It’s a phrase that’s been in the media and on the internet long before I regularly started caring about what happened outside my narrow bubble-head (oh, how I was naive).

I’ve been hearing it myself for roughly six years now but, in any case, it’s called Political Correctness, or PC.

When I first saw people in the opinion pages of the papers going “This PC crap’s gone too far!”, I sighed at the older generation and their lack of commitment to computers. However, now I actually know what it means, and what a ridiculous phrase it is.

According to Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia), it is:

a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent.

I prefer to look at it from the Things Bogans Like perspective, considering the way they describe it seems to be the most common form of usage nowadays:

Possibly the most abused phrase in our contemporary lexicon, ‘political correctness’ initially referred to the project of re-engineering certain terms to remove implicit discrimination, and promote neutrality and inclusiveness in language.

Yes, much simpler, isn’t it?

However, I’m not trying to quote every single thing off the internet in order to complete this blog post. This isn’t an essay. Snap out of it.

Would this be considered Political Correctness Gone Mad?

PC Gone Mad has literally taken over the vocabulary of most people I know, and most people I read about. It’s a bit like the word literally, which is literally used far too often.

Political Correctness isn’t that bad an idea, if you think of it. It’s a phrase that would’ve been laughed at a few hundred years back. Discrimination was an unheard of concept. Luckily, we’re a nice bunch of people nowadays, who actually don’t want to start war with everyone we meet…

Discrimination is bad; being friendly with people (even if you don’t like them that much) is good.

Some people don’t think like this. They want their right to abuse and to discriminate whoever the hell they want. It’s their God-given freedom of speech, and/or it’s the current Government out to get them.

What really needs to be found is that fine line between having the rights we deserve, and not abusing people.

So, if you want to abuse someone because of their sexuality, then that’s not alright, and it’s good we have PC to stop the abuse being acceptable (no matter what those people who think it’s their right to yell expletives at every homosexual think).

However, if they’re insulting someone who has killed 10 people, then this should be acceptable.

Just don’t call them a “stupid homo” when they’re not. Because that is unacceptable.