By 
It feels so great to wake up every day and to know that there’s nothing wrong in the world, doesn’t it? Nobody has awful thoughts. Nobody says awful things. Nobody is hungry, or dying, or oversharing on social media. Everything’s awesome. I know this because every time someone has said something I don’t like, I’ve blocked them, or unfriended them, or threatened their sponsors until their radio show was cancelled.
That’s why I love today’s world. Nobody even has thoughts that bother me. They must not. I’ve eliminated them from my life, so I never see them, so they must not exist.
Or is that not how that works?
This idea and the set of images with it went viral several months ago.
While if applied universally, this is rather strawman-ish, there really is some validity to this idea that people behave likeassholes and then play the PC card. There are totally times when something like this happens:
Jerkass: “This country would be so much better if we got rid of the browns. Buncha rapists they are.”
Listener: “Oh wow. Hey that’s not really–”
Jerkass: “–Oh stop with the political correctness!”
And of course, when you’re talking to people, you should make an effort to be respectful, and we should all look to create a better, kinder world.
But if we let that prevent us from being completely honest and pragmatic, and we let this allow us to dismiss every thought we find repulsive, then what the fuck are we even doing as humans? What is the point of any of this shit without complete, total honesty? Why don’t we all just check out, eat ice cream, and watch puppy videos until we keel over as a species? (Stop nodding and smiling. That was supposed to be bad.)
We need to figure out the source of this problem. People tend to think of political correctness as being a creation of the left, but if you look at the idea behind political correctness–speaking dishonestly to garner the approval of others–both sides do it. Every side does it. Every human does it. And we all need to get better about this.
And I do mean every human does it. I mean look at this shit.
The beauty of this is he starts by saying he doesn’t “have to be politically correct,” when there’s nothing more PC than pretending to give a shit about the Bible in front of an evangelical crowd.
He’s tailoring what he says for the approval of his audience–at the cost of honesty. If your audience is racist, belligerent assholes, saying, “I want to burn the towelheads,” is political correctness. If it’s pedophiles, saying, “Boys are delicious” is political correctness.
But it’s not just politicians. It’s not just liberals or conservatives. We all do this. We’re all pieces of shit. We’re all our own politicians sacrificing honesty in an attempt to get elected as, Girl That is Not Annoying, Son-in-law Who Doesn’t Start Shit, and New Co-Worker Who is Totally, Definitely Not Racist.
The term “political correctness” has too much of a one-sided slant to it though, so I have my own replacement for amore universal definition. From here on out, I’ll refer to it as “dishonest pandering.” I would shorten it to DP, but uh, let’s not.
We should try to reduce dishonest pandering because what we have as a result is a society of people watching their every word, and tailoring everything they say to fit into the public’s box of acceptability.
So lying, basically. We end up with a society of people lying because the consequences of them speaking their truth are too severe. This is dangerous because hearing the awful garbage people believe is way more important than hearing the good stuff.
I mean imagine if Donald Trump censored himself like a normal politician. Imagine if he was just a rich guy that really watched what he said, sounded rational, but was still on the inside thinking, “I’m gonna start a fucking Muslim database when I win this thing.”
We wouldn’t know all of the awful shit that he believes, or his intentions, and we might accidentally vote for him. So thank God he doesn’t censor himself, because I’m now able to know that I wouldn’t vote for him because of everything he’s ever said ever.
But unfortunately, his is a rare case. Usually, we miss out on peoples’ horrifying thoughts now, because we live in a customizable world that has led to a culture-wide support of avoiding and immediately condemning things that we don’t like.
This goes beyond the more egregious examples you hear about on college campuses. I’ve seen people on social media say that they’re blocking any Trump supporter, or anyone who says something they think is racist. I’ve seen people call others “little bitch” and “Hitler,” and “little bitch-Hitler,” or completely dismiss others all for having a particular opinion. I’ve seen tons of people advocate threatening Rush Limbaugh’s sponsors until they pull out whenever he says something, well, Rush Limbaugh-y.
But what does that really accomplish?
“All right! We finally got Rush off the air! Now his millions of fans will suddenly agree with us! High five, fellow good guys!”
This approach does nothing but close your mind, piss people off, and render you less able to deal with hate and ignorance, which in turn allows the diseases of hate and ignorance to fester and grow.
So what do we do about these diseases? We vaccinate ourselves. We stop replying to every unsavory idea by yelling “fascist!” or running away, and instead go out into the world, open our ears, and inject ourselves with the hate,stupidity, and pre-school-level grammar so prevalent outside of our bubbles.
Outrage can be totally justified, and avoiding awful things is very understandable, and neither does anythingproductive. When you get angry and just yell “RACIST!” at someone who doesn’t think their thought is racist (which is most people), their only thought is, “Fuck you. No I’m not.” And then nothing changes except now they think you’re a whiny asshole. So congrats, Dr. King.So once we’ve vaccinated ourselves, instead of replying with rage and condemnation, we need to use calm logic–no matter how awful the opposing thoughts are. Have an attitude of, “Hey bro, so in my opinion, you should reconsider your thoughts on throwing batteries at orphans for the following reasons…” and then convince them, instead of guilttripping them into pretending to agree with you.That’s how we can make real progress with people, and it’s also how we can improve ourselves.
Think of how advanced you have to be as a person to see enraging things and respond with nothing but calm logic. Think of the maturity, the self-control, the introspection you’ll cultivate in not immediately hating and judgingpeople for their awful ideas. That’s next level shit. You’ll be like a monk with a keyboard.
Expressing Your Own Awful Bullshit in the Best Way Possible
But what about our own dishonest pandering? Why do we engage in this? Often it’s because we’re afraid of offending, or being proven wrong, or starting Thanksgiving Screamfest 2015. We’re afraid of conflict. We’re afraid of making things weird. We’re afraid of what is awkward.
But mental growth is just like physical growth–it is awkward. Your voice cracks, you have to talk about sex sometimes, and you hate your parents, but it’s all entirely necessary. You need to grow, so you need to make shit weird. Making shit weird educates us all more. It strengthens us. We need to be courageous in being ready to offend, and creating awkwardness, and then we need to fight through it and make progress.
With that said, unless it’s in the context of art, for the love of God, try not to be a dick.
You probably have some dickish thoughts. We all do. We all have some opinions and feelings that would make others hate us, and communicating those can be intimidating, so politeness and respect are crucial here. They can make even the most horrendous, unspeakable thoughts, well, speakable.
In fact, let’s give that a shot. Here is how to express even the most truly horrendous thoughts respectfully.
Instead of saying, “Go back to Africa!” and throwing some racial slurs in there, say, “Look guys, I know this might sound wrong, but I really think attempting to integrate here isn’t working out. It just creates more conflict. It might be easier if everyone stayed with their own kind. I just want you to be happier.”
Instead of, “God hates fags,” say “It says here in this book that I happen to believe in that a higher power doesn’t approve of homosexual behavior. I’m sorry if that bothers you.”
Instead of, “I support Trump,” say “I apologize to everybody in the known universe, but I support Trump.”
If these things can be presented respectfully, then so can your weird opinion about immigrants, or your thoughts on what you currently refer to as “manladies” (stop that). If you present controversial ideas in a way that recognizes the sensitivity of the subject, and acknowledges “Hey, I know this seems terrible but…” you’re more likely to be successful at actually communicating with someone without them hitting you (and worse, not listening to you).
If we all do what we can to be a little more courageous, and communicate more openly and respectfully, we can all actually listen to each other and express ourselves freely for pretty much the first time ever.
So let’s try not to fuck this up, because frankly, if you don’t take these steps, you’re a bunch of little bitches, and you should all fucking hate yourselves.
Sorry, I might need some work on this.
