November 22, 2004
Without a doubt, PC has gone too far
Rob Asghar
Some of my best friends are named Nguyen. Honest. I swear it, on a stack of whatever books I can swear on without violating a political correctness code.
Allow me to explain. Most columnists struggle, aside from the occasional Ann Landers, and even she now struggles because she's dead. In my case, I have to undertake a day job as a communications officer at a large finance company.
One of my more enjoyable duties there is to entertain the troops with merchandise giveaways involving trivia questions to be answered. I recently decided to run a series of trivia questions on whether there are more Nguyens on our staff or more months in the year (15 Nguyens compared to only 12 months). I also asked how many correct ways there are to pronounce that name (plausible answers ranged from two to three to five back down to zero, depending on whom you asked).
All persons seemed amused enough, especially our sizeable and hearty Nguyen contingent. But one senior executive was not amused: "Rob, Wouldn't you be offended if we asked how many ways there are to pronounce, say, Mohammad?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Really."
Think about it: I've been called Ass-gar most of my life. If I were overly sensitive, I'd have gone postal ages ago (I apologize to postal workers for this statement).
That same night, the executive and I and, fittingly, a woman named Nguyen sat at dinner, where he was now able to joke about it somewhat, while still leaving me with a cautious rebuke.
This man is a gifted leader and a tough hombre with a biting sense of humor and a drive to succeed; yet even he can succumb to a Chicken Little complex that is the result of years of over-litigiousness in the American workplace.
Yes, it is good that we now push people in the workplace to be more racially sensitive. But it is bad that we now threaten to obliterate anyone who might offend others within these realms of human existence.
Yes, it is good that we train employees not to leer at colleagues or pressure subordinates for dates or make lewd jokes. But it is bad that we no longer teach real and imagined victims to confront those causing the offense; instead we roll in teams of HR staffers, labor boards and lawyers.
Confronting directly can cause reconciliation and growth. Filing a lawsuit about how one was silently offended is a bit on the graceless side.
Bill O'Reilly was indeed a jerk to the female employee who recently sued him for sexual harassment. And it must have been intimidating for her to think about confronting him.
But ultimately, what society do we seek to build? One in which people put on their big-boy or big-girl pants and deal with things directly, or one in which companies' and people's lives are constantly threatened by lawyers and their hyperemotional clients? One in which we can laugh off the image others have of us, or one in which we bitterly complain and sue? One in which we can take risks or one in which we will be rebuked for even the possibility that an imaginary person out there could be made "uncomfortable," whatever that means.
Me, I would prefer candor from an offended Nguyen, Chan or Mohammad to preemptive PC censorship and its killjoy chilling effect on all communications.
Where there is no risk, there is no innovation or growth. Where there can be no danger of offending anyone without fear of retaliatory litigation, there is no chance for forgiveness or grace or humor.
The correlation between litigiousness and gracelessness is no accident. Within religious communities, the term "legalist" denotes a person who gives little grace to others if they transgress even the slightest religious commandment. (This is especially ironic when the religion is supposed to be about grace.)
For our hypersensitive secular society, we too have become legalists who feel that to sue is human and to forgive is a crime. And we are all poorer for this trend.
(Next week I'll address hypocrisy involving PC sensibilities that actually offend certain majority groups with impunity.)