Liberality

[osprey_archer]

Before I went to England, I was informed by a number of sources that people in England are much, much more liberal than Americans (in the left-leaning sense, not the British classical liberal = libertarian sense). This is quite true, in the sense that the English love their healthcare system excessively and feel the need to proselytize it to every passing American. Repeatedly. At great length. Have you accepted the NHS as your lord and savior yet? Yes! Yes! Uncle!

(I like the NHS. It would be nice to have a healthcare system that didn't charge a thousand bucks for an ambulance. It just gets tiresome hearing about it after a while; it's not like I can fly home and go Rambo on Congress until they cry uncle and import the NHS wholesale.)

The funny thing, though, is that after the NHS and the merits of various types of baked goods, probably the topic that's come up most often is Political Correctness. And how it is Ruining Britain. Because the political correctness police are marching through the streets with billy clubs ready to thrash anyone who uses naughty language (by which I of course mean ethnic/ablist/misogynistic/etc slurs, not cuss words)!

I haven't met any members of the political correctness police (even leaving out the billy clubs). I'm inclined to think that they're kind of like proselytizing vegetarians, who surely exist somewhere, but not in nearly sufficient numbers to adequately explain the way many people cringe when they meet a vegetarian. "You aren't one of....those kinds of vegetarians, are you? The kind that really truly believes that meat is murder and isn't just going to stand back and let me murder my way right down the deli line at the dining hall?"

Apparently humans dislike even the wisp of an idea that someone, somewhere might disapprove of the way we do things.

Anyway. The point is certainly not that Americans are secretly more liberal than the British; I've heard people moot the same political correctness argument at home, too. It's that a generally left-leaning political spectrum doesn't endow individual people with liberality of spirit. It just means that they express their lack thereof in a less distressing way. Disdain for political correctness never killed anyone; not being able to afford an ambulance does.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You had me laughing about the theoretical proselytizing vegetarian! You're so right--people create these constructs, these demon bugbears--when in reality you'd be hard pressed to find such a one.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes! And I just think...isn't there enough difficulty in life without creating more?