My understanding of the term "PC" is that we basically try to be as inoffensive as possible in public. Where this encourages people to not use racist, sexist, etc language, it's generally a good thing.
To the degree that it encourages people to hem and haw about uncomfortable truths, like "this is killing people," it's often counterproductive.
I'm a former military wife. The military is not a culture that tries to politely find ways around talking about death. It's pretty blunt about some things that the civilian world finds uncomfortable.
Nitpick: Lack of PC is not uncomfortable. Quite often it is about telling things the person finds comfortable and that feel good - the ones that imply speaker is superior or that someone was always right about world.
I'm aware that politically incorrect remarks are often about privileged people being unconscionably rude and that such remarks are typically not uncomfortable for the speaker.
I'm trying to make a distinction between being appropriately concerned with respecting the feelings of other people and situations where it's actively problematic in terms of clear communication to try too hard to be delicate about a topic. There are situations where that actively fosters misunderstanding, having nothing at all to do with the fact that privileged people are frequently oblivious to how hurtful their words are for other demographics.
My source delicately frames this problem as "causing harm to some patients." Most people would not frame a dramatically higher death rate as "causing harm to the patient." That framing implies survival.
I think it's appropriate in this case to baldly state that we are talking about people dying, not people suffering moderately more. I've explained why.
I know what you mean. My offtopic remark was claim that it is more. Not just insensitive remark cause you are too privileged.
Instead, itis remark that actively feels good and thus actively makes you more popular among people whose ego is raised by that remark. Remark done so that a group like you more, because you say things that feel good. (Also bonding, but that another topic). Nationalism would be good analogy - it is targeted primary at in-group, to make in-group stick together, feel good and follow you. Like Petersons "women are chaos men are order" is more about making boys feel superior which is pleasant then about any effect on women. It is not random either - it is populist statement actively making a group of people want to.listen to you and worship you. Because it feels good to be order, even if you know deep down it is not true.
You may be underprivileged or unhappy and use that to make yourself feel better about yourself. You may be priviledged and use non PC remark to attract followers, build coalition with both underprivileged and privileged, make common ennemy of whatever group you make fun of.
Not always, but I think fairly often it is used like this - both offline and online. I have seen this play out enought times in both settings to finally conclue the above.
That sounds more like a tangent than a nitpick. Nitpick means "Yes, this is ridiculously minor, but I'm going to argue with you anyway about this tiny insignificant detail about which you are wrong."
To the degree that it encourages people to hem and haw about uncomfortable truths, like "this is killing people," it's often counterproductive.
I'm a former military wife. The military is not a culture that tries to politely find ways around talking about death. It's pretty blunt about some things that the civilian world finds uncomfortable.