Politically Correct

Welcome friends!

Sorry for the delay this week.  Computers.  Am I right?  Where we would be without them?  Anyway, lots of funny stuff going on recently.  Did you catch the story about a young Donald Trump posing as his own media spokesman under an assumed name some years back to brag to a reporter about his ostensible prowess with the ladies?  Is that weird or what?  What a joker.  I’m still a little incredulous conservatives have chosen this guy as their candidate to be president of the USA.  You know, they do a lot of posturing and talking about wanting to make American great but really they want to piss all over it. Or that’s the way it seems to me.  I think only someone with real contempt not only for the country but for one’s own responsibility as a voter would come up with a candidate like Trump.  I get that some young people probably think it’s funny along the lines of those jackass movies they’re always watching or whatever but really I can’t imagine any mature serious minded person of any political persuasion looking into it and concluding the man is fit for the job.  But I guess talking continuously about Mr. Trump’s antics and asinine pronouncements is basically playing along with his apparent media strategy that no publicity is bad publicity so let’s go easy on that, shall we?  No, I thought this week I might do a light little post on words just as a sort of breather before diving back into the fray.  What set me off this week was a little article I scanned recently about an obnoxious conservative reality TV show personality, not Donald Trump this time but some other guy who I think is involved with geese or ducks in some way, going on about how he was being put upon by the forces of political correctness.  Conservatives have been throwing that phrase around for a long, long time.  At least thirty years according to my personal memory banks.  That’s a little too long in my opinion.  I keep expecting it to fade away into well-deserved retirement but whenever I pick up the paper there it is again.   It’s starting to annoy me just a little bit because it’s one of those expressions that actually meant something at one time but has evolved into a sort of nonsense expression conservatives offer up when they can’t think of anything sensible to say, which is quite often in my experience.  Let’s try to break it down shall we?

I think “politically correct” originally applied to a situation where person X believes proposition Y but because X wants to present himself or herself as agreeing with or at least not contradicting what he or she thinks is the majority view falsely claims to not believe Y or to believe contradictory proposition Z.  The charge is that X is bowing to political expediency by concentrating more on appearances and more particularly appearances that make X appear more popular or more in tune with what others believe than with expressing what X truly believes.  So the original idea was if someone charged X with being politically correct they were basically saying X is lying about what he or she believes.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I think it’s perfectly fine to make that charge if you think that’s what’s going on.  No, what irks me a little bit is when some conservatives apply the phrase to anyone who disagrees with them.  The charge is the other person is lying.  If one is going to say something like that one really needs to back it up with some sort of evidence.  Otherwise it’s just an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack or as they say in the vernacular a cheap shot.  Look, I don’t agree with conservatives and I’ll tell you why.  I’m not lying about it.  I’m not a secret conservative.  I’m telling all conservatives right now I don’t agree with you.  If you’re going to charge me with being politically correct I want to see some evidence.  What makes you think so?  To again put things in the vernacular: put up or shut up.

Now some time ago I noticed a shift in usage in which some conservatives did not really charge their opponents with being politically correct but instead charged them with trying to force conservatives themselves to be politically correct.  To me this falls into pretty much the same boat as the original usage.  If you’re claiming people are trying to make you lie about something show me the evidence.  How are they doing that?  People disagreeing with what you’re saying or again in the vernacular telling you they think what you’re saying is a load of c—p is not the same thing as them telling you they want you to lie about what you truly believe.  Spill it.  Are they blackmailing you?  Threatening you?  Bullying you?  It’s funny because usually when conservatives make this charge the next thing out of their mouths is the most incredible conservative hogwash, which one can only assume is what they truly believe although to me it frequently borders on complete lunacy, so whatever their opponents were ostensibly doing to force them to lie about their beliefs apparently had little effect.  Anyway for the record I want and expect conservatives to argue honestly for whatever they really believe.  I’ve never suggested anyone lie about his or her true beliefs let alone try to force anyone to do so.  I just don’t agree with what conservatives typically say and of course I feel I have a right to say so and explain why.  Sorry if that annoys anyone but that’s what happens in a free society.

The most recent permutation of this expression doesn’t seem to involve particular people at all but some sort of overarching ethical principle or perhaps a silly convention of polite society.  In this usage conservatives don’t claim any particular person is being politically correct or trying to make conservatives be politically correct but instead that this amorphous social force, political correctness, is trying to stifle them.  Again I’m not really sure what they’re talking about.  I’ve never heard anyone promote political correctness as a moral principle.  That is, I’ve never heard anyone say something like I get that you disagree with me but can you just lie about it and pretend you don’t.  It’s a straw man.  Same thing for any proposed force of social approbation.  People may not agree with you if you say something they find ignorant or ill-considered but that’s a whole different issue from people suggesting you lie about what you really believe.  You don’t believe in being politically correct?  Hey good for you!  Congratulations!  Neither does anyone else.  You’re not a rebel at all.  That’s what we all think.

The bottom line is I think the expression “politically correct” has become for conservatives one of those meaningless expressions, like “socialism” and “Nazi,” they use so often and so indiscriminately no one has any idea what they mean to say.

While I’m on words can I get one other issue off my chest?  Not related to anything I was just talking about but has anyone else noticed a weird change in how people use the word “troop?”  When I was young “troop” referred to a group of people most typically soldiers but possibly police officers or whatever.  “The troops” was a collective phrase that referred to all soldiers or all police or everyone in the armed forces or some other collection of that sort.  Recently I’ve noticed that writers even in reputable newspapers have begun to use “troop” to refer to individual soldiers.  For example they may report that two US troops were killed in battle and when you read the article it turns out they’re talking about two soldiers.  It’s weird.  I’ve always been interested in etymology and how words change over time not just in pronunciation but in meaning but I think it’s rather unusual and interesting to see it actually play out right in front of one’s eyes.  I don’t know, perhaps it’s a sign of age along with my reading glasses.  Has it always been that way?  Is that why my English teachers always wanted me to use the word “whom” more often than I liked based on how we normally talked in my little town?  Because in the past it wasn’t just tightly wound schoolmarms and foreign people who said things like, “Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking” but everyone?  Well, I guess everything changes.  No sense hanging on.  What difference does it make anyway as long as we all know what we mean?  We can talk about two troops if that’s how you want to say it.  So we waste a few words clarifying what we mean because of some usage changes.  Who the hell cares?  The issue should be about a couple of soldiers dying in battle not about the words we’re using to describe the event.  Precision in language is great.  You won’t find a bigger proponent than me.  But let’s not get all weird about it.  If the language gets a little funny because the meaning of words is shifting under your feet just invest a few extra minutes to clarify.  Slow down and enjoy the ride, that’s what I always say.

References

Trump Denies Posing as Own Spokesman in 1991 to Tell Reporter About His Many Girlfriends.  Ben Mathis-Lilley.  Slate.  May 13, 2016.  http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/05/13/trump_seems_to_have_posed_as_own_spokesman_in_1991_people_conversation.html

Trump’s bizarre, dangerous neediness.  Eugene Robinson.  The Washington Post.  May 16, 2016.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-bizarre-dangerous-neediness/2016/05/16/32a86be4-1b9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory.

U.S., Europe must stand up to Erdogan.  Frida Ghitis.  April 29, 2016.  http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/29/opinions/erdogan-crackdown-ghitis/index.html.