By M. Stephanie Murray
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 29, 1998

A touching p.c. fable

Once upon a time, I worked in a toy store. It was a happy time, spent sniffing the fruit-scented clay, playing with Legos and puppets and reading children's books. One of the books we sold, however, was firmly directed at grown-ups. It was called Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, by James Finn Gardner, and it re-cast the familiar tales of the Three Little Pigs and Cinderella in the sensitivity-honed vocabulary of our time.

One day at the toy store a woman came in while I was playing one of my very favorite children's tapes, Dr. Demento Presents/Vol. 1: The 1940s and Before. While she perused the Bedtime Stories book, giggling at the absurdity, a song came on called "Shaving Cream." It's a cute little number by Benny Bell with Paul Wynn in which the main hook is that the verses set up verbal situations that seem like they will end with "shit" but segue into "ssssssshaving cream." My customer was appalled and demanded I shut it off immediately.

After she left, I began to have an argument in my head with her, pointing out that the song encouraged the kind of verbal playfulness that gives children a love of language and reading. My internal debate also extolled the virtues of Arthur Godfrey's "Too Fat Polka," also on the album, as a song that promoted the idea that there is someone out there for everyone, regardless of what we look like. (Remember, the song ends with "She's just right for me.")

Lately, I've been having far too many of these arguments in my head, most of them revolving around the abuse of the term "political correctness" and its emergence as a pejorative epithet.

"Politically correct" has always been a loaded phrase. It's long since lost its usefulness as a meaningful term for debate. After the advent of the television show "Politically Incorrect," the original phrase began to mean those who advocated a hyper-sensitive newspeak. Those who were "politically incorrect" were those who were not afraid to speak their minds.

But now, something's gone very weird with the phrase.

The Internet is always a hotbed of evolving language. The media genre that brought us "hypertext" and "cyber-everything" shows what "politically correct" has become. Dave of "Dave's Politically Correct Homepage" announces "My last home page was considered too offensive by web search and other fascist right wing organizations." (The underlined words lead, of course, to a hypertext link to the Republican Main Street page.) Funny, I thought that political correctness was a tool of the left-wing liberal media. And, to the best of my knowledge, fascism is on the far left of the political scale, way out past socialism and communism.

In this usage, "political correctness" is identified as a form of censorship, a tool wielded by the government, the "web search" people and, of course, that vast, right-wing conspiracy that we're all surrounded by.

Another web page displayed the usual disclaimer: "This page and all contents were created and are maintained by Joe Anti-P.C. The views contained in these pages are not necessarily those of Average American College." Then in big letters below: "Uh, can we say 'politically correct'?!?!?" Uh, sorry, but this is basic legal boilerplate, declaring that the person speaking is not a representative of the institution they are metonymically associated with. You can find it over in the grey box in the corner of this page (or maybe the previous page, depending on layout): "Columns represent the opinions of the author and not those of the newspaper." It's not political correctness; it's common sense and covering your ass.

OK, here's the deal: "Politically correct" isn't an epithet to be lobbed at everyone and everything that you disagree with. It isn't a blanket term for anyone who won't let you spew stupidity and vitriol wherever you wish. It isn't an insult to anyone who exercises judgment against you.

The original intention of the movement toward "politically correct" language was to promote tolerance and to make us re-think our attitudes toward others. There is no denying that language defines who we are, from names to job titles to racial epithets. The gradual transition in the language from "bum" to "homeless person" has radically changed the way American society relates to this section of society.

There are always extreme cases of political correctness gone haywire, such as The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version, which deletes all references to the "right hand of God" so as not to offend left-handed people. Sounds obnoxious, but the Bible has been re-written and edited so many time in the past 2000 years or so that this may be the least disturbing revision. Hell, the King James Version was commissioned to silence the anti-monarchic rabble of the late 16th century.

(This "politically correct" version of the Bible also attempts to avoid the anti-Semitic references of the New Testament. Considering what the results of that Biblical bias have been in the twentieth century alone suggests that those "politically correct" changes may not be an entirely bad thing.)

Possibly, the change in the tenor of the phrase "politically correct" to imply a form of censorship indicates that we're uncomfortable with what the re-thinking of these attitudes tells us about ourselves. Life's a lot easier if I don't have to assess the effect of my words on others. In all social situations, however, one must be aware of one's audience. This is not hypersensitivity or political correctness; it is common decency to one's fellow man (and woman) and responsibility for one's effects on others.

M. Stephanie Murray is a senior majoring in English literature. Her column, "What fresh hell?" appears sporadically .