An old adage warns “Give an inch and they take a mile.” This pearl of wisdom, dating back nearly five centuries, warns against making unnecessary concessions. It’s a highly validated observation of human nature, and it’s the core of today’s battle over political correctness.
Political correctness, PC for short, is the act of avoiding expression or language that might be perceived as discriminatory or derogatory, especially by minorities or demographic groups considered disadvantage. Some argue that PC is merely politeness and the way civilized people speak and behave in a civilized society, others argue that it is censorship and a means of imposing a particular set of social mores on everyone.
It can be difficult to argue against PC, because its proponents and defenders are likely to claim that such arguments are assertions that people should use words and phrases that offend. This response is a false conflation of permitting and condoning, but the fallaciousness usually doesn’t deter those who want to win the argument. It’s easy to accuse someone of simply seeking justification to use epithets in order to put him on the defensive and into the unenviable position of having to assert that he’s not a racist. It’s also dirty and hateful to do so, and that’s how such responses should be considered.
Arguing tactics are one thing, understanding the corrosiveness of PC is another, and the latter is where we find the reasons and wherewithal to resist PC and not to give that inch.
In a free society, where freedom of speech is considered inalienable and unabridgeable, I have the right to say what I wish to. Legally, I bear responsibility for what I say, so if I scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater where no fire exists, and people stampede and get hurt, I face liability. If I tell untruths about another, and he suffers some sort of loss as a result, I face liability. Incitement, slander, libel and the like, where others incur actual damages, are not “protected” speech in that I face legal consequences. However, epithets, dirty words, derogations and the like, where all that someone else might incur are hurt feelings, are protected by the First Amendment and not legally actionable.
In a free society, the person who hears my utterance of unpleasantries is as entitled to speak as I am. He can respond in kind, he can tell others that I spoke those unpleasantries, and he can call on me to apologize. He can, via his right to assembly and association, gather like-minded individuals and protest or disseminate (true) information about what I said. But, he may also choose not to respond at all. He may not find the words or phrases I used objectionable. Perhaps he’s a long-time acquaintance with whom I have engaged in off color banter, and knows I bear no malicious intent. Perhaps he understands that I used certain words in a dispassionate context. How he reacts to my words or actions is his right and his right alone.
All this is good and proper in a free society, and it is in these individualized actions and reactions that the fabric of polite and functional society is rooted. The rules are the same for all.
Enter PC.
PC tells us that, even if the person to whom I am speaking has no issue with certain words and phrases and actions, I should nevertheless refrain from using them. I should presume that the words are hurtful, no matter what the other person says or thinks. PC tells us that there is no context within which it’s permissible to use certain words and phrases. PC tells us that certain words and phrases should be used exclusively. PC introduces uninvolved third parties in our interactions, and PC enforces its demands with systemic societal pressure. There’s one correct way to speak, to act and to think, and if one deviates from that one way, PC demands that all of society apply pressure upon the deviant.
PC departs from equality. PC, as I noted earlier, is based in avoiding giving offense based on certain demographic characteristics. Once such criteria are introduced, there is no means by which individuals can be treated equally. This flips the premise of liberty on its head. The rights of the “receiver” are prioritized over the rights of the speaker or actor. The receiver and/or the arbiters of PC get to decide what’s permissible and what’s forbidden. They claim the right not to be offended, to impose prior restraint upon others, and to prioritize who gets to say what to whom. A black rapper is free to use the “N” word a hundred times in a song, in any context and with any intent, but a white news reader must not even repeat the lyrics as part of a news story – no matter that many in the news reader’s audience might take no offense whatsoever.
This prior restraint, this shifting of rights from equal for all individuals to prioritized for some over others, is the proverbial unleashing of the hounds. The moment equality is off the board, PC becomes a battlefield, a giant and endless fight to establish a hierarchy of aggrievement. Spokespeople for a long list of demographic groups fight for ascendancy, for the right to control and specify both the language that must be used and who gets to use it. Aggrieved groups fight for importance and rank in the pecking order, both against each other and internally as they stratify into ever-more-specific sub-groups. That stratification and increased granularity is itself corrosive, with internecine fighting displacing solidarity and the airing of common grievances.
Grievance ranking is a fight that will never end. Once legitimacy is granted to the right not to be offended, once it’s accepted that some get to dictate terms to others, once “rights” are allocated and prioritized based on group identity, the battle to protect individual rights gets supplanted by the fight for power. Those higher up on the grievance ladder get to assert immunity when those below them claim offense, and they get to specify the words and phrases that PC permits and mandates. They feel entitled to get their way, even if everyone else disagrees. Those at the top will fight to keep the summit, even if it means attacking others who rank high on the PC ladder. In this manner, PC is corrosive even to those whom it benefits the most.
It’s easy to accept that certain epithets shouldn’t be used in a polite society. The risk, for lovers of liberty, is in accepting restrictions that we disagree with simply because those restrictions are conflated with our earlier acceptance. Certain interrogation techniques, rooted in the human predilection to choose consistency over truth, involve getting a captive to agree to some seemingly agreeable points, then using that agreement to cajole them into going along with disagreeable assertions. PC works much the same way. We generally agree that it’s bad to use the N word in anger or with bad intent. It’s easy to be manipulated from that starting point into accepting that some will ALWAYS take offense upon hearing that word, even when no anger or bad intent is involved. That’s the fundamental shift that PC advocates look for – the transference of rights from speaker to audience. That’s the line that mustn’t be crossed, the inch that mustn’t be given.
There is no room for individual liberty in a PC society. PC isn’t merely a set of guidelines for politeness and respect. It is a direct attack on the rights of the individual, it is a subordination of any nonconformist to the demands of the group. It is a direct antipode to the premise of American society and its protections for the individual. It is the declaration that all men are NOT equal, that some are more “equal” than others, that some individuals’ rights are less important than other individuals’ rights, and that this relative importance is both subjective and fluid. Those whom we permit to claim “greater” equality aren’t satisfied with their victories and ascendance. They will always seek more, and will always look to wield the power they’ve asserted over the rest of us in ever more restrictive ways.
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we are told to be honest in representing ourselves. political correctness is exactly the opposite instinct.