An Ent-at-Heart Speaks on Political Correctness

I am finally ready to say what I think of the idea of "political correctness." It has taken me decades to come to a conclusion. Entish of me, I know, but I am reluctant to speak before I am sure of not only what I feel, but of what I think.

In order to remain rational, we have to define not only what "political correctness" is but what it is not. (Which is hard, because, what the hell does that phrase mean, anyway? -- "politically correct"? It really is doublespeak in the truest sense. It's horrible, linguistically.)

Edward Hopper

At any rate, political correctness is not some system that is in place with a head office, a list of bylaws and delineated consequences. Yet, people seem to see it this way. It is not an active governmental program designed to suppress free speech. Yet, people seem to see it this way.

Political correctness is a concept. And like many other artificial social constructs, it wants to be seen as a structure of stone and steel; as something real. In the end, it is no more than an idea. Ideas are important, of course -- maybe the most important force in the world, but an idea that is seen as a rulebook, when it is not, is, at best, imperfect, at worst a virus (for good or ill, depending on your view) in the program that is the collective consciousness of a culture.

Generally, PC seeks to define what is okay to say and what is not. It is not about choosing what to say based on your values and emotional intelligence, it is about prescribing what is allowable to say. Not that there are any teeth in it, mind you....it is just an idea. 

That is what we do with language in 2016. We depersonalize and we prescribe. We move things away from personal responsibility and into some hazy entity of a program we ought to follow -- that we wind up feeling pressured into following; in this case, a program that does not exist in any official sense; a program in which broken rules have no tangible consequences.

The problem is that the more we depersonalize, the more we become empty rule-followers; the spirit is no longer behind the actions; the actions are performed just out of a vague sense that the rules simply must be followed. Don't think; do or do not. Sounds a lot like what people criticize religion for. (Though, at least in terms of Christianity, one glance at the Adam and Eve story will clearly tell you that a blind following of the rules is not what God wants...He wants voluntary good behavior, or He never would have made it a choice.) 

What was wrong with "having manners"? Think of the difference between parents and grandparents telling their beloved children what is polite and people following a list of politically correct terms. Think of the difference in tone between "having manners" and "being politically correct."

My wife and I ate brunch at a great restaurant in Philly, two days ago, but we had a waiter who depersonalized everything. Some waiters say, "I'll be taking care of you." He said "I will be your server." When he asked how he meal was, he didn't say, "I am glad you liked it." He said, "I'm glad it was enjoyable." Everything he said kept us at arms' length. A week earlier, we had had a waitress who was such a warm and witty sweetheart, that a stark contrast was all the more vivid... We engaged with her in our dining experience, but this guy basically just put the plates down for us: the difference between human interaction and mechanical action. He was doing his job; she was being friendly, for her pleasure and for ours.

Rubens

To paraphrase George Carlin -- who was referencing Vietnam vets -- if we still called the condition soldiers suffer after battle "shell-shock" and hadn't changed it to "post-traumatic stress disorder," the soldiers might have gotten the help they needed faster. Plain language is more personal; a more poetic phrase -- an onomatopoetic one like "shell-shock" -- is no+t just for the brain, it is for the heart. It begs for engagement and shared feelings. 

In the process of depersonalizing, we weaken the connection of our intentions to our words and to our actions -- and to each other. Once we lose the connection between words and sincerity, the action that follows them becomes a simple laying down of the plates; there is no shared humanity. 

As a teacher, for instance, I never have made (and never will make) a student apologize for having done something. What good is an apology that is not meant? I will ask a student if he thinks he wants to apologize. And often they do. A forced apology, however, is worthless -- an empty action. 

So, instead of giving people a list of things that are "politically correct" to say, what is wrong with stressing manners? Be nice. Treat others with respect. Old fashioned, I know. But so is sitting on the front porch and talking to neighbors on a summer night. 

One argument in favor of political correctness is that one group gets to decide what they would like to hear or to be called. But long before political correctness existed, people told me, as a child, what was polite and not polite to say -- people I respected taught me to be respectful; that every human deserves some respect for being a human. Sure, it is the lowest level of respect, but it amounts to human decency. It is simple respect for life. (Hell, I even have respect for trees.) 

I know, I know...some people don't have that kind of guidance. So what? Let's work more on developing values than on creating lists. Let's offer parenting theory courses in high schools. Let's bring our kids back to church. Whatever it takes to focus on values and the concept of respect for our fellow humans. If you roll your eyes at this, then, yes, you're right; it's too late, I guess. If you consider it possible, there's hope.

If our child-rearing concept is to collapse, then, what's wrong with sorting things out through people's reaction  to what we say? What's wrong with hearing, "Hey, could you not call me that?" For that matter, how about a nice brawl over an insult. Someone has to learn something from that, in the end.

Once, in class I taught at Rutgers, we were discussing the term "African American," which I was defending, and a black man in the class sat in the back shaking his head. I asked him what he wanted to say and he declared that he hated the term African American, because, although he is black, he was not of African descent. He preferred "black". See, I had to engage with him to find that out. This conversation hurt no one and now at least 25 people knew what he preferred. No bloody noses; 100% real human interaction; point made.

People defend political correctness and people call it the great plague of free speech. But I think that those who call it the plague of free speech are almost seeing it as something that is concrete. What that makes is a kind of gaseous cloud of language-bullying. It floats over our heads and we bow to its gloomy weight. Political correctness is only as powerful as we make it and we make it too powerful.

Manners. We need manners. We need to interact more as if we live on the same planet. Right now, political correctness is the teacher holding two kids by the backs of their collars three minutes after fisticuffs on the playground and forcing them to be friends again. If that teacher would just talk to them...like human beings...they might actually wind up seeing how silly their conflict was; they might even walk out of the room arm-in-arm.

The Cultural Compliment Conundrum

I can't believe I have to suffer under the weight of "political correctness." I don't subscribe to the idea that there are "proper" ways to say things, in regard to race, culture, sex, etc. I do, however, believe, as I have said many times, in self-policing; in thoughtfulness and manners. And I try to do my best. I know, however, that things are going askew when I want to say something that I see as a compliment, and I feel self-conscious about how to say it -- fearing someone will not see it as "politically correct."

This happened today. I was driving home from food shopping and I drove past an old Indian man, in a neighborhood with a thriving immigrant Indian population, and he was walking a walk I had seen there many times: He was in traditional Indian dress, hands behind his back, steps measured and slow. I wanted to say something about this, so I posted this to Facebook:

Elderly Indian men seem to walk with such an easy, un-arrogant type of dignity.

"So what?" you say. "There is nothing offensive in that. What were you worried about, Chris?" Well, that was the third draft of my statement. It's not like the first or second draft called for ethnic cleansing, or anything...it's just that I feared it might sound too much like an over-generalization. I didn't want to sound like I was painting a caricature of an old Indian man. I wanted to draw a portrait of a certain kind of dignity that I feel is particular to older Indian men.

Am I paranoid? If so, it might be for good reason. I remember, once, at a the end of a Christmas party, we were talking about the old TV specials when we were kids, and a friend reminded us of one, in particular, in which all of the kids who went to Santa were dressed in the traditional costumes of their countries. "How politically incorrect that would be now," my friend concluded.

In Defense of "Happy Holidays"

As a "word guy" I am annoyed by a lot of things people say and I have referenced a few of them on H&R. And, like a lot of you, I'm turned off by "doublespeak" and jargon and I am suspicious of anything that is considered "politically correct," not only because being politically correct seems cowardly (even though it is often kind, though more often beneficial to the speaker), but because I have learned that whatever politically correct word or phrase one picks, someone is bound to figure out a way to be offended by it; and, even if a politically correct statement is okay today, it might not be okay tomorrow.

(Think of the progress from that most atrocious of n-words (from the corrupted word "negro") to the gentler "colored" to the proudly proclaimed "black" and, eventually, to the "politicaly correct" "African American" -- a phrase, by the way, that a black college student of mine one voiced violent objection to: "If I hear one more person in this room refer to black people as African Americans, I'm going to flip." His objection was that he was black, but of West-Indian descent and that calling him African American was simply incorrect and that is was also a default disregarding of his culture. He saw, he said, no more problem being referred to as "the black guy" than he would imagine a ginger person should have with being called "the red-haired guy.")