Politically Correct is a Dangerous Leitmotif

Even before man set a candle in front of a curved mirror and through a lens cast a beam of light into the storm, we have steered our lives by guides—guides which appear throughout history in many forms: in constellations or the rising sun, in massive blocks of stone or rounded bits of metal. Ultimately, in marks chiseled on tablets or scrawled on palimpsests and paper. With guides, we point the way; we expand our horizons.

Words are guides as well, but guides to ideas. Using words, we explore and expand ideas, then point the way for others to follow and ponder. Through words, we catch a fragment of immortality. And maybe this is the problem.

It's as if we fear to be known for what we think; as if a clearly defined stand is the original sin. We direct attention away from, or even cloak from all but a privileged few, those ideas we must communicate.

Just when did we become so mealy-mouthed, hm?

A disproportionate percentage of our modern language avoids taking a stand. The guide for today's social communications—in particular, political or business communications—dodges the main purpose of writing: presenting ideas clearly. Political and business writers no longer take responsibility for their thoughts. They obscure with passive voice; they hide behind the Medusa of diversity and multiculturalism; even more ominously, they breed politically correct terminology. This diseased language becomes a holy cause, which is in turn studied religiously in our academic institutions, and then like a virus, it spreads throughout our language.

I'm here to tell you: as vocabulary becomes regulated, ideas are the victim.

Let me be very clear here. There is considerable difference between being aware of and sensitive to diversity, and being crippled by it. I am not advocating the retention and use of derogatory epithets or racially- and religiously-motivated monikers; those are as guilty of stemming ideas as the politically correct terminology that ostensibly corrects the problem. What I am advocating is clarity; that we consider our ideas carefully, then write them clearly.

We control the perceptions of others through the language we choose. However, when language lacks depth, ideas are sacrificed in the shallows. Through politically correct terminology, we default to language that is so sensitive to ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, age, politics, life experiences, impairments and handicaps, that we can no longer communicate for fear of offending. We are so terrorized by this idea that we abdicate to others our responsibility to think and speak our minds.

After all, if you don't take a stand, you are not liable.

Not even for your convictions.