Cut to the Chase – Ranting Rex

With all the hoopla over the Donald and his inability to say anything without proving repeatedly he’s a classless asshole, I thought I would write a little about being politically correct. Now, I will admit that we’ve gone off the charts with political correctness. Being politically correct can be silly, especially when you have to change things like sitting Indian style to sitting crisscross-apple-sauce. It’s the same damn thing! If you’re offended by what a 5 year old calls crossing his legs then you need therapy. Being politically correct has taken some broad swings and perhaps we need to swing a little the other way. However, just because people need a little thicker skin, doesn’t mean you get to be a jackass.

I used to work for a Catholic organization that wanted to remove violent language from their work environment. They postulated that words like execute, shoot, stab, bullet, point, target, cut, etc., led to a world of killing and mass violence. They even provide a list of words that you could use in replacement of some of these terms. Execute = transaction, bullet = identification dot, target = destination, you can see where they’re going here.

The problem with trying to change how people speak is that you have to understand that words require context. Cut to the chase, or bullet point, or take a stab at it, are not violent phrases. Also, if you remove the ability to use the words entirely you make it difficult to do business. Especially when your business is in an office of computer geeks. How the hell else are you going to say “customers need to click an executable file to run the source to target for the data we are transferring. Can you provide some bullet points so we can cut to the chase on the process for developing this application?” Does that phrase make you want to go out and commit mass murder? Of course not. Well…maybe if you were the guy that had to spend 12 hour days building the application but certainly not because of the words.

Trying to be the word police is silly, and unfortunately the Catholic Church has an incredibly long and bloody history of attempting to control what people say. I would think they would have learned after 2000+ years. Changing words doesn’t change behavior. It only allows people to sugar coat their bad behavior. When we use terms like Ethnic Cleansing, or when a minister, priest or pastor says they’re “redirecting a child’s carnal urges” that doesn’t mean you’re not killing people or raping children. It only means that you make your behavior tolerable to the gentile masses. To me, that’s unforgivable. If you want to change behavior then work to change the behavior. Changing the words only allows the behavior to continue diluted of any pointed description.

Criminal behavior aside, just because you think people are being too politically correct doesn’t mean you get to be hurtful. Donald Trump is making an attempt to hide his bad behavior behind the pretense that people are being too sensitive. Trump himself seems to sue someone every time his feelings are hurt. Not only that being PC all too often hides the true point of the discussion. For example, if I were to take a PC approach toward Donald I would say “He’s a misguided individual who’s obviously confused about his position in the mainstream of political thought and must do more to curb his passions and take a more cognitive recollection of his intensions before he socializes his responses.” However I would rather just cut to the chase and say he’s a “dumbass with a big mouth and small mind.”

Rex

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