Political Correctness

[Rev. Rye]

Political Correctness is, in and of itself, a good idea. Unfortunately, it has the major flaw of hinging on expecting people being courteous to everyone, and I honestly think the boat on that idea being viable sailed long ago, likely when we stopped working on the assumption that there were about 150 people in the world and we knew them all by name.

Peer pressure is needed. It could be as simple as "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything."  When I went to Boot Camp 1/2 my company was from farm country, the other half from Harlem. We learned to respect each other in that nine weeks.

Unfortunately, in larger groups, that peer pressure (usually as provided by society) tends to look for excuses to lash out at others. And pressure to love is a hell of a lot harder to instill in people than pressure to hate. Case in point: two millennia ago, an itinerant preacher in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire started preaching a message of love, loving your neighbour as yourself and even your enemies. What happened to him? He was executed, specifically in a manner so excruciating the word "excruciating" came into being as a direct analogy for incredibly agonizing experiences. The moment his followers started to gain ground, they were persecuted for 250 years, until the Emperor decided he could use it as an excuse to vanquish his enemies. It grew into the biggest religion on Earth, but people still don't love their neighbours, especially not the followers of this religion built on lovong one's neighbour and even enemies.





You said you were in boot camp, which presumably means the military. Maybe they were getting you to create or modify an in-group (the US military) and an out-group (the enemy).