December 03, 2003
Political correctness: we're all made of stars
There's a discussion going on about whether Geronimo should effectively be the name of the ASF's J2EE/EJB server project, since it risks to offend people who are sensitive about political correctness. Most funny link mentioned so far is a primer on PC. Personally, I'm convinced that the apparent issue with PC in the US is based on the tendency to take oneself (and so-called social movements) too serious, and try to explicitize everything. I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't be an issue if people would just see things as-is: we're all different, and as long as we spend attention to this, this will be a problem. Once you try to look beyond the apparent differences and see what people are really about, there's no need for PC anymore: we're all made of stars.
Somehow related, I saw a concert of the Fundamentals this weekend, which are four mentally handicapped people playing a rock set with four professional musicians. Different from the 'pity-treatment' such people usually are treated to, they were expected to act and interact in a normal environment. It was great to see PC evaporate during the concert.