I think our culture's fascination with being politically correct is pretty intense. We've set ourselves an impossible standard. As well as no one ever being able to be completely politically correct (on the off chance that anyone would ever actually want to be), I just think it would be an incredibly boring existence.
Before people think that I'm racist, sexist, homophobic, an ableist, or any 'ist' that I've missed out on, wait till I've finished. Then you might be able to see how offensive my post actually is (not that I'm trying to be offensive but people can be so touchy these days).
I don't swear (by my own standards, maybe by some granny's standards I do [was that just some ageism I detected?]). I went through a rebel stage when I was twelve, I even used the 'c' word. Then one day I had an out of body experience in which I heard myself and thought 'wow, what a little bogan-loser' (not that I would ever judge someone who swears, except myself, and I think at this stage we're still allowed to do that).
I do, however, use words like lame, bugger, bitch and....... retarded.
Once my friend(who does swear) and I were chill-banging, having a convo, you know, loving life, when her sister came home with a friend from work.
Well this friend jumped on pretty much anything we said and told us why we couldn't use that word.
Bitch - gone for obvious gender reasons, lame - gone because of people who can't walk, retard - gone and I think we all have the brain cell it would take to figure out why.
My friend shot back at her: "how boring is my conversation going to be if I can't use all of my favourite words?"
This girl was apparently uninterested in the entertainment value of our conversation.
I sat there diplomatically soaking in both sides of the argument.
Here's the conclusion I reached: that bitch was a retard with lame rules that I couldn't be buggered to follow.
I don't know where we can start to draw lines between what is and isn't offensive because it's so subjective. Plus, who knows the flipping meanings of every single word? Apparently 'dude' means a whale's penis (or a camel, can't remember) but I guess you can't offend a whale so who cares, right? Wrong! Whales have feelings too.
More importantly, when you want to actually offend someone, or highlight that you really don't like a person, words like 'silly billy' just aren't going to cut it. The words need to have offensive meaning attached to it (I guess this makes me a bad person, but I'm down with that).
On the other hand, I do draw a line at homophobic and racist slang. I guess this coincides with these two things being particularly culturally taboo. Oh no, I'm a product of my society, time to schedule an identity crisis.
I know I've bleached the meaning right out of words like retard. I know I don't use it out of hatred. But still, I guess this might not be good enough. Being PC is really flipping hard and a little bit boring. So do I shrug and say 'YOLO' or grow as a person?
Food for thought.
I literally LOL’d while reading your entry. Although, I can’t say I went through a phase of excessively dropping the C-bomb when I was twelve, not sure I even said it out loud until I came to Australia… I was an avid user of the word, ‘retard’ (As awful, as that is). I feel as though Canada prides themselves on being extremely politically correct, therefore my use of this word has become almost extinct, however, it does slip out on occasion. Back in 2001, we even considered taking this whole politically correct-ness thing to a whole new level by considering changing several words in our national anthem… In my personal opinion, I think that is taking things a little far. Not sure how familiar you all are with ‘Oh Canada’, but one of the lines says, “In all thy sons command” the Toronto city council recommended that the government change the line to, “In all of us command” because the term sons implied "that women can't feel true patriotism or love for Canada.” Ugh, get over it. Why change a song that was written over a hundred years ago. What’s next? They propose that we change the word, ‘command’ to ‘suggest’ because command seems demanding and that is very un-Canadian like? Get it together Canada, no one is actually upset over this.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we tend to take being politically correct relatively seriously, we can, however, take a joke about our country, better than most Americans. This clip shows two well respected Canadians changing the words of ‘Oh Canada’ in order to make it more politically correct. It is doubtful that this would happen in America, with fear of getting shot. (I can’t figure out how to post it in a comment, but I put it up on my blog) Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot_k59A5yrA&feature=player_embedded
Also just to clarify, ‘dude’ means a camel’s penis.