This is an incredibly well-written article. I wish I had the emotional distance and mastery of english express myself with such grace.
Unfortunately for me (and everyone) it takes me a lot longer to find the exact words for my frustrations in a situation like this. So I end up wanting to say inflammatory accusations like "PC-group-think witch-hunt," which captures my anger but doesn't really convince anybody on the other side (but rather escalates the tension).
The author cleverly brings both sides together by picking a starting point we all agree "Accuracy in journalism matters" and dissecting how that value was compromised [in this particular case] in order to promote another value: "Diversity matters."
Paul Graham describes such a technique in his seminal essay.
One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion. The spread of the term "political correctness" meant the beginning of the end of political correctness, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress.
Unfortunately for me (and everyone) it takes me a lot longer to find the exact words for my frustrations in a situation like this. So I end up wanting to say inflammatory accusations like "PC-group-think witch-hunt," which captures my anger but doesn't really convince anybody on the other side (but rather escalates the tension).
The author cleverly brings both sides together by picking a starting point we all agree "Accuracy in journalism matters" and dissecting how that value was compromised [in this particular case] in order to promote another value: "Diversity matters."
Paul Graham describes such a technique in his seminal essay.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion. The spread of the term "political correctness" meant the beginning of the end of political correctness, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress.
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