On college campuses around the country, a battle over the priorities of higher education is being fought. Students of color and their allies are protesting against racism and feelings of insecurity on college campuses. Among conservatives and the media, there is a cynical attempt to blame the existence of and necessity for these protests on the coddling of selfish millennials. “The millennial generation,” the think pieces repeat in chorus on Facebook walls across the nation, “is entitled, hypersensitive, and coddled by political correctness.” For these critics, political correctness is decomposing the intellectual foundations of academia, and with it, western democracy. Replacing it is a cultural regime of politically correct Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) whose groupthink of hurt feelings detriment free speech and thought.
Oddly and unsurprisingly enough, these critics would project such blame, justified or not, on the millennial generation for what’s happening on college campuses, but doesn’t apply the same level of criticism to other events going on in the world. In principle, they are correct: political correctness is hurting political discourse in this country, but the reality is much worse and different than they believe.
Political Correctness
What is political correctness? It’s a word thrown around quite often. If one were ask any of the 17 Republicans who ran for president this year, many of them would say that political correctness is ruining America and crippling efforts to defeat global terrorism. Indeed, for Donald Trump part of his appeal to his supporters is his lack of political correctness. He “tells it like it is” they say, regardless of how incoherent and simplistic that manner may be.
With that said, repeating a phrase over and over again does not help define it or understand its application. Put simply, political correctness is a form of discourse that avoids conflict. Politicians by their nature attempt to be “politically correct” so not to alienate voters with the goal of being re-elected. Americans, up until recently, could tolerate political correctness by politicians, as it was something expected of them. Today, Americans view political correctness as hindering serious discussion about problems that cannot be solved without being identified first. This rejection of political correctness goes hand-in-hand with the distrust of institutions in the contemporary political climate. There are deep problems in American culture, problems that flow through public institutions, and political correctness is shielding those problems from being brought to light.
Discrimination
Political Correctness also seems to be rejected because it’s perceived as discriminatory against those who are politically incorrect. Though one may not say as much, when a Donald Trump supporter expresses relief for a politician “finally” being politically incorrect and “telling it like it is,” there exists a sentiment of not only agreeing with what’s deemed politically incorrect, but also a feeling of being excluded for being politically incorrect. Thus, for many it seems that political correctness is tiresome on the personal level, not just the political level.
Those with the inclination to be politically incorrect in this way feel discriminated against because they believe they’ll be seen as ignorant, stupid, racist, sexist, homophobic and so on for being politically incorrect. That perceived cultural bias against those who are politically incorrect is a form of discrimination. For them, everyone has a right to free speech, and socially excluding or disliking someone violates that right or at least discriminates against people for expressing an opinion.
Discrimination by this definition is useless. Discrimination is not about having one’s feelings hurt. Discrimination is systemic exclusion from institutions in a way that hinders one’s ability to be self-determined. Though historically speaking, discrimination has gone hand-in-hand with individual beliefs, suffering the consequences of a belief is not a sufficient condition for being discriminated against. Suffering the consequences of voicing a belief is just a part of life.
Addressing Discrimination
Systemic discrimination manifests itself against groups of people, and even then it’s usually for their identity as a group, not for their individual beliefs. For instance, Christians and Muslims in different capacities have discriminated against each other throughout history, but it wasn’t because Muslims rejected the specific doctrine of the trinity or because Christians reject the Qu’ran, but because the other group was the other group. Christians discriminated against Muslims because they were Muslim, and Muslims discriminated against Christians because they were Christians. The ideological nuances of each group wasn't the main reason behind discrimination, just that the other group was different and disliked.
So how does one measure discrimination? Put simply, one does not look at the amount of hurt feelings of those within society. Everyone gets their feelings hurt over differences in opinion at some point. Rather, one should look at empirical statistics like access to resources, wealth, income, education, incarceration rates, among other factors. There is an abundance of evidence supporting the thesis that there is discrimination against people of color, women, Muslims, LGBTQ people and other groups in America, while there is very little to suggest the existence of discrimination against white people, heterosexual people, Christians, or men.
The Real Problem: Factual Incorrectness
The reason why “SJWs” are waging a war of “political correctness” isn’t because using certain words and proliferating certain concepts “hurts people's feelings,” but because language shapes social reality. When language does this, it embeds conceptions of social reality in people’s minds that may or may not be true.
In this way, the conflation of a social identity or group with a stereotype limits that group from being self-determined. Take the common politically incorrect platitudes of “Muslims are terrorists” and “women are homemakers.” Are some women homemakers? Yes. Do some Muslims commit acts of terrorism? Definitely. But to conflate the identity or group (women, Muslims, etc) with a stereotype (homemaking, terrorism, etc) as normal marginalizes individuals who don't conform to that stereotype, which is the overwhelming majority of them. In other words, even if some women prefer to be homemakers or if a small number of Muslims commit acts of terrorism, it’s not fair or practical to treat every single Muslim or woman as if they were that way.
Systemic discrimination and “politically incorrect” speech then doesn’t just “hurt feelings” so much as it nurtures a culture of exclusion, antipathy and intolerance. People who are politically incorrect aren’t just saying things that are hurtful, they’re saying things that, given the context of contemporary society, halt progress toward dismantling unjust political conditions. These unjust political conditions aren’t just in the imagination of individuals, they’re empirically verifiable. For this reason, it’s not just politically incorrect to say that women are homemakers or that Muslims are terrorists so much as it is factually incorrect.
America’s Actual Political Correctness Problem
Everyone has a right to an opinion, but opinions that aren’t factual and make it more difficult to identify and solve problems should not be given privilege in political discussion. In contemporary political discourse, our culture treats perspectives that are factually wrong as politically valid, and it’s all due to political correctness. After all, if political correctness is defined as a way of talking about politics that avoids conflict and ultimately fails to identify the root of problems, it’s not Muslims, people of color, women, or LGTBQ people who benefit from political correctness.
Rather, it's those who support laws that marginalize and discriminate against these groups that benefit from political correctness. The fact that “religious freedom” bills have been passed in some states to defend the Christian religion demonstrates how political correctness has coddled political discourse. Christians are not discriminated against in the United States, at all, whatsoever. Christians control most of the resources and most of the political institutions, among other things. Compared to other religious groups in America, Christianity is the dominant religion with most of the social, economic and political power, full stop.
It’s one thing to be politically correct towards people who hold different principles than oneself, but in contemporary political discourse that’s not what’s happening. Rather, the problem is that many people refuse to acknowledge reality and cling to experiences of victim-hood in spite of the literature of evidence that suggests those experiences are anecdotes or fiction, far from systemic trends. In the meantime, actual instances of discrimination occurs but is seen as a lesser evil in comparison to these fictions and anecdotes. If you don’t believe this is true, some polls show that white people think white people are discriminated against more than black people, in spite of all facts to the contrary.
So, I agree we Donald Trump supporters: we have a political correctness problem in this country, but it’s not because we’re too politically correct towards people of color, women, Muslims, or LGBTQ people. Rather, we’re much too politically correct towards those who approve of discrimination despite all evidence that contradicts their position, both in theory and in practice.
