The discussion of whether political correctness has indeed gained popularity or not has become more confrontational, and this could be seen as a divide between pro and anti-political correctness defenders. Supporters of the campaign point to the role of public art in bringing about inclusiveness and speaking against established discrimination in the same fashion toward a more egalitarian society. On the contrary, the defenders of political correctness consider many restrictive customs, including language rules and acceptable behavior, as an exaggeration, a violation of the primary human right to free speech, and an obstruction to honest communication. The politically correct in Canada have become overzealous, and their overtaking is triggering unwanted consequences, like breaches of intellectual individuality and freedom of speech. Consequently, people may need to be more open about raising their one-sided views or participating in open discussions, making the exposure and exchange of ideas, an essential feature of a society, impossible.
As a result of overcoming the dominant culture of political correctness, the people of Canada are becoming reluctant to free themselves, think, or take part in sensible discussions out of the fear of being judged as sensitive or politically incorrect. Moss and O’Connor (2020) point out that it has been the making of radicalism. The alt-right group is the finest example of extreme attitudes, as a conservative reaction that is believed to prevail over any dangerous point of view that most people are protective of. Correspondingly, such avoidance is not just harming the pluralism of ideas. However, it also contributes to making society more polarized because the conflicting perspectives still need to be addressed and are constantly being pushed to the margins. This practice illustrates the indirect risk of an excessively determined political correctness directed at suppressing proper dialog and edifying a monolithic society void of distinct experiences and views.
Now, political correctness has become a factor in selecting words or actions. Sometimes, this choice is so narrow that it’s challenging to identify whether the selection is good. The authors of Rosenblum, Schroeder, and Gino (2020) prove that stylizing politically incorrect illocution arguably makes the refute of constant politically correct language as the acceptable way of speaking more authentic. In prescribing linguistic norms that individuals must obey without recourse to free speech, a language policy bypasses honest communication by addressing conformity in speech coding rather than understanding. Patently, the strict enforcement of political discourse across Canadian institutions has caused a great sacrifice to academic freedom and intellectual thinking. Koopman et al. (2022) suggest that fairness at the workplace imposes the need to filter one’s words frame by frame since any wrong word choice can set you off a minefield of offensive vocabulary and ideas.
The excessively candid drive for political correctness has strangled the whole idea of it and obscured the aim of notifying genuine facts of discrimination and bigotry, thereby preventing its benefits to society. Symons (2018) brings up the problem of overstressing minor breaches of political correctness while grossly disregarding the tackling of structural forms of oppression such as inequality and discrimination. Consequently, this intentional diversion undermines a viable agenda for inclusion and arouses extra antagonism, backlash, and negativity toward the idea of political correctness. Ultimately, rather than being a tool for good societal development, political correctness, in the wrong implementation, would destroy its effectiveness and bring up skepticism and even resistance among the people. Designing a successful strategy to address the issues of social equality calls for a higher sensitivity and a more thorough tackling of the root causes of discrimination.
From political correctness, naive motives of the equality of all classes and treatment of the people with dignity emerged. Nevertheless, time showed that it has been going beyond the acceptable limits in Canada, where its unintended consequences were unwelcome, dangerous for free speech, and host to academic freedom and intellectual diversity. Political correctness should be redefined to embody inclusive and expressive principles of freedom of speech and open dialogue, and this democratic dilemma should be resolved. This reorientation is essential to weaving together inclusivity and vigor while not suppressing the intellectual combination and wide variety of opinions. By striking a balance, Canada can live up to its vision of a society that values diversity, whether people’s views vary, and promotes open discussion while at the same time dealing with incidences of unfairness and discrimination.
References
Dzenis, Sandra, and Filipe Nobre Faria. “Political Correctness: The Twofold Protection of Liberalism.” Philosophia, vol. 48, 17 June 2019, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-019-00094-4, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00094-4.
Koopman, Joel, et al. “Walking on Eggshells: A Self-Control Perspective on Workplace Political Correctness.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 23 May 2022, https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001025.
Moss, Jordan T., and Peter J. O’Connor. “Political correctness and the alt-right: The development of extreme political attitudes.” PloS one 15.10 (2020): e0239259.
Rosenblum, Michael, Juliana Schroeder, and Francesca Gino. “Tell it like it is: When politically incorrect language promotes authenticity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 119.1 (2020): 75.
Symons, Julia. “Has Political Correctness Gone Too Far?” The Economist, 10 Sept. 2018, www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/10/has-political-correctness-gone-too-far.
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