Political correctness strains relationships

The argument

In our culture, strong relationships are crucial to professional and personal success, and such relationships have a precondition: people must feel allowed to communicate without fear. That is not a preference about tone but a requirement of the thing itself, since a relationship is built out of what people are willing to say to one another. Our society's emphasis on political correctness stifles exactly this kind of open and honest communication. People cannot speak without hesitancy, and the hesitancy is sharpest when speaking to someone who identifies with a historically disadvantaged group — which is to say it falls most heavily on precisely the conversations that most need to happen. The cost is borne by both participants rather than one. The speaker is guarded and says less than they mean; the listener receives a careful performance instead of a person, and has no way of knowing what was withheld. The damage compounds from there. If people do not communicate freely, they never get to know each other at a deeper level, and both parties are left without an understanding of the other. Political correctness therefore strains mutual understanding, and relationships built on that thin foundation are less stable than they would otherwise be — because nothing has been established that could hold under disagreement. The remedy proposed is not a licence to give offence. What is called for is a change in what people are asked to monitor: instead of emphasising political correctness, we should focus on kindness, open-mindedness, respect and emotional intelligence in communication. These are qualities of the speaker rather than rules about permitted words, and on this argument they produce considerate conversation without producing the fear that makes honest conversation impossible.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Our culture's emphasis on politically correct speech does not necessarily harm relationships. By helping people avoid unnecessary offense, standards of political correctness can help strengthen relationships.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The hesitancy described is asserted rather than evidenced, and its cause is left open: taking care over how one speaks to someone from a different background is what most people would call ordinary courtesy — which the argument's own closing sentence recommends under other names. [Rejecting P2] Depth in a relationship is not the same as saying whatever comes first to mind, and the counter's point is direct: avoiding needless offence is generally a condition of trust rather than an obstacle to it, so the premise would need evidence that relationships have in fact become less stable.