Political correctness and apologism

The ‘Political Correctness and the Apologist’ brigades are going ahead by leaps and bounds in Australia, and I wonder why we (or our leaders) allow it to happen. One person somewhere says that they find it objectionable that schools celebrate Christmas, with carols and decorations, and in many places of learning these things are banned. Muslim women are allowed to wear full, body and face covering clothes, even in the most important places where they should be recognisable, like banks and courts – why? If you were to walk into your local bank wearing a mask, a motorcycle helmet, or any other ‘disguise’ you either wouldn’t be allowed in or someone would be quietly phoning the local police! And it is almost impossible to tell whether there is actually a woman or a man under all that cloth – something of a worry! We’re not supposed to call women “luv”, (note the different spelling), as the feminists find it objectionable for some reason, even though, as far as I am concerned, it is merely the female equivalent of the blokey “mate“.

We are expected to apologise to our aboriginal brothers for taking their land a couple of centuries ago, but how far back is this sort of thing supposed to go? Surely, on this basis all people in the UK of Saxon, Norse or Norman origin should be apologising to the Celts, who now live just in Wales and to a much smaller extent, in Cornwall. At least in those far off days the foreigners attacked and killed as many Celts as they could find, whereas the people who arrived in Australia with Captain Cook were barely aware that there was a full race of people living here already – a naïve approach admittedly, but at least it was, in the main part without malice.

Councils are a prime source of political correctness! Take for instance public toilets, many of which now carry a sign which simply says “AMBULANT”, no mention of “Toilet” at all, just a sign with the ambulant word and a graphic of a man or woman, apparently with only one leg and a walking stick. I wonder what foreign visitors, (and even locals who haven’t experienced this item), think of a sign like this. For all they know, it might be a sign announcing a first aid room, specialising in treating only one legged people!

There is another case in point regarding councils. Suppose virtually a whole town of about two thousand people decide they want a new swimming pool, and they have raised the money to pay for it. Then one member of the community objects, on the grounds that her daughter might go there and drown, so the council cancels the whole project. Where is the democratic rule here which states that if the majority want it, it must go ahead, even if some minor adjustments are made to accommodate slightly differing requirements.

We can’t call people who are unable to see ‘blind’ these days, though I completely fail to see where the insult lies, in that simple word that has been used for centuries; we now have to use ‘visually impaired’ instead. And the same applies to many other personal ailments too – you mustn’t refer to a person who can’t hear as ‘deaf’, they have to be ‘aurally challenged’ or some such thing, and anyone who is screamingly fat mustn’t be called anything more than ‘overweight’. In fact, the politically correct mob spend most of their efforts, it would seem, finding existing words objectionable for one reason or another, even though they are in every dictionary and have been there since Samuel Johnson wrote his, four hundred years ago!

Space won’t permit me to delve deeper into this interesting and annoying subject, but I hope it gives some idea as to my feelings. Why can’t these people just allow us to get on with our lives without having to worry whether what we say or do insults or offends someone, especially as our words and actions are pretty well universally used, without malice?

But then, perhaps I’m just visually impaired where a subject like this is concerned!

Do you agree with Brian?