Question #3 -- I Can't Say WHAT??
February 23rd 2007 14:53
OK, the last couple of posts have picked at big, larger-than-life issues. Today I'd like to tone it down a bit and wrestle with something a bit more mundane. It's a topic that concerns us all, and threatens to repress us all. So, today's question is: what's wrong with political correctness?
We humans have certainly run quite the meandering marathon when it comes to our freedom of expression. True freedom of expression is a relatively new invention. For most of human history, the king/pharaoh/state/etc. has exercised tremendous clout over which ideas were permissible to express and which were not. Freedom of expression was not encouraged: in fact, since early civilizations tended to incorporate their various religious practices into their politics (yes, I'm aware that that's hardly an unknown factor today --another post for that one), speaking in any manner not consistent with mandates from the government was a very serious offense, tantamount to blasphemy. Even in more secular states, punishment could be meted out by the rulers at their whim. Avoiding those whims was far more pressing to the populace than was making controversial points. Hardly encouraging scenarios for free speech.
One ray of hope in the darkness of ancient times was that of the Greeks. While certainly not blameless, the Greeks encouraged inquisitive thought and valued knowledge and learning. Their institution of the Senate meant that people (well, men who owned land) could express themselves and discuss with their fellows as to which was the best way to govern, as opposed to being told what to do by one ruler. It was the first stab at democracy, and by and large it was successful. However, since Socrates was executed for supposedly leading the youth of Athens to atheism, we can safely say that true freedom of expression did not exist in Greek times either.
It only got worse from that point. A quick reflection back to your history lessons regarding the Dark and Middle Ages, and the total control exhibited by the Church over the people, should be sufficient for us to agree that there have been few times in human history where freethinking was less acceptable.
And then, the Enlightenment! Voltaire, Descartes, Paine....thoughts that flew in the face of the accepted institutions finally were laid out for the world to see. In concurrence with this, a new country was formed out of great conflict, in response to oppression and tyranny. America, founded by men who valued freedom of all kinds and had staked their lives on attaining it, took the bold step of setting in writing the notion that all of her citizens had the right to express themselves freely without fear of persecution (this is contrary to the assumption so many Americans have that the country was founded on CHRISTIAN principles. Oh, don't worry, I can promise we'll get to that idea here someday). This even applied to expressions critical of the government, powerful businesses, etc. Now, America's hands are far from clean: we have the stains of slavery and the destruction of the Indian nations to forever remind us of that. But the one virtue we've always displayed here has been our freedom to express ideas on all sides of an issue. Until now, that is.
For the last 15 years or so, we have witnessed an assault on free speech in this country. This attack has been waged under the guise of protecting people from unfair criticism, persecution, etc. Sounds noble enough, right? Sadly, the true results of these actions are far more detrimental to the public than the repressed comments ever could have been.
The shift has happened slowly, one case at a time. Now, I would argue that we no longer have the right to freedom of expression anymore; instead, we have the right to stifle expression that we deem offensive. Whatever ideas no one is offended by seem to be safe, until someone finds fault with those as well. Some examples of PC gone mad:
---Recently, Muslims have decried Fox's hit show, 24, saying that it portrays Muslims in a bad light. The last time I checked, Fox was not saying that all Muslims were terrorists, supported terrorists, or anything else to that effect. Also the last time I checked, one of the primary issues in the world today is international terrorism, namely that which is waged by fundamentalist Muslims. That is not anything that can be debated. So, since this is true, how can Muslims claim that Fox is being insensitive by portraying Muslims as the villains on 24? It is a fictional show that gets it's inspiration from current events. If Muslims want to protest something, they should rise up against the zealotry amongst their ranks and demand that it come to an end. It is not Fox that is portraying Muslims poorly; extremist Muslims do that. For the Islamic community to hold the rest of society accountable for acknowledging reality is irrational and cowardly.
---Everyone is aware of Michael Richards' (Kramer on Seinfeld) recent spectacular meltdown at a comedy club. What he said was deplorable and sad. He of course owed a direct apology to the club patrons to whom he directed the comments. And that should have been it. No money should have changed hands, as the financial situation of the audience members was exactly the same after Richards' rant as it was before. If anyone is suffering financially from this, it is Richards himself. He needn't be fined for his actions, as the court of public opinion has essentially declared his career to be at an end. This is as it should be. We all have the freedom to say what we wish (provided it doesn't lead to physical harm or substantial financial hardship for someone), understanding that there may be repercussions for those words. Richards exercised his freedom and now he will pay for it forever. End of story. It should have been, anyway! Richards DID offer an immediate apology -- to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. My memory is a bit fuzzy sometimes, but I'm fairly certain that Richards did not yell at either of these two gentlemen in the club. But, thanks to the efforts of the esteemed Revs. in shoving themselves into the spotlight in every potential racial issue over the course of the last two decades, they now seem to represent all black people. PC damage control dictated that Richards apologize to these con artists before he even apologized to the actual people affected. This is an insult to those men, and more importantly, it's an insult to common sense.
---General examples of demanding public apologies. PETA demanded that Christina Ricci apologize for wearing fur. Why? It's not illegal, they simply don't like it. Gay rights groups demanded that a recent ad for Snickers, aired during the Superbowl, be pulled and an apology issued ( ignoring the fact that the ad was really spoofing heterosexual concepts of manliness). Also during the Superbowl, an ad wherein an assembly line robot commits suicide due to lack of work was pulled after demands by suicide watch groups. This is common practice now, where people seem anxious to find offensive material where none is intended. We are slowly losing the ability to laugh at ourselves, or at least not to take things too seriously. I can't say this loud enough: THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEE THAT NO ONE, ANYWHERE, WILL EVER BE OFFENDED!! But it seems we're being taught that now. And where are people learning this? In school, of course!
---A school in Attleboro, MA has recently declared the recess staple, Tag, to be verboten. Why? Why, because being "it" sends a message of being different or ostracized to children of course! How silly of me, I thought it was a game. Oh yeah, and also, we ARE different!
Examples in schools abound. Sexual harassment charges for 5-year-olds. Expulsions for kids with water pistols. Teachers caught in the paradox of being expected to stress diversity, while somehow pretending that we're all exactly the same. Slowly, we in America are raising up a new, unique generation. This generation will have been inculcated with the notion that it is the world's responsibility to suit them, not theirs to adapt to the world. They will believe that they should not experience disappointment or failure -- ever. They will be convinced that all ideas are equally valid, despite how moronic they might sound. Most worrisome, they will believe that one of the worst things anyone can do is to express an idea which might be met with disagreement or offense. It is a generation we are breeding to succeed, but we're setting them up to fail.
With every concession we make, and with every inch of ground we surrender, we limit ourselves a bit more. Every time another idea or word or picture is deemed subjectively offensive by one group or another and added to the ever-growing list of "unacceptables", we diminish our ability to communicate that much more. There is no single idea or word or image that everyone likes. There is no single thought or action that we all deem beneficial. With our growing right to eliminate all those things that we don't like, we can each work to guarantee that those things won't be tolerated anymore. Eventually we'll be left with exactly what we deserve. Nothing at all.
We humans have certainly run quite the meandering marathon when it comes to our freedom of expression. True freedom of expression is a relatively new invention. For most of human history, the king/pharaoh/state/etc. has exercised tremendous clout over which ideas were permissible to express and which were not. Freedom of expression was not encouraged: in fact, since early civilizations tended to incorporate their various religious practices into their politics (yes, I'm aware that that's hardly an unknown factor today --another post for that one), speaking in any manner not consistent with mandates from the government was a very serious offense, tantamount to blasphemy. Even in more secular states, punishment could be meted out by the rulers at their whim. Avoiding those whims was far more pressing to the populace than was making controversial points. Hardly encouraging scenarios for free speech.
One ray of hope in the darkness of ancient times was that of the Greeks. While certainly not blameless, the Greeks encouraged inquisitive thought and valued knowledge and learning. Their institution of the Senate meant that people (well, men who owned land) could express themselves and discuss with their fellows as to which was the best way to govern, as opposed to being told what to do by one ruler. It was the first stab at democracy, and by and large it was successful. However, since Socrates was executed for supposedly leading the youth of Athens to atheism, we can safely say that true freedom of expression did not exist in Greek times either.
It only got worse from that point. A quick reflection back to your history lessons regarding the Dark and Middle Ages, and the total control exhibited by the Church over the people, should be sufficient for us to agree that there have been few times in human history where freethinking was less acceptable.
And then, the Enlightenment! Voltaire, Descartes, Paine....thoughts that flew in the face of the accepted institutions finally were laid out for the world to see. In concurrence with this, a new country was formed out of great conflict, in response to oppression and tyranny. America, founded by men who valued freedom of all kinds and had staked their lives on attaining it, took the bold step of setting in writing the notion that all of her citizens had the right to express themselves freely without fear of persecution (this is contrary to the assumption so many Americans have that the country was founded on CHRISTIAN principles. Oh, don't worry, I can promise we'll get to that idea here someday). This even applied to expressions critical of the government, powerful businesses, etc. Now, America's hands are far from clean: we have the stains of slavery and the destruction of the Indian nations to forever remind us of that. But the one virtue we've always displayed here has been our freedom to express ideas on all sides of an issue. Until now, that is.
For the last 15 years or so, we have witnessed an assault on free speech in this country. This attack has been waged under the guise of protecting people from unfair criticism, persecution, etc. Sounds noble enough, right? Sadly, the true results of these actions are far more detrimental to the public than the repressed comments ever could have been.
The shift has happened slowly, one case at a time. Now, I would argue that we no longer have the right to freedom of expression anymore; instead, we have the right to stifle expression that we deem offensive. Whatever ideas no one is offended by seem to be safe, until someone finds fault with those as well. Some examples of PC gone mad:
---Recently, Muslims have decried Fox's hit show, 24, saying that it portrays Muslims in a bad light. The last time I checked, Fox was not saying that all Muslims were terrorists, supported terrorists, or anything else to that effect. Also the last time I checked, one of the primary issues in the world today is international terrorism, namely that which is waged by fundamentalist Muslims. That is not anything that can be debated. So, since this is true, how can Muslims claim that Fox is being insensitive by portraying Muslims as the villains on 24? It is a fictional show that gets it's inspiration from current events. If Muslims want to protest something, they should rise up against the zealotry amongst their ranks and demand that it come to an end. It is not Fox that is portraying Muslims poorly; extremist Muslims do that. For the Islamic community to hold the rest of society accountable for acknowledging reality is irrational and cowardly.
---Everyone is aware of Michael Richards' (Kramer on Seinfeld) recent spectacular meltdown at a comedy club. What he said was deplorable and sad. He of course owed a direct apology to the club patrons to whom he directed the comments. And that should have been it. No money should have changed hands, as the financial situation of the audience members was exactly the same after Richards' rant as it was before. If anyone is suffering financially from this, it is Richards himself. He needn't be fined for his actions, as the court of public opinion has essentially declared his career to be at an end. This is as it should be. We all have the freedom to say what we wish (provided it doesn't lead to physical harm or substantial financial hardship for someone), understanding that there may be repercussions for those words. Richards exercised his freedom and now he will pay for it forever. End of story. It should have been, anyway! Richards DID offer an immediate apology -- to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. My memory is a bit fuzzy sometimes, but I'm fairly certain that Richards did not yell at either of these two gentlemen in the club. But, thanks to the efforts of the esteemed Revs. in shoving themselves into the spotlight in every potential racial issue over the course of the last two decades, they now seem to represent all black people. PC damage control dictated that Richards apologize to these con artists before he even apologized to the actual people affected. This is an insult to those men, and more importantly, it's an insult to common sense.
---General examples of demanding public apologies. PETA demanded that Christina Ricci apologize for wearing fur. Why? It's not illegal, they simply don't like it. Gay rights groups demanded that a recent ad for Snickers, aired during the Superbowl, be pulled and an apology issued ( ignoring the fact that the ad was really spoofing heterosexual concepts of manliness). Also during the Superbowl, an ad wherein an assembly line robot commits suicide due to lack of work was pulled after demands by suicide watch groups. This is common practice now, where people seem anxious to find offensive material where none is intended. We are slowly losing the ability to laugh at ourselves, or at least not to take things too seriously. I can't say this loud enough: THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEE THAT NO ONE, ANYWHERE, WILL EVER BE OFFENDED!! But it seems we're being taught that now. And where are people learning this? In school, of course!
---A school in Attleboro, MA has recently declared the recess staple, Tag, to be verboten. Why? Why, because being "it" sends a message of being different or ostracized to children of course! How silly of me, I thought it was a game. Oh yeah, and also, we ARE different!
Examples in schools abound. Sexual harassment charges for 5-year-olds. Expulsions for kids with water pistols. Teachers caught in the paradox of being expected to stress diversity, while somehow pretending that we're all exactly the same. Slowly, we in America are raising up a new, unique generation. This generation will have been inculcated with the notion that it is the world's responsibility to suit them, not theirs to adapt to the world. They will believe that they should not experience disappointment or failure -- ever. They will be convinced that all ideas are equally valid, despite how moronic they might sound. Most worrisome, they will believe that one of the worst things anyone can do is to express an idea which might be met with disagreement or offense. It is a generation we are breeding to succeed, but we're setting them up to fail.
With every concession we make, and with every inch of ground we surrender, we limit ourselves a bit more. Every time another idea or word or picture is deemed subjectively offensive by one group or another and added to the ever-growing list of "unacceptables", we diminish our ability to communicate that much more. There is no single idea or word or image that everyone likes. There is no single thought or action that we all deem beneficial. With our growing right to eliminate all those things that we don't like, we can each work to guarantee that those things won't be tolerated anymore. Eventually we'll be left with exactly what we deserve. Nothing at all.
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Comment by Wendi
I remember years ago when the children's book, "Nappy Hair" was banned, and we've recently been discussing here on Orble a case where a book portraying a homosexual family caused a serious stink.
I don't understand, though, why there are so many examples of political correctness, but most comedians can say anything and get a good chuckle out of it. "Mind of Mencia" is one example, Dave Chappel would be another, and the list goes on.
There are constant issues (and cat fights) here on Orble based on the way people choose to express themselves and how others find it offensive. I've always had the attitude of, "Well, if you don't like it, don't read it!"
I do find certain things offensive - on t.v., in the papers, on blogs, in the movies, etc. - but I don't cause a fuss over it, sue anyone, or make demands on the public based on my own opinions.
Being able to see/hear multitudes of people expressing their opinions about the war, their political leaders, public personalities leads me to believe that "Free Speech" certainly isn't non-existent, but I do agree with you that free speech has been placed in a vice, and that vice is getting tighter and tighter.
W
Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
As for Dave Chappelle (hilarious) and Carlos Mencia (um....not so hilarious), they definitely get away with a lot. However, a white comic would most likely be labeled as racist for making many of the same observations. I understand why, to a certain extent, but I still find it a little troubling that some groups can "own" certain words, etc., while others can be punished for using the same words. It's a very gray area.
Comment by Wendi
Exactly - that's been one of my "issues". I think it's a double standard that only breeds trouble.