# What a misunderstood concept

- Link: https://www.andreidraganescu.info/2016/07/18/what-a-misunderstood-concept/
- Published: 2016-07-18T08:19:41+03:00
- Author: Andrei Draganescu

The “Political Correctness” phrase is the perfect example of good intention ending
in disaster. The whirling cascade of bad jokes, inspired by the politically correct
approaches (see George Carlin and his hate for PC) show in a crystal clear precision
the difficulty of being lucid in a world bathing in confusion. The derogatory way
in which political correctness is understood makes me sad.

Some people, specifically the smart and cultivated people, claim that PC flattens
the creative differences between humans and trims off the subjective specificity
of history, society or morals. I do not agree with this idea. Only the morally incompetent
are “flattened” by an educated attempt of discerning with coherence between abuse
and adjective. The funniest part, these days, is a lamenting I came across claiming
that the “western PC speech” destroys traditional religious (orthodox in this case)
national values, but criminally “forgetting” that the lay man’s interpretation of
the religious values birthed the deepest form of incorrect, inhumane and illogical
discourse, based mostly on superstition — e.g. we don’t vote on equal marriage because
we fear God, or we don’t create a legal framework for sex work because we’re not
a country of sinful lustful pagans … you know the drill.

Other people claim that behind Political Correctness you’ll find hidden a true doctrine
of ideological control. I don’t agree with this either, despite my unshaken belief
in global conspiracy. Where is the connection between a straightforward attempt 
to rationally manage delicate themes, themes loaded with emotions, with ideology?
Is it, I wonder, in the domain of ideology to avoid talking about a woman’s looks
during her hiring interview for a job at a scientific laboratory? I wouldn’t think
so. Are the modern feminists politically correct in their deeply ideological speech?
I wouldn’t think so, not even if someone could prove it otherwise.

To be magical there must be three ways to attack PC. The third weapon: a long series
of historic blunders achieved masterfully by those who got PC the wrong way and 
have reduced what was to be a complex effort of social defining to a damned chain
of stupid euphemisms — such as “police person”, “fire person” and so on. These are
the true force that drives PC down from its moral high ground, those who linguistically
perfect humanity in the name of a concept that has very, very little to do with 
the world’s dictionaries. These people have a lot of power because “the many” are
always “the simple” and that’s about all they know about PC: unisex bathrooms.

For those of you who are still willing to give PC another shot, knowing that it 
is a great platform for good, detached reasoning, you must know that Political Correctness
is less about politics and more about correctness. The main work of PC is to find
that way in which human pluralism, this intrinsic quality of our emotional and intellectual
complexity, gets to be described in an acceptable and pacifist way. This endeavor
helps people to respect one another in a simpler but more profound manner, meaning
somehow beyond the relentless stereotypes of the older generations so scared of 
the new, stereotypes such as women should go in the kitchen while men are working,
faggots are lesser men, the nerds and dorks are ugly, the HIV positive must be an
addict too and so on! Can you see how even using exactly the most politically incorrect
expressions you cannot hide the underlying discrimination problem?

Your capacity to think outside of your immediate universe, the power to identify
with others who are nothing like you, is, in a way, a basic compound inside the 
essence of your spiritual evolution, isn’t it?