{"id":1125,"date":"2015-05-26T14:08:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T06:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2015-05-26T14:08:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T06:08:43","slug":"political-correctness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2015\/05\/26\/political-correctness","title":{"rendered":"Political Correctness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The more I read about the different angles on the whole <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rappler.com\/move-ph\/balikbayan\/news\/94286-gawad-kalinga-tony-meloto-sexist-speech-hawaii\">Meloto issue<\/a> (and just so we&#8217;re clear, this post will <em>not<\/em> be about the Meloto issue), the more annoyed I get with all this &#8220;PC&#8221; (politically correct) bullshit.<\/p>\n<p>I never liked the concept of being PC &#8211; as I was always of the mind that getting used to that will just make people more and more anal about every goddamn thing to the point that you can&#8217;t fucking say or do ANYTHING anymore.<!--more--><!-- \/\/ --><\/p>\n<p>When someone argues for being PC along the lines of <em>&#8220;Why should you have to resort to being PC when there are perfectly legitimate ways to convey the same things in a more &#8216;socially palatable'&#8221;<\/em> way, I get that, I really do, but it just sucks the life out of <strong>everything<\/strong> IMHO.<\/p>\n<p>I can only speak for myself, and I admit that it&#8217;s mostly because I am a huge fan of comedy &#8211; which makes me think that dealing with the world in general in a disposition that you are able to laugh at yourself as well others and have a much lighter disposition in life <em>clearly<\/em> is a much <em>healthier<\/em> way to live than being so stuck up and easily aggravated.<\/p>\n<p>While I do not condone being PiC (politically <strong>in<\/strong>correct) for the sake of getting away with real, deep seated bigotry (there will be people that will abuse it), but more often than not, I think it&#8217;s ALWAYS better for people just to lighten up, and try to give others the benefit of the doubt, instead of just jumping into conclusions about a person&#8217;s personality simply because of the way they choose to speak. Even if the person who uttered the words was truly a bigot, his [intentional] &#8220;dig&#8221; would lose its power in the face of an audience that has thicker skin. As the pinoy saying goes: <em>&#8220;ang pikon, laging talo.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Because here&#8217;s the reality: it&#8217;s either we develop thicker skin and relax, or people be more mindful\/anal about how they speak. Both of which are <em>valid<\/em> &#8220;solutions&#8221; as they both ultimately could address the issue of &#8220;being offended.&#8221; But to me the consequences of both approaches have <em>drastically<\/em> different long-term effects.<\/p>\n<p>If you are more &#8220;mindful&#8221; (i.e. anal) about how you speak, sure it does solve the whole PC debate, as you avoid getting offended (or offending) because there&#8217;s no stimuli that could even start it to begin with. But just think of how constricting and agitating that would be for a lot of people &#8211; it, quite literally, makes life so BORING. To me, it&#8217;s like forcing Blacks or <em>Bekis<\/em> (Filipino gays) to abandon their respective lingos simply because there&#8217;s a &#8220;proper&#8221; way to speak their native tongue &#8211;  can you imagine how stifling that would be for the (sub)cultures in question?<\/p>\n<p>It also makes everyone dumber IMHO &#8211; because they lose the ability (and practice) to notice if something was uttered jokingly, or seriously, or everything in between. Comedians are perfect examples of how otherwise PiC statements\/ideas, when used cleverly, can not only drive a <em>more important<\/em> idea closer to home &#8211; but also make the audience more receptive to the point\/reality they wish to convey. In appreciating the subtleties (for lack of a better term) that made otherwise offensive language funny &#8211; either you&#8217;re smart enough to get the joke &#8211; or not &#8211; and the truth of that statement really should speak for itself. Sure, comedians are comedians because they have a talent for <em>tastefully<\/em> accomplishing that feat &#8211; but I don&#8217;t want to have to be a professional comedian just to be allowed try to argue\/present ideas the same way.<\/p>\n<p>If people developed thicker skin on the other hand; if we all learned to relax, take a joke, laugh at ourselves, and laugh WITH others&#8230; now the absense of &#8220;offense&#8221; is because we learn to not take some things too goddamn seriously.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but to me <em>napaka-obvious<\/em> which is a more sustainable and healthier way of dealing with life. Taking it easy vs being so agitated every time. Is there even a debate as far as what wrinkle-inducing, vein-popping &#8220;perspectives&#8221; go? No contest! <\/p>\n<p>Learning to chillax is always THE better thing to do than going ballistic and thinking the worst of every person who says something that isn&#8217;t &#8220;kosher.&#8221; Plus, it&#8217;s obviously good for comedy &#8211; and laughter is always the best medicine &#8211; why would you want to limit the material that can be used for such &#8220;medicine?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying that we should just go wild and <em>not<\/em> consider what other people think, and be as offensive as we want through the guise of &#8220;comedy&#8221; &#8211; we should definitely still think before we speak.<\/p>\n<p>What I <em>am<\/em> saying is that I think our culture has become WAAAAY TOO PC for its own good &#8211; at the expense of becoming&#8230; I can&#8217;t even find the proper word for it, but whatever it is, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s healthy anymore &#8211; and it certainly makes everyone who&#8217;s so anal about being PC such boring, intolerant bigots in their own way.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The more I read about the different angles on the whole Meloto issue (and just so we&#8217;re clear, this post will not be about the Meloto issue), the more annoyed I get with all this &#8220;PC&#8221; (politically correct) bullshit. I never liked the concept of being PC &#8211; as I was always of the mind &hellip; <p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2015\/05\/26\/political-correctness\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Political Correctness&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[896],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-perspective","tag-perspective"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}