Correctness is a Moving Target

The idea of political correctness is a concoction usually attributed to well-intentioned liberals wanting to correct the discrimination of the past and prevent unequal treatment in the future. By making unacceptable the expression of ideas and attitudes that are even potentially harmful to others, we cast a pall on the very forum for redress.

But this is only the most recent manifestation of the disease. Just because it has only recently acquired a catchy label doesn’t mean it wasn’t taking place. In general, it is a state where people repress their speech for fear of being branded as politically incorrect, that is, not worthy of respect in society. In one form or another, this has been happening for a long time.

In the recent past it has been incorrect to give an opinion that the U.S. shouldn’t be spending so much on arms, or that Israel ought to treat the Palestinians with more respect. Today it is incorrect to question immigration levels or to suggest that there might be an ethnic or cultural component to any sort of behaviour - even exemplary behaviour.¹⁷ Expressing these opinions could lead to public branding as a bad person with unworthy thoughts.

Innocent behaviour can be swallowed up in the pursuit of enforcing political correctness standards. Behaviour that is even intended to follow correctness can be consumed by ever more extreme interpretations of what is correct.

The unfortunate curator of the Into the Heart of Africa exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum was ostracized for showing that colonial attitudes toward Africa did once exist.

The damage of correctness is most extreme when it has invaded the traditional areas of intellectual discourse and social concern. By rendering certain opinions as unacceptable, even unexpressible, discussion and action get skewed toward unrealistic extremes.

The problem with the recent strain of correctness is that it so readily replicates itself in new, and often more extreme situations. Notions that all men are potential rapists or that people shouldn’t be allowed to write about situations outside their race or class or sex, are examples of ideas that have grown all out of proportion to their due, thanks to the suppression of contrary thought brought about by the chill of political correctness. What starts out as deserved frustration about the prevalence of rape or the suppression of alternative voices in writing quickly leads to unhelpful extremes, when released from the scrutiny of contrary opinion silenced by the fear of voicing incorrect views. And what good do these extreme notions bring about? Instead of concentrating on helping to prevent rape, men are forced to defend their honour. Instead of judging fiction on the quality of the prose, we are expected to scrutinize the race of the author.

Worse still, people simply disengage from public debate out of fear or disgust at the way correctness has treated opinion. The damage is thus much greater than just the perceived casualties of the correctness crusadescorrectness crusades. The publicly branded are the tip of the iceberg. Legions more avoid the debate altogether. What is perceived as apathy may be simple self preservation.

Much of the impetus for political correctness comes from the historically unequal application of rights, and the sense of injustice, grievance, and need for amelioration that this demands.

Shades of Right

Our sense or rights has become distorted by our style of debate. Either it’s a right or it’s nothing. Thus there is only one kind of right, a fundamental right. Coupled with the now entrenched notion of equality as the basis of all rights, it becomes impossible to respect a differing opinion on the merit of any claim for rights.

There is a difference between the right to life and the right to shop.

Many activities can be converted into fundamental rights by changing the definition to one of a right to equality. By making equality the key, we will tend toward unsuitable sameness. Circumstances should be examined. Something can be morally or socially good without it being converted into a right, especially an equality right.

The Ontario NDP government’s defence of their sexual orientation bill was based solely on the fundamental right of equality, rather than on a decision of society to extend a benefit.

The Tibedeau decision on the unconstitutionality of taxing child support payments was based on a right of equality, not on a right to have non taxed child support income, in effect a subsidy of divorce.

By posing a question as a matter of rights you preclude the opposing sides. If you don’t agree with the right, then you’re suffering from a dinosaur mentalitydinosaur mentality. You aren’t allowed to have an opinion on a claim for rights when they are all considered fundamental. Here again, changing your mind is seen as opportunistic and shallow since there is nothing to debate.

Some forms of correctness have attempted to deny or even erase history and culture. This pitting of traditions against claims for equal treatment results from the confusion of equality and sameness.

Zealous government bureaucrats decided to prohibit Christmas decorations in the Ontario legislature building on the grounds of religious equality.

If only we would concentrate more on justice and less on rights we would have a society that acted on its beliefs rather than just talking about them.

Loss of Meaning

What has happened to these words is that they have been equated in the public mind with negative connotations, and have thus been condemned to political correctness oblivion. Similarly, other terms that have taken on derogatory meanings are simply replaced by empty tokens, place holders for meaning that will probably in time become just as unsavoury.

Other words suffer the reverse fate. Once powerful and specific expressions, their inappropriate overuse renders them meaningless. Racism is a prime example.

June Callwood can attest to the now casual use of the term racist.

Most swear words go through this process. Through overuse, they lose their power to offend. Conversely, the swear word euphemisms, like friggin’ and gosh darn, should be equally disturbing to those that use them as substitutes. Everyone knows what words they replace, but they have little effect when the real thing has itself lost meaning.

This process is certainly not new, but seems to be accelerating in our media saturated culture. By referring to terrible events as mishaps or incidents, for example, we sterilize language, lose precision and descriptive power, and make light of complex and profound experiences.

Language is Not a Substitute for Attitude

Language is a powerful tool, that can and does have a negative impact on the way people see themselves and the way they are treated. A good case has been made to jettison gender-specific occupation names, so fireman and stewardess can be changed, but only example and attitude change will alter our image of doctor and nurse. And words like herstory or womyn seem to take this argument too far.

Replacing offensive words with hollow phrases will not produce the desired result. If anything the euphemism will merely draw ridicule. The casual replacement of pejorative terms with euphemisms will become an endless cycle unless the underlying attitudes are addressed.

Differently abled,once crippled then handicapped then physically challenged, is about the best example.

The more euphemistic the term, the more it attracts ridicule. The nomenclature transformationnomenclature transformation has its intended effect only for a short period of time, then the new becomes similarly tainted and must also be discarded.

The use of euphemisms and repression of thought are an attempt to cover up attitudes, to deny they exist. The hope is that this will affect the ways of thinking, that if bad thoughts are suppressed those thoughts will eventually cease. On the whole though, it is not through the suppression of thought and expression that our society will become more just, but through debate, education, dialog and involvement. Political correctness in all its forms attacks the symptom of the problem rather than the cause, often even prevents the discovery and exposure of the cause.

Silent Partners

We act like silent partners, along for the ride, willing to collect on the profits of the endeavour, but unwilling to contribute to the doing. And we don’t question until it directly affects us. How many stories of personal injustice or tragedy have we heard that have spurred the people involved to help others in similar situations. They become advocates for action to help prevent similar problems in the future. It seems natural to want to turn your negative experience into a way to help others who might suffer the same fate. It’s the personal connection to events that makes us willing to become involved.

This is exactly what is missing in the way we run our society. We feel disconnected and powerless to affect change so we don’t even trysilence is not golden. Until it affects us directly, we don’t even want to think about it. Isn’t this the way we have come to treat politics and government? We let the politicians do what they will until it has a direct effect on us or those close to us, and then we act. Sort of a not-in-my-backyard attitude.

I would think that this attitude is pretty well the expected result of the way that commercialism has come to define economics, and economics has come to define politics. Commercialism is not about sharing the wealth and helping your fellow human being, it’s about individual attainment. So the path of politics is not out of whack with the people’s attitudes, but has merely changed to reflect their growing commercial attitude.

Which is all fine so long as everyone is doing well, which they’re not. And then the problems start. They have to do with how we treat each other, how it is we organize our society to deal with those who have not made it. Or those who thought they had but now find they are surplus to requirements, just another expendable human in the economic equation. Which as society becomes less labour intensive could well be just about any one of us.

Why Do We Just Accept Things?

Our society is organized to produce people who have shared attitudes and values. Our educational system, consisting of both formal education and popular culture, is exceptionally good at ensuring consistent attitudes about how our society works and is run. It also very effectively limits the range of questioning we will contemplate, we just won’t think of questioning the fundamentals. We may be willing to question the broad structures of society, especially when we won’t have to implement them.

It was with great gusto that people behind the Iron Curtain threw their lot in with capitalism, safe they thought, in the knowledge that they would never have to participate in the doing.

We also seem to be able to question things that immediately affect us, the local and personal concerns. What we don’t seem to be able to do is question the way the system itself is run, once we have decided on the broad structure.

What we don’t do well is to critique the systems of which we are an integral part. While immersed in a capitalist markettotal immersion program, a technological medical environment, a science and technology whirlwind, or a corporate system, we cannot bring ourselves to comment on the nature of that very system. We are blind to the fundamental faults, perhaps because it is too painful to admit the basic nature of the problems. We can postulate about grand theories that purport to describe these systems. We can also rail against personal maltreatment within, but we aren’t equipped to question the actual working of the system.

Nor are our systems designed to encourage or accept criticism from within. People who do attempt to question the fundamentals are either brushed aside, or berated for disloyalty. We don’t tend to create self correcting systems, ones that would accept or even encourage criticism from within.

Everyday Orthodoxies

We live in a society of assumptions, of built-in ways of thinking with many hidden and overlooked attitudes. We accept these assumptions, sometimes without even knowing it. And there are great implications that flow from what we assume.

Globalization for instance is a current assumption. Orthodox opinion would have us believe that it was inevitable, natural, irreversible, and above all that it had to take the form that it did. A general unease
Permeates society
Like having forgotten to do something
We grope for the cause
Which is ourselves And from this we must accept that the structure and dynamic of our economy will and must be dictated by global forces beyond anyone’s control. Are we sure that this is what we want, or that we have no choice?

The benign nature of science and technology is another orthodoxy. In the West this one is drilled into us from birth. When something goes wrong, we look to technology to save the day. When technology threatens to wrench our way of life, we welcome it with open arms. When science experiments with life, we tout it as another amazing human achievement. We have reached a stage of almost total worship of science and technology, believing in its infallibility, or at the least, its inevitability.

The very nature of our economy is an assumption. When studied it is treated as an autonomous system, full of danger and opportunity, but well beyond the political and moral control of the citizens. Yet everything we do in a modern society is constrained by the economy. The very idea of society is bound up in the belief that the economy will provide for the individual and collective pursuits of its members.

The commercialization and hence trivialization of culture is another reality we have come to accept. That we would passively accept this is astonishing, as culture is the very soul of society. This is a result of the fusion of our beliefs in the nature of the economy, in globalization, and in technology.

And we believe these orthodoxies. They are beliefs because we have no basis for questioning the foundation of these propositions. Our political system is now so tightly coupled with the economy that it has squelched all will to question these things. Our education system is incapable of preparing us to question these orthodoxies because it is bound up with them. It is a product of the same forces that perpetuate orthodoxy, and in turn acts as one of its most powerful tools.

The System Is For People, Right?

Either we live in a democracy or we don’t. If we do, then we are in charge and have responsibility for the way things run. We must exert control, and not just at the ballot box! It takes effort to be involved in the running of society, effort that must be expended by as many people as possible if we are to truly live in a self-governing system. The evident frustration of large numbers of people is a testament to their desire for control that is being thwarted, intentionally and unintentionally. The lack of confidence in our political system is both obvious and unnerving, for, short of revolution, it is this system we must work within.

I believe the anti-tax
anti-government
anti-peopleanti-tax, anti-government mania that is sweeping the land is an expression of a lack of confidence in our ability to govern collectively, and thus a turn toward self-interest. For too long the political system has just ticked along on auto-pilot, with practically no citizen intervention. And this was fine, until we started to notice that we were losing jobs and thus financial predictability, were paying more and more in taxes, faced a ballooning debt, and watched as our cherished social safety net was dismantled. And then we clued in, and started to notice that everything wasn’t unfolding as it should.

What we haven’t yet noticed though is that the economic system isn’t structured for people. Yet, as things go wrong economically, we move to the right, toward the same economic forces that produced the problems, that defined the system. We move to constrain our government – the means to express our collective will – in an attempt to take back control. But all we end up doing is to inhibit our ability to counteract the autonomous forces that we have unleashed.

We need to question the way society runs. And to be able to do this, we need to be able to recognize the structures of society and the motivations of people. But first, we have to recognize our own perspective, the orthodoxies we accept, and especially the ones we don’t notice. This is not an easy task, it is hard to be vigilant about our creeping assumptions. But if we are not, our society will continue on its current path – in the direction that so many of us find unattractive.

Dennis Potter, who was passionately concerned about the disintegration of civic life, had this to say about the Thatcher era in Britain:

¹⁷ That is, exemplary from the bourgeois, white, male, heterosexual, Western perspective.

¹⁸ Dennis Potter, Seeing the Blossom, pp 16-17.