In America there is a full-scale party political assault on political correctness. The Republican debate last night was full of it, half the problems of the country being put down to the allegedly pusillanimous obeiscence to it on the part of the government, and, increasingly, students.
The following is a comment by AC Grayling, Master of New College of the Humanities in London:
“The origins of political correctness were profoundly honourable, in combating prejudice and promoting inclusion in its place. But its extension to anything that could give affront, or which could alarm tender sensibilities, goes vastly too far. University is precisely the place where such sensibilities should be vigorously shaken up, because the world at large is not interested in pretending that realities do not exist.
“Two key points are overlooked by champions of the new politically correct dogma. One concerns free speech. By its nature free speech can be disruptive and even offensive, but the answer to bad free speech is not censorship but better free speech. Censorship is much more harmful than debate; however unpalatable a view, it is better to challenge it than hide from it.
“The other, related, commitment is to intellectual courage. Facing the world and its complexities in order to understand and deal with them is obviously far better than burying one’s head in the sand, hoping that the nasty things will go away because one is ignoring them. The latter attitude is worse than silly, it is infantilising and disempowering – precisely what university life should not be.
“To attend university is not only to learn more, and to learn it with richer attendant insight, it is also thereby to mature one’s intellect, to grow up, to become an enfranchised adult in mind. Recreating nursery conditions to protect oneself even from mention of what happens in unvarnished human experience is a perversion of that process. In America, students call their universities “school”; alas, it seems that the cotton-wool connotation of that term is too literally carried across to what should be very unlike school in a number of respects. University is where one is not only taught, but learns independently; where one is not only guided, but challenged; where there are not teachers and pupils, but colleagues; where a steady gaze is directed at the data of life and the world, with the aim of understanding both.”
What do you think?
Agree with Hanrott, Grayling and others: truth-seeking and maturation are the core objectives of education. These values ought not to be warped by the sometimes mawkish narcissism which afflicts adolescents. I see a far more sinister danger than political correctness run amok.
The problem is that critics of PC are often right-wingers who launch false-flag attacks on student reform efforts by flank assaults on young people battling overwhelming odds to change domestic and foreign policies. What’s missing? rational conversation across different viewpoints. Kill fruitful conversation and you kill reform. Corporate media focus on misguided PC–let’s face it, the idealistic young are bound to veer off course–and ignoring crucial problems that matter much, much more, is the bread-and-butter of the corporate airwaves.
Firstly, I agree with all of you in the sense that free speech is more important than protecting people’s sensitivities. University should be a place where your views are challenged, even if the opposition is prejudice. And sometimes, hearing offensive views can be fun and amusing, even if such views are ultimately disagreeable.
But on the other hand, some opponents of PC are genuinely prejudice. You hear a lot of anti PC arguments from racists, homophobes, religious extremists, etc… Just because the PC crowd are annoying doesn’t make them wrong, and just because the anti PC crowd are sometimes refreshing to hear, doesn’t make then right. Donald Trump is an example of this: he’s vehemently anti PC, but his comments about Mexicans and Muslims are disgraceful to say the least.