"Political correctness is simply tyranny with manners"
Now I'm all for equality, I am all for it being unacceptable to be offensive for offensivenesses sake. I am all for not victimising people because of their colour, their sex, their perferences and their politics, to name but a few. I am all for that. That's how it should be.
I remember in the 90's though, when Political Correctness first emerged in Tony Blair's Britain. Now, it was a welcome change from Thatcher's Britain when making fun of anyone and everyone was the nature of comedy; when self deprecating comedy became more the thing. They always say "you can tell the maturity of a society by it's comedy" and they are right. Comedy, not literature, is what you measure a society by. We don't measure what they read about, we measure what they laugh about because it is what they laugh about which makes them nervous. Back to that another time perhaps.
Political correctness was essentially the government telling society what was acceptable to laugh at, to talk about, to comment on. It was about telling people that this topic is unacceptable, we cannot talk about this, and we cannot talk about that. I remember in Britain they called it the "Nanny State". Meaning the government was almost taking the form of a surrogate parent, scowling at our childish chatter.
Now, as I said; I do not encourage ANY for of actual hate speech but nor do I condone eliminating free speech because somebody, somewhere might get offended! Part of me feels we have gone beyond too far. I mean we have the follically challenged, the alteratively thin, the actively challenged, the differently beautiful. What is wrong with bald, chubby, lazy and fat? Let me bring out my good friend Denis;
I see it as I say it and I said it as I see it. Your man wolfing down three McDonald's take aways is fat, this guy is a Jew, she's black, he's bald, he's ugly and boy oh boy is he stupid! These truths are self evident right? Wrong!
Airlines cannot charge extra for heavier passengers who take up more room because we can't say the Mitchelin Man is fat.
We have to put warnings on things which should require no such thing because we cannot just laugh at the stupid idiots who pour hot coffee on themselves and are then surprised that it's hot or eat a bag of nuts not realising there are nuts in it and die from the nut allergy they already knew they had. There was once a word for this, evolution!
I, as an Irishman have been upbraided by a non-Irish person for making Irish jokes as I might "Offend the Irish"...missus, I am the Irish and I am doing ther telling!
Humour used to be a release mechanism and now, maybe not so much. Now rampantly racist jokes people get upset about, no fly with me either but common sense people..oh dammit I forgot;
I digress anyway. It is not my intention to give the genuine bigot and idiot justification for their unbridled demonstration of their unfitness to breed. My intent is to make a point and, I feel a very good one.
Now, things have changed since the internet allowed us to, pretty much anonymously express ourselves in a sort of public space with no danger of recrimination or punishment, everyone's favourite visitor to the forum, our best buddy the troll! They feel it is their God (or deity of choice) given right to go off on a tirade about the virtues or lack thereof for said grouping of people, to be offensive or attack those they deem offensive, to defend free speech (as long as you agree with them) or attack it under the guise of being bipartisan. You know the drill by now. It has gone crazy but it's become my favourite thing too polarised again! You know how I love talking about that! let me explain;
If I agree with you then it's Free Speech, if you disagree with me or say I cannot say that, it's an attack on Free Speech.
It's racist if you disagree with a person of ethnicity on some topics.
To disagree with Obama is to be a racist, coz, you know, he's a black dude.
To say Israel could maybe be a little less heavy handed is anti-Semitic
And so on. Now let me clarify one thing, I love Barack Obama, I love his politics, his class, his smarts and his manner but I do disagree with some things he did as President. That does not make a racist, that makes me a human being (mostly). I think Israel has a right to defend itself but keeping Palestine from freedom, behind walls and killing women and kids in order to get at a militant is a little extreme and certainly reprehensible. Again I am no anti-semite. You have a God given right to free speech, damn right you do but you also have a God given brain to filter your speech before it comes out of your mouth! Seriously, if I said half the stuff I was thinking sometimes I'd be in jail or dead!
Le's be brutally honest here; if you say something offensive, it's not accidental, it's no "oh I don't know"; you knew, you thought about it, you did it on purpose unless you truly are beyond stupid. You know that's offensive, that's why you said it, for the attention. it's like my youngest son's favourite trick. He'll be bored or feeling neglected seeing as me and his mum are busy with the babies and he'll appear saying "did you call me, I heard you call me" knowing full well we didn't but looking for an excuse to make an appearence and not look needy and risk rejection at the same time. Or play up and act the clown/comedian knowing he'll get a laugh and some attention. Same thing here, the trolls crave attention and say what they know will get them some; the offensive and incorrect. However here is the thing, they still have the right to say it, we can't stop them.
Now roll forward to 2017 and, speaking of clowns, we come to the current incumbant of the White House. Now let me say one thing, I dislike the man, I dislike his politics, I dislike the hate he generates and thrives on but I give him his due, he knows what the people want. He, with evidence mounting, with misdeeds a-plenty has a legion of utterly loyal fans who swear he is incapable of wrong and why? Tired of feeling they were on the poopy end of the politically correct stick, they see him as a plain talking chap who represents their interests. Completely crazy but true.
We have the extreme Right and the extreme Left you know this and they are the problem but it's those in the middle.In this sensationalist media of today; the media mostly driven by one of the extremes who're are the most at fault. More conservative of folks are genuinely convinced the Left are attacking Christianity, American ways, welcoming in white hating foreigners and putting the white man down. More liberal folks are certain everything is being white washed, Christianised and our sexuality if being stolen from us, women's rights taken away. Now, some of this could well be right but most of it isn't. Keeps us busy fighting rather than cooperating though eh?
You see, there it is, the rub, the crux, the secret. If the left and the right, the middle road of each side, came togother and talked like sensible people, well we'd see we actually had a lot in common and it is these on the extremes we need to deal with, to marginalise to refuse to listen to. Here we are, though, to stupid to see it;
"Political correctness is the tool to maintain political advantage by keeping the plebs too busy fighting each other to bother fighting us."
Comentários