Being Politically Correct

“I really couldn’t care what you thought of my blog and the views expressed in it. In fact, I could care less of whether you really read it or not.”

Now a statement like that can be considered really inappropriate if read independently or read without reference to the correct context. In fact, if anything that statement borders on downright rude to all the readers of the blog and will surely result in more than a few readers choosing to unfollow the blog or even resort to retorting with comments with more than just a piece of their minds.

However, if this statement had been preceded by a paragraph which stated the real reasons as to why I blog and went on to narrate justification as to why I consider my blog my personal space and how I am justified in expressing my opinions (right or wrong) on my blog without necessarily worrying about how readers perceive the same, then maybe, just maybe, that might take most of the ‘sting’ out of that statement, wouldn’t it?

And that, dear readers, is where the concept of ‘political correctness’ (the topic of this post) comes into play.

While it is a generally accepted opinion that a blog is a purely personal space of the blogger where he can express his points of view on anything and everything under the sun without fear of recrimination of any kind. That being said, all bloggers can expect their fair share of bouquets and brickbats from their readers based on which side of the fence they sit on. For example, in the current climate, a post highlighting some of the lesser known cons of feminism will surely attract more brickbats than bouquets from readers who would surely lambast the blogger for taking a stand which is not necessarily in line with the majority public opinion. Conversely, any post which highlights the plight of Child Sexual Abuse will surely find sympathetic comments, shares and even more than its fair share of ‘likes’ as well. That is a reality that all bloggers have to deal with, just like publishers of all ‘public content’ have to deal with online and offline, as well.

That being said, how much of a role does ‘political correctness’ have to play when publishing a blog. In my opinion, given the nature of polarization and relative ‘heat’ of online discussions in forums such as Facebook and blogs, being politically correct is the ‘easier way out’, even if it means stifling honest discussion and chewing one’s words.

I mean, end of day, all of us write to be read, don’t we? Whether our readership is in the 10s, 100s or 1000s, we all want our posts to be read, to be commented upon and wherever feasible, to go viral as well. And in such a scenario, the safer route to take would be to take the ‘politically correct’ stance on the topics being blogged about. And this is quite easy in most situations, given that most of us tend to display a ‘herd mentality’ when it comes to blogging about topics which are in vogue and are current in nature.

However, when a blogger writes fiction, retells stories from popular narrative, expresses an opinion about a movie, he has the freedom of ‘creative license’ not to be politically correct and express his true opinion about the topic. In such cases, all of us are conditioned to accept that the blogger took a particular stand on the topic based on his own perceptions about the same and he is entitled to the same. As long as the post itself is not ‘explosive’ in nature and is relatively objective enough, readers don’t take issues to the same.

Taking both sides of the coin into account, my personal view on this topic is that ‘political correctness’ is an over-rated concept and I would even go far enough to say that only people who are not good at expressing their points of view objectively take refuge in the same. I mean, end of day, we are all opinionated people in some form or fashion, which probably is the reason we all started writing blogs, reading them and commenting on them in the first place, right. And if we are unable to take a stand on topics (taking no sides in an argument is also a valid stand), then to be honest, we have no locus standi in either writing a post on a topic or commenting on the same.

If we don’t have anything useful to say on a topic, it is better that we keep silent and let others who have a view talk about it. That to me is ‘useful political correctness’, if there is such a term.

Now, that I have ruffled a few feathers, am waiting for the comments section of this post to be inundated with your points of view on whether I was politically correct or not in this post along with your reasons for the same.

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This post has been written for Project 365 : A post a day where the intention is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided. Today’s prompt was to discuss whether political correctness is a useful concept or does it stifle honest discussions.