We’ve all seen an increase in the amount of general outrage that has been expressed in the past couple of months. Is it because of the pot-holed, jagged Election season, or the increase in media attention to race dichotomies and sexual assault cases? Or perhaps it is the vigilantism of full-time Twitter activists that has drawn our attention to Political Correctness as a way of conducting ourselves. But whether the PC movement is well intentioned or not, it’s now just a weak spot in the Left’s ideologies, an easy target on a Generation X millennial’s back.
Imagine that you’re a college professor in the middle of revising your syllabus for the upcoming semester. The school board has warned you of the perils of pushing students too far out of their comfort zones. Now, you’re a history professor who can’t discuss first-hand accounts of the Holocaust in fear of Jewish students with surviving family members feeling residual oppression, or the brutal landscape of Native American-settler relations in the 1800s in fear of students registered in Cherokee nation feeling depressed.
Keep in mind that PC culture on college campuses started with trying to comfort students who had dealt with trauma like sexual assault in their lifetimes, which would obviously hinder them from participating in a lively discussion about it. But “trigger warnings” have devolved from a way to help subjects of real trauma (sexual assault, racial discrimination, etc.) into a way to bypass anything that could possibly make us feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, “micro-aggressions” are chipping away at a person’s soul and classic novels of the literary canon should be avoided because of triggers like “graphic violence” and “domestic assault.”
The problem with censorship of ideas on college campuses is that it contradicts the purpose of the institution. College isn’t an after school daycare that nurtures and feeds students; it’s a $200,000 investment (give or take) that should help students grow, challenge them, and expose them to new ideas. As an American Association of University Professors committee member put it, trigger warnings “reduce students to vulnerable victims rather than full participants in the intellectual process of education.”
If you support Donald Trump for President, you should be able to chalk it onto a sidewalk of a campus without getting in trouble or being held accountable for panic attacks, because freedom of speech and expression are the very ideals that America was founded upon. I might not agree with you, but I’d much rather have a spirited debate in the realm of free ideas in an effort to educate you, instead of restricting your ability to vocalize your thoughts altogether. What started as a way to create a more tolerant and progressive environment has negated the notions themselves. What started as a way to regulate free speech turned into a way to diminish it; after all, “regulating free speech” is a bit of an oxymoron.
Almost everything that comes out of anyone's mouth can be offensive to a particular group of people. Calls for gender and marriage equality will make some Cruz supporters uncomfortable in the same way that bigoted remarks against Muslims and African Americans will offend Bernie-crats. If we really wanted to restrict the flow of controversial ideas from college campuses, students would be completely unprepared for the real world. Moreover, for those who want to restrict offensive ideals from the media altogether would be in for a surprise if their efforts ever surmounted to anything.
“Offensive ideals” won’t just disappear when people stop talking about it in classrooms, media and the public. Suddenly, like-minded individuals meeting under the table are festering petri dishes for hatred, with no productive form of discussion with other groups to challenge their beliefs. In lieu of spirited debates across ideological barriers, groups are propping themselves up from within, creating even stronger divides than before, prompting micro-aggression to erupt into macro-aggression, or in simpler terms, war. Abuse of PC culture is like a couple who, instead of fighting, bottle their problems up inside. Arguing keeps a relationship alive because it promotes discussion. When the dialogue stops, problems arise.
Without the exchange of free ideas, what are we as a nation? The overuse of trigger warnings and restriction of debate on college campuses are small manifestations of the more sinister implications of PC culture. While we should all be encouraged to practice conscientiousness in our words and actions, trying to appease everyone will create a walled society with no room for progression. As Voltaire once eloquently put it: "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
