Sorry but the language police are just a load of bullies

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It's a joke isn't it. We smile knowingly because we're in the know. Ho ho, 'grammar fascists' we chuckle, confident in our grasp of the lingo being enough to hold the line against the attacks. We're canny enough to remember not to use the words 'political correctness' when the irritation rises at yet another perfectly normal, regular word that's shoved off the agenda by the language police.

Look folks, I'm good at this stuff. I've got a vocabulary way bigger than the average person. And I know that those different words for different things mean subtly different somethings. But when you see someone saying not to use the word 'stupid' because it's offensive to those with learning disabilities a little whimper of linguistic pain escapes. Why, why oh why oh why do people want to do this stuff? What do they gain by setting themselves up to police the language? And on whose authority do they act?

I get it that we should be considered, respectful and thoughtful in our choice of language. I also understand that communication doesn't happen if everything we say is set around with caveats and qualifications. And - most importantly - I take the view that most of this righteous policing of others' language isn't about that respect and consideration. Rather it's simply bullying. They're not interested in the actual content of people's speech but in catching them out using the wrong words - 'coloured people' instead of 'people of colour', 'migrant' instead of 'refugee', any number of commonly used words that might just have some sort of connection to mental illness.

What happens is that this policing of language, this poking away at words, is used by those who do not want discussion to achieve their end - the closing down of debate. If you look at how this so-called debate happens, you'll see that there is no such thing taking place because critics are either excluded or shouted down for crimes against the latest iteration of linguistic controls. The substance of the discussion is of no consequence, this is replaced by an unremitting focus on attacking the language used by the critic. Followed by complete closing of any debate through the exclusion of that critic from debate because of:

...white supremacy, colonialism, anti-black racism, anti-Latinx racism, anti-Native American racism, anti-Native/ indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, anti-Middle Eastern racism, heterosexism, cis-sexism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, mental health stigma, and classism,”

And when you cry 'free speech' in response you get some like:

...we do not tolerate the actions of student(s) who posted the “All Lives Matter” posters, and the “Free Speech” posters that stated that “in memoriam of the true victim of the Missouri Protests: Free Speech.”

This is not respectful but rather bullying intended simply to prevent any challenge to a prevailing orthodoxy of speech. The people who do this - whether on Twitter, on university campuses or through hectoring folk from the comfortable platform of a newspaper blog - are the worst of the righteous, smug bullies who use their ability to raise a mob as the basis for punishing the critic. And this is all done while moaning about abuse, blocking half the universe on Twitter (very publicly) and talking very loudly about trolls. Where the definition of troll in their world isn't anything beyond someone who won't bow to their bullying approach to language, to their use of that palette of the banned as a means to judge people.

But it's not enough to just ignore the critic. No, that person has to be crushed, humiliated, exposed as the evil bad person they are for daring to challenge your orthodoxy. Someone says 'perhaps we'd have fewer problems if we'd been less open to migrants' and they are blocked, their words twisted to make them 'vile racists'. And that blocking is celebrated - waved around like a bloody trophy in front of the other righteous: "look at me, I've dealt with an evil troll, look at me".

I don't think we should be rude. If I've genuinely upset someone, I'll be the first to say sorry. But most of what I've seen - the long list in that quotation above or the offence at some students making a pretty straight point about free speech - isn't folk being upset but rather bullies using others' fear of language rules to close down debate, to impose their selective, exclusive orthodoxy on others. I've lost count of the times I've been insulted during forty years of active politics - some of it just banter but a fair bit spiteful, aggressive, in-your-face insult intended to intimidate. Yet that's OK - trust me it's OK or the righteous would have done something about it except that it's mostly the same people - whereas someone making a mildly critical point about immigration, free speech or the portrayal of women in computer games gets metaphorically dragged kicking and screaming to the nearest pillory for all and sundry to abuse them for their sins against the language.

It's not a joke. It's not even political correctness. It's patronising. It's divisive. It's intimidation. And it's used by bullies.

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Quote of the day - Nick Cohen on the politically correct

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Pursed lipped prudes, who damn others for their sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic language, while doing nothing to confront real injustice, are characteristic figures of our time.

That's about the sum of it. The rest of the article is pretty good too - go read it.

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Humpty Dumpty and the damage of political correctness

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I read an exchange on twitter in which two correspondents tied themselves into angst-ridden knots over the proper terms to use when discussing the paralympics. We scuttled about different phrases - "able-bodied", "people with disabilities", "the disabled" and "not disabled" - with, it seems some of these being 'offensive' and others not.

There is perhaps a whole thesis to be written about the evolution of non-discriminatory language and perhaps it will explore the fuzzy boundaries between giving respect to others and political correctness. How often do we read of some or other person causing 'offence' while not intending to do so - usually by using the incorrect iteration in the evolution of language to describe a particular minority.

There are two problems with this approach to language. Firstly it gives the power of the bully to those who are appointed (usually through some unspecified and undemocratic role as a 'representative' of the minority concerned) to police the language. By not being up with the latest 'approved' terms of description we expose ourself to causing 'offence' - even if we are using a term that is not disrespectful and has been in common and polite usage in the recent past.

Secondly, it removes context. The speaker is always exposed to the risk of challenge - regardless of intent or of context - simply for failing to use what we might call the "Approved Politically Correct Term" (APCT). The result of this is that language's subtlety is destroyed - the games of wit and pleasure we play with words are closed off because the guardians of the APCTs watch over us prepared to be offended. And to use their duly appointed bully pulpit to punish.

This brings me to one of the most important passages in English literature, a passage where the magic of words is revealed and where we are given permission to be in charge of the language rather than supplicants to some approved order:

    "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
    "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
    "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
    "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
    "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master      that's all."
    Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!

The liberty that Lewis Carroll tells us about through the mouth of a nursery rhyme character is the very opposite of political correctness. It says that context is everything and that the author of the words sets the context. Rather than APCTs we have laissez faire language - joyous, challenging, exciting and - on occasion - offending. It is this that the deadening debate of precise minority descriptions destroys and the political correctness damages. The edge is taken away from communication, we concern ourselves more with the potential for offence that with the purpose of the communication - it's not just that people are offended by 'niggardly' and 'nitty-gritty' for no good reason but that when we use words, the word police ensure that they don't mean just what we choose them to mean. They mean what the politically correct have determined is their meaning.

All this kills language as we tippy-toe around certain subjects, eschew huge chunks of the dictionary and adopt a bowdlerised, dumbed-down language so as to avoid that moment of 'offence'. And the saddest thing is that, far from recreating sensibility and politeness, such political correctness makes for upset where there should be no upset and offence where there is no offence.

Perhaps we should take Humpty Dumpty's words and put them on big posters - make people realise that the language belongs to all of us. That we can wreck it as we wish, meddle with its meaning, love it and hate it as we wish. Maybe we should say to the bullies of language that we've had enough - respect is a reflection of character not a form of words. Political correctness is damaging, dangerous and joyless - it is time to get those words back under our control.

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Tories wouldn't vote for UKIP if the Party listened to what they are saying

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You disparage the electorate at your peril – tell them they’re committing one of the great sins of political correctness (racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia and so forth) and they look you in the metaphorical eye and tell you politely to shut up and go away. And this lesson is especially important for the Conservative Party because those slightly grumpy, politically incorrect voters are part of our core audience.

So when we adopt a superior position – proclaiming in the cause of “detoxification” that we will be saints of political correctness – we annoy that audience. Now, in times past they’d nowhere to go – just as Tony Blair could patronise the traditional, working-class, council-estate dwelling Labour voter secure in the knowledge that he’d nowhere to go, the current Conservative leadership seems hell-bent on doing down my sort of lower middle-class, beer-drinking, cigar smoking, steak-eating Tory.

The problem is that UKIP has provided a place for those voters to turn. And don’t give me all the “elections are won from the centre ground” twaddle. I’ve seen what the residents on my ward – a ward that returned a Conservative councillor yesterday with nearly 60% of the vote – have to say about the issues. Not much mention of climate change, gay marriage or constitutional reform. But a great deal of worry about immigration, crime, jobs and, of course, Europe. For the older of these Tory folk, there’s the stress over living on a fixed income when government policies have led to higher inflation. And everyone is annoyed by ever higher taxes – Granny-tax, Pasty-tax, fuel duty, the cost of fags and the price of a pint.

These people – let me remind you again that they are good Tories at heart – look at the government and see waste. They look at the welfare system and see spongers. They like the NHS but think it over-filled with pointless form-filling and political correctness rather than focusing on the core point – treating us when we’re ill. And these people would rather like to see the occasional policeman other than on the television. You know – on the beat, dealing with noisy kids, catching burglars and keeping an eye out for trouble.

I could continue – talk about schools and how the refusal to accept selection fails young people, ask why we send millions to India in aid when even the government there says they don’t want it and enquire gently as to how it is that we can deport an autistic kid to the USA but can’t send a known terrorist supporter back to Jordan.

If the Conservative Party wants to become a party of the wealthy shires – of Beds, Herts, Bucks and Surrey – then it’s going about it the right way. If it wants to remain relevant up here in the bit of the North no-one ever mentions – decent, family-oriented, hard-working, not especially wealthy but OK – then it needs to stop implying that UKIP are the BNP in blazers and start engaging with the issues and problems that are making very loyal Tories turn away in sorrow and vote for another party.

In our survey of Bingley Rural residents – not scientific but a pointer none-the-less – we’ve seen response after response indicating these very concerns. And a goodly chunk saying they might just consider voting UKIP.  Respond to their concerns – on Europe, crime, immigration, schools and taxes – and they’ll stay loyal and contribute to a real Tory government after 2015. Ignore those worries and we'll have another disastrous Labour government.

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