Thursday, March 29, 2007

*RADIO RANT: Conservatives' Favorite Two Words

. . . of disapprobation: on conservative talk radio, these two words are "POLITICALLY CORRECT." (Nope, liberal is only ONE word!) But like "liberal," this phrase has been rendered ugly by conservative brainwashing and browbeating. The original intent of "P.C." (not our choice of words, anyway) in the 1970's was the simple(?) entreaty to respect diversity/difference in social discourse: as a corrective to sexism ("chairperson" rather than "chairman"); as a corrective to racism ("Native American" instead of "gut-eater" or "prairie n-----"); as a corrective to heterosexism ("gay" rather than "faggot"); as a corrective to all blithe denigrations of people with disabilities (i.e., avoiding such awful, dehumanizing terms as "crippled" and "retarded"); etc. (To those who say, "But those are only words"—I have no words for you. Or more to the point: that calls for another blog entry, on social constructivism and poststructuralism.)

Admittedly and unfortunately, the conservative backlash against such gestures towards linguistic—gasp—humanity has been very SLY in its strategy: "We won't use those words any more" (except for Michael Savage?!, who just offhandedly tossed off the word "cripple" the other night); "we will instead go on the offensive and claim that such calls for tolerance are themselves intolerant—of our very right to hold attitudes that are, finally, just as . . . sexist, racist, etc., as we bigots have always clung to, and indeed, cherished, as reactionary confirmation of our own tenuous and xenophobic self-worth."

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