Today I found myself toying with the idea that there should be anti-political correctness vows in the same way there are baptism vows. I'm always impressed by the solemnity and poetry of the baptism vows, which are renewed at the Easter Vigil:
Do you reject Satan?
I do.
And all his works?
I do.
And all his empty promises?
I do.
Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
I do.
And so on. There are three more and they are considerably longer.
Vows concentrate the mind. I think anti-PC vows could go something like this:
Do you reject political correctness in all its forms?
I do.
Do you reject all identities based on grievance?
I do.
Do you reject the conflation of trivial and imaginary harms with serious harms?
I do.
Do you reject the legitimacy of arbitrary changes in language in the name of sensitivity-- even if you have to go along with them in some circumstances?
I do.
Do you reject the concept that anybody has less right than anybody else to use a particular word or give an opinion on any subject whatsoever?
I do.
Do you reject the attribution of historical guilt to people for injustices that occurred before they were even born?
I do.
Do you reject weaponized false dichotomies, such as victim-oppressor and transformation-stasis?
I do.
Tell me if I missed anything obvious. (By "transformation-stasis", I mean the sort of rhetoric you're surely familiar with: the appeal to gradual and organic evolution in the past to justify complete transformation in the present.)
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