Re political correctness - I agree a bit with you Maya that I think it can be overdone. It's an important thing in that it helps bring awareness to situations and as people have said, serves to redress lots of imbalances. Where I think it goes awry is particularly with language, the PC ways of saying things. It's really good we've come so far as to be aware and address language, so that derogatory terms that were used towards certain ethnic minorities, genders, and people with disabilities, have been replaced - but the result is also that two things have happened: as Maya said, missing the boat - eg in the UK, in certain education authorities, the nursery rhyme 'baa baa black sheep' was banned from being sung on the basis that it contained 'black' as an adjective - at the time I happened to be working in a kindergarten in a predominantly Afro-Carribean community in London, and all the people I worked with thought it was ridiculous - as my colleague, originally from Jamaica, said to me: 'I was brought up singing baa baa black sheep in Jamaica - I don't know why white people feel they have to make these rules'. It just completely misses the point of anti-discrimination, and almost works to undermine the whole spirit on which political correctness is founded. The other danger I think is that it can serve to drive racism, sexism, etc, underground, where they can grow stronger. You can't change people's thoughts and feelings simply by modifying their use of language and putting certain policies in place - (as Maya said in the example re the woman being invited on to the executive board - quite possibly that act actually made anyone who harboured sexist opinions who was on that board, inclined to be more sexist as a result of her being given that position). Policies help, but the reasons behind people's prejudices need to be addressed, - which is normally fear; fear of the unknown, what's not familiar, human beings' tribal instincts and wanting to be defined in particular groups etc. People need to be given the opportunity to think about why it is they feel what they feel - why do they - in fact, why do we, because we all have prejudice to some extent - feel threatened by different cultures, different genders?
going back to the original discussion re travelling broadening the mind or not - I think both were true in my case. I think I'm a lover and a hater. I was very confronted with my own lack of compassion and shock over seeing so much poverty on my travels, particularly in India - people always speak about how they had this real fundamental change of attitude. I didn't in the ways I was expecting to - a lot of the time I felt very irritated by people grabbing and calling at me on the street, then felt guilty, then irritated again, then guilty again etc etc etc. I'm not proud of feeling like that, but that's how it was, much of the time. It was only really when I stopped trying to have the required emotional responses, that I started feeling them a little - and it was very gradual. It was only really when I left, and I took a flight on to Singapore to start travelling in South east Asia, that I started realising that I had been affected in positive ways - I went into a shopping mall to get some shower gel, and was confronted by so much choice, that I couldn't decide (after having no choice for so long) and I thought, how crazy to spend so much time choosing between this brand, that brand etc - I don't want to be spending my time doing this, I just want some shower gel, and leave the shop. I'd got used to a much more simple and basic way of living without realising it, and preferred it. The life of super cleanliness and glitzy shopping malls in Singapore seemed really 2 dimensional to me, really plastic, in comparison to the richness of life I'd experienced in India. the other thing I noticed - after I eventually arrived in Australia after being 10 months in Asia, I started worrying again more - western life really nurtures worry and anxiety - particularly with things like health - there's such an obsession with health, and only if you buy the latest superfoods supplements, don't have too much of this or too little of that, will you be ok. We've got too much information in the West. People spend so much time worrying about their health, it makes them ill! I didn't worry about my health at all in Asia - people just get on with doing other things.
But having said all that, like I said, I still had a dual thing going on the whole time in Asia - going from loving it to hating it, finding the lack of personal space and boundaries really irritating, then the next minute finding it a relief that people aren't going round with so many masks and barriers all the time that you feel so isolated like you can in western society.
I admire anyone who's travelled who was able to throw themselves in to the culture so much that they didn't bang up against their own conditioning and habits. When I travel again I'm sure I'll have a similar experience - love/hate.
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