Political correctness takes a beating

The tough guy who has no problem referring to retards is outraged if somebody from the other side of the Irish Sea calls him a drunken Paddy

THE vilest term of abuse in today’s public lexicon has popped up the presidential election. Gay Mitchell, on a number of occasions, has declared his opposition to political correctness.

In radio interviews he has repeated the pledge he made at the Fine Gael selection convention “I believe in unity in diversity, but not a diversity that includes only the politically correct.”

It’s difficult to know what exactly he’s on about, but you can’t lose votes these days by declaring your opposition to political correctness. Like war and piles, political correctness is now despised by great swathes of the citizenry.

The dreaded PC was also invoked by Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness on RTÉ Radio last Sunday. He said he was against the political correctness that led to media examinations of the background of presidential candidates.

Again, it’s difficult to know what exactly he was blathering on about. Was he talking about scrutiny? Or intrusiveness? Or does he just have a restricted grasp of the English language?

Of course, like many others who decry PC, McGuinness knew exactly what he was saying when he made his statement. These days, if you throw in the dreaded PC term of abuse, you automatically sway people over to your argument. The issue might have nothing to do with what political correctness is about, but that doesn’t matter.

Last week also saw PC decried by the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Elphin, Christopher Jones, provoked angry reaction when he labelled the children of lone parents as “born losers”. Cue outrage from those who believe such a statement to be offensive. Not just was it offensive, but it was a stupid thing to say, as Barack Obama, the son of a lone parent, might have explained to him.

Responding to the negative reaction, a spokesman for the Catholic bishops said that while the labelling of children as “losers” was not “politically correct“, the view was “well founded and based on “research”.

That sorted that one out. The bishop had said something that was politically incorrect, therefore, irrespective of how ignorant his comments were, he should be congratulated.

So it goes in the world today. Suggest that you are on the opposite side to political correctness and you are away in a hack, irrespective of whether your spiel makes any sense.

Some of the antipathy towards PC grew out of a backlash against what was perceived as its overarching influence on public discourse. Political correctness came to the fore in the 1980s in a commendable push to eliminate offence where possible.

In one sense, it was a small attempt to rebalance power within society. Minorities of all hue are often at a disadvantage through lack of power, political or financial muscle. PC was a way of ensuring that all sorts of minorities would no longer be subjected to verbal or written humiliation. It was largely about attempting to use language without causing needless offence.

The tough guy who revels in not being politically correct, might, for example, have no problem in referring to somebody with a disability as a retard. Tough guy might equally see nothing wrong with calling a Traveller a knacker. Offensive terms like these were at the root of the rise of PC in the 1980s. As a philosophy, it had dated from at least 50 years prior to that, but it only came into the wider public sphere through a realisation that language could be, and often was, a powerful tool.

Like many things, PC is in the eyes of the beholder. Those who baulk at the term turn PC themselves if something is uttered which they find offensive. Our tough guy who has no problem referring to retards is outraged if somebody from the other side of the Irish Sea calls him a drunken Paddy.

Essentially, PC is about righting old wrongs in how minorities, in particular, are addressed or referred to. Inevitably, it can go overboard, and has at times over the years. Some people believe that a person who is deaf should be described as having a “hearing impairment”. That’s fine, but to describe the person as deaf is hardly politically incorrect.

Religion has also come into it. The sensitivities of minority religions were given a standing in the philosophy of PC, as should be the case. However, there have been instances where some individuals carried things too far. Christmas is Christmas, irrespective of how PC one might be. Notions that Christian symbols should be removed from all celebrations at that time of year are over the top.

These types of minor infringements are to be expected when any new philosophy takes hold, but the backlash against it has embraced all sorts of crazy notions. In particular, any defence of the traditional power centres must include some reference to opposition to PC.

So it went back in 2004 when there was a furore over the proposed smoking ban. An organised campaign was put in place to resist Micheál Martin’s proposal, and one of the themes that was repeatedly trotted out was that it was just “PC gone mad”. What political correctness had to do with a simple health and lifestyle issue is anybody’s guess, but the term was endlessly deployed in the PR drive.

Elsewhere, some canny souls have used PC to justify nothing more than bad behaviour. Jeremy Irons unwittingly gave an example of this when publicising his new series, The Borgias. He blasted the political correctness that prompts a woman to go to the law if a man places a hand on her bottom.

“Most people are robust,” he said. “If a man puts his hand on a woman’s bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It’s communication. Can’t we be friendly?”

There you have it. If you oppose groping, you must be politically correct. If you question the right of, say, an executive, to grope his secretary, your beliefs are based on the philosophy of political correctness, nothing else.

The same applies whenever a voice is raised in defence of any minority. Somebody, for instance, suggests that asylum seekers are treated unfairly, or that prisoners’ rights can be abused. Those who oppose the view merely throw in the PC accusation, implying that any concerns raised are not grounded in any sense of justice or fair play, but merely complying with the philosophy of political correctness.

This was particularly the case during the bubble years, when anyone who spoke out against rampant consumerism, or the ills that festered on the margins of society, were put in a little box and labelled the PC brigade.

So the next time you hear somebody spit out the term “politically correct”, pause and examine what exactly they are saying. In all likelihood, the point being made has nothing to do with PC and is just being used as a lazy means of furthering an argument or debate.

At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, there is only one word to describe people who fall into that category. Clowns.