November 10, 2003
It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. There is no stronger evidence for the truth of this maxim than in our current climate of political correctness. People are twisting themselves into pretzels in efforts to keep from being offensive, or to be even perceived as offensive. The end result is a lexicon that’s about as colourful and exciting as a bowl of cottage cheese.
No one wants to call things by their common names. Will someone please tell the mainstream news media that "sex trade workers" are really "prostitutes" or "hookers"! In their efforts to keep from offending feminists, the media have elevated the world’s oldest profession into what sounds like a unionized drudge. The term "sex trade worker" evokes visions of weary women wearing workboots and lunchpail in hand marching off to put in their time at the machine. This is in the interest of furthering the feminist view of the so-called "victimization" of women. Prostitutes, hookers and call girls are terms that imply a sense of cunning, as in a predator stalking its prey, while "sex trade workers" are reluctant participants in their own exploitation.
Other examples of the media’s war on words (as well as the truth) are its reluctance to report the race of certain perpetrators of crimes. They appear to have no problem saying that "…the suspects was a white male in his late teens or early 20s, of medium height with sandy hair and brown eyes" when describing white criminals. The fact that they are reluctant to describe non-white criminals may come out in descriptions like "…the suspect was in his late teens or early 20s and was of medium height". Descriptions of this sort have now become a code for describing the perpetrators as non-whites. What’s wrong with the realistic description of someone suspected of committing a crime? Wouldn’t this assist the public in helping to identify the suspect? Or are the media afraid that they might be accused of racism if they report the truth?
We hear a lot about "child poverty" these days. Again, this is a code word for a very ugly truth about our society. When the people talk about child poverty, they are really talking about teenage mothers. We have sexualized our children to the point where teenage pregnancies, which were once an anomaly, are now a pandemic. Rather than discouraging teenagers from having children, we are now enticing them to do so by ensuring that they and their babies are taken care of once they give birth. The net result is that we are denying these children an opportunity to grow up into normal adults, who have choices because they do not have the freedom to get an education, while we are creating a permanent welfare class.
Many people refer to the handicapped as being "physically challenged". It is ironic that in the 20th Century we basically hid the handicapped by ignoring their plight making participation in our society all but impossible. Now we are sugarcoating their plight by trying to find less offensive words to describe their condition.
I believe that our need to change the language we use to make what we are saying more palatable and less damaging is rooted in a deep aversion to reality. We do not want to face ugliness or unpleasantry in any form. It is one of the key promoters of victimhood and deprives the individual of responsibility for his or her actions. Taken to its logical conclusion, an aversion to reality will ultimately be responsible for our demise, as we begin to call criminals "victims", terrorists "freedom fighters" and dictators "leaders".