Sarah Standing

Standing Room | 7 March 2009

I think I may have unearthed a new strain of the disease Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Munchausen on its own is a psychological disorder in which a person makes him or herself appear ill in order to get attention or nurturing. Munchausen by proxy is when a person fabricates or induces illness in a person under their care. These individuals tend to be highly secretive and use multiple false identities. Now a similar disease has come to my attention: Political Correctness By Proxy (PCBP).

PCBP occurs when complete strangers take umbrage and act on behalf of people they think ought to be offended. They assume hurt feelings and hijack them — taking unnecessary offence just because it’s there for the taking. I cite Golligate as a recent example of PCBP. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga could easily — and with due justification — have retaliated against Carol Thatcher’s casually uttered racist Green Room comment himself. But he didn’t. Others reacted on his behalf, throwing down the gauntlet of concern and stoking the highly infectious flames of indignant self-righteousness: political correctness by proxy.

A society that actively encourages both political correctness and freedom of speech is asking for trouble. It’s turned us all into namby-pamby servants intent on serving two masters at once. It’s as though we’re desperately trying to understand the dance sequence for a cerebral form of hokey-cokey. We put our right foot in (freedom of speech) only to find our left foot kicked out (political correctness). Obviously I don’t object to anyone proffering an opinion, but when these views have to be verbally edited in order to conform to the confines of politically correctness, they lose not just their validity and passion, but also their purpose.

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