I was watching Pat Kenny Live last night, with one very interesting section on political correctness or whether it has gone too far.
Apparently the British medical association, no longer refers to someone as male or female, for fear of offending other gender ambiguous or transsexual hospital users.
The impression was given, that now the minority are verbally bullying the majorities spoken word and citing discrimination and over used “phobia” buzzwords in retaliation.
One of the guests who had campaigned against the marriage equality referendum here in Ireland, had voiced her concern at being stereotyped (as a right wing bible bashing conservative presumably) because of her stance.
As far as that referendum goes, I really felt that what we saw, was the emergence of a big role reversal.
The Irish family had changed so much in the last few decades. Children born out of wedlock to unmarried parents had been in the majority for decades.
The traditional image of the family unit was long obsolete, deadened by a new mixture of open sexuality and disdain for convention.
Far from being an isolated minority and being reviled as such, they had actually come out as the heretofore suppressed majority.
Perhaps the main opponents to such speech, are the ones who resent such an inconveniently changed world that we live in now.
Could pc wording not be considered a response to the hurt caused, by the lazy and overly broad language too freely used. A way of verbally righting the wrongs of the past?
One of the panellists said that forty years ago he was told that he had a mongoloid baby. No description of whether it was a boy or a girl was proffered. Just that resigned, tactless description!
Thankfully, those misnomers were in the bad ‘ol days, right?
Instead of dismissing any sort of “politically correct speech” as a way of pandering to previously seen but not heard minorities, should it not be seen as a way of linguistically apologising for such past insults?
Calling myself a cripple, a black person a nigger or a gay person a faggot, are essentially old pejorative words, weighed down with the baggage of negative emotions and past class snobbery.
Perhaps the world (according to president Trump anyway) is tired of constantly guarding and having to actually put some thought behind their words.
I know it might seem that some people or constantly, pussy footing (lazy un pc word that they are) around certain issues.
But surely its all for the best!
Just who benefits form politically correct speech anyway?
Perhaps the beneficiaries are those of us, who want to live in a world where individuality is celebrated and old pigeons holes no longer work.
I absolutely believe in the value of PC speech, but its never to be, at the expense of free speech. No matter how much value PC words have, dictated, overly rehearsed and imposed speech have none!
(Update Wednesday 9-08-17:
Horrible news about the number of people with disabilities, living in Nursing homes. This is a nightmare scenario for many of us and something that I continue to battle against. Money gives a degree of autonomy and control over one’s own life. I’m sure there were a number of people with Friedreich Ataxia included in those sombre statistics. It amounts to an extra indictment of those, who would mismanage incoming funds.)
Links used for this blog:
British Medical association: Politically correct speech gone too far?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167632/Don-t-call-pregnant-patients-mothers.html
https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0808/895907-disabilities-nursing-homes/
Irish document on our family trends over the past few decades.
When political correctness goes wrong:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/dec/14/politically-correct-culture-millennials-generation