Big Think
Comedian John Cleese speaks his mind about political correctness.
It’s an opinion informed by his entire career in comedy. I spend a bunch of time on University Campuses having challenging conversations, without incident. So what’s Cleese’s problem?
Every part of Cleese’s argument could be turned around on him. No, you don’t have the right to not be made to feel slightly uncomfortable when somebody is being critical. Like when somebody says “I think that joke is cruel”. If you disagree with them, then fine, why does their criticism have such a powerful effect on you that you feel the need to retreat from places that are dedicated to humanistic critical enquiry? Why are you allowing other people’s disagreement with you to affect your behaviour?
Who is trying to control whom here? The university students who might ask you to reconsider something that you have said and apologise when you realise it was hurtful, or the famous guy who wants all universities to reassure him that he won’t face opposition if he were to speak there?
He makes the statement “there are some people who I might want to offend” well okay, but the kind of “political correctness” you are criticising would not be applied to people in power who need to be criticised. The reality of course is that the idea of what is acceptable and unacceptable to say by far benefits people in power, but you only hear about the dissent when it comes to the edge cases where acceptability is being contested, i.e. people with less power who are banding together and saying “actually, we’re not a joke”.
In its original meaning, to be politically correct is to dogmatically toe the party line. If we were to apply the term this way, rather than with its present-day post-irony arse-backwards meaning, then austerity would be an example of something that is “politically correct” – that is, regardless of whether it is right or wrong, the current politics of country dictate that we all conform to an ideology of austerity. Back in the day, if someone on the left was to describe themself as “politically correct”, it was intended as a self-deprecating remark: “I understand that what I’m advocating for here isn’t particularly challenging to the mainstream view”. The goal was not to be politically correct, but morally right.
The term was redefined by conservatives in the 1990s to mean almost the exact opposite: they used it to refer not to the orthodoxy, but to attempts to change that orthodoxy that make conservatives feel uncomfortable. So for example, people now describe trans inclusivity as “political correctness” because if you say something hurtful about trans people, you will probably be roundly criticised by trans people. However, if you look at the actual state of political discourse – in the House of Commons, in our newspapers, even, yes, in our universities – there is no shortage of people continuing to voice the opinion that trans people are deluded and that trans healthcare is a waste of public money. At best we could say that there is no orthodoxy on trans rights. One could even argue that discrimination against trans people remains politically correct, because it is the current status quo.
Anyone who has advocated for a view that is truly “politically incorrect”, that is, against the status quo, is so accustomed to being criticised and dismissed for their views that they barely even complain about it. I don’t often hear anarchists complaining that political correctness is stopping them from having their criticisms of capitalism taken seriously, even though that is precisely what is happening.
The question I have about all this when it comes to comedians is, why are they so upset when people criticise them for making cruel jokes? If you want to make a minority group the butt of your joke, you actually can still do that, you just have to deal with people talking back. If you don’t want to be cruel, then it’s very useful to have people telling you why you inadvertently hurt the wrong person. If you haven’t been cruel, then people are just mistaken. Why do your feelings depend so strongly on other people affirming that you’re allowed to make the joke that you just made? Doesn’t that undercut the subversive nature of what you’re doing?
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