Previously posted on the Young People For Blog
With the needs to know the languages of life and learn about other peoples, and the need for your actions to speak louder than your words, there is a third element to the ways of communcation. This third element is your actual speech. I hope that your actions embody your words that come out of your mouth. This now brings us to very specifically the words we all use, the most common language of life. Do the words you use offend people? Are you politically correct in your speech? Is that speech progressive?
Political correctness will be the bane of our existance. When I think about the restriction of language my mind flashes to an oppressive, totalitarian regime. How can we even begin to think that restricting language so as not to offend people is progressive? Have we made no advancement from the historical implications of language? Progress needs to include language. We need to not forget the terrible history associated with language, but we need to live in the present and work towards the future.
This discussion comes up because in the office I work in, political correctness is the extreme. You can't say gay because that is offensive, you can't say retarded, or lame - so what is left? I can completely understand the argument against using terms such as these in certain context, but when we come down to completely disregarding language because it has certain connotations - then we are in trouble.
For example: nigger. Yeah I said it, and if you saw me you would percieve me to be the nicest little white boy you ever met. Yet, I would throw out the argument that my people were the first niggers. The irish people were the first to be pushed out of the 'white club' and to be oppressed in America. My ancestors were called niggers too. Sure that does not have the same profound effect as the oppression of africans, but my argument here is for language.
This moves me on now to free speech and Newspeak as related to politically correctness. PC is named as a Far Right effort to put down the social progression made in the way of race and gender. I would say that might be an accurate assessment, except that the people I see pushing PC are some of the most progressive and liberal people I know. What is happening? When did this reversal happen?
So what is the true political correctness? Speaking your mind, being respectful to others, and asking lots of questions. Not being afraid to limit your vocabulary is the way to be correct politically, progressive. The author, George Orwell wrote a fictional novel about Newspeak in a society with "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year." Check out the link, his novel's language is set take over in the year 2050. Start counting, but be careful what you say.