If Political Correctness Is A Game, Here Are The (Obviously Correct) Rules.

(Dictated to tape whilst driving about town and walking around the neighborhood -- this is just a framework -- it will be whipped into shape Real Soon Now)

There are few areas in modern Western social life that offer as much range for play and expression as Political Correctness. Political Correctness, as a game, can be played from a number of different vantage points. As a participant, as a critic, as an observer, as a subject. Each one of these viewpoints -- for the game, we'll consider them to be Players -- has its own set of guidelines.

It is important when participating in ... PC gameplay, to ignore the actual history of the term. The label 'PC' was first seen in the San Francisco Bay Area leftist press in the late 60s and early 70s, used to describe ultra-enthusiasts with very narrow interests, who would ignore or attack other interests in order to promote their own. If someone was exclusively pro-environment, pro-feminist, pro-minority, pro-anything, or especially if they were anti- any derogation or criticism of their field of interest, they were commonly referred to in the leftist press and community as being 'PC', and this was meant as a JOKING term.

"Ah, don't be so fucking PC! Go nuke the gay whales or something, why doncha?" —Anon.

A couple of decades later, the right wing took up the term, and not in a joking way, but as a sharp aggressive point, behind which to drive their agenda. Any liberal or humanist program, any effort to promote dignity and respect and reduce hostility and divisiveness, was labeled by reactionary demagogues as 'PC'. Attempts to end gender-ethnic-class bias, to reduce hate speech, to improve social conditions, was 'PC' (or maybe 'social engineering').

This important history of the term, if it were to be considered in modern PC gameplay, would quickly end the game. It would take away the point -- y'know, PC is NOT about being ironic and playful -- PC is about the application of power politics.

So, in order to go on with the game, ignore reality, just push your own viewpoint. "PC the game" is not about physical reality -- it is about symbolism. Specifically, it is about words. Any interest group or segment of society may define itself as being described by or encompassing a certain set of words, those words are acceptable, that language is what's appropriate for that subject (according to the participants) -- all other words are IN-appropriate. Those who insist on a set of appropriate terms are usually called PC, and those who don't are usually considered anti-PC.

•   So, when playing the game, we choose some area - it might have to do with ethnicity; with gender or gender identification; social identification - religious, political, economic, cultural; it may to do with specific environmental aspects, ranging from individual species, groups of species, to biospheres, to the entire planetary and even interplanetary environment(s).
•   SO, the various players in the PC game will advance their points -- in this case I shouldn't say 'points' 'cause it has to do with scoring -- will advance their platforms and agendae with ARGUMENTS. And these arguments are to be scored, for game purposes, by counting points. One point goes to an argument that can be countered, two points goes to an argument that cannot be countered, and three points for every argument that cannot even be comprehended.
•   In each of the four groups of players - advocate, critic, observer and subject - there may be multiple participants. Participants may score points by being ranked against other participants in their group, as to who is more or less PC, critical, observant, and exploited or targeted in the case of the subject. [Change 'participant' to 'player' in all the following.]
•   Participants in any of the 4 classes can switch to any other class at any time. As soon as any one participant does so, all the other members of the classes they have both joined and left then engage in evaluating their pecking order. This may be done by merely comparing points they've already accrued, by issuing new statements, by engaging in a pissing contest of one sort or another, or by judgment of other participants in other classes.
•   Participants may also be members of different classes simultaneously. They may gain status if they are high-point individuals in all of the classes they're members of, and they may lose points if they are low-scoring individuals, dissipating their energies. Thus it's possible for a subject to also either be an advocate or a critic, or an observer, or an observer and a critic, or an observer and an advocate, and so on.
•   Participants may belong to various occupational groups, each group and sub-group have a, their own scoring factors, so that any points they would otherwise earn are multiplied by that factor to determine their award or loss at any point. These occupational groups shall include: the press, which can indeed be broken down, journalists can be broken down into working press, pundits, talk-show hosts, news anchors, mouthpieces; politicians, which can be broken down into elected and appointed, bureaucrats; citizens, as taxpayers; clients, that is recipients; academics, who might also be pundits; religious activists; and other social activists.
•   For the PC game to work, there needs to be a standardized scoring system, a mechanism for evaluating and rewarding points. The play of consist each participant in turn making a statement. The play shall be mediated by a game-master, who represents public opinion. That gamemaster shall award points to each participant for each participant's statement, as I said before: 1 point for refutable, 2 points for irrefutable, and 3 points for incomprehensible.
•   Play will continue until at least one member [player] has brutalized another member, or all agree that the game is no longer worth playing, or when one player has accumulated 100 points. I know that that part doesn't have much to do with real life, but what the heck, it's ONLY A GAME. Right?
•   Each participant's statements shall be written on a 3x5 card. The gamemaster will accumulate those cards, score them, and store them. At any point in the play, any participant may challenge any other participant, to have that other player's entire history of statements be evaluated for coherence, consistency, for contradictoriness, or lack of being self-contradictory, and the challenged player's score will be evaluated; however the challenging player will lose some points in order to make the challenge, for wasting the players' and gamemaster's time.
•   In the subgroups of the occupational group 'academia', will be physical scientists, and social scientists, general educators and others; other sub-groups within that will be faculty, members of think tanks, Nobel laureates and others. Another occupational group shall be artists, subgrouped into working artists, subsidized artists, academic artists, prize-winning artists - those with Pulitzers will have their own unique scoring factor. Those with Newberry awards -- well, there'll be specific scoring factors for, depending on what awards and how many awards any particular artist has been awarded.
•   Other categories, occupational and participatory groups, will be citizens, non-citizens, refugees, human-rights violators... officials of non-governmental organizations, and employees of public-relations and advertising firms. And lawyers.
•   And at random intervals throughout play, a news story will be generated concerning some issue that will affect the further statements of the players. Also, random factors... no, that's it.
•   At any time in play, any participant may raise the charge against another player who has just issued a statement, that, charging them with DEMAGOGUERY. And I can probably work up some other charges that would apply too. And if, whenever such a charge is made, a vote will be taken among the other, among ALL the players, and if the charge is upheld by the vote, the charger gains points and the charged loses points. If the vote is a tie or a vote against the charge, then the reverse occurs, the charged gains points and the charger loses points. [The gains and losses need not be symmetrical.]
•   Variants of the Political Correctness game can be played in different environments - mostly relating to dogma - political dogma, and religious dogma would be the most common and obvious. So the participants would then be, say in the political dogma case: the party theoretician; revisionist historian; commentators; liberal and conservative wings, et cetera. Similarly in the religious dogma game, the various participants would represent different power blocs within a religious community, from the authoritarians to the radicals and schismatics. Also willing and unwilling converts, proselytizers and targets, etc. In fact there should be procedures in these games for officially declaring a SCHISM and in which case the schismatics would be kicked out to start a new game.
•   I hope it's understood that in the context of the PC game, the statements that I talked about that are the game play are statements about social issues, issues that are seen as being subject to Political Correctness, or statement about such statements. So these statements should not be about totally irrelevancies, although in the context of ethnicity, belief, politics (and gender, class, etc), that leaves a pretty wide range of topics that can be discussed.
•   Indeed, we could have a prescribed list of subject areas for statements. It could be as broad as ethnicity, race, religion, politics, gender / sexuality, economics, exploitation, I'm sure some other categories can be devised and added; and either by rolling dice or by choice, some sorta method for choosing, can select the subject of any statement to be made by any player. Or the player can be forced to make a statement about the news item that is randomly generated, or may choose to issue a rebuttal to a comment upon any previously issued statement.
•   That list of allowable subjects could be constrained to just a few, to keep the scope of the PC game narrow, leave more sway, more room for play in other games, in the religion dogma and political dogma and economic dogma or whatever games. Or the range of subjects could be very wide, it could also cover conspiratorialism and the like. Which could lead to statements about space aliens, the paranormal, and the like, and debates over the political correctness of those.