it's gone mad i tell you - mad!

If there's one phrase I can't stand above all others it's 'political correctness gone mad.' I cringe visibly every time I hear it. And, considering the number of newspapers I read and talk radio stations I listen to, I hear it a lot.

This morning, for instance, the breakfast show on radio 5 devoted an entire segment to political correctness. While waking, dressing, through eating breakfast and the entirety of my drive to school I listened to call after call after text after email after call - all providing examples of PC gone mad. Rarely have I wanted to scream so much. I probably would have had there not been one dissenting voice on air as I pulled into the staff car park. One sane voice among the masses.

"...Libraries forced to put the Qu'ran on the top shelf so it is raised above everything... not able to use the word foreign to describe international students... was told I'm not allowed to ask for white tea, it must be tea with milk... quotas... limits... immoral... banning common sense... banning fun... banning... banning... banning..." It's Political Correctness gone mad!

What does that even mean? When someone probibits something in case it offends people who actually aren't all that offended and may take more offense that something is being banned in their name - thats not political correctness; that's a general lack of humour and common sense brought about by legalism and a fear of litigation.

Political Correctness has become a dirty word that the Daily Mail and the rest of the right wing press like to trot out when they can't be bothered to come up with an intelligent argument. It's easy to blame anything on Political Correctness gone mad. I mean after all, that's surely why we find it impossible to agree on an education system, its why England lost the test match, its clearly why there is still war and poverty in the world. If anything goes wrong then it is a sure sign that political correctness needs to check in for a frontal labotomy.

It wasn't alwas the case. The fact that it has become such a pejorative term of abuse both disturbs and depresses me. Does it make me insufferably liberal when I say that I would much rather live in a politically correct gone mad than a politically incorrect gone mad world? So I want to reclaim political correctness. I want to embrace political correctness. I want to use the phrase, political correctness, so much that everyone gets so sick of hearing about political correctness that even the right wing press get sick of it and I NEVER hear someone say 'political correctness gone mad' again - EVER.