,
but to move on to another rocking horse and rootin tootin six gun shooting
away we go again.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor