On Political Correctness, Wokery, and "Cancel Culture".

I've never been particularly politically correct. Since an early age I've taken a certain delight in jokes that were distasteful or crossed boundaries "nice people" didn't cross. It's fun to be "naughty" when that "naughtiness" isn't actually hurting anyone.

That "isn't actually hurting anyone" bit is important though, because jokes can hurt people. I personally see this as an important difference between Political Correctness and Wokery. Now I'm not going to suggest that people have to define the terms in the way I do, but I'd like to explain how I use the terms differently, as I think it might help some people to understand related concepts around perceptions of "right and wrong" and to some extent our perception of "Cancel Culture".

Political Correctness

I see Political Correctness as a set of hard and fast rules which you should not cross if you wish to be politically correct. Political correctness means not being allowed to make generalisations based on any form of protected characteristics.

At it's heart, it's saying don't pick on people based on generalisations about the culture they come from. In itself, that's hardly unreasonable but it can leave people feeling they're not allowed to state what appear truths to them where those generalisation contain some validity, and it has even lead to situations where valid allegations of crimes have been ignored because it was deemed the accusations being made were only done out of political incorrectness; Rotherham, I'm looking at you.

Wokery

Some people see political correctness and being "woke" as the same thing. I prefer to define them slightly differently. I see being woke as having a greater holistic understanding of issues. It's not about adhering to rules; it's about compassion and understanding. To my mind, if you think being woke includes silencing others who are trying to express their "truth" rather than help them reach a greater understanding... then you're not "woke enough". Being woke is the difference between knowing when it's valid or fair game to make a generalisation, and when it's not. Ultimately being woke is not not about adhering to rules; it's about having compassion for others. Being woke and political correctness are not mutually exclusive, but being woke includes knowing when it's OK, or even necessary to step over politically incorrect lines, because it makes life better to break those rules in a particular instance.

It includes knowing that when we make a comment about Rotherham, we know that comment isn't about everyone who's from Rotherham, because it's a very specific reference. Such a comment is not politically correct; it's too broad a generalisation. However, if we believe our audience will understand we're referring to a very specific instance, and they won't leap to unreasonable assumptions about a whole town, it doesn't cross any "woke" boundaries.

You Don't Have To Think What I Think.

Again, I'm not saying that people have to adhere to the way I define the terms. I'm just saying it's useful to have different terms for the concepts of whether we're discussing the "rules", or whether we're discussing the need to go beyond basic rules to achieve a better holistic understanding based on general compassion... or even when we simply acknowledge that sometimes it can be funny to break the rules... when no one gets hurt.