Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly
have protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual
bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad", which went on for several
minutes and put an end to the discussion.
George Orwell in "Animal
Farm"
A few years ago, I heard a discussion on a BBC radio chat show. An
American woman (Jewish, I think) had written a Politically Correct
dictionary.
The interviewer and the other guest were straining to be polite and take
this work seriously. The authoress was asked, didn't she feel that
some of her re-writing of words were frankly ridiculous? The authoress
replied that she could see that some people might think so. The
interviewer selected an example, "This one for example, you object to
the term "Man Overboard" and replace it with "Person Overboard". The
authoress did not find this an example which she could understand people
finding funny. I pictured in my own mind a woman falling from the deck
of a mid ocean Liner. An alert sailor spots her and throws a life belt
with the cry "Man Overboard!" The woman has just finished reading the
dictionary and screams from the frothy brine,
" Don't you dare throw me that Life belt until you shout Person
overboard."
I found no difficulty in seeing the funny aspect of "person overboard"
but P.C. advocates tend not to have very well developed senses of
humour.... at least when it comes to P.C.
In the "Times" on Monday 2nd September 1996 there was an article entitled "The woman who defied political correctness." Mary Lefkowitz, a classics Don, stuck her head above the academic parapet in the USA and challenged the "Afrocentric" teaching of history which maintains that Greek philosophy merely borrowed African wisdom. Socrates was an African. Aristotle had "stolen" his philosophy from African thinkers whose work he had appropriated from the great library in Alexandria. Lefkowitz jarringly pointed out that the library had only been built after Aristotle's death. Lefkowitz says " Colleagues asked me, why does it matter to you? If these people feel better about themselves by believing in all this, why not let them? But I couldn't do that. I'm a scholar. I care about the truth. People seem to have forgotten how history was used in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for political purposes."
As a result of speaking out, African American academics accuse her of "lurking at the heart of a Jewish plot." Lefkowitz says " What liberated women was science, not politics; what will help black students is knowledge, not attitudes." As far as the UK is concerned Lefkowitz says, " I can see in Britain some of the things I was fighting; relativism, lack of respect for the truth, the abuse of learning for political purposes."
Recently I heard a discussion on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme. Homosexual activists are now arguing for a re-focusing of HIV education to be exclusively targeted at the Homosexual population. Their spokesman was startlingly honest as to the reasons why. HIV infection amongst the heterosexual population is almost insignificant. Infection rates amongst Homosexuals continues to soar. The Homosexual lobby admits that they lied at the outbreak of the epidemic by claiming that everyone was equally at risk. They successfully engineered an Aids awareness campaign targeted at everyone. This was out of fear of a backlash against Homosexuals. Those of us involved professionally with this issue knew these facts years ago. To have spoken them would have meant professional suicide, abuse and even violence. Of course the real victims of a regime of Political Correctness has been Homosexuals themselves. Starved of a dedicated education on the dangers of Aids, hundreds have and are dying. One starts to see why P.C.'s followers have so little sense of humour, their advocacy of P.C. has very serious consequences indeed.
It is not only that swearing is forbidden by the Torah, in Judaism, how we speak is an essential part of our Jewishness. Speech is the greatest indicator of how successful a Jew has become in their religious growth. In chapter 24 of Genesis is the story of the marriage between Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to find a bride from Abraham's family. Eliezer prays to G-d to ask him to guide his choice. " Let it be that the girl, to whom I will say, let me drink from your pitcher, will reply "Drink and also your camels I will water" she will be the one whom you have chosen for Isaac." When he sees Rebecca he runs to her and asks for drink and she gives him the pitcher and lets him drink. When he has finished she says " And now I will draw water for your camels." A careful reading of the text will show that Rebecca fails to fulfil the conditions set by Eliezer in his prayer to G-d. Only after he had finished drinking did she go on to mention his camels. But this demonstrates that she was on a higher spiritual level than Eliezer. Rebecca would not equate a human being, made in G-d's image, to an animal. After she has dealt with Eliezer then she will speak about his animals. The Talmud in tractate Pesachim 3a tells he story of two Rabbinic students who were sitting in front of the great Hillel. In discussion, one used the term Ainu Tohur (not pure) the other used the word Tomeh (impure) Hillel said of the one who avoided the word Tomeh " I am sure that he will become a great scholar in Israel". He became Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zachai!
As Jews, how we speak must reflect our sensitivities and outlook. The question is whether our speech is informed and moulded by our values or those demanded by a non-Jewish society. Political correctness invites the two inquiries. Who is saying what is and what isn't correct. Where are these values coming from. The litmus test as to whether they are Jewish modes of speech and thought, is simply whether they pass the "Abraham" test. It was Abraham who stood up and rejected the universal world view in favour of the truth. If Jews are speaking just like everyone else, reflecting their values, then by definition we are abandoning our own. If something is not true, the consequences of believing in it are always serious. Person overboard is bad enough, Sheep overboard is even worse.