Political Correctitude
By Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) | December 16, 2016 |
Image – iStockphoto: udra
Ye Merry Gentlepeople
In my boyhood, the members of my father’s church put a lot of effort each year into their presentation of the congregation’s crèche.
“Real hay!” marked the best nativity scenes in the area. Having all three wise men was another sign of a quality Christmas in the pine-straw frost of South Carolina. And what kind of revisionist delusions had possessed that Baptist parish a few blocks away with just two wise men and only one shepherd?
Bonus: if you positioned your wise men so that they arrived from the fabled East—because they three kings of Orient were—your sanctuary might be thought to hold out special cleverness to worshippers, a slightly dashing sense of internationalism.
Holly-and-ivy Protestants that we were, we’d stare, scandalized, at nearby Catholic churches which had some very uptown-looking crèches, indeed—”real sheep!” doing real damage! to the church lawn—but with Mary looming over everything as an oversized figure. Rome’s emphasis on her, full of grace, held no sway in the Methodist mind. No, our focus was on the offspring, pa rum pa pum pum, and parents bringing children to see the crèche gently worked to get the kids to notice the baby.
Girls were quicker to get down to talking about the swaddled icon. Boys tended to like the animals much more than the kid: while wishing for camels, it was at least a plus that at this time of year, you could get away with saying “ass” in reference to the donkey.
It was while watching the Adoration of the Southerners one year that I noticed the infant in the manger had blond hair and blue eyes.
Granted, one of the three wise men was black, another token of Methodism’s worldly perspective, surely. But the unthinking dodge of those golden locks made it easier finally to get away from the crèches of organized religion and walk, solo, out into the spacious mystery of personal inquiry.
Jesus and I now have a winking relationship.
And that’s not the disrespectful thing it might sound. Being a minister’s son, I understand the church as a family business, a service of services. My father was good at what he did, and I honor this, especially because he had a rich sense of humor and bona fide dedication to his ministry in the Deep South. He knew that political correctness meant picking his battles and that sometimes you needed buy-in to fix a crèche.
During this tortured year, we’ve heard a lot about being “too politically correct.” What does it mean to your work? That’s my provocation for you today.
Provocations image by Liam Walsh
A Year of Ridiculosity
Have you felt at times that “political correctness” was overrated? I have.
I’ve been defensive when it was suggested that a literary effort needed to be “corrected.” Struggles around this concept, of course, have gone on for some time in reference to the Mark Twain canon and other works. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I had an interview this week at Publishing Perspectives with the founder of Sweden’s diversity-driven children’s publisher Olika. The output of that company could clear a school board meeting in a hurry: here are books about Konrad, who wears dresses, about the female footballer Kosovare Asllani, about pirates who are girls.
But does the definition of what’s politically correct change in the multitude of a hellish host of news stories like this year’s? Does your approach as an author shift in response? In the mind of the beholder, the concept of what is or isn’t “correct” is being pulled right, and left, sometimes with violence. Hymnals and matching carpet might look a lot better soon than the vault of a night sky with no star of any Bethlehem for guidance.
Thinking about this may have no bearing or impact on your work whatever. That’s fine. Another reason I left the crèche is that I don’t like a missionizing faith, one that wants everyone else to believe its story: my story is better and so is yours, because we’re writing them.
But while still winking at you know who, I’m asking if “political correctness” isn’t, in fact, more important now, not less, for authors. You’re going to say that the term itself is all wrong. Okay. But is the principle of considering how our words and work land on people somehow wrong, too? Even if considering our own prejudices doesn’t change how we write, querying ourselves on our assumptions may be critical in producing, as our colleague Don Maass has been writing about, work that makes a contribution, work that might change the world if you put your purpose on the page.
An analyst on CNN recently spoke of making a decision to “pace my outrage” in this profoundly political year. It was both a funny and serious moment when she said it. But surprisingly, the notion behind the derided phrase “political correctness” may now have new value, in finding the pace you need under the relentless assault of this bleak midwinter.
If political correctness implies social inclusion and self-examination—rather than unwittingly bowdlerized scriptures lovingly served up on real hay!—then the wink coming back to us from the void may mean we’re moving in the right direction.
For 2017, I wish you the peace of knowing that you stopped to think. No one else’s gospel matters. Write your own, that’s the one we need now. We can work to correct our politics together. Your role in the effort will be valuable because you brought your own hay.
Do you feel that the events of 2016 may impact your work in terms of what you, and your readership, may see as “politically correct”?
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@Porter_Anderson is a fellow of the National Critics Institute. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and independent authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller‘s The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations’ WFP in Rome. is a recipient of London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. PorterAndersonMedia.com
Porter, I love that you’ve opened up this difficult topic. We can’t resolve anything if we don’t talk about it.
Here’s what I think: “Political correctness” is an unfortunate name for taking the time and consideration to respect other people. As you so wisely put it in your wish for 2017, that means “knowing that you stopped to think.” Writers, don’t just put people and ideas on the page and assume that’s all you need to do. Think about how you’re portraying them, especially if you’re writing about about people and communities who are not like you. Do your homework to try to get it right. Have someone who knows that community better than you read it. Do the work.
Does this mean you can’t portray someone who isn’t like you negatively? No. But it does mean you should be aware of what you’re doing, and you should know why you’ve chosen to create that portrayal and be able to defend it within the context of your story. Why is this necessary? Because of respect for others, and respect for your own work.
“Political correctness” is an awful term because it implies conformity for superficial reasons. But respect for other people is something we all should be able to support.
Hi, Tracy,
Many thanks for this good comment.
I really like your concept of “taking the time and consideration to respect other people.” That’s really it, isn’t it? In its best manifestations, I think this is what “political correctness” was — and is — intended to do.
I also applaud your saying that this isn’t just how we respect others, it’s also a function of “respect for your own work.” We’re all better when we’re outward-facing, especially in careers with readerships (and congregations! lol).
Thanks so much for the good thoughts, and all the best for the holidays, too!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Tracy, I wish I could “Like” your reply a hundred times. To me, political correctness is a blunt, superficial instrument that tries to create respect but often does quite the opposite. I’ve had unpleasant encounters with people who speak “PC” fluently yet clearly disrespect me as an individual person (e.g., by trying to “help” me, by acting like they know stuff about me simply by looking at me, by being surprised when my worldview isn’t what they expected, by being offended when I don’t share in their outrage, etc.). On the flip side, some people who would never pass the “PC test” are my close friends.
As you noted, the key is respect. I wish more people would slow down, think, and actually listen to people instead of assuming things (this goes for all parts of the political spectrum).
Hey, Grace,
Appreciating your response here, I, too, have had many misgivings about “political correctness” and likely would never have proposed it as a response to social situations if someone had come to me, decades ago, to ask if I thought it was a good idea.
I do find, however, that awareness is the key to the very respect you’re talking about, the respect that just isn’t always there for too many people, a lot of them in suddenly high places.
What “political correctitude,” as I’m coining that odd phrase — and yes, correctitude is a real word, isn’t that funny? — is suggest that moral rectitude, which means, of course, an upright stance in the world, may come from any prompt to do exactly what you’re promoting “slow down, think, actually listen.” And there are times when what political correctness does is just that — it makes us ask ourselves (maybe even before I open my own big mouth) whether I’ve thought through how I’m about to say something. Could I disrespect someone inadvertently? Should I reconsider what I’m about to say.
This, I think is important in social interaction. And I think it has implications for creative work because that awareness is the only thing that can help our work draw us closer to our readers and our readers closer to each other.
Thanks again for commenting.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter–
In the long-ago Sixties, political correctness led linguists to denounce long-respected prescriptions regarding the correct use of language. The very idea of correctness was now viewed as the enemy of regionalism, ethnicity, and racial fairness.
IMO, it was a perfect example of how good intentions and social engineering can run amok. Today, we are seeing some of the worst possibilities in those populist objectives biting the well-intentioned hands that fed them. We are witnessing language itself becoming a laughingstock, a whipping boy joyfully flogged by powerful people who scoff at quaint notions like factual accuracy.
When the man elected to be the next president degrades and corrupts language, he makes the coarse, even nonsensical use of words “politically correct.” The effect on those who still care about words is paralyzing. How will it be possible to convince others that the most important effect of this election is the loss of meaning?
Hey, Barry,
Thanks for this.
I think there’s an even more concerning element to the potential impact of this election and it’s the loss of truth, the value we place on it.
While words and their meaning are collateral casualties along the way, certainly, we’re looking at an even more fearful concept in the “post-truth” narrative that functions to change direction with out warning and maddens its listeners with its foundation in duplicity.
What I found as I discovered the church’s mistake in the interest of political correctness that long ago Christmas was, in fact, truth, and a liberating one. And this is why I keep falling back on awareness as our greatest asset. This is what I discussed last month in another guise, it’s that alertness we have to maintain, as exhausting as it is, to what’s happening even to so derided a concept as political correctness.
Somewhere in our work, the genuine respect (to refer to Grace’s comment above) that we might intend to find in ourselves and share may actually be available fastest in a defense of political correctness, because giving a major figure carte blanche to speak without filter or such awareness is unacceptable.
Difficult times, made better by our shared thoughts on these matters. Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter–as always, I thank you for taking comments seriously, and responding in kind.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear: I said that the most important effect of the election was the loss of meaning. In my view, that’s exactly what scoffing at any notion of verifiable truth “means.” The big loser in the election wasn’t Clinton, it was respect for language as a vehicle for seeking and transmitting truth–and the hacking issue, false info, etc. is part of it. As you say, in a “post-truth” world, the very idea gets set out for trash pickup.
True, the few who insist that words have meaning, and therefore truth is not an illusion must persevere. But the point I’m making is that this election has endorsed the opposite point of view: for millions, the function of language is to vilify, inflame, energize, mock, etc. The next president has championed this point of view, won the election, and thus legitimized the post-truth way of thinking.
Such great comments to your post, Porter. I always ponder what you say and value it. Political correctness no longer has value as a term, because of those who have taken it and twisted it away from its original intent. As writers we might not coin a new phrase, but strive to be objective and fair in the words we do use. Examining recent films, you often find that the villain is a person of color. Actors need work and so they take those jobs. Writers need to publish so they fall into similar patterns. That has to change. Many brilliant diverse works are appearing and more to come. Possibly that is our only recourse right now. But Barry is so right. We care about words and how they touch people. When that is lost and a powerful person can upend what even freedom, equality and presidential mean, we face a huge struggle. Maybe the biggest is the future of public education. As a former teacher, I know we’ve had concerns in that area, but public education has always provided a meeting place for diversity and we must not allow that to disappear.
Agree with you on all points here, Beth, thanks for this.
I think that if anything, one implied task here is to remember the actual intent of political correctness, even if we must abandon the term because of such abuse to it.
What was once politically correct, and unfortunately so, at a church in the Deep South, revealed truth to me, in sharp relief. And today, when a bully says that “we’re too politically correct,” that experience helps me see through that assertion to the self-serving ego that drives it.
It’s really all about awareness, perhaps the much better alternative to the phrase “politically correct.” Really, we mean being aware to others’ rights, feelings, interests, and potentials. Mindfulness is the key and we’re going to need all of it we can maintain in coming months and years.
Thanks again!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’ve always been amused by the term. Generally, “political” does not equate to anything positive in the minds of the average Voterus Americanus. So to be “politically correct” sounds as if we want to fall in line with the same politicians that have provided late-night fodder for lo these last several decades.
I prefer the term “respectful consideration” of everyone’s point of view. We can disagree, and I will often disagree with the people right here, but we can do so respectfully, leaving ample grace for a shared beer or six at the next writer’s conference.
Of course, this respectful consideration is easy to do, but also easy to misread. We’re often accused of hate because we disagree. This must end. Like yesterday. If you recall, Christ Himself loved all, even the most deplorable among us.
Thanks for the post. My church just throws down the Veggie Tales manger scene.
Thank heavens (!) I got out before the Veggie Tails manger scene arrived, lol.
Thanks, Ron. I’ll tell you one curious thing about recent events and that is that I’ve come to find the word “political” much less unpleasant than I used to, and to see genuine politicians, in fact, in a more positive light than in the past.
These people who make careers of political operations, while they get precious little respect from most of us, at least are professionally capable and informed in a way that many in our incoming government just aren’t. It’s interesting when you think that business people wouldn’t expect to step into the roles of surgeons without preparation and yet they think they can function as politicians at some of our highest levels.
It’s almost like the many people who think they can be authors, isn’t it? :)
Thanks again!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thanks for making this point, Porter. I have always been frustrated and a little amazed by the too-common assumption that the practice of governance requires no skill or experience. Certainly some practitioners are better than others, and some are corrupt, as in other professions. But in general, running a town, city, state or country requires some particular skills. In the absence of evidence of actual corruption, why wouldn’t we want people devoted to public service who know what they’re doing and how our political system works serving us in political positions?
“I don’t like a missionizing faith, one that wants everyone else to believe its story.”
There is something I like even less, Porter. It’s the faithful who not only want you to believe the story, but accept only their interpretation of it.
Even worse is their insistence that everyone else must live according to that interpretation. Why? Because only those of that particular faith know the mind of God.
Uh-huh.
I’m sorry, but neither you nor I nor anyone know the mind of God. If we did, we would be God. But we’re not. Who, then, are we? Fallible humans. What should we do?
Live in humility, pray for mercy, enact justice (meaning fairness) and practice grace.
That is exactly the opposite of 2016. Instead of humility we have lies. Instead of mercy we have law and order. Instead of fairness, we are getting a government run by business titans. Winners and losers both have indulged in hate.
Did anyone, left or right, really want that? But your question was about political correctness. Is it too much?
Is a Taliban from the left as cruel as the Taliban from the right? Any extremism can become a witch hunt. Harass abortion doctors or harass college professors insufficiently “safe”…it can start to feel as if we’re being made to kneel to those who know the mind of God.
For us fiction writers, the issue is balance. We want to be respectful and understanding; for readers to truly see others through our stories. We also want use powerful words. (Face it, PC language can taste like pablum.)
Sarah Callender’s post on Wednesday hit this issue hard. How then, do we strike a balance? For me, words used in fiction are the words of characters. (At least when written in close POV.) Readers, I think, are smart enough to make that distinction.
What matters more than the words is the spirit behind the story, the point and the purpose, as we’ve heard here at WU in recent weeks. If the point is to get us to see others with new eyes, and the purpose is to change our minds and hearts, I say employ the language that serves. It’s a story.
As Tracy said, respect for other people is a good and simple standard by which to live, work and write. In novels, ask me, cleaving to PC language is beside the point. The point is promoting respect.
I suspect that stories will accomplish that more effectively than live camels. Peace to you, Porter. Thanks for spreading hay and provocations this year.
Hi, Benjamin,
I’m unsure I follow you here. Do you feel that I’m suggesting you reduce your work to pablum or in some way run counter to the good writings of others here recently on these topics of the writer in a changing political context?
If so, I think you’ve misread me. Thanks for commenting, though, and all the best to you, too.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
No, no, just responding to your provocation. I suppose I could have said that more simply: PC is nice but strong storytelling, for me, is the superior goal.
Aha, quite right, it’s a good point for all of us.
Thanks again for the good input,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
To be frank, as a reader I can’t stand “politically correct” books that push heavy-handed moral agendas. If a novel screams I’m going to educate you about very important issues! on the cover or in the first few pages, I put it down. I don’t want to read 300-page sermons. I want to read about complex characters facing heart-wrenching conflicts.
I believe if you strive to write interesting stories, you don’t have to go out of your way to write about “very important issues” to change the world.
What’s a heart-wrenching story conflict, exactly? It’s something that makes a reader empathize with the characters. It’s something that makes people forget about themselves for a while and walk in the shoes of these imaginary heroes and villains, vicariously experiencing their pain and their worries and their joy.
And what’s at the heart of every “very important issue” ever? Empathy. Racism, sexism, anything-else-ism–they all stem from lack of empathy for other human beings.
So in the very act of crafting effective conflicts that make readers cheer and cry for the characters, we’re going to change how they think just a little bit. Every great story will subtly influence readers to be a little less judgmental, a little more understanding, a little less willing to hurt other people. We don’t have to bludgeon them over the head with Title VII like twenty-first-century Aesops to make a difference.
Your question is a good one: how will the events of 2016 affect my readers? And me, as a writer, of course.
It will be much more difficult to have readers see a disabled person as human, as valuable, and as having the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. Because the guidance from the top makes fun of a disabled reporter, and of people whose only crime is to be of the wrong gender.
But my methods won’t change. And that is to show you the point of view characters in my books, who are quite different (and one of whom is disabled herself), from the inside. As I say, sitting right behind their eyeballs.
As the story happens, with a minimum of interruptive analysis from the writer, and as close as I can manage to what the characters think, say, and do in immediate reaction.
You get your answers – some sooner, some later – but never in the form of an explanation the character and the character’s interlocutor would never exchange, or a thought the character would never have.
It’s a lot more work, and there are so many things to keep track of, but I think it’s worth it.
Disability is a huge part of the catch-all ‘diversity,’ and I greatly fear the public’s understanding of it will be taking many steps backward and losing the gains that have been made. Those who are diverse, including the disabled, are scared to death of the tone of an administration that hasn’t even taken office yet.
Indeed, Alicia,
You do have your work cut out for you. Disability as a major element of diversity is too easily overlooked or dismissed in the best of times. The unforgivable mocking of any disabled person is not to be tolerated, and this, too, will need resistance and vigilance.
There’s an exhausting time ahead.
But if we each can remember, as you’re doing, to base our criteria in mindfulness — which, maybe perversely, can help us stop and think and examine how we’re seeing and writing things — then we’ll all find our way forward, changed but stronger.
All the best to you with it, and thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Set your novel in another country. Simple solution?
Porter, I loved the real hay! For years I’ve been wanting a Mary doll that has the baby Jesus hidden the folds of her gown that we can bring forth on Christmas. No such doll exists and I don’t like baby Jesus just sitting in a drawer until Christmas. So our crèche is out with the Baby King. I love that in my parish, the 3 wise men don’t reach the crib until Epiphany; the priest (or the altar boys) move them closer each day.
This election year was the most divisive in my memory, but it will not change how I write. Maybe I’ll try to write faster.
Merry Christmas!!!
You know, Vijaya,
If you wanted to start a small cottage industry producing that Mary doll, you might do very well as a supplier to church crèche scenes — there’s a market there. :)
Happy holidays to you, too, and don’t work too hard on writing faster. We need fewer books, and we need them written more slowly, more carefully, better. We already have too many books, far overwhelming anything the readership market will be able to handle for several generations to come. (Remember that PRH alone put out 15,000 titles this year, and US self-publishers produced close to 700,000 titles last year, and that’s just the ones that had ISBNs.)
The best work, created without haste and given the time it needs to be good, is what we need most.
All the best with it!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter,
I am sure there are some people whose hatred of PC stems from their desire to express their prejudices freely again. I’ve been in too many business situations in the past where someone blithely told an anti-semitic joke despite the presence of several Jewish people (substitute racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc.). The spread of PC language ended that, though I never doubted the opinions remained unchanged.
On the other end of the political spectrum, I saw PC sometimes becoming too prescriptive, a book of rules with no nuance. Sometimes people need to be challenged; balancing that with protection is a fluid thing, I believe.
So I agree with you about staying alert and mindful, to “slow down, think, and actually listen to people instead of assuming things.” Well said.
Barbara, thanks for this good comment.
I agree with you (and have seen instances of incredibly bigoted comment without a thought in corporate settings, myself). “Being PC,” as we say, has never been as effective as we might wish because it basically can only address what one says, not what one actually thinks or feels.
And, just as you say, it quickly becomes more prescriptive — sometimes proscriptive — than truly valid.
At its best, it puts a speed bump in the way of just blurting out some hurtful , unnecessary thing — and in the moment it slows you down, you have a chance to ask why you might have said what you were about to say, what it says about you, where its hurtfulness comes from, and what value that original intent has for you.
It’s the pause that counts, it turns out, isn’t it? The stopping to think. We’re going to need to do that a lot in 2017.
Thanks again for the great thoughts, much appreciated.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson