This post started out so completely different than what is going to be offered here. I woke up this morning with the words of a friend ringing in my head.
“I am offended by people telling me that I have to be Politically Correct.”
So off I went on a research rabbit warren of Political Correctness. Why it was thought that we needed to be politically correct….did anyone see it as a negative thing….and more importantly, why?
And what a rabbit warren that turned out to be.
Through it all I found this odor, this stink of fear. Moral outrage, rudeness, and just plain fear. How do those go together? give me a minute to lay out how my head works here…..
I learned at an early age if I didn’t like something, I just didn’t do it. If I didn’t like something on television, I turned the channel until I did find something…and if I still didn’t find something that I liked I went and did something completely different. I didn’t rail to the gods of media about the injustice of it all. I didn’t have that feeling that I was entitled to something being on television at all times to entertain me.
I had choice that I could exercise at any given time.
That was pretty heady stuff for a kid. I could, and did choose my reading material, my music, the movies that I was interested in, the people I thought were influential to me. And along the way I found things I wasn’t interested in.
And in those things I didn’t like, I found that some of my friends DID like them. An example being I have a few friends who just love Rush Limbaugh…
I can’t stand him. But, that doesn’t change the fact that some of my friends do….and that is ok, because they are still good people. We just tend to disagree over this fact.
I love my Eldest Brother immensely. He is a man that I strive to be, but we almost came to blows over politics not that long ago in the kitchen of his house. This is when the aspect of people and what they fear raised its ugly head to me. His fear was of losing what he had earned and saved to others. His fear was of having to struggle…to need…to no longer be comfortable.
“Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.” JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI, On Fear
So my mind is circling around this universe of fear, political correctness, and moral outrage.
And I still have to wonder what the hell are we so damed afraid of? Haters gonna hate. Some of my closest friends are not going to read this because of a million different reasons. They will still be my friends. They are just exercising their right of choice. And isn’t that we need to do more of? Instead of lashing out to one another? Instead of trying to violently change another persons mind with rudeness, and insults? I don’t have to agree with you completely, and you definitely do not have to agree with me. But we do have to be able to get along in this world.
I would love to hear your comments on this.
5 comments
Comment by Jeff Long on December 12, 2013 at 3:03 pm
Phil, I’m not sure I agree with your postulation on your brother’s attitude. Nevertheless, if there is something which he or anyone else who has earned a comfortable lifestyle fears, it is that someone who neither worked for or earned it will undeservedly benefit from the labor which produced that comfortable lifestyle. There is honor in hard work and labor; there is, or least should be, dishonor in sloth and laziness, not to mention the coveting of that which belongs to another. To one of the points in your blog, it is, however, politically incorrect to say such things.
Comment by wormdude@gmail.com on December 12, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Jeff, thank you very much for the reply. To the point of my brothers attitude….he was going to have to give up nothing that he had. Our argument began with discussion of a potential tax hike, and where those tax dollars were going to go. He was vehemently opposed to any more of his tax dollars going to “welfare moms”. He was actually going to lose nothing of what he already had. There is always going to be an indolent group in society. We can’t escape that. We can do better by them, but that is for another discussion, political correctness be damned.
Comment by Anonymous on December 12, 2013 at 4:07 pm
Should I infer from your comment that he should be satisfied in knowing that what is already his will remain his but that a larger portion which he will earn prospectively should willingly be surrendered to those who make poor choices? Were that the case, what is to stop the powerful to wrest from the financially prudent that which they earned retrospectively? That’s not a bridge too far.
Comment by wormdude@gmail.com on December 12, 2013 at 4:15 pm
What you should infer is that I have no say over any others things, other than my own. The only thing that will stop that which we do not want is activism in the process, which is in poor supply in these United States.
Comment by Anonymous on December 13, 2013 at 11:20 pm
I like lots of Rush! The first and goal rush. 2112 Rush. Rush Limbaugh. Don’t care for morning Rush!