WHAT I REALLY MEANT . . .

Political correctness! Political correctness has become a scourge on public discourse, even private opinion on occasion.

PC, as it has become to be called, is an insult to the First Amendment. As Americans, we have freedom of speech. Let’s be blunt: Freedom of speech is meant under the first right of the Bill of Rights to permit (encourage?) criticism of the federal government. Controlling government – our governors and would-be controllers – would be impossible without that freedom. If our political leaders could manipulate what and how citizens speak and write, the American Revolution would have been for naught. We the people might as well have remained British subjects with all the restraints that existed for Britons of that time. The republican form of government we have – and hope to continue to enjoy ­– is dependent upon unfettered debate of public issues so that especially elected governmental officeholders are indeed representative of the citizenry. Plain talk is absolutely necessary to that end.

But as practiced, political correctness goes further than attempting control over political behavior; some intend it as a tool for controlling social behavior.  

Every day, it seems, some celebrity, local official, sports figure, senator, representative – whoever – says something that is reported in the news media; and pundits and others in the public eye opine and the person speaking his or her mind is subject to derision. Statements subject to such oversight usually involve sex, religion, self-conduct, in addition to politics. Switch on the TV right now to some cable news outlet and chances are, within a relatively short time, such a PC controversy will be front and center.

So pervasive has PC become that political leanings proffer no immunity. Right, left or center, someone is going to be offended by outspoken opinion, and he or she will complain. If that comment is deemed useful to advancing a campaign of some sort, the remark can go viral (in au courant usage). Unintentional use of a wrong word to express a thought receives no pass; such usage is deemed intentional and therefore damning. Widely known personages can no longer react naturally to questions. They must be ever alert to possible reactions to their speech.

A couple of problems with PC: Who decides what words and thoughts are correct; who or what idea is stifled by such restraint? What ever happened to tolerance?

The marketplace of ideas is the equivalent of academic freedom. Tenured professors will fight to say and teach whatever they wish in the name of pursuing truth as they see it. Yet, academe is notorious for PC. Speech codes have been imposed on faculties and students, speakers with certain political leanings have been barred from campus or hectored when they appeared. Examples are legion.

In entertainment, ethnic humor has been scorned in the name of political correctness. Only paeans to particular members of races or ethnic groups themselves are tolerated. Some religions are protected by PC while others are fair game. (Need Islam and Christianity be cited?)

Cries of racism are perhaps the most numerous. Phrases that have entered the everyday jargon are now being analyzed etymologically, bringing up origins that have long been forgot. Yet speakers innocently using such a word or phrase are hounded by both PC practitioners and political opponents. (See George Allen’s response to a heckler; Colin Powell’s take on “shuck and jive” as used by Sarah Palin.)

More and more prevalent are PC errors involving sexual preference. Since the onslaught of the Pill, behavior once restricted to complete privacy has emerged, not into sunlight, but into the glare of klieg lights (or whatever has replaced that illumination in TV studios). Subjects once verboten in locker rooms are the material of advertising campaigns. Adherents to certain life styles are now celebrated when in the past they were the objects of derision and sometimes, unjustly, violence. Even a smaller subset (LBGT) is protected through legislation.

Some truly prejudiced people still exist in this country and elsewhere. They can be found up and down the class structure. But they are few. Society will always have its boors, louts and oafs. Yet few of those are among personalities covered by People magazine, The New York Times, CBS and Fox News.

Offended persons most likely to cite PC fouls too often are motivated by other than purity of human relations. Offending persons often seem not to have intended any wrong-doing, learning only of their so-called faux pas upon being hounded by opponent and by the press.

So persuasive have PC partisans become that everyday folks can receive correction from a PC adherent in the office, at the grocery or on the golf course. Descriptions that once were clear and used by professionals are now rejected. Cripple has become physically handicapped. Why is one condemned and the other acceptable? There is no obvious reason. The former inherently is no insult; the latter is no more sympathetic.

People of good will who champion polite behavior or who practice religion or who are “cultured” will, by the brunt of their upbringing, shun offensive speech and mannerisms. Some of these people, particularly the older ones, did grow up with some degree of racism in their outlooks or attitudes; and now reject and control those feelings. Not everyone, of course.

Political correctness’s real danger is that a few influential sources might, over time, steer an entire culture. Sure, mean intolerance and hatred have no place in any productive society, and such cannot be defended in any way, PC, nonetheless, can stifle and subvert open debate. Think not?

A great divide in the United States has developed and is widening over the observable societal ramifications of sexuality: Same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception, single-parent families. All of these have consequences beyond general acceptance or rejection. Besides moral aspects, there are governmental actions dealing with problems that for amelioration end in expenditure of billions, trillions of public moneys. And other societal aspects are similarly important to the common weal. Listing them is for another exercise.

If those subjects are removed from the public square by severe application of political correctness and are not debated on their substance, this country founded for the sake of individual freedoms will evolve into something else.

That something else could be a country unrecognizable from what it now is.

TRUTH, ELUSIVE TRUTH

If I insist on giving you my truth, and never stop to receive your truth in return, then there can be no truth between us.”

Thomas Merton

American politicians, regardless of whether they practice their calling locally or at the highest federal levels, as paid advisors or as officeholders, argue without acknowledging the other side. They see only the truths they wish to see, seeing only untruths in their opponents. No wonder the state of the Union!

Now Merton, the Trappist monk and mystic who wrote some 70 books, was commenting on theological love when he wrote the above words. Nonetheless, his observation seems to express a universal verity. Could political discourse in the United States of the early 21^st century become more civil and more productive for the country’s citizens if those who would mold public opinion heeded the Merton quotation and avoided its dire conclusion?

On the face of it, Merton is assuming that the protagonist pushes his honestly held argument while refusing to even hear the ideas of the other side, thus barring any chance of agreement. Assuming the validity of that translation of the Mertonian axiom, how the hell are pols gonna get anything done?

If Archimedes were to move the world, he needed a long lever plus a place to stand. The ancient Greek physicist can be a model for a sincere modern observer who should stand back to discern good points made today by those who battle over crucial topics impinging upon the country’s future.

Politicians, pundits, pontificators will not suddenly become classical debaters, marshaling their arguments to garner the approval of judges. No, that is asking too much. The give and take of political discourse has become more intense in the past few decades, while losing the flowery language and vitriol of the early days of the republic. Compromise, the accepted way to accomplishment in divided government, is scorned. Scoring points through derision is the game.

All of these public actors, whether active in the political arena or just chroniclers, are playing to the house, especially to those in the balcony whose perceptive talents are disparaged. They are the so-called low information voters, they who don’t bother to educate themselves about public affairs.

Education is required ­--­­- self-education. Grasping facts and ultimately truth from the flood of information and opinion that spills from the news media becomes a formidable task. Perfecting that task means striving to sift truth from all those words spewed about public problems and their solutions. Even disputed arguments contain some grain of truth, especially if the final goal is the gaining of a good and not an evil. Without proposing solutions, examples of goods are those of helping the poor; or providing for the aged and infirm, or the common defense. In general, those are the issues of our day painted in broad brush strokes. To use that overused cliché, the devil is in the details. Arguments over details so often end in incivility.  

If senators and representatives and reporters and commentators and bureaucrats and lobbyists cannot separate truth from blather, bombast, bunkum, then how can citizen-voters?

So can truth ever be shared in the marketplace of ideas? Can the meaning of truth in a particular situation of condition or problem or incident ever be found?

Truth is defined as conformity with fact, indisputable fact (such as mathematical laws), and actuality.

Common sense solutions can only be realized when innate reason is sincerely exercised by those seeking solutions. Perhaps a starting point would be acceptance that most people really want truth. That’s want when it means, not wish, but require or need. Right now the need is great.