PC Bros
It seems that a day doesn’t go by without society producing yet another one of its numerous goal-driven, passionate, and zealous groups pushing an agenda with exaggerated force. This time the newest of these groups emerged from America’s college campuses and developed into the “Political Correctness Police” (PC Police); its shadow looming over the young susceptible minds of students. Their goal was simple: to eradicate the world of racism, body-shaming, discrimination against cripples and disables, or any other possible form of offense (or perceived offense) shown to any minority group. While the idea is a valiant one, the method used and the extend to which they have gone are rather shortsighted, extreme, and ideological to the point of being dangerous. In short, this mission to rid the world of these harmful social interactions may bring about more harm than good.
The PC culture on campuses does not provide an environment for open conversations or discussions. Instead it revolves around social media attacks via comments and private messages, death threats, violence, suppression of freedom of speech, etc. This extreme unidirectional hate towards individuals by groups of people who do not realize that they are in fact ignoring everything else that is crucial to a healthy society for a narrow-minded objective is destroying fundamental human rights. And not only is it negatively affecting our inalienable rights, but it is also severing the use of our language. Suddenly, the vocabulary we were using before had to be discarded and replaced by either technical jargon that carries less meaning than before, or by completely unrelated words that aims to strip away all historical and cultural significance to the definition. Most, if not all of the interactions I have either directly witnessed or heard about between the members of the “PC Police” and other unsuspecting individuals have involved what I can only describe as bullying. These PC fanatics quietly wait until someone uses a word in the most innocuously inappropriate way (ie: using the word policemen instead of the more gender-neutral police officers) and then they viciously and verbally begin to attack him/her for being insensitive, ignorant, offensive, sexist, racist, misogynistic, isolationist, degrading, derogatory, etc.
I agree that political correctness can be important in certain scenarios that aid in the functioning of society. However, this overwhelming aggression demonstrated by these “PC Police” groups to simple jokes, casual cultural references, and harmless use of specific language belies their true nature: they in fact do not understand how to deal with cultural differences and human disabilities so they resort to a misguided use of psychological and physical violence against those who do not see eye-to-eye with them.
Censored speech is by definition NOT free speech and this basic freedom to exercise the right to occasionally poke fun at or highlight cultural stereotypes and our many many differences within the human species is one of the cornerstones of a healthy society. We must embrace our differences, sometimes laugh at them, and move forward as a colorful mixture of our shared histories, cultures, traditions, and world views. The political correctness culture does not impress me as a progressive movement. Rather, it strikes me as a group of fanatics who have lost their perspective and have fallen to become yet another collective bunch of ideological extremists that are, in the end, harming society.
*the image used above was taken from intellectualtakeout.org via google*
*the author is not affiliated with South Park in any way, shape or form and was not compensated in any way, shape or form for the inclusion of the image*
YHJ
