The more subtle one: politically correct people sometimes also describe humans from other culture as aliens, just to signal how tolerant they are; because tolerance to an alien is more difficult, and therefore more noble, than tolerance to a mere human.
The red car effect/availability heuristic at work - I instantly thought of a Zizek quote. Or were you quoting this bit too?
“Liberal attitudes towards the other are characterized both by respect for otherness, openness to it, and an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the other is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the other. Tolerance thus coincides with its opposite. My duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him or her, not intrude into his space—in short, that I should respect his intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be ‘harassed’, that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others.”
I'm more on the "good fences make good neighbors" side, which I guess is the opposite from Zizek (judging by this quote; I don't know more about his opinions). He criticizes the fear of harassment (and labels it "obsessive", just to remind the reader that it is a boo light); I would like to talk also about those specific situations where the threat is real.
To me it seems that the "politically correct" description of people from other cultures is that they are a) completely different, but also b) completely harmless.
On the othe...
Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules: