Language is the most important aspect of the human condition. I am not talking about vocal or gestural communication- most species on this planet do that. I am talking about the written and spoken words that make up the various languages of cultures around the world- my “Je suis” to your “I am”.
Language is the building block of critical thinking and self-expression. It is the foundation of understanding between each other and the world around us; and the quality of our expression is only as good as the language we communicate in- whether verbal or written. If we cannot communicate effectively we risk being misunderstood. This can lead to being turned down for a job or hurt or killed for what we said. We gain better understanding of this concept whenever a politician speaks, with their twists, innuendos, and double entendres.
Ever since humans began to form communities and a common language there have been incidents of censorship; from erasing the names of controversial Pharaohs from hieroglyphs to the burning of books. It has always been the same insidious agenda, whatever the righteous justification: to control thought. After all, those who control the language control the thoughts and minds of the people, thus subjugating them to their will.
Words, in and of themselves, are meaningless and harmless. It is our connotation that gives them power, emotion, and meaning. A word can elicit a negative or positive response, regardless of its neutral definition, based on our subjective familiarity with it. Its power is formed by the intent of the speaker; the response is in the hands of the listener.
Comedian Billy Connolly once quipped that “Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of political intercourse”. Nowhere is that as relevant as in the rhetoric that all sides of the political establishment hurl at each other. This is especially true when the subject of political correctness comes up amid the discourse.
I can agree with some of the arguments for politically-correct speech. There is no harm in saying chairperson instead of chairman or no longer differentiating between steward and stewardess, for example. The need to subdue or belittle a person’s gender or race by descriptive may have been the status quo in 1816, but this is 2016 and we have to grow up. The goal of a diverse and open society, free of negative connotations and prejudices is a just and worthy goal, but not at the expense of freedom. For all of the potential good the politically correct activists can accomplish they do equal- if not more- damage.
That is due to the sad fact that the political correctness is often not practiced by those who claim to champion it. To the contrary, it is used to silence those who have a different opinion, regardless of that opinion’s merits. It is one thing to speak up for sexual or racial equality, but when you use shame, censorship, and intimidation to do so you are no better than those who perpetuate those antiquated social behaviors and mindsets. We see it in the phenomenon of Outrage Culture sweeping across college campuses like a cancer on common sense.
This was evident even as far back as 1991, when President George H.W. Bush gave a commencement address to the University of Michigan in which he stated:
“Ironically, on the 200th anniversary of our Bill of Rights, we find free speech under assault throughout the United States, including on some college campuses. The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expression off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits.
What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship. Disputants treat sheer force- getting their foes punished or expelled, for instance- as a substitute for the power of ideas.”
If we are to truly have a free and neutral society, then we have to be willing to accept someone’s right to stand on a soapbox and spout the very ideas that we find so abhorrent that we shout back from our own soapbox. To do otherwise is to discredit ourselves and not the other person.
Our willingness to stand with one side or the other goes beyond the rhetoric of political punditry. A hundred years ago popular literature had clear heroes and villains: the black hats and the white hats; the pirate and the merchant. We live, now, in an era where the lines between good and evil are blurred. Behold, for the anti-hero is born. This is someone not quite good, not quite bad. They change faces as often as needed. The bad guy goes good and the good guy goes bad. We lambast the villain on a show for doing something dirty for their own gain and then cheer when the hero does the same a few episodes later. What is the difference? How was it wrong then but right now?
The difference, it seems, depends on where we are standing.
The political roundtable shows excuse away the actions and words of their candidates yet berate the other candidate for doing or saying the same thing. The volleying is so bad that neither side can remember the last lie they glassed over. They even deny it when it is captured in full, high definition, video. We see the result displayed daily in the vitriol over Trump’s campaign pomposity, which is matched only by the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing comments by the Clinton camp. Neither side has the moral high ground and in the end they only succeed in alienating the very voters they hope to covet. The populous, meanwhile, eats it up and adds more fuel to the fires of intolerance and immaturity, which only serves to have each side dig deeper in the sand.
I could really say how I feel about all of this but someone might take exception to my colorful language and censor it for being politically incorrect.
Instead of hiding our hatred and prejudice for another’s expression of free will behind the righteous cloak of political correctness, perhaps we should step out from the shadows and see things from another perspective, if only for a moment. A view does not have two polar opposites but 360 distinct vantage points of consideration. Until we are ready to see an issue from each and every angle possible, perhaps we should do as our mothers suggested and not say anything at all.
Sources: The Week, The American Presidency Project
© 2016 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions
