Tenchusatsu,<<<I think the existence of "politically correct" demonstrates the lack of "well-defined core values" in post-modern American culture.>>>
We are a nation of nearly 250 million. Its true everybody has not received the message. But we are a nation that has received the huddled masses and refuse from everywhere on earth and made them into one nation that has done quite well. We are not perfect. The job is not complete.
What we have done so far is to accept immigrants from where ever and taking from the the best they have to contribute and combining that with the best from everywhere else. The best of the breed - from biz speak.
Do we have core values? You bet. We have free speech. We allow the pursuit of happiness. We have rights. We have equality. We have it in writing. We have it by law.
We have baseball, hotdogs, McDonalds, Jerry Springer and Friends on TV. You don't have to go to baseball games. You don't have to eat at McDonalds. You don't have to watch TV.
It may not be exactly heaven on earth here, but its as close as we can get right now. A lot of people think so. Unfortunately, we can't accept everybody that want to come here.
There is jealousy. A lot of people find reasons to hate us and that is unfortunate.
Unfortunate also are those that are here among us that want to change our values. They want us to be more like others - in effect saying things like Other people kill innocent people, why can't we do the same .
Of course, its not easy being the good guys - and relatively speaking - many of us are the good guys.
But, even the bad guys here have all the rights and privileges as anyone else.
We protect the rights of every citizen to be able to say anything they want. It is very difficult to put into law (or language) to guard against anyone from shouting "fire" into a crowded room when there is no fire.
Ordinarily there is no problem. But there are always those that want to test the limits. There is and always will be a gray area in anything that we do.
Parents can monitor gray areas in their own homes by instituting no-no's in language. Universities try to do the same things - but that is far more difficult.
In the work place, women have sometimes been made to feel uncomfortable with sexist language and perhaps even far worst type of behavior. Is it too much to ask that that be stopped? Do you really have to test the limits of what you can get away with in this regard?
Fortunately for us, we are a strong and prosperous nation and we can address some of these issues. People in Afghanistan do not have the luxury to address these same issues.
Instead of hating Political Correctness , this is a part of what makes us different and makes us much better.
Mary |
