CHAPTER 1
The Politics Of Correctness:
Sorry, guys, but it’s time to stop apologising

A famous quote attributed to Voltaire, which says a lot about one of the core values in any free society, goes, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In our modern world, we seem to have lost sight of this ideal. Today, we are not allowed to say anything, whether it is true or not, if it offends someone, or even if it has the potential to offend. Political correctness may be the butt of many jokes, but it is no laughing matter. It is deadly serious and has become a danger to the freedoms we have come to know.

From a male perspective, the threat of the politically correct is a particularly worrisome one because it underscores the way in which we deal with many of the issues we face today. The solutions to our problems, whether they are trivial worries or life-defining dilemmas, are no longer straightforward and logical. Instead of confronting them head on, we have become preoccupied with talking about them in the correct language so as not to tread on any toes. The result is a loss of focus, of common sense even, and a continuation or propagation of those problems.
In later chapters – “Homosexuality And Me” and “Raising Kids Today”, for instance – PCness will again raise its ugly head. Best we confront it now, then.
Head on.

So what is political correctness? That depends on who you speak to, because there seems to be no standard definition for it. We’ll go with this one: “avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude or marginalise or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against”1. Effectively, it’s an attempt to change the language and actions we use to make them neutral in order to avoid insult or offence, perceived or actual.

A noble-sounding idea, then. And in its early days, political correctness did much to highlight the plight of the vulnerable and increase tolerance for women, marginalised races, homosexuals, the handicapped and minority groups. It made people realise that different didn’t mean wrong, that stereotypes could be hurtful and damaging.

When it first came on the scene, in the late eighties and early nineties, the practical effects of PCness were often laudable. In South Africa the widespread use of the detestable term Kaffir was largely reduced. As a youngster, I remember buying sweets called niggerballs; then one day they were blackballs. I couldn’t recognise the social importance at the time, but I do now. Fair enough. Both good, socially responsible moves, without doubt.

On a universal level, terms like chairman and air hostess were discouraged to avoid the assumption that women couldn’t achieve certain high-powered positions or that a particular job description was limited to one gender; rather chairperson and cabin attendant. Okay. But what about manhole? Was it really necessary to try to get us to say maintenance hole or inspection chamber? And what about the litany of ridiculous euphemisms that quickly sprung up? Who are the terms vertically or follicularly challenged trying to fool? Another waste of time and energy, in my opinion, is the attempted elimination of the term actress. How it encourages stereotyping I cannot tell you; it is merely a descriptive term, a more efficient way of saying female actor (with its Newspeak connotations). But if you’re eliminating actress, implying that there is no difference between male and female people who act, then surely logic demands that you cannot have one award for male actors and another for female actors? Are the people encouraging the demise of the term also encouraging a single Academy Award for best actor, competed for by men and women?

Here’s a good South African one: maid. Can’t say that any more; it’s got to be char or domestic worker. But a maid, according to the South African Collins English Dictionary (2004), is “a female servant”. Oh hang on, isn’t there something wrong with saying servant? Let’s look up that one: “a person employed to work for another, esp one who performs household duties”. So a maid is a female employed to work for someone, especially to perform household duties…

Even if there are certain connotations to certain words, I would suggest that already at this stage the potential follies of political correctness are evident. Today it has, quite frankly, been taken too far. Instead of “Baa baa black sheep”, nursery school children are being taught to sing “Baa baa woolly/happy/rainbow sheep”, despite the famous rhyme’s origins having nothing to do with race. Asking for your coffee to be white or black is frowned upon; it has to be with or without milk. It’s this type of ludicrous speech policing that is driving people to question the meaning of it all.

Political correctness is sometimes referred to as form of cultural Marxism; that is, Marxism without the economics but retaining the determination to destroy bourgeois morality and to enforce correct values. According to William Lind, “Cultural Marxism, or political correctness, shares with classical Marxism the vision of a ‘classless society’; ie, a society not merely of equal opportunity, but equal condition. Since that vision contradicts human nature – because people are different, they end up unequal, regardless of the starting point – society will not accord with it unless forced.”2 He goes on to add that political correctness therefore encourages a society where “freedom of speech, of the press and even of thought are all eliminated”.

Here’s another take on it, from former New York Times culture correspondent, Richard Bernstein: “Central to PCness, which has its roots in 1960s radicalism, is the view that Western society has for centuries been dominated by what is often called ‘the white male power structure’ or ‘patriarchal hegemony’. A related belief is that everybody but white heterosexual males has suffered some form of repression and been denied a cultural voice.”3

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about where it all started. What I do care about is the effect it is having today; the things we are seeing happen in the name of political correctness. This well-intentioned idea to prevent discrimination has taken on a life of its own and morphed into something completely different, often contrary to its original intentions. Political correctness is always about defending the weak against the mighty, regardless of whether they warrant it or not. It is always the fault of the powerful that the weak are in the position they are in. But by trying to give voice to the weak through political correctness, rational debate is being stifled. These days, political correctness transcends factual correctness. It has become more important to avoid offence than to speak the truth.

A good example of this occurred in an incident in the UK in 2002, when the government announced that a dramatic spike in the nation’s HIV-infection rate over the previous five years was the result of an increase in unprotected heterosexual sex. A campaign to highlight safe sex was launched. On closer examination, however, the statistics revealed that the HIV-infection rate increase was not due to unprotected heterosexual sex; it was mainly due to immigrants, the majority of whom were African, coming to the UK and being diagnosed with it. (HIV transmission between otherwise healthy individuals during heterosexual sex is relatively difficult, explaining why the virus’s impact on the First World heterosexual demographic remains so low – but that’s probably not a very PC thing to say.) Among government ministers, it was felt that announcing it as such was paramount to racism. Therefore, in order to avoid offending people, the government was going to waste taxpayers’ money implementing a programme that would have very little effect on solving the cause of the problem. Anthony Browne wrote an article in The Times4 stating the facts, and was slated for it. The only people who agreed with him were the doctors… Hmm, sounds like he had the right people on his side. In fact, one of the government’s own medical advisers contacted Browne in secret from within the Department Of Health and thanked him for highlighting the issue. According to the doctor, Britain was facing large increases in HIV infection but government ministers and civil servants refused to discuss the root causes of it. “Ministers just won’t listen,” he said, “because they think it is racist, but the public deserve at least honesty.”5

Eventually it was accepted that this version was, in fact, the truth. The Public Health Laboratory Service now openly reports that the main reason for increased HIV-infection rates in the UK is African immigration. But if you look on many news websites you won’t find a thing about it. These supposedly credible news organisations are still ignoring basic facts just to avoid offending people. If, from the start, we had dealt with the issue in a society that valued reason and logical debate over the fear of offending certain groups, we would have saved valuable resources from being focused in the wrong direction. Unfortunately immigration in Britain is a sensitive subject. The far right have always argued against it and articles like Browne’s purportedly give racists on that side of the fence more ammunition. But so what? So what if they have more ammo? It doesn’t mean you have to listen to those fools anyway. There will always be people who hijack a statement to help argue their cause. The fact that the increase in HIV infection was down to immigration does not mean that immigration is wrong or should be stopped. In this instance, time and money was unnecessarily
lost – perhaps, by extension, lives.

In South Africa there is no debate that lives have been, and are being, lost due to the government’s policy on HIV/Aids treatment. This subject alone warrants a book, but suffice it to say that political correctness – along with other complex political reasoning – is proving a major drawback in the fight against the epidemic. The infection- and death-rate statistics vary hugely depending on who’s providing them, but it is widely recognised that rural KwaZulu-Natal is one of the worst affected areas – possibly the worst – in the world. One in three infected mothers is a common estimate. But news agencies seldom, if ever, report on many of the root causes there: high incidence of homosexual sex between South Africa’s thousands of mine workers (as well as prisoners), who then return to their rural villages; high incidence of rape, mostly unreported; extremely high levels of promiscuity and unprotected sex; widespread belief that witch doctors can provide cures (the practice of having sex with virgins notwithstanding). It has been suggested in some quarters that the traditional Zulu male attitude to women may be playing a large part in the rampant cycle of infection, but you will go a long, long way before getting a government official to admit anything of the sort – you’d be insulting the proud Zulu nation with such inflammatory remarks. But when thousands and thousands of people are dying (officially from tuberculosis or pneumonia), surely cultural offence is a small price to pay for human survival? Surely these facts should be acknowledged and countered with aggressive campaigns to reverse the status quo?

But in our current environment of trying desperately not to offend, truth and rational debate is being lost. We are ignoring the facts. While potentially amusing in some cases, the real consequences of political correctness in circumstances such as these are devastating and tragic. What the hell is going on?

[continued]