Now, I realize that many of the preceding presentations have addressed the issue of political correctness in one way or another. Nevertheless, I think that PC needs to be discussed overtly.
In simplest terms, political correctness, or adherence or avocation thereof, is a sure sign of stupidity. Now, I must be careful in stating that political correctness is not the same as common courtesy. Racial, ethnic, gender epithets, or any form of name-calling designed to attack a group of people is not acceptable. The type of political correctness I am referring to involves people’s refusal to address issues, or their soft peddling of responses. I suppose I am in a sense differentiating between maliciously motivated actions and intentions, and mere words.
Perhaps we should start with a less controversial example, and then build up to the strongest of opinions, and therefore the things that really piss people off. Somewhere about a generation ago, firemen became firefighters, with the theory being that the language itself created prejudices that influenced the perception that women could be firemen. I will concede that words create perceptions, and therefore that words can be instrumental in changing the way that people behave and think and such. However, did we really need to have that period where all the compound words that ended in ‘men’ were replaced by ‘person?’ I mean, seriously. Couldn’t a busboy still be a busboy even if she were a female? What was the benefit in the increase in the number of chairpersons, and committee persons, and longshorepersons?
Okay, the longshoreperson label never really caught on, but why not? I contend that the sheer idiocy of the ‘man’ to ‘person’ exchange became obvious when we came to words like longshoreperson.
Perhaps a bit more volatile of a term will help to illustrate my point. I understand completely why the word ‘nigger’ is inappropriate in conversation. The original coining of the term and its earliest usage was intended to denigrate a race of people. Consequently, using the term, even when no offense is intended, is careless, tactless, and wrong. Quite simply, the baggage that the word carries precludes its effective use. What I don’t understand is the adoption of that same word by contemporary Black Americans, or African Americans or persons of color. You see, I intended no offense there at all; I honestly don’t know what is currently the acceptable term of address. The component of political correctness to which I object is this very example. If I were a person of color who was using the term in the context of addressing a friend of mine who is also a person of the same color, then the term becomes some sort of an inside term of endearment.
Bear with me for a second. What if the law enforcement officers of the world decided, capriciously, that their exclusive term of address for other law enforcement officers was ‘pig’? In the squad car or the squad room, they could inoffensively call each other ‘pig’ without fear of offense taking. After all, it would just be a buddy calling a buddy a name. Such things happen everyday. Now suppose that a whole bunch of singing policemen sold millions of songs in which policemen call other policemen pigs? When the general population hears the disparaging term on the radio or on their pirated downloads to their ipods, will they also be able to use the term to address the policeman who pulls them over for speeding? Will the policemen be offended, not reasoning that the offensive term has been revived by the very people the term is meant to denigrate?
Hopefully, you are starting to follow my reasoning. Political correctness is a cowardly business that can often prevent people from saying what they really mean. For fear of choosing the potentially offensive term or phrase, they adopt some circumlocution that muddies the informational waters.
Having saved the most recent example for last, let me go on record as saying the backlash and subsequent firing of Don Imus for saying ‘nappy headed ho’s’ among other stupid things, is illustrative of my position. Don Imus is a shock jock. That is, he was hired and has been gainfully employed for a long time expressly because he says politically incorrect things. He doesn’t lack the sense to avoid the offensive; he is being paid to find it. The game, on his end, is to walk the tightrope between rattling the cage and grabbing the bird by the neck and thrashing its brains out on the rec room floor.
So to be blunt, I don’t think Don Imus should have been fired, and I don’t think that the public outcry should have been able to twist the short hairs of the radio execs. I think those execs should have been able respond to the public umbrage by saying, “Don Imus says stupid things. That’s why hundreds of thousands of people tune in daily. We don’t like what he said, and we don’t condone his opinions or his delivery. He is being paid to entertain people, and for some reason, the current public taste embraces the abhorrent things he says. So shut up. We ain’t firing him. He’ll be back on the air in the morning, and if you think he is crossing the line, stop listening to his program, you dopes.”
Had the radio execs responded in such a way, the outcry would have grown exponentially for about three days. Then, when the same radio people repeated their position a few days later, the outcry would have dwindled to a whimper.
Now, don’t get me wrong, though I generally despise the litigious nature of our culture, I think the offended basketball players had every right to accuse Imus of slanderous or damaging remarks that could adversely affect their status in life. However, I think the judge who heard that case should have said, “Look, a public figure said a stupid thing on the radio. Each of you, so far as I have seen, carries herself with a degree of dignity and class that further exposes the stupidity of his comments. Why not continue to show the fool what a dimwit he is by being above the whole thing?”
The negative characterization, in fact, had little true damaging effects on the character or public perception of those young ladies. Why did the girls lower themselves by accepting the public viewpoint? In effect, the public lived down to the standard thrust upon it, and the ‘victims’ followed suit. Our current culture has established a set of items that are presumed to offend, and everyone waits for the signal to feign offense.
Here’s the simple point. Most political correctness is false in every way. If black people call each other by the ‘n’ word, in what they say is proper context, then the word isn’t the source of the offense. If the word isn’t the source of the offense, then the offense emanates from the speaker. That is, the offended person or group is offended because the speaker hasn’t the right to traffic in a term that has been historically and traditionally offensive. In other words, the victims feel offense because they are supposed to, not because they feel any genuine offense. Hence, the political correctness issue is almost always grounded in pretext, presumption, and falseness.
I don’t have a reliable test for these issues, but I wish I did. So, let’s invent a test using an example of relatively harmless political correctness. I was once chastised for referring to middle-aged women that I work with as ‘girls.’ They should be considered as ‘women’, or ‘ladies’ I was told. However, when I said to my seventy-year-old grandmother and two or her friends, “How are you girls doing today?” they giggled well, like girls, and thought it was cute. In two contexts, each with women older than thirty, I was supposed to know whether reference to them as girls was offensive or not.
So the test is this: if the speaker has to guess about the propriety of a particular term, then the problem is not with the speaker, but with the listener. If there is not definitive intention to offend inherent in the derivation of the term, then there is no offense. Using this test, the ‘n’ word is verboten, and that’s ok with me. But it’s verboten in ALL public discourse, even if the speaker and the listener are complicit in adopting acceptance of the term in their own private context. In short, if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. If one has no definitive reason to know that it’s wrong, it’s not wrong. How’s that?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Marriage Part II
Marriage Part II
So you want to be married, eh? Well, let’s be frank about this enterprise. You, like everyone else getting married for the first time, have no idea what you’re getting into. Tenet number 1 is that marriage is a journey into the unknown, and if you don’t admit that, you stand less than half of a chance of remaining married for any extended period of time. If you do accept your ignorance, you stand a fifty-one or higher percent chance of prolonging the relationship. And don’t even think about protesting, those of you who have lived together. Spouses and roommates are not of the same species. They may walk and talk alike - to strangers, but they have only superficial appearances in common.
Mind reading, at least the expectation thereof, is a critical component of married life. If you’re the husband, you are supposed to anticipate – and here’s the yoke – and to act upon the projects, chores, and routines that your wife has thought about at lunch. That means that if your wife has a momentary impetus to rearrange the living room furniture, or to clean out the basement, then the only way for you to come out looking good is to have completed those tasks before she gets home. No matter that you go to work, and you get home half an hour later than she does. “Common sense!” your wife will say, should have told you that the job lay in wait for you.
That’s a good thing to know too, by the way: common sense is actually the cumulative opinions that your wife may have encountered in the supermarket, workplace, or at the bus stop. Common sense also entails any and all contact that your wife has had with her mother, your mother, her girlfriends, (but not your girlfriends) and can be profoundly influenced by tabloids, magazines, and Oprah. If, for example, Oprah does a segment on making your kitchen more efficient, common sense would have told your wife that, of course, you need to re-tool the kitchen.
Men, by nature, don’t get to come into contact with common sense. It is secreted in those locations to which only women have full access. A man believes that he’s showing common sense when he goes out to buy the new power drill rather than to borrow the neighbor’s for the thirteenth consecutive project. But if your wife’s family and friends – cathode, periodical, or otherwise – have not stumbled onto this idea, then your purchase is whimsical and foolish. The purchase of the ten-person van, with TV and video arcade in the backseat, is entirely common sensible. After all, there’s an outside chance that you’ll be making a twelve-hour trip with yours and the neighbor’s children sometime before the kids all go off to college.
Another problem to consider is the division of labor in your household. Don’t waste time nor breath trying to pretend that you and your spouse will devise a way to make the division 50-50. Someone is going to do more than the other, and if you’re the one most concerned about the split, then you’re the one who’s going to do the higher percentage. It is a time-proven fact that the spouse who is least concerned about the division of labor is casual about the issue for a reason: s/he has no intention of doing his/her 50 percent. S/he will rationalize, equivocate, and explain, but the last 15 percent of the chores will not get done.
In fact, marriage can be a wonderful estate, for other people that you know, but never for you. And that is actually the largest part of the problem. Married people judge and interpret other marriages so favorably that they always see their own union as falling short. The only good news about this is that other people will misjudge your marriage just as badly. If this happens, and you get the chance to respond, tell them how wonderful everything is all the time. Complaining will put you in a bad temper and make you even less accepting of your spouse’s flaws. More importantly, he or she will find out about your gripes, and then get even.
The truth is that being married to someone, and using your combined efforts to achieve a common purpose or goal, is entirely out of the question. No two people ever see things the same way, so why pretend that love, loyalty, and commitment can alter that? What you must hope to do is to agree on a goal or purpose in theory. Don’t even consider that you’ll approach the objective in the same way. Your spouse should be someone you can have fun with, who will let you tilt at your windmills while he or she tilts at hers. You need only agree that some personal windmills require serious tilting.
Your spouse should allow you your quirks, while you allow him/her his/hers. (Is that right? All that he/she, him/her stuff?) You are supposed to be in a semi-chronic state of individual evolution together. The things you try to accomplish, together and apart, are the glue that holds your relationship together.
Here’s an analogy. It’s like a bed of rocks. Some are igneous and some are metamorphic. Others are sedimentary. The rest are fool’s gold, but that’s another story. Time throws things down onto the rocks, and pressure either pushes them apart or together. Sometimes you pick up these sedimentary rocks that have somehow bonded without losing their individual identities and characteristics. Other times the pressure and the forces of nature (think HEAT!) melt those babies down so they appear to be one rock. In still other circumstances, fiery volcanoes throw up molten rock that has nothing whatsoever to do with this analogy. So you see, marriage is like that bedrock. At least, it should be like that bedrock. You and your partner rock are going to join with identities intact, be melted and compressed into a single entity, or pushed apart until you lose sight and contact with one another. In any case, once you’re in that little swale, you’re not getting out. I mean, you can’t just get up and leave. You’re a rock for Chrissakes!
On the subject of other important components of betrothal, you need only consult Glamour, Cosmopolitan, or Redbook. Of course, if you want to find out the truth, you’ll just continue reading.
At least one other component of marriage should be mentioned. The first marriage chapter dealt with staying married and this one has dealt with daily, married life to an extent. Of course, it was all very philosophical and abstract and general and such. But if you are upset with your spouse, even as you read this, you should consider a few things. You married the person, for crying out loud; are you really so surprised at how s/he is behaving? Or are you upset because you expected to have completed substantial makeovers by now? Seriously, write down the character traits that you have always known that your significant other has. Is he or she impatient, picky, opinionated?
Well, let’s bet last month’s salary that the reason you’re mad right now is directly related to one of the traits you’ve known about all along.
What I’m really saying is that trying to alter someone’s makeup or disposition is another lesson in futility. Sure, you might have some success in getting your spouse to be nicer, more courteous, or more conscious of your feelings, but even these changes take great concentration on the part of your spouse. S/he won’t be more anything without tremendous effort. Why not love the man or woman for all the reasons you originally did? Make a list of what you loved to start, and try to appreciate any efforts being made to accommodate you.
You’re probably thinking that it’s easy for me to say these things, but I assure you it’s not. My wife is emotional, moody, sensitive, and strong-willed: all of the things I am not. (OK, maybe I’m pretty strong-willed too.) But that is not to say that I am any better. I have my own set of negative traits, which I like to call quirks, because it makes me look better. We are polar opposites, and her empathy, sympathy, sensitivity, kindness, and caring are what I originally loved. Sometimes I have to remind myself when she is driving me nuts. What I loved about her is what can make me want to pull my eyes out of my sockets – or hers. And asking for those traits to disappear because I’m in one of my moods? Well, that’s unrealistic and shows a lack of common sense. I read about that in last month’s Maxim.
For better or worse, with only a smidgen of expectation that you and your commitment can change anything substantially, concentrate on having as much fun as possible. Psychologists, who I trust only occasionally, report that our personalities are determined during childhood. What makes us think that marriage will reconfigure what it took ten years to build, and another ten or more to solidify? Again, we can work toward getting some behaviors altered slightly, but genuine personality traits are here to stay.
Love your spouse. It’s more fun and much more productive than the alternative.
So you want to be married, eh? Well, let’s be frank about this enterprise. You, like everyone else getting married for the first time, have no idea what you’re getting into. Tenet number 1 is that marriage is a journey into the unknown, and if you don’t admit that, you stand less than half of a chance of remaining married for any extended period of time. If you do accept your ignorance, you stand a fifty-one or higher percent chance of prolonging the relationship. And don’t even think about protesting, those of you who have lived together. Spouses and roommates are not of the same species. They may walk and talk alike - to strangers, but they have only superficial appearances in common.
Mind reading, at least the expectation thereof, is a critical component of married life. If you’re the husband, you are supposed to anticipate – and here’s the yoke – and to act upon the projects, chores, and routines that your wife has thought about at lunch. That means that if your wife has a momentary impetus to rearrange the living room furniture, or to clean out the basement, then the only way for you to come out looking good is to have completed those tasks before she gets home. No matter that you go to work, and you get home half an hour later than she does. “Common sense!” your wife will say, should have told you that the job lay in wait for you.
That’s a good thing to know too, by the way: common sense is actually the cumulative opinions that your wife may have encountered in the supermarket, workplace, or at the bus stop. Common sense also entails any and all contact that your wife has had with her mother, your mother, her girlfriends, (but not your girlfriends) and can be profoundly influenced by tabloids, magazines, and Oprah. If, for example, Oprah does a segment on making your kitchen more efficient, common sense would have told your wife that, of course, you need to re-tool the kitchen.
Men, by nature, don’t get to come into contact with common sense. It is secreted in those locations to which only women have full access. A man believes that he’s showing common sense when he goes out to buy the new power drill rather than to borrow the neighbor’s for the thirteenth consecutive project. But if your wife’s family and friends – cathode, periodical, or otherwise – have not stumbled onto this idea, then your purchase is whimsical and foolish. The purchase of the ten-person van, with TV and video arcade in the backseat, is entirely common sensible. After all, there’s an outside chance that you’ll be making a twelve-hour trip with yours and the neighbor’s children sometime before the kids all go off to college.
Another problem to consider is the division of labor in your household. Don’t waste time nor breath trying to pretend that you and your spouse will devise a way to make the division 50-50. Someone is going to do more than the other, and if you’re the one most concerned about the split, then you’re the one who’s going to do the higher percentage. It is a time-proven fact that the spouse who is least concerned about the division of labor is casual about the issue for a reason: s/he has no intention of doing his/her 50 percent. S/he will rationalize, equivocate, and explain, but the last 15 percent of the chores will not get done.
In fact, marriage can be a wonderful estate, for other people that you know, but never for you. And that is actually the largest part of the problem. Married people judge and interpret other marriages so favorably that they always see their own union as falling short. The only good news about this is that other people will misjudge your marriage just as badly. If this happens, and you get the chance to respond, tell them how wonderful everything is all the time. Complaining will put you in a bad temper and make you even less accepting of your spouse’s flaws. More importantly, he or she will find out about your gripes, and then get even.
The truth is that being married to someone, and using your combined efforts to achieve a common purpose or goal, is entirely out of the question. No two people ever see things the same way, so why pretend that love, loyalty, and commitment can alter that? What you must hope to do is to agree on a goal or purpose in theory. Don’t even consider that you’ll approach the objective in the same way. Your spouse should be someone you can have fun with, who will let you tilt at your windmills while he or she tilts at hers. You need only agree that some personal windmills require serious tilting.
Your spouse should allow you your quirks, while you allow him/her his/hers. (Is that right? All that he/she, him/her stuff?) You are supposed to be in a semi-chronic state of individual evolution together. The things you try to accomplish, together and apart, are the glue that holds your relationship together.
Here’s an analogy. It’s like a bed of rocks. Some are igneous and some are metamorphic. Others are sedimentary. The rest are fool’s gold, but that’s another story. Time throws things down onto the rocks, and pressure either pushes them apart or together. Sometimes you pick up these sedimentary rocks that have somehow bonded without losing their individual identities and characteristics. Other times the pressure and the forces of nature (think HEAT!) melt those babies down so they appear to be one rock. In still other circumstances, fiery volcanoes throw up molten rock that has nothing whatsoever to do with this analogy. So you see, marriage is like that bedrock. At least, it should be like that bedrock. You and your partner rock are going to join with identities intact, be melted and compressed into a single entity, or pushed apart until you lose sight and contact with one another. In any case, once you’re in that little swale, you’re not getting out. I mean, you can’t just get up and leave. You’re a rock for Chrissakes!
On the subject of other important components of betrothal, you need only consult Glamour, Cosmopolitan, or Redbook. Of course, if you want to find out the truth, you’ll just continue reading.
At least one other component of marriage should be mentioned. The first marriage chapter dealt with staying married and this one has dealt with daily, married life to an extent. Of course, it was all very philosophical and abstract and general and such. But if you are upset with your spouse, even as you read this, you should consider a few things. You married the person, for crying out loud; are you really so surprised at how s/he is behaving? Or are you upset because you expected to have completed substantial makeovers by now? Seriously, write down the character traits that you have always known that your significant other has. Is he or she impatient, picky, opinionated?
Well, let’s bet last month’s salary that the reason you’re mad right now is directly related to one of the traits you’ve known about all along.
What I’m really saying is that trying to alter someone’s makeup or disposition is another lesson in futility. Sure, you might have some success in getting your spouse to be nicer, more courteous, or more conscious of your feelings, but even these changes take great concentration on the part of your spouse. S/he won’t be more anything without tremendous effort. Why not love the man or woman for all the reasons you originally did? Make a list of what you loved to start, and try to appreciate any efforts being made to accommodate you.
You’re probably thinking that it’s easy for me to say these things, but I assure you it’s not. My wife is emotional, moody, sensitive, and strong-willed: all of the things I am not. (OK, maybe I’m pretty strong-willed too.) But that is not to say that I am any better. I have my own set of negative traits, which I like to call quirks, because it makes me look better. We are polar opposites, and her empathy, sympathy, sensitivity, kindness, and caring are what I originally loved. Sometimes I have to remind myself when she is driving me nuts. What I loved about her is what can make me want to pull my eyes out of my sockets – or hers. And asking for those traits to disappear because I’m in one of my moods? Well, that’s unrealistic and shows a lack of common sense. I read about that in last month’s Maxim.
For better or worse, with only a smidgen of expectation that you and your commitment can change anything substantially, concentrate on having as much fun as possible. Psychologists, who I trust only occasionally, report that our personalities are determined during childhood. What makes us think that marriage will reconfigure what it took ten years to build, and another ten or more to solidify? Again, we can work toward getting some behaviors altered slightly, but genuine personality traits are here to stay.
Love your spouse. It’s more fun and much more productive than the alternative.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)