An issue that consumes society and has consumed society for decades is political correctness becoming complete and total censorship. Everywhere you look, what once were simple requests for politeness and compassion have turned into fanatical demands followed by actions to condemn, censor, and cancel people simply for saying or believing something someone doesn’t like. What that person doesn’t like, by the way, changes daily and they can’t stand the idea that someone out there thinks differently from them. They believe they’re morally superior to everyone else and they need to be the police of language, feeling, and opinion. The people committing this censorship act offended by other people’s views and word choice when really they’re just emotional stagnated human beings who can’t control their own emotions or mental state so they must control others’ behavior.
Their calls for tolerance and inclusivity are really the opposite. They oppose differing views and if you try to discuss the topic with them, they shut down and personally attack you. The hive mind comes into full effect where you see people shunned and even physically assaulted for holding a different belief. “Sticks and stones” was a popular saying when I was a kid which instilled in kids not to let someone’s words hurt you. Don’t get me wrong, words can be cutting and scathing, but they won’t affect you if you don’t let them. This idea has not only been lost on many people but it’s gotten to where people feel the need to police others’ language because they don’t like how someone else’s words make them feel, even if the word choice used is proper in context and meaning. It’s not because the word choice is wrong, it’s because people get offended by the words, as if the right to be offended is superior to someone else’s right to freedom of speech, and so tell others what they can and cannot say. It’s totalitarian, moronic, and childish.
Along with this political crusade masked as good manners and standing up for the little guy, many people seem to be okay with having their lives controlled from top to bottom. People are willing to give up their freedom for a small sense of security which actually, if you look at history as recent as the 20th century, is no security at all. George Orwell prophesied about the society we’re seeing today. Not only did he point out the socialist/communist ideal in Animal Farm where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others, but he also spoke about the government watching every little movement you make and thought you have in 1984 where Big Brother is able to monitor what you’re thinking, control your thoughts punishable by disappearance, and limit what information you have access to, everything from history of the world down to the “fiction” novel they would’ve read. On top of that, I’ve also seen people turning on each other in modern day just as they did in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and in Orwell’s 1984 by turning in their friends and neighbors to Big Brother because they’ve been trained to think that by turning in people who think differently from the dictated opinion they are helping and saving society. What a lovely world to live in, Comrade.
I saw a tweet a number of years ago that was so unbelievably true when it was posted it was hard to believe it could become any more accurate and yet it does every single day. It said, “Campuses today (and in my opinion, society as a whole) are a theatrical mashup of 1984 and Lord of the Flies, performed by people who don’t understand these references.” If you don’t understand what that means, read both books. They’re important. I used to hate books that were taught in school simply because they were schoolwork but as I’ve grown older, I’ve grown to see why they were taught in school. Unfortunately, many teachers failed to see the purpose of teaching these and rather asked asinine questions like what the color of the curtains said about the mental temperament of main character (which everyone knows the author made the curtains blue simply because he wanted blue fucking curtains in the scene).
Everyone needs to read more. Read more books. Educate yourself. Read fiction, nonfiction, biographies, anything. Just don’t fall into the hole of reading the headline of an article and taking that to be the entire truth of the article. Read the damn article because especially in today’s media, it’s highly likely that the facts themselves in the article are much differently from what the headline would lead you to believe. But, the people making these articles know that many people simply won’t read them. They’ll read the headline and move on as if they’ve read the entire piece; misled, ill informed, and unquestioning like sheep being led off the cliff.
Drew Schroeder 