In defence of political correctness
It’s become standard practice for anyone who considers themselves a bit of a bad-ass to deride “political correctness” whenever they encounter it. Many a self-identifying freethinker has gone on the warpath about “political correctness gone mad”, usually invoking references to censorship and free speech in the process. But does political correctness really have no place in modern society?
Sure, I get it – political correctness can be annoying. Tumblr invents a new gender every week, the Internet is rife with people who actively seek reasons to be offended, and we’ve all heard those scary urban legends about the word “blackboard” being banned from schools. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I believe that political correctness can and does have legitimate social value beyond protecting the delicate flowers of Tumblr's leftist commentariat.
To me, political correctness is about breaking preconceptions. When we’re discouraged to stereotype people, we’re more likely to think about them as individuals rather than a collective “other”. It is this power to open minds that gives political correctness its value.
But many people have come to equate being PC with simply avoiding offending people. Words, the critics maintain, can’t hurt you, and if you find something offensive you should just buck up and stop being such a sook. To be clear, I don’t believe it’s possible or even particularly noble to pursue a society where no one is ever offended and everything is just dandy. But it’s not offense that worries me; it’s not even the words themselves. Rather, it’s the attitudes that the words represent.
[quote]By making it impolite to assume things about someone based on their age, race, gender or orientation, political correctness acts as a deterrent to these kinds of alienating attitudes.[/quote]
Being of mixed Anglo-Indian and Scandinavian descent, I’ve been coming up against racial preconceptions from a young age. But strangely, it was never the hateful vitriol of proud racists that bothered me most; being called a “nigger” or a “terrorist” instantly put the speaker below my threshold for noteworthiness.
Rather, it was the offhand comments of ordinary people that have stuck with me. It was a perfectly nice guy at a party assuming I had a fetish for white women. It was customers at my old job expressing shock at my lack of an Indian accent. It was a friend complaining to me about Indian men being “sleazy”.
Again, it wasn’t the words that bothered me – it was the attitudes, and who was expressing them. Hearing a friend complaining about “sleazy” Indian men, even if they weren’t specifically referring to me, was worrying and alienating because I knew that I – and many others who fit the physical stereotype – would be judged accordingly if that attitude turned out to be a common one. It’s not about being offended; it’s about feeling welcome enough to participate in society. By making it impolite to assume things about someone based on their age, race, gender or orientation, political correctness acts as a deterrent to these kinds of alienating attitudes.
[quote]Things have gotten a lot better within the last 50 years or so, but fascism, racism and discrimination aren’t diseases that we’ve eradicated, like polio or something.[/quote]
Many detractors of political correctness also cite concern for free speech – and I agree that free speech needs to be protected. But the thing is, almost none of these firebrands are actually in danger of having their rights suppressed. To find people speaking out against political correctness, it’s hardly necessary to locate a seedy underground tavern and whisper “viva la revolucione” to gain entry to their hidden rebel base. You can see them in the newspaper, on television, even in parliament. Political correctness isn’t criticised in hushed voices by enemies of the state; it’s routinely hauled out to serve as whipping boy whenever some ass-hat wants to get away with saying something bigoted.
Sure, there are those who take things too far. There’s the banning of Nativity scenes and that idiot who assaulted a white guy for having dreads. But these are extreme examples – and, like I said, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The line has to be drawn somewhere, but we need to make sure that it is just a line – and not a wholesale rejection of all political correctness.
Fundamentally, we have to remember that we are not living in a post-racist society. Nor is it post-sexist, post-ageist, nor post-homophobia. Yes, things have gotten a lot better within the last 50 years or so, but fascism, racism and discrimination aren’t diseases that we’ve eradicated, like polio or something. They’re socio-political responses that can happen at any time, especially in climates of fear and anger – like the one pervading much of the Western world right now. Maintaining a sense of tolerance is like maintaining antibodies against these social afflictions. Normalising discrimination is giving them fertiliser.
And no one wants to be full of shit.
Joel Svensson
Business major, journalism minor and sometime voice-actor, Joel Svensson pretends to be smart at La Trobe University in Melbourne.