We are living in an increasing climate of absolute political correctness where the smallest comment may be perceived as offensive and can trigger a massive shitstorm that has far reaching consequences. Today I want to give my perceptive on zealous political correctness and the outrage culture.

Political Correctness

Political Correctness is on its own nothing that would be bad. In essence it is trying to be a nice person and not offend anyone with your behaviour. In theory this should be one step stronger than the non-aggression principle because even being offensive is rejected.

The problems start there. It is not possible to not offend anyone. A religious statement may offend certain religious atheists. An atheist statement may be offensive to religious people. We have even come so far to call it offensive that christianity or islam states that some people will go to hell. It is easy to see that no statement can be made at all on religion, sex, gender, whatever without potentially upsetting somebody. I would even go so far that any statement that is completely non-offensive is not a statement at all.

For this reason political correctness has developed into a type of crusade where it is very much okay to blame some group while the feelings of a different group must be protected at all costs, portraying these people as incredibly fragile while their adversaries are evil monsters. The first group is obviously everything that is right of the centre, while the second group is anyone that is not a white cis straight male.

PC culture leads to self-censorship

My first problem is that such a culture of political correctness does lead to self-censorship. When there is a discussion on a topic I really care for I will always speak out, also against PC resistance. Most of what I love is offensive to others, get over it! But on topic I do not care for particularly I have noticed myself wanting to give my perspective, but then thought it is not worth the backlash and easier to just shut up.

source

Of course there are statements that are problematic and these will always have consequences. But many people are just struggling to deal with their own life and do not follow an agenda of hate. Yet they find themselves silenced on various topics out of the fear to say something wrong. If you are not an active leftie researching a few hours a day the latest trends a simple conversation may seem like a minefield that is impossible to navigate. And this is not affecting a small minority, it is a large part of the centre and the right.

Toxic PC culture pushes people to the right

Apart from destroying productive communication and open discussion PC causes the centre to shift right. Every time somebody does decide to rather shut up out of the fear to get some little detail wrong, they perceive this as a micro-agression against their freedom of expression and social participation. This accumulates over time into a real hate. Who opposes the PC warriors? Obviously the right wing offenders that suddenly appear as the friend of the 'ordinary' people.

Did you think people will be convinced by silencing them or shouting at them??? That just causes a defensive reaction; they will stay silent and wait for their opportunity until they can finally show their discontent. For example by electing the orange fuehrer.
Pushing a zealous PC culture does not make the world a more friendly place, rather the opposite. For example gay acceptance has been rising steadily and is now starting to go down again source! Because people blame the gays for your bullshit.

Hate always creates more hate. That does include all types of hate, also the self-righteous hate of the left. The real distinction is not between left and right, it is between hateful and peaceful people. And there are more than enough haters in both, the left and the right.

PC culture protects assholes

The final problem is that it has become so easy to discredit anyone that has a valid but non standard position. There are now so many assholes that protect themselves from criticism by trying to shut up their opponents using the PC army. Please realise that by blindly joining the outrage you are just a tool easily controlled by a few power-hungry narcissists.

Individualism

If you want to promote a pluralistic, friendly and respectful world, you need to act that way. Should intolerance be tolerated? Absolutely so. Because promoting ideas is not a fight where one wins and one looses. So it should not be performed in that mindset. If you want to change someones opinion the first step is to respect that person and discuss in a friendly atmosphere. Try to understand that person, what do they think? how do they feel? Don't lecture, but listen.

We are al unique, source

Any separation of people in groups is not helping. It reinforces the idea of us vs them. Men vs. Women, gay vs straight. We are not groups, we are all individuals and our goal should be to build a prosperous shared future. A future that respects individual rights, where we do not try to silence or punish people that have different opinions, but we try to promote our own ideas by setting positive examples.

If you happen to identify on the 'left' (where left vs right is nothing but another useless separation of people), why do you not try to live your ideals and let others see them applied in practice? Because right now what people see in the left are just angry controll freaks and nobody wants to be like that...