While these examples represent the gravest forms of radicalization, I believe we are now witnessing a cultural form of it caused by pushing equality way past the boundaries of what should be deemed acceptable.
In the modern age, there a very few rational people who would argue against fair pay between the genders, equal rights among the races, or religious freedom for the masses. This is equality and we're closer to that ideal today than we've ever been, at least here in the West. When equality is pushed too far, though, its idiot cousin, neutrality rears its ugly head.
Recognizing as a parent that there's nothing inappropriate about your daughter playing with a truck or you son playing with a doll promotes equality. Teaching children, however, that there are no differences between the genders breeds neutrality and that's wrong. Progressives clutching the idea that the sexes are indeed the same need to do nothing more than flip through an issue of Maxim, or worse (better?) to comprehend in vivid technicolor the error of their ways. And if that's too reprobate, perhaps a visit to a hospital maternity ward would emphasize the point.
Our schools provide even better examples. The gender-neutral Gestapo have extolled the virtues of allowing little Jimmy to use the girls' room and Sally the boys'; to hell with cultural and biological differences. I'm pretty certain urinals' days are numbered if these clowns ever get their agenda in front of some dimwitted politician with a majority.
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| Where can "shim" relieve "shisself"? |
Need more? Encouraging all religions and acknowledging their traditions promotes equality. Banning all religious observances and extirpating the word "Christmas" every December, walking around shamed into wishing everyone, "Happy holidays" instead is neutrality's evil fallout at its worst. Stop sounding so stupid! I'm curious as to why the politically correct zealots among us don't holster their "Happy New Year" salutations like they do with "Merry Christmas" when a full 20% of the people on Earth observe a different New Year. Hmmmm!!?
And finally the workplace. Designing a building so that it is accessible and friendly to the disabled fosters equality. Changing the definition of "disability" so that it applies to nearly one-third of the workforce to further neutrality's agenda is utter madness and should be an affront to those who truly are disabled. Nothing lends itself to this argument more eloquently than "fragrance free workplace" boondoggles. It would appear that the very small minority who are bothered by the smell of lavender or ginger have persuaded the feeble minded that this is a disability and thus all fragrances need to be obliterated from the workplace. Fine with that? I wonder how far I would get if I could persuade a doctor to give me a note stating that the aroma of coffee makes me nauseous and exacerbates my asthma. Could I get that banned, too? After all, the fragrance of coffee wafting through the air is certainly more prevalent in our office spaces than eau de Paris Hilton. Or are with sniffing Taylor Swift this year? And before anyone reminds me that it's the carcinogens in scents that require them to be banned, let's not forget that the ozone expelled from your office copiers and the radiation emitted from your computer screens pose a much greater health risk than my Aqua Velva Classic ever could. Try banning those.
Equality can exist without neutrality and 100 years hence historians will look back at this time when many tried to guilt us into thinking otherwise with considerable contempt.
As a new year dawns, let's hope the pendulum of cultural radicalization swings back to the centre, where it belongs.
