Politically Correct

I am dedicating this page to one of the absurdities sweeping the planet at this time. Politically correct language is advocated as a means of being inoffensive when communicating with others. At one level this is a great concept, intending to avoid discrimination of all types whether conscious or unconscious. As a means of raising awareness of what is being said and increasing awareness of what is being said instead of gossip, is IMHO good. But it has gone too far. It has become censorship for free speech (not that there ever was democracy or free speech anyway).

Examples:

Golliwogg - I used to have one when I was young, and it never engendered any racism or hatred of black people in me.
A person is not short, they are vertically challenged. A statement on someone's size is a matter of fact - you are either shorter than average, average, or above average height. You are either slimmer than average, average, or fatter than average. Your skin is either white, tan, or dark. All sorts of strange connotations become associated with physical realities that cannot be altered.
Caregiver - apparently foster parent, foster Mother/Father isn't good enough any more.
Humankind - use of sexist language was impressed upon me by a radical feminist during my essay writing days at University. Apparently every female believes that if I use the term Mankind I am excluding half the population. I'm not, and if they read the dictionary they will see it defines Mankind as "all the living inhabitants of the earth".

I'm not going to give too many more because I may open myself to abusive emails from people who are already offended. Anyone who experiences offense needs to look carefully at themselves and see what has resulted in their inner emotion. This is good practice in awareness (see Framework).

The fact is that Political Correctness restricts the freedom of expression, which is core to the ideals of democracy which is the society that the western world is aspiring towards. Democracy may not be the best form of government, but that is beside the point. The point is that we have determined that democracy is the type of society we want, which allows freedom of speech, freedom of sexual and religious expression. All of which is fine until someone decides that I must now adhere to a new set of rules which determines what I can and cannot say! So much for free speech! All this is based upon the fact that I may offend somebody else with something I say - yet it doesn't seem to matter whether I myself am offended or not, because the rules that determine whether I should or should not be offended have been determined by someone else and must now apply to me - so much for democracy!

The solution - refer back to the Framework. An increase in awareness and general raising of consciousness of the human race will go a long way to resolve such absurdities. If you frequently find yourself becoming offended, try meditation.