Political Correctness

[Updated: 15-April-2005]
An interesting look at political correctness by David Farrar and the comments left are even more illuminating.


A good read at Dog Biting Men: What do you really mean? about the ACT's campaign against "political correctness".

This is a subject I have long had a lot of confusion and frustration with - political correctness seems to be a phrases that, now-a-days, people throw around anything they don't agree with. And it's usually used by people with a beef against the government of the day - it's unusual (but not unknown) for corporate's to be tarnished with the phrase even if they act in the same manner.

But also, I don't get the point of it? The government of the day (whoever they are) have always made laws that piss someone off, somewhere. If you don't agree with the law (after understanding it and not just some media persons view) then vote the buggers out but don't be so lazy as to use huge sweeping phrases like "they are all ...", "they always ..." and "it's just another political correct example of ...".

"Ah, but these aren't just laws for the common good but some sort of 'social engineering'!", is the usual reply - well, it's not really that eloquent: "Ah, but they just want to stop us all having fun!" or, "It goes against the Kiwi way - we've always done [insert thing]."

For instance, "... stop us having fun" - Western Springs racing, it's just those politically correct people that have moved into the area stopping other having fun.
So someone buys a house with the knowledge that the local racing company has agreed to a sound limit (nnDb's) and then when you ask them to abide by their own agreement they don't want to. Now, Western Springs could've been portrayed by the media/Paul Holmes etc as complete bastards that didn't care for good honest working Kiwi's trying to get a rest after a long day's work (equally wrong as how it was portrayed) but no, it was the "politically correct"!

And the second one, "... we've always ..." - well that falls over in so many ways. We'd always had lead in petrol. We'd always had slavery. We'd always had a male dominated society. We'd always thought we (whitey's) were better than the rest.
AND, if we never change we never grow. We never learn. We never discover. We never explore. We never make cool and fun mistakes.

And my final pissed-off-ness from the phrase "politically correct" (apart from it in itself is starting to become politically correct) is that the English language changes - is there such a thing as French PC, no idea.
"Gay" - whatever, it meant something then, it means something now and it'll mean something different later. What do the following words mean to you?
  • Pants
  • Wicked
  • Totally
  • Bitch
Depends upon who you are reading this I suspect.
And so, someone might take offence at what you say - enough people taking offence and they ask you not to. If you don't like these people or want to carry on then they're being "politically correct".

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