Political correctness is completely out of control. Noted British comedian and intellectual Stephen Fry calls it a “with us or against us certainty.” And, in my mind, he’s not wrong.
“My ultimate objection to political correction is not that it combines so much of what I’ve spent a lifetime loathing and opposing,…my main objection is that I don’t think political correctness works,” he said, during the May 18 Monk Debate in Toronto at the Roy Thomson Hall. “I believe one of the greatest human failings is to prefer to be right than to be effective. Political correctness is always obsessed with how right it is, without thinking about how effective it might be.”
In that same speech – which you can find on YouTube – Fry called himself a “social justice worrier,” not a “social justice warrior.”
Like Fry, I don’t think all this political correctness is making us more tolerant. If anything, we are becoming more intolerant because we are all so afraid of offending.
I’m not talking about the obvious things – at least, to me they are obvious – like racism and homophobia. But it’s the constant barrage of hyper-sensitivity to even the most innocuous of statements. As someone whose job is to string words together so they make sense, navigating the minefield of political correctness is both, perhaps, a necessary evil and exhausting.
Let’s look at the particular season we’re in. I even just edited myself writing that sentence. It’s Christmastime. It’s also Hanukkah for my Jewish friends and, for my Sikh friends, it’s simply December – though some do celebrate the non-religious components of the holiday.
But political correctness adds worry to saying “Merry Christmas,” in case you offend. It should be noted, I’ve never actually met anyone who said they were offended – so, that’s an epic political correctness fail. Go ahead and say “Happy Holidays” instead, if you want, but I honestly don’t think it matters.
Some radio stations in Canada and the United States decided to stop playing the song, Baby It’s Cold Outside, this year, saying its lyrics were “inappropriate” and could be seen to be inciting rape. Give me a break. This song was written in 1944 and should be viewed in the context of its time. Have we come a long way since then? Perhaps. But take a look at the lyrics of some rap and pop songs radio stations continue to happily play and explain to me how a song from 1944 deserves such heat? The CBC rolled back its ban of Baby It’s Cold Outside, after hearing from many people about the absurdity of its original decision.
Are we also going to stop playing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, because it might be about bullying? How about viewing it as a teaching moment to show how Rudolph pulled through and was the hero of the night?
As Fry said, words are not what matter; how we treat people is what matters. Human decency does not equal political correctness.
