I have spent most of my life trying to not inconvenience or insult anyone. I have some major self esteem issues and seek to not display myself as negative to people so they will not immediately hate me (Though I always assume that they do). I grew up fat (still am) and socially awkward, and thus tend to have some issues. I say this to try to add some context to an argument I am about to make. I think that the political correctness movement has lost perspective.
I began thinking about this a long time ago, and even more recently was shocked to see that some people where upset at someone who was trying to make a point through satire. Stephen Colbert's show is nothing but satire most of the time, so I was shocked when I saw that some people had become outraged at a joke he made referencing a dubiously named organization, even demanding that the show be canceled due to his comments. This happened a couple months ago, and I hesitated to write anything about my opinion on the subject since I am not confident enough in my own language skills to be able to effectively convey my points without seeming like someone who doesn't care about people. But fuck it, the subject has been stewing in my brain for a while so I will try my best to explain.
Satire has been around for a long time(since the mid fourth century BCE), and has been used to show the absurdity of one's opposition. It uses hyperbole to accomplish this, and thus needs to be extreme. So when Colbert makes a joke which brings light to another group's faults, he is not being racist, he is pointing at racists and saying "Look at how ridiculous they are being!". The part that most infuriates me though, is that people ignore the satire and say that the words used are offensive so they shouldn't be used at all. This misses the point spectacularly. Satire is bombastic and offensive in order to make a point. By ignoring the message and damning the delivery you are doing a disservice to your own beliefs by not pursuing the real offender. I understand that words can hurt people, but by getting angry at the words without paying attention to the context and thus meaning behind them you tend to end up ignoring the greater problem.
Another aspect of this problem (that will receive greater examination in its own right at a later date) is the moralization of language. In short: sometimes political correctness, which has the best of intentions in trying to make the world less hostile for people, grants power to terms by making them "evil". I talked about this with "profanity" as well. Language is essentially neutral when it comes to morality, its the people who use language who make certain terms sinister. If someone says "Retards should all be put down." the statement should be met with disapproval, but not because of the terms used but instead because of the colossal biggotry behind the overall statement. If a person says "This is retarded" referring to a situation (something that happens a lot in online games) they are not being derogatory to people with developmental disorders, but is instead proclaiming that the situation is in some way less than optimal. By labeling the word as offensive it has weight behind it, and that impact is what they are going for when trying to exclaim how a situation is not optimal and how that makes them feel. Unfortunately, language is clumsy and inaccurate when it comes to describing something intangible like emotional states so we tend to try to find words with weight behind them to try to add meaning. I am all for shaming people who act like dickheads, but changing the language used doesn't change whats in peoples hearts.
If the person from the first example had said "the developmentally challenged should all be systematically euthanized" the meaning is still horrendous, regardless of the change in terms. If you find what people say offensive because of the words they use, and not the message, just don't listen to them. Hell, talk to them about it in a discussion instead of trying to legislate their behavior by threatening action that could harm them (like canceling a TV show). Thats just bullying, which is what you ought to be fighting against.
Don't agree with me? Great, lets talk about it and maybe we can both learn and grow from our interaction.
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