Political correctness creates a culture of avoidance

Many people are forced to hide their beliefs out of fear of being un-PC. This prevents deep and meaningful discussion on a variety of difficult issues. For example, in 2015, Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born feminist and former Muslim was accused of being un-PC and promoting Islamophobia. Instead of having a meaningful and pragmatic debate over the role of feminism in the Islamic religion, protestors tried to silence her and stifle the debate. ^[2] Part of the issue is that in a culture of political correctness, the same idea made by two different people is interpreted in two entirely different ways. For example, the phenomenon of ‘mansplaining’ was valuable for pointing out subtle discriminatory and sexist behaviour inherent in our everyday language. However, its use has also extended to any white male explaining a concept. This was apparent when MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry accused White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s attempts to defend the relative pay of men and women of “mansplaining” despite the fact that Carney was responding to a question by a male journalist.^[3] Had a female Press Secretary made the exact same defence, it would have been interpreted in an entirely different way. Applying political correctness in this blanket way is debilitating to public debate and places different merit on the same ideas when they come from different sources. Even the language we are forced to used in PC culture stifles debate. It becomes clunky and does not allow for the easy expression of ideas. Instead of calling someone “poor”, political correctness would have us call them “people who lack the advantages others have”. Obese people become, “people of size”. Adhering to these politically correct constraints on our language just isn’t conducive to healthy debates. It makes our language clunky and imprecise, which in a debate where the nuance is in the linguistic detail, cripples expression.^[4]

[P1] Political correctness forces people to hide their beliefs. [P2] This makes meaningful debate impossible. [P3] The inability to debate complex topics is detrimental society. [P4] Political correctness is detrimental to society.