Political Correctness, Mr. Head.

So, I know you're asking me in your head, "Yo, Joe...what's your beef with Political Correctness? Why the hell do you care what people say or think?" Well, that certainly is a good question, head of my reader. I will try to answer it so you can return to fantasizing about how cool it would be to be able to charge objects with kinetic energy, throw them, and have them explode on impact.

My beef with political correctness is that it gives too much attention to words and not enough attention to actions. My dad, when he was holding forth on the finer points of basketball, would often quote Bobby Knight; "The mental is to the physical as four is to one." I would say that actions are to words as four is to one. I think that political correctness distorts this ratio and places too much of the onus for one's righteousness vis a vis the treatment of others on words while giving short shrift to actions.

It is not surprising that this distortion of value reaches its apex in Academia. It isn't surprising because Academia is comprised of incredibly educated people with very little power in the real world. Language is the currency of that institution. The ethics of any body develop vis a vis that body's access to power. Nietizsche discussed the difference between the slave morality and the morality of the superman, which corresponds roughly to the difference between the morality of the powerless and the morality of the powerful. The fact that Academia's ethics place so much emphasis on language reflects the fact that its constituents, by and large, lack the resources to affect society in a substantive, material way. The lack of emphasis on how to appropriately use real power reveals the anemia and shame of the hordes of self-important phds.

Ok, that might be a little harsh. But the point is that college teaches kids to care a lot about words while giving them very little context for understanding how the real world operates...how could it? Most of the leaders therein have never had a real job! Or any real money, or any real experience! So, they focus on what they know and what matters in their distorted, circumscribed world...language.

The end result, in my humble opinion, is that relatively good people can acquire a bad reputation because their language isn't right, while relatively bad people can maintain a good reputation because their language does "follow the rules."

Consider: A businessman tells a racial joke at a party, but hires a lot of minorities and donates a lot of money to the NAACP. Compare him to Professor Goodmouth who is very careful to identify his "location" when he speaks, and is very careful to use the most self-effacing and respectful language and tone possible...but he hordes his meager salary to himself, and never hires anybody, because he can't, and never volunteers anywhere, because he's lazy. Who is the bigger racist? Who is the better person?

So, back to the head's question...why do I care about this? I have no fucking clue. It just annoys me and strikes me as hypocritical and small-minded.