Political Incorrectness and its Virtues

Language and the Thought Police

We often think of political correctness in terms of language, the words which were once correct and are now incorrect, like BAME for example, or indeed pronouns. In America Negro was replaced by Black, was replaced by African American, was replaced by Person of Colour, is replaced by…?

The list gets longer when you work in an institution employing DEI personnel. In the Great Patriotic War, Soviet soldiers had a Political Kommissar in each battalion, doing much the same thing, not that the Nazis were any different. Both left and right have their own versions of PC. For example:

“It was also the name of Bill Maher’s television show from the late-’90s, born on Comedy Central and later picked up by ABC. It was cancelled when he argued that the 9/11 hijackers were not actually “cowards”.

Political correctness has led in some countries to the creation of thought crimes and the punishment of unspoken beliefs. Some beliefs are politically protected by the Equalities Act 2010, some are not. It’s discrimination pure and simple. Moreover, why should religious and philosophical beliefs be protected, when my own are not. I am neither religious nor philosophical, and I haven’t a clue of how many gods you can fit on a pinhead in a forest where no-one sees them falling over.

Reclaim Your Brain

We need to reclaim our brains, and for example bring these banned Oxfam words in back into the common lexicon:

He, she, mother, father, husband wife, homosexual, bisexual, slave, old people, normal, healthy, deaf, disabled, blind, OCD, mankind, labour force, attitudes, behaviours, prostitution, women and children, lady, biological male/female, male/female bodied’, ‘natal male/female’ and born male/female, illegal immigrant, economic migrant, third world, first world, developing countries, developed countries, the West, homeless, black market, international development sector, international aid sector, ethnic minority, headquarters, natural disaster, poor people, BAME, BME, mixed race, and vulnerable women.

Non-Verbal Political Incorrectness

There is more to this than language, and as I write there is a Star of David around my neck – there since October the 8^th 2023, a lucky rabbit’s foot dangles provocatively from my belt loops, and I’m carrying a brand new pocket watch with the USSR’s hammer and sickle on the lid. Yes I know millions of people died because of it, but so did that last pocket watch from Argos. It didn’t even outlive its second battery.

It’s not enough to avoid being politically correct, you have to embrace incorrectness. You need to own it. The idea of PC language is that you are displaying sympathy towards a disadvantaged group. Empathy trumps sympathy in my book and sympathy, as someone once informed me, lies between shit and syphilis in the dictionary. You need to own your insult, in the way that black people reclaimed the ’N’ word. I control what offends me, and my culture tells me that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. I own being ‘gammon’ and have neutralised it as an insult.

Every Virtue is Associated with two Vices

I also owned being ‘normal’, because it is how I identify, and it’s my lived experience. That offended some individuals, but I have the same rights as those who identify differently.

“Aristotle believed that every virtue is associated with two vices, one by an insufficiency of the characteristic related to that virtue, the other by excess.” I see myself as without any particular virtue, so am probably vice free compared to a DEI consultant.

Be Authentic

Psychological studies conducted in America suggest that politically incorrect language make the user sound more authentic, and you can infer from this that woke people sound contrived by comparison. Here’s a quote:

“When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refers to immigrant detention centers as “concentration camps,” or President Trump calls immigrants “illegals,” they may take some heat for being politically incorrect. But using politically incorrect speech brings some benefits: It’s a powerful way to appear authentic. Researchers at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business found that adding even a single politically incorrect word or phrase in place of a politically correct one—”illegal” versus “undocumented” immigrants, for example—makes people view a speaker as more authentic and less likely to be swayed by others.“

Time to Ditch the Morally Fashionable New Orthodoxy

There are concepts and beliefs in life which can best be described as morally fashionable. Take slavery for example. It was OK for ten thousand years, and only bad for the past two hundred. You have to put people’s beliefs into some kind of perspective. Ten thousand years hence, won’t people laugh at 21^st century woke extremism? It’s a new orthodox set of beliefs to conform to, for those people whose self-esteem relies on having ‘virtuous’ beliefs and telling the lower social orders all about them.

“When the BBC Today programme held a poll of its readers to choose one policy which a Labour MP Stephen Pound said he would adopt as a private member’s bill, the listeners chose the right of homeowners to use any force to defend their properties when invaded by burglars. Faced with this political incorrectness, Mr Pound withdrew his offer, declaring: ‘The people have spoken, the bastards!“

Group Think

People are shamed into political correctness and vilified for posing an opinion that someone might be offended by. There’s a shortlist of acceptable beliefs, and woe betide anyone who might want to think for himself. Thinking for your self is so non-PC, that one British public school padre was sacked when he told pupils that they were allowed to make their own minds up on a certain topic. His pulpit was no protection – and neither was the PC Church of England.

They may well wonder why so many people(s) want to achieve victim status, rather than own their personal destinies.“Persistently blaming the West for many of the Third World’s problems discourages Third World countries from facing up to the fact that many, and perhaps most, of their problems are self-inflicted. As China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore have shown, the key to development is largely in a country’s own hands.”

Yes, there’s a solution.

Whether you’re a man or a woman, be proud of yourself. Masculinity isn’t toxic and feminity is to be treasured. Whatever nation you’re from, be proud of that too. Don’t be ashamed of history – embrace it. Be proud of your town, county and your culture.

We need to develop non-verbal political incorrectness and incorporate into our daily lives, by for example, holding open doors for women and the elderly. Others fly the flag. When I say others I mean not just England supporters, but also local churches as well as my local working men’s club

Other forms of political incorrectness could include: