Being Politically Correct About Being Politically Correct
While it has finally started to taper off, the last five years saw a sharp increase in the amount of attention paid towards being "politically correct." It was all the hype. So what was being politically correct all about? It was about not saying or doing anything that could be interpreted as offensive to a particular group of people. An example might be making a joke about the quality of the French military in a French class. Anyways, I am sure nearly everyone reading this already knows what I am talking about.
Most of you who know me realize I have never been very concerned with being politically correct. If it is a good joke, I will tell it. If it is how I truly feel about an issue, I will not hide it. So why is it that I am not concerned with the matter? Originally, it was because I was strongly opinionated in that I should not attempt to disguise, mask, or dilute who I was just because someone might get offended. I was going to be blunt because it was not worth the effort for me to gloss over something because people found it unbecoming. Afterall, do you see anyone putting paper bags over ugly people because they are not attractive? I am going to end this paragraph here because that sentence sums up the idea I was trying to portray better than anything I could have imagined.
Today, I realized that I had been right all these years. I just did not have the logical argument worked out yet. The problem with the present notion of "political correctness" is that it relies on the speaker to not say anything that could potentially be offensive. Considering that anything can be offense to the wrong/right person, a person cannot say anything. Assume a person used to be cruelly humiliated for their weight as a kid when they bent over to pick-up a pen off of the floor. Throughout their childhood, their peers would joke about dropping pens and the strain of having to pick siad pen up. That means you could potentially offend someone by simply remarking, "I dropped the pen." However, if someone were to ask you what you just happened as they saw you stop taking notes in class, it might be considered rude (and therefore not politically correct) to ignore them altogether for fear of offending them by stating you dropped the pen. Now this case is taken to the extreme.
Some of you are probably thinking that in the case of the "pen" individual, it is such a ridiculous thing to be offended by that they should simply understand. Therefore, they should take the responsibility upon themself to not be offended. Why if one person cannot be offended in a unique situation can an individual not be offended in a common situation? If we shift the responsibility to prevent people becoming offended to the listener rather than the speaker, we no longer have to worry about a situation not being "politically correct." We need people to simply understand that the individual is not intentionally trying to offend them. I would have to say in most cases, it is obvious to tell when they are. And if they are trying to be offensive, but we assume they are not, does that really make the world worse? Maybe their would be a few less fights each school year. I am not even going to attempt to project its ramifications onto international politics.
In summary, let us all stop assuming everyone around us is an asshole who is trying to piss us off. Maybe they really do just think it is a funny joke. Maybe what they are saying is their real opinion or observation. Why does it have to be an effort to offend you? Then again, maybe everyone is an asshole, but how does getting offended help the situation?
Most of you who know me realize I have never been very concerned with being politically correct. If it is a good joke, I will tell it. If it is how I truly feel about an issue, I will not hide it. So why is it that I am not concerned with the matter? Originally, it was because I was strongly opinionated in that I should not attempt to disguise, mask, or dilute who I was just because someone might get offended. I was going to be blunt because it was not worth the effort for me to gloss over something because people found it unbecoming. Afterall, do you see anyone putting paper bags over ugly people because they are not attractive? I am going to end this paragraph here because that sentence sums up the idea I was trying to portray better than anything I could have imagined.
Today, I realized that I had been right all these years. I just did not have the logical argument worked out yet. The problem with the present notion of "political correctness" is that it relies on the speaker to not say anything that could potentially be offensive. Considering that anything can be offense to the wrong/right person, a person cannot say anything. Assume a person used to be cruelly humiliated for their weight as a kid when they bent over to pick-up a pen off of the floor. Throughout their childhood, their peers would joke about dropping pens and the strain of having to pick siad pen up. That means you could potentially offend someone by simply remarking, "I dropped the pen." However, if someone were to ask you what you just happened as they saw you stop taking notes in class, it might be considered rude (and therefore not politically correct) to ignore them altogether for fear of offending them by stating you dropped the pen. Now this case is taken to the extreme.
Some of you are probably thinking that in the case of the "pen" individual, it is such a ridiculous thing to be offended by that they should simply understand. Therefore, they should take the responsibility upon themself to not be offended. Why if one person cannot be offended in a unique situation can an individual not be offended in a common situation? If we shift the responsibility to prevent people becoming offended to the listener rather than the speaker, we no longer have to worry about a situation not being "politically correct." We need people to simply understand that the individual is not intentionally trying to offend them. I would have to say in most cases, it is obvious to tell when they are. And if they are trying to be offensive, but we assume they are not, does that really make the world worse? Maybe their would be a few less fights each school year. I am not even going to attempt to project its ramifications onto international politics.
In summary, let us all stop assuming everyone around us is an asshole who is trying to piss us off. Maybe they really do just think it is a funny joke. Maybe what they are saying is their real opinion or observation. Why does it have to be an effort to offend you? Then again, maybe everyone is an asshole, but how does getting offended help the situation?
Labels: Miscellaneous
posted by Shawn Sparks at
10:21 PM
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