Political Correctness, I believe is doing more harm than good in this country...I think I agree with Glenn Beck on this matter, if only in part.
His deeper point seems to be that braille on the bathrooms or on a coffee pot for that matter, does not address the real issue, which is rational solutions for accessibility. and we get caught up in whether or not we are hurting someone's feelings, to the exclusion of the larger issue. I agree with Beck in that P.C. can keep us from debating and examining the issues and solving them. The proverbial, not seeing the forest for the trees. Political Correctness can often serve to cloud the issues, rather than solve them. For instance, when i say "Those welfare mothers who continue to use children as pawns for their own sustenance should be booted off the system and made to make their own way more honestly," I get blasted for being insensitive, prejudiced, and perhaps racist. Yet, this issue has profoundly affected our society and has done nothing to solve the real problems created from it. It's not about skin color. It's not about me trying to feel superior. It's about, "here's a problem that needs to be solved, here are behaviors that are counter-productive, and let's make sure everyone has the opportunity to improve themselves, without handing all of it to them on a silver platter so that they don't have to do the work."
In a post under My Two Cents (by panhandler) on one of my other sites, she relates the content of insipid emails from the dull and ignorant on personals sites...and remarks "Can you believe it??"
Unfortunately, yes i can believe it. Happened to me repeatedly, like some recurring rash...still happens. I continue to get those kinds of mails. As you know, it's still another good reason for me to start and maintain this site. I almost see it as a sort of Underground Railroad for chagrined, dispirited lesbians who want more from their lives and their people. I don't want to deal with the kind of mentality revealed in ads/emails like those...associating with those "types" just depresses me. I don't want to encourage them by validating them, of course, but it's not like you can bring any rise to the unleavened, as it were. Political Correctness, then keeps us all from evolving. The truth is the truth.
So...I am an individualist, non-conformist...among other things. I don't enjoy being so schismatic with my identity and the identity of others...but somehow if i don't, i feel i will be sucked into the abyss. And if I'm going to be sucked into the abyss, i want it to be the Bliss Abyss, not the abyss of ignorance. Maybe that's why i have the views i do on what i call Neo-eugenics. (Wrote a paper on that--what a shock).
I suppose all this means I am an Intellectual Separatist. I'm not judging the people, per se, just their behavior, their choices, and the surrounding issues that arise... But it's often so hard to divide a subjective self-concept or cosmology from the objective universal ones. Meaning, some people have certain ideas about themselves, and anything that threatens it is rejected out of hand. They believe what they believe and sometimes can't understand that beliefs are malleable. That evolution is predicated on questions and data-gathering; that what is true now, is not written in stone; and perhaps most importantly, that if you don't educate yourself and make learning your friend, you will be INCAPABLE of understanding the very concepts that might lead to inner peace and happiness. You simply cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Ultimately everyone has to take the reins on their own buggy and guide it where they want it to go.
And then there's that old Prime Directive (from Star Trek)--never interfere with the natural evolution of a species. I think that applies to individuals. We can help when asked or when we think we might be able to LightSwitch someone; we can put our ideas out there and hope they are considered. But ultimately, everyone is on her own path, and what she learns has to be visceral. Ideas will only take you so far. Action is the defining element.
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