Politically Correct=Political Idiocy
“Politically Correct” is the worst misnomer in the American language. The correct version is “Political Idiocy.”
The best current example of the validity of this observation is the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.
I lived in Charlottesville and studied at UVA for a year. It is a beautiful campus within several miles of Monticello, the equally beautiful home of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson.
In establishing the university, Jefferson stated, “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”
That campus was recently the site of some of those juvenile protests of the Presidential election results. In response, Theresa Sullivan, the University President posted an email to the student body in the hope of quelling the political division on her campus. She said, in part, “Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students are not of ordinary significance. They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.”
Sullivan’s encouragement to her students to embrace that responsibility had just the opposite effect. The students then began protesting her interference because she quoted Thomas Jefferson who was a slave owner. They believed that no slave owner should ever be quoted on their campus.
If they feel that strongly about slavery and slave owners, why are they attending the university founded by such a noted slaver? What kind of thinking is going on among these snowflakes who find no problem with prodding in the footsteps of one they cannot bear to hear quoted?
This proves what was written here last week. The current generation of college students and recent graduates do not have a clue about the foundation and mechanisms of our government. This group at UVA obviously does not know that Thomas Jefferson wrote our Declaration of Independence. Are those immortal words never to be repeated on the campus of the university he created?
Closely related to this sad display of ignorance is the survey of recent college graduates about slavery. Almost half of those surveyed believed that slavery was strictly an American phenomenon. They had no clue that the Pyramids in Egypt, the Coliseum in Rome, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Acropolis in Athens, and many other fantastic structures were built by slaves under brutal conditions before Christ was born. They would be flabbergasted to learn that slavery existed in this country for less time than in other countries in which it existed and still exists.
Where is the court, and who are the judges that issue edicts on what is politically correct? How large does the group of protestors have to be to win a designation of PC?
I, for example, am of the old school that finds potty mouths disturbing. How many colleagues do I need to mobilize to have descriptions of bodily function and sexual relations put on the prohibited list? If that were done, would the snowflakes ever be able to express their concerns?
Finally, political idiocy revises history. In some instances, the world cannot be remembered or taught as it actually was.
This can be seen in the movie classic Guess Whose Coming to Dinner, a 1967 movie starring Sidney Potier, Spencer Tracey, and Katherine Hepburn. There is a scene in which two Black maids are arguing and one calls the other an appellation—the “N” word—that cannot be repeated here.
In current reruns of that classic, the “N” word is bleeped out. Does that make sense?
The word is offensive and derogatory but it was as common in the first half of the last century as Colored, Black, and African American are today. Anyone alive back then who says he never used the word frequently are as untrustworthy as Hillary Clinton.
Why then are movies, history books, and literature such as Mark Twain prohibited from depicting the world as it actually was during the period depicted?
So here’s the perspective.
After considering these few paragraphs, is there any doubt about Political Correctness being a misnomer?
enough
