Hey Dan

I heap a great deal of blame for the current level of debate in the United States on the political correctness movement of the 70-90’s. The political correctness movement worked to remove words that could be perceived as offensive to certain groups. This focus on using language as a vehicle for social justice, in my view, cheapened the debate of real ideas. Using the logic of political correctness, the ideas of what you said became secondary to the words you used.

In the book 1984, George Orwell talks about a politically-driven language change. This idea of Newspeak grouped words into categories. Useful word to the government where grouped together as preferred words. Less desirable words were tolerated and harmful words were banned or outlawed. This idea of controlling vocabulary is used to control thought or more correctly thinking. When I can argue about the words you use rather then the ideas behind them, I can ban or criminalize ideas I do not agree with.

Paul Graham is one of the truly great thinkers of the Internet age. In his article “What You Can't Say” he said of said of the word heresy:

“In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. ‘Blasphemy’, ‘sacrilege’, and ‘heresy’ were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times ‘indecent’, ‘improper’, and ‘unamerican’ have been.”

Political correct is one of these terms. We use it to rename waiter or waitress to server without thinking about whether the idea of distinguishing between the two is valuable.

Today, our national debate boils down to buzz words. Is choice better then life, security better then liberty, or compassionate conservatism better then tax and spend liberalism. This is the level of debate and it seems to go no further. None of these things are ideas or values.

We have cheapened debate and expression by over valuing the words over the concepts. The joke holds true, “Peace Keeper” missiles are just a dangerous as “Nuke Your Grandma” missiles. The idea is do we need a missile system that can hit any target on the planet. That is what I want to debate, not how whether peace keeping is good. The words are secondary.