Political Correctness: the new Dictate
Every age has its taboos and holy grails. Even in this supposedly open age of free expression in which there are no more taboos, we have been unable to shake the shackles of censorship. No sooner had we freed ourselves from centuries of social, sexual and political restraint, imposed upon us by Church, state and class alike, than we set about creating new taboos and the gagging orders that come with them. Have the ‘liberators’ become the oppressors?
Ask anyone, writers, comedians, politicians, school teachers, radio broadcasters, sportsmen, yes even sales managers or the company that makes cornflakes; the stifling spectre of political correctness is ever-present these days. Originally, it was based on common sense and good manners, and could count on the support of the masses, but over the last decade or two, political correctness has become the main weapon in the armoury of those who wage a crusade of self-righteousness. Driven by their personal psychoses and guilt-complexes, ministers, social workers and heads of study groups from London and The Hague to Stockholm and Madrid have taken a simple desire to prevent people from being overtly offence to others, and turned it into something that is threatening to gag us completely. Add anti-smoking and drink-driving campaigns, whose suddenness is matched by their intensity, and you have the makings of zombie nations policed by Big Brother himself. It would be easier simply to perform a frontal lobotomy and have the thing done with.
The fact that the makers of these dictates have gone too far and are out of touch with those upon who they are enforced—also known as the electorate—is something that appears to have escaped them. For years now, the do’s and don’ts of political correctness have been pulled like a straight jacket, tighter and tighter around us, often becoming ridiculous as they prejudice one group in their desire to protect another. There’s no more fun in being a comedian or a script writer if you can’t make fun of anyone, just as being a broadcaster, presenter, schoolteacher or boss is like a downhill slalom race in which you desperately try to avoid running into trees. Legal or labour action hangs over everyone’s head, not to mention the shame of being branded an ‘–ist’, be it a racist, sexist, Fascist or a fattist.
Naturally, no one condones words spoken to hurt others or that show a lack of respect to people who are different, but who exactly decided what is acceptable and not? In their overly sensitised state, the minders of the Nanny State regard any direct remark relating to someone’s colour, religion, gender or physical characteristics as offensive, while in many cases these may simply be descriptive. In this, they show a remarkable lack of consistency, not reacting if someone is described as white, Italian, Ukrainian or American, but feeling palpably uncomfortable when a person is referred to as Pakistani, Moroccan or black. Suggestions such as the one which found calling someone ‘black’ is offensive and that they should be addressed as ‘colourful people’ are actually as racist as they are ludicrous. In fighting so vehemently for the rights of anyone black, Muslim, female, gay, etc, the likes of Glenda Jackson and Ken Livingstone are actually displaying a deep-seeded form of paternalistic racism.
Given such ‘big daddy’ attitudes, it is not surprising that Ken is called Livingstone and that when he and people like Bob Geldoff and Bono speak of the aids epidemic in Africa or highlight the crippling poverty of millions in the Third World, they make it seem like neither they nor their governments are to blame for any of it. In other words, aids is not the result of the same male-led sexual abandon that produces the highest birth rates known to mankind, and while you are being encouraged by the Pakistani President to send aid to his country’s earthquake victims, he dedicates a poor state’s funds to nuclear armaments instead.
Given such an outlook, in which non-Europeans are seen as children who cannot fend for themselves and need us to do so, it is not surprising that ‘positive discrimination’ has thrived for so long. In my view no discrimination can be positive, whether it be establishing employment quotas or taking crosses out of schools because they offend Muslims. Much of the resentment felt between different communities in Europe these days is not the result of direct interaction between them, but rather intervention on the part of the Nannies who cause such mutual awkwardness and build barriers between people of different cultural backgrounds, rather than break them down. The forces that be officially advocate assimilation, but when they allow state-funded Muslim and other segregationalist schools to be established, they actively support Apartheid.
When it’s so painful to speak to people, the easiest thing is not to. That way you know you’re not going to offend anyone and don’t stand a chance of being accused or sued, but what it does is play into the hands of segregation and the mutual prejudice caused by ignorance. Very often, the people themselves are not as over-sensitive as the government departments, cultural/religious organisations and watchdogs that are ready to leap out in their defence. What’s more, the latter are seen to be decidedly one-sided, applying their ‘positive discrimination’ to gag some but not others. It is only recently, and as a result of extreme statements, that Muslim Imams have started counting their words like the rest of us. Protected by their languages, such minorities have long been able to make downright racist and offensive remarks while protected themselves.
If the undesirables who lurk on either extreme of the political spectrum are not to make currency out of increasing estrangement and disgruntlement in years to come, an effort will have to made to allow normal people to communicate again—without this stifling fear of offence. It would be far better if we championed mutual respect rather than the current style of censorship, allowing people to interact more freely and discover that we’re all blessed and plagued by the same desires and insecurities. Surely, breaking out of the bonds of the Church, of state and class should mean that people are accepted, whether they are black, white, man or woman. On a more trivial level, you shouldn’t have to feel ostracised because you like Cliff Richard, classical music or speak with a posh voice, but again we are governed by a form of ‘Style Gestapo’, which dictates what is and isn’t cool—or acceptable. The result is a generation being taught that it is how to eat, dress, talk, behave and listen to music, making them easy prey for the mass marketers who dress nasty commercialism and corporate capitalism in a trendy suit. Like Hans Christian Anderson’s King, they will jump in the lake if told to do so.
That much-revered generation of the Sixties, who we’re always told tore down the barriers and led the way to a brave new world did indeed do a world of good, kicking down the ivory towers of the establishment and setting free a sexual and social revolution. But now, almost half a century on, what have they really achieved for us? Is the world a free, utopian place where all are accepted and you can walk the streets in safety? Is it clean, egalitarian and devoid of conflict? No. Can we blame all the bad things in the world on President Bush and his cronies? Not unless you’re brain-dead.
So what has this venerated generation really given us, besides pop music of an increasingly poor standard, urban ghetto culture that makes it righteous to say “I don’t care,” and an emphasis on individual rights that appears just but always seems to be to the detriment of normal people and to the advantage of delinquents and perverts. The media is full of trendy, boastful talk, but regardless of which party is riding the grease train, it is still a world dominated by big corporate interests. Just as a previous generation of hypocrites was chastised for blaspheming and falsely atoned for its sins, hoping that the next life would be better than this mess, so we steer clear of the Thought Police, say all the right things, and atone for our indifference, cynicism, materialism and selfishness by occasionally donating some money to a far away cause. Those who police political correctness are today’s Spanish Inquisition, and though their stated goals are lofty, history will count them as frauds too. Rather than the automatons bred by political correctness, what our world needs is more humanity.
