It is the big elephant in the room for a lot of Conservatives, and the big front for a lot of Liberals. The idea of political correctness has been said to be one of the better ideas to come out of modern America, but some would disagree. Some, however, sit in the middle of this double-edged sword.
Political Correctness is usually an offensive term. A more accurate description is the new term safe speech. Safe speech usually sits as a guideline for speaking in a public setting. Even so, such can go too far. Safe speech, trigger warnings, and political correctness all have their uses, and can generally be seen as a good thing. When they're not a good thing is when students think that trigger warnings should have a place in Greek university courses.. Events such as this show a general shying from history in the interest of protecting the mind of someone who may have faced trauma. Now, that's not to say that trigger warnings aren't useful, because there are situations where it'd be best to use them, but students entering a class on Greek mythology should well know that a discussion topic may turn to sexual assault, incest, or kidnapping.
Along with the prevalent issues such as that, the culture of political correctness breeds silence. Many people, fearing to offend classmates or others, may refrain from speaking all together, taking away from the discussion and creating a one-sided argument in most cases. Many people who support safe speech state that the feeling of one group outweighs the expression of opinion of another group. Instances in recent times would point to events like protests, debates, and issues surrounding the #blacklivesmatter issues that have popped up following the death of Michael Brown. Within our own college, I have seen cases where people have yelled at other students attempting to express an opinion that didn't fit with the majority opinion, which is a direct subversion of the ideas of free speech. In cases like this, safe speech becomes as oppressive as hate speech, because the objective is the same—suppression of someone's belief.
That's not to say that safe speech doesn't have a place—in fact, it does. Safe speech is best in sensitive environments where people with lasting trauma are treated, as well as in therapeutic situations where the objective is to help past these events. Along with that, however, is a more foreboding truth. The most painful truth is that there will be people who always use hate speech, who push people to prefer the idea of safe speech in a reactive manner. People will always slur at one another, and press anger through our land. Is the issue to be ignored? Not at all. What has to happen, however, is that we need to step back from the idea that oppression counters oppression. We need to, as a society, promote unity among all peoples. That, I believe, is the only way to advance.
