Survival of the dumbest

You may have seen the following Christmas message doing the rounds on e-mail. It’s lengthy, but it needs to be considering what it’s trying to achieve. Anyway, here it is, in its unedited glory: 

'Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practised within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all. 

Additionally, a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, colour, religious or sexual preferences of the wishes.

 

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself (sic) or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)'

Careful now!

Ah yes, the politically correct Christmas, oh I mean holiday, message. Just another one of the many examples we have of society gone politically correct mad. And, in the Western world, it feels like we’re just at the beginning of this craze – much worse is to come, you fear.

The Australian comedian Steve Hughes does a great job of highlighting how ridiculous this whole ‘must not offend anyone, anywhere’ culture has become.

Bringing us back to our primary school days in one of his sketches, he reminds us of the old tried-and-trusted rhyme of ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’. You know the one - blasted out with confidence when verbally assaulted by the school-yard bully. How teak-tough, mentally if not physically, we were back then.

We wouldn’t let a few hurtful remarks uttered by some ape offend us. We could rise above it. And even if we were offended, so what? Nothing happens. Just don’t dwell on it. 

Sadly, though, this is not the case anymore. Somewhere along the line in our advance towards maturity, we started letting a few words or actions upset us, really upset us. But not only do we take offence; we harbour it and expect retribution to be had on the offender.

And so it should be, you might say. We can’t have a world where offensive, hurtful remarks are flying about the place unrestrained, right? But think about the opposite scenario. A situation where everything that one says and does is carefully choreographed so as not to upset anyone, anywhere. 

From this remove, it appears that the drift towards total political correctness is a slide to a more dishonest, untruthful society. Is it not better to know somebody’s true feelings on a topic than to be given a more ‘accepted’ public version while the reality couldn’t be more different?

Adding to this, without getting too political here, most Western democracies, the United States excepted, tend to overcompensate to the left in the quest for a discrimination-free society. Much of the reason for this is because of the horrible legacy of the extreme right in these parts of the world – we won’t go into that here. 

The result, though, of all this is that we get a very slanted take on things through the media, politics and other public bodies that doesn’t always reflect reality.

Here’s a very benign example of how crazy things are becoming. 

In a previous radio job, I used to have a weekly slot with a PR man from a well-known bookmaker firm in Ireland. We’d talk about upcoming sporting events, the likely winners, where you’d find the best betting value and all that kind of innocent stuff. I say innocent because that’s what you’d think, right? Wrong. 

After a few weeks of doing this, the powers that be at the station brought it to my attention that I was in ‘very dangerous’ territory talking about the odds of certain teams/horses. 

Why? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? This would encourage gambling, break up heretofore happy families and cause general mayhem on the streets. No word of a lie — well, maybe the bit about chaos on the streets, but you get the sentiment! That’s how ridiculous things are becoming.

You see there’s a school of thought out there — which fits in with the nanny state ethos — that the ordinary man (or woman, just in case anyone takes offence) is incapable of independent thought and accepts as truth everything he/she sees or hears. 

I don’t know about you, but I find that very condescending. Shock, horror, we do have our own minds and we can make our own decisions. 

Sure, we can be influenced by things in both good and bad ways. That’s life, it’s inevitable. 

From the moment you are born, you are influenced by things — the people around you, your environment, the weather. It’s a natural process of being alive. So, what we all knew anyway, we’re all under the ‘

influence – some more so than others.

Hand in hand with the politically correct madness goes — I’m sure you’ll agree — the ridiculously bureaucratic health and safety laws. 

We have a culprit here, ‘compo culture’ or ‘claims culture’ if you will. If you play the system you can get a nice little windfall after suffering at the hands of your own stupidity. 

Now, I don’t want to offend anyone, but if you injure yourself after falling down a hole in a place where you shouldn’t have been, well tough break. It’ll teach you not to go there again. But oh no, now everybody has to be responsible and plan ‘appropriately’ for the idiocy of others.

This goes against millions of years of evolution – survival of the fittest and all that. Now we are all being asked to dumb down. 

Not that you need proof of this, but for amusement, here goes. The following was spotted recently on a sign: ‘Caution – This sign has sharp edges. Do not touch the edges of this sign.’ No further questions, your Honour.

Unfortunately, considering the state of the global economy, you wouldn’t hold out much hope for our political leaders steering us clear of what seems an inevitable slide to a ‘post-common sense’ society. So it looks like it’s going to be left to us, on the ground, to stem the tide of madness.

On that note, considering it’s the time of year we celebrate virgins giving birth, I’ll leave you with the following: 

‘A middle-aged man and woman fall in love and decide to get married. On their wedding night, they settle into the bridal suite and the bride says to her new groom, "Please be gentle... I am still a virgin." The startled groom says "How can that be? You've been married twice..." 

'The bride responds... "Well you see it was this way: My first husband, he was a psychiatrist and all he ever wanted to do was talk about sex. Catching her breath, she says "My second husband was a stamp collector, and all he ever wanted to do was... ... ... ... Oh God, I miss him!"'

Happy Christmas!