Political Correctness

Thank goodness for sports. If it weren't for them, nationalism would be a much messier affair than it is these days. Have you noticed that there is not one really competent soccer team in the Middle East? Food for thought.

Anyway, I bring this up because Yahoo Sports columnist Mike Silver recently stepped into the "rename the Redskins" hornet's nest, and received the predictable backlash. I essentially agree with him, but I want to take a closer look at the oft-used pejorative "politically correct." For one thing, the history of the term is fascinating: it was mainly used as a term of self-deprecation among Leftists until the 90s, when it was seized by conservatives in order to... deprecate the Left. Charming, no?

What is accused in the label of "politically correct" is that the speaker is either too timid to risk giving offense (conversely, that someone using the term is being more forthright), or is deliberately attempting to undermine cultural (American, usually) values. The criticism directed at Silver hits both points, but since he obviously expected the topic to be controversial, the second criteria is more interesting. The problem is one of language. Among Redskins fans, the word "redskin" has quite positive connotations. They want Redskins to succeed and are proud to be associated with the word. Among Native Americans, and, frankly, most everyone else in the country, it's understood to be a racial slur directed at a historically-abused minority. Most moral failures have at their root failures of imagination. Although it must be said that what we've got here is failure to communicate.

Of course, there's a reason the name has stuck around for this long. We go to sports to sublimate our nationalism, after all. Sports and teams are deeply mythological and rely heavily on tradition, and most people are fans from a young age. Hence, the symbols involved are quite intransigent. People don't like to change what they see as their identity, no matter how outwardly nonsensical it may be. But then, why can't we all just accept that when they say "redskin," they mean something completely different? Well, we could, in theory, but the Redskins are a nationally visible team. The use of the term is not really private to Redskins fans. And all told, even the most fervent Redskin fan is probably not as culturally attached to it as Native Americans are to their ancestry.

As Americans (I presume), we basically all speak English. Or rather, the American dialect of English. Or a New York or Chicago or Tennessee dialect of English. Or New York Jewish English or New York Dominican English. And, let's face it, the finer connotations of words are going to vary from person to person. Hence, the goal of most "politically correct" language is to be publically correct -- to have a meaning which is roughly coherent across most possible listeners. There is an essential guiding principle in this case, which I recall from my college RA:

"In public, people can see and hear you."
-Jakob van Santen

Specifically, public speech is targeted to the widest possible audience, and in a culturally diverse setting there may be a very restrictive subset of the language that is useful. Language may be further constrained by the expected attitude of the listener. Laws and regulations must be worded with the utmost care, on the assumption that someone may try to distort or negate the intention of the law. And again, it must apply equally in all jurisdictions and even time periods. Laws often define their own terms for this reason. In this respect, the Bill of Rights contains our most poorly written laws. Going even further, our communication with computers, who as yet have no culture whatsoever, must ultimately be extremely precise. In the case where the listener assumes a hostile intent in every statement (for example, Slashdot commentators), constructive communication is basically impossible.

This is all well and good. The problem with "politically correct" as we know it, is when speakers try to apply this to real cultural incompatibilities -- gay marriage, let's say. When the concept itself has opposite connotations to two groups, there is no proper neutral term. Attempts to create one will dissolve into nonsense. Or I would say so, although the persistence of civil unions as the "let's do it but say we didn't" option would seem to belie this.

This is problematic, but it seems to me that certain critics aren't really against politically correct language so much as the lack of cultural unity that makes it necessary. The solution on the Right in recent decades has been an attempt to force a common culture legislatively (Paul Krugman corroborates). Of course, this actually serves only to drive the subcultures involved further apart, a destroy lines of communication. In the long term, this is poisonous to democratic governance (cf. Yugoslavia). To be fair though, this blind spot to subjectivity in language is not unknown on the Left either; it just hasn't been organized to the same extent.

Of course, my solution is that we should all think twice before assuming the worst of people. Bonkers, I know.