I heard about a study released the other day that reported 52 percent of respondents are "upset that there are too many things people can't say anymore."
The way it was reported indicated that most of us hate "political correctness." Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Institute for Public Opinion which conducted the poll (commissioned by NPR and PBS NewsHour), said on NPR this could be a big problem for Democrats going forward.
That's because while independents sided with Democrats during the 2018 mid-terms, "political correctness" could be a wedge issue that pushes them back toward an apologetically anti-PC president.
I don't know the future. And I'm not going to make guesses about what might happen next week, much less in November 2020.
But I think about words, and agree with Flaubert and Tom Robbins that there is absolutely no such thing as a synonym. There is but one precise word and thousands of pretenders. And the precise right word for this poll is "stupid."
No serious person favors "political correctness."
Because political correctness is not a serious idea. It is a term conjured up first by people on the left to mock (gently or not so gently) those true believers who lack a sense of humor about their beliefs. Then it was co-opted by people on the right as a general-purpose tool they could use against those with whom they don't agree. In no sense was it ever anything with which anyone was supposed to self-identify.
There now exist some people for whom this idea is obscure, and who might identify as politically correct. These are not serious people. They are in fact stupid people.
I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings. (But it doesn't because you don't self-identify as stupid. Unless you are preternaturally honest, and then it still probably wouldn't hurt your feelings because you know how that is.)
But just because no serious person embraces political correctness, that doesn't mean situations don't arise where people behave in silly ways because they're trying to present as highly evolved and smart about the world. Take for instance, the stupid controversy over the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
No doubt there are people within, say, 20 feet of my desk who have strong feelings about the song, which in this #Metoo era does sound a little creepy. It's possible to want the song to go away for a lot of reasons, and one doesn't necessarily need to be an over-sensitive nanny stater to wonder if we need to ever hear it again.
But let's also understand that when it was written and first performed, it presented a little differently. You could see it as a playfully feminist skit about a woman wanting to exert some sexual agency in an era when it was assumed that good girls didn't.
The most jarring--to modern ears--line in the duet may be when the female part sings, "Hey, what's in this drink?" Given the world we live in, you might be forgiven for thinking Rohypnol? But in 1944, when Frank Loesser wrote it to sing with his wife Lynn Garland to signal the end of their housewarming party and hustle the guests out the door (they didn't have to go home, they just couldn't stay there) it was a play on a stock joke. There wasn't much in the drink, but perhaps the lady wasn't quite willing to leave.
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" ia a song about flirting in an age where a woman could get a reputation for making an unchaperoned visit to a man's apartment at night. She's not worried about her date in this situation--she obviously likes him and enjoys his company--but is worried about her maiden aunt's "vicious" mind and what "the neighbors might think."
"There's bound to be talk tomorrow," she says, but she's not being held against her will; her wondering out loud about the strength of the drink is transparently pretextual.
It's stupid to want to ban the song on the grounds that it endorses date rape. To make that argument is to be politically correct.
On the other hand, it's certainly fair to suggest that the song feels icky in a modern context, and maybe it doesn't need to remain in heavy rotation. If it makes you feel weird, fair enough, but consider the context in which it was written. We might agree not to play it absent providing some context simply because it's rude to make people feel weird when there's no compelling reason to.
I recognize that there are a lot of genuinely misogynistic songs in the culture that a lot of us listen to and enjoy, like the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" and "Stupid Girl," AC/DC's entire oeuvre, and Drake's "Emotionless." It's not PC to notice and critique what's embedded in the art we consume. But it would be stupid to censor artists.
I'm not going to sit here and argue that when Loesser--who was a pretty cool guy, read about him sometime--wrote "Baby, It's Cold Outside" he was thinking about sending up a patriarchal society that perpetuated rape culture by making it impossible for a woman to consent to premarital sex without risking serious social opprobrium. I'm only saying that's what the song does. That it sounds very different today is perhaps a sign of progress; women don't have to pretend to diminished capacity to ask for what they want.
But we've heard a lot in the last couple of years about how boorish men often take what they want without asking and often without any repercussions. There are lot of things I used to enjoy that now strike me as a little off. It's good that we don't casually use some words; it's only polite to be sensitive to the feelings of others. It's only smart to be precise and recognize that the world is different and that our own experience is not sufficient to understand the universe.
I don't know what "political correctness" is other than a lazy way of characterizing people with whom you disagree. It's just name-calling. It's just stupid.
And it's stupid to worry that "there are too many things you can't say."
You can say whatever you want. And the world--if it notices, if it cares to--will answer you.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Editorial on 12/23/2018