Susan Senator, in a heart rending, and totally misguided attempt to protect her cognitively impaired son, wants us to stop using the word "retarded".
We are admonished, daily, by overly sensitive readers of various diaries, to eschew descriptors of Governor Palin's speaking style as, "shrill". We are allowed to observe that her voice is annoying to the sensibilities of various listeners, but the term "shrill" is "potentially sexist".
There was an early flurry of "concern" that constant references to John McCain's age would be offensive to older Americans - until polling data determined that older Americans were those most concerned about his age. It was then deemed sort of OK to comment that he is too old to assume the office of President.
Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, chastised Pat Buchannan for referring to the appeal of Ms. Palin to "The Gals". Chris chose to assume a Politically Correct stance that offended entire regions of this nation who use the term Gals as an affectionate reference to women of a "certain age".
The throw away snark, "Time to adjust your meds", generates outrage in anyone taking medication for the management of mood, or brain chemistry. They view any reference, by anyone, to their means of treatment as an insult. Demeaning. Insensitive.
I was once chastised, right here, for referring to myself as an Old Woman! Aside from the simple fact that I am, indeed, an old woman - having outlived 99% of all of the women born on this planet through out human history - the correction came from a very young woman who imagined the term to be insulting. Fear of aging, a common source of reality denial in our culture, made any reference to my own age an intrusion of reality that was denounced.
This is just a small sample of the ways in which we can "insult and demean" the sensibilities of individuals who take it upon themselves to correct the rest of us in what is an appropriate public language.
The entire concept of limiting language, and correcting others for usage that can be seen as insulting, has a very checkered history, however.
Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term used to describe language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged or other identity group<s. Conversely, the term "politically incorrect" is used to refer to language or ideas that may cause offense or that are unconstrained by orthodoxy.</p>
Ruth Perry traces the term back to Mao's Little Red Book. According to Perry, the term was later adopted by the radical left in the 1960s, initially seriously and later ironically, as a self-criticism of dogmatic attitudes. In the 1990s, because of the term's association with radical politics and communist censorship, it was used by the political right in the United States to discredit the Old and New Left.
The term itself and its usage are controversial. The term "political correctness" is used almost exclusively in a pejorative sense, while "politically incorrect" is commonly used as an implicitly positive self-description, as in the series of "Politically Incorrect Guides", produced by conservative publisher Regnery and the talk show Politically Incorrect.
Some commentators have argued that the term "political correctness" is a straw man invented by conservatives in the 1990s in order to challenge progressive social change, especially with respect to issues of race, religion and gender.
Two issues are worthy of further consideration, as we once again, start to limit the rich and colorful descriptors that this language provides.
- Are we to allow the self-consciousness of individuals, or their posturing to appeal to a perceived insult by others, to determine how we can express ourselves? What might be the basis for this new found fear of words? Are they operating in the interest of others, or as a result of their own denial of reality?
It is inevitable that PC protests against the use of various language constructs (words) will result in introducing complex, vague phrases to replace the single word descriptor in common use. The next phase is the adoption of that phrase by the population, and it then enters the language laden with the same baggage as the dreaded, original word.
So we come full circle, the new phrase now has the approbation of the overly sensitive, and they begin to protest the insensitivity of those who use the new designations in slang, or pop culture references.
One of the best examples of this generative use of language is the word idiot. Originally developed to designate the most serious examples of cognitive impairment, it entered the slang of children as a casual insult, and gradually emerged as a pleasant comment on screwing up. So we had to find another word. So, we did. Retarded. Then that word emerged into the general population and we had to find a new word. So we did...
Does this constant juggling with the meaning and application of words serve to clarify anything?
- Who is actually harmed?
One of the very first playground taunts I learned was, "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me."
When did we become so sensitive to the taunts, and causal insults of others, that we felt we must correct them, protest their way of expressing an idea, and toil mightily to invent new words and phrases to express the very same concept? What do we, as individuals, and as a culture, really gain?
Those that try to control, and determine the meanings of words, forcing others to conform to their own version of "Good Speak", have a very checkered history on this planet. They do not mean to distort reality but, they in fact do.
Words are not the problem. Those who choose to find insult in them always can. That is the problem.
Can we reach agreement that slang, taunts, and descriptors are neutral, aside from their informational value? That the casual use of words by the general population is not an insult, except to those who wish to find insult?