Michiko Kakutanis The word police - Essay Example

Kakutani’s essay is a refreshing look at a literary that is politically correct (P.C). Kakutani speaks fun at the effort of various policepersons such as the author to the book, Bias-free word finder, Rosalie Maggio. She mocks people like Maggio saying that their efforts are usually exaggerated to the point of stupidity and silliness and can threateningly become linguistic distraction from the real issues. To Kakutani, over-exaggeration of political correctness only complicates our words and dilutes the messages.

The problem in PC advice is normally the exaggeration of the inclusiveness. To begin with, those who use the language popularly known as the word police are mainly students. The words actually originated fro m colleges and students. “Nowhere is this P.C. mood more striking than in the increasingly noisy debate over language that has moved from university campuses to the country at large” (Kakutani 1). As the popular saying goes, “youth are the leaders of tomorrow,” it is clear that the words will continue in popularity in the successive generations.

It might not be strange in the future to hear a lady talking of “ovarimony” instead of testimony. A possibility that the use of such words or language in the future being banned from use by the public is almost negligible. It thus implies that the US will definitely have a bleak future controlled by unnecessary ‘democracy’ and unnecessary strange vocabularies in the constitution. The dream or hope that Abraham had for the current and future America during his days was a prosperous, democratic nation.

However, the current trend described by Kakutani, in his essay, reveals another type of democracy whereby individuals feel that certain things should stop being the way they are in order to attain what they term as democracy. There are a number of people involved in the publishing of bias free books. There is a trendy surge of PC Dictionaries that will be availed to the US citizens. The dictionary, as Kakutani puts it will contain no discriminatory words. Kakutani describes Political correctness as a vision of a more just, inclusive society whereby racisms, sexisms and all sorts have been eradicated from the society (Kakutani 1).

He goes ahead to claim that PC has a good intent for the society. However, the methods applied by the politically correct activists to achieve the goals are extreme and has led to the formation of other forms and types of democracy defined using other terms different from the American constitution. Those who consider themselves intellectuals in the political and judicial arenas are the ones that have become easy to sway by the word police. Since they have democracy in mind, they tend to obtain or maximize it in all sectors and areas of life.

Under normal circumstances, democracy can never and will never achieve an ideal status. Ideal status, in the sense that there is perfect equality