Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Politically Correct Reset Button

I have a theory about the politically correct speech movement? It's a reset button on culture and vernacular. Let me explain.

For hundreds of years, humans have stereotypically judged, segregated, and discriminated against people based on skin color, religion, nationality, gender, and more. Nigger, slut, pussy, fag, jew, jap, camel jockey and dot head are just a few words used to describe people. 

Perhaps we need new words, new stereotypes to exploit. Skin color? Are you still judging people by skin color? Gender? Seriously, get over it. 

What those who are enforcing politically correct speech are saying is this:
Your vocabulary is outdated. It doesn't fit anymore. So we're going to have to wipe the chalkboard, clean the slate. We need to find what else makes us wonderfully different and make words for that. The old system is rusty. 

While we often long for the past and view it with appreciation, we would not give up the technological progress we've made to go back. We're not at home spinning our own thread to make our own clothes. We're not churning our butter and milking our cows. So why would we not also take advantage of cultural and societal advances?

Oh, and for those of you who say that people shouldn't be so sensitive: when you're the butt of the joke, when those names carry the weight of slavery and violence against your family members, then you can be the one to say whether or not it's okay. If  you're white, you don't get to decide that calling blacks, "niggers," is just a joke, as it also conjures up memories of burning crosses and lynchings. If you're a man, when you call someone a bitch or a pussy, don't forget that those words imply that the person referenced is as weak as a woman or as mean as a woman. That the word, "fag," is a reference to wood so worthless it can be burned indiscriminately.

We are smart enough to learn how to make fun of ourselves with better technique. We should not stop laughing at our differences, but we should use our vocabulary with greater care. What is the point of having words if we don't agree on their meaning and origin? When we're all just talking jibberish.

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