Political Correctness is not Spiritually Correct
It doesn’t take much review of current headlines to wonder if we’re truly going to hell in a handbasket. Even I, who firmly believe we’re headed in a positive direction of global unity and spiritual evolution, find it challenging to remain upbeat in the face of such unrelenting negativity. Since the scope of pernicious news topics is so broad, I’ve chosen to address a personal pet peeve, political correctness. The latter is spiritually offensive to me because it fundamentally denies or skews truth. More, it inhibits thoughtful consideration of complex issues and aligns self-righteousness with repressive behavior to quash free speech, thought, and action. Rather than facilitate mature policy reformation, political correctness’ shame-&-blame M.O. hounds anyone willing to consider the highly textured, multi-factorial nature of complex social scenarios and, instead, favors emotional diatribes that usually misrepresent facts, discount context, and justify myopic, self-serving biases.
Social modification requires meaningful dialogue and action based on perceiving levels of cause and outcome. Grasping causation, therefore, is often a key component to crafting reform. Without clarity of insight, the ability to mend situational wrongs is blunted or misdirected. Political correctness undermines such by decrying critical thinking and misrepresenting origins of issues. Case in point: If a person persists in overeating or eating wrongly – for whatever reasons – they will gain weight. This is simple biology. Until they accept responsibility for this cause-effect relationship and undertake necessary steps to alter their habits of thought, activity, and eating, the problem shall remain. Spinning scenarios to blame others or glorify unhealthy body types won’t change reality. When pressure exists to replace facts with revisionist beliefs, as championed by PC protocol, such behaviors undermine societal health and become systemically problematic.
Political correctness fundamentally rejects notions of personal responsibility preferring sanitized versions of life which appease its ideological doctrines. Conversely, the esoteric route to problem solving lay in thoughtful self-reflection. Much in life happens mysteriously, yet justifiably, due to subtle causative principles. From a spiritual perspective, we’re not hapless victims of unknown forces foisted on us by ‘others’ but architects of outcomes arising from choices and actions made consciously or unconsciously overtime. That is why when unpleasant life events occur it is advised to contemplate our possible role in fashioning such, then, devising ways to remedy situations – including by changing ourselves. Consider these statements of Paramhansa Yogananda:
“The habits you cultivated in past lives have substantially created your physical, mental, and
emotional makeup in this life. You have forgotten those habits, but they have not forgotten you.”
“A man (person) takes birth in a certain family, a particular social and national environment,
owning to specific causes—his own past actions. Therefore man is the architect of his own destiny.”
“Your failure or sickness or other troubles started with unwise actions in past lives, and the effects of those causes have been brewing within, waiting for the right time to bubble over. Disease, health; failure, success; inequalities, equality; early death, long life—all these are outgrowths of the seeds of actions we have sown in the past…Each person has made himself the way he is.….Don’t blame God or anyone else if you are suffering from…upsets. You created the cause of the problem in the past and must make a greater determination to uproot it now.”
The reason I put all this forward is because I recoil at the decline of truth, understanding, and moral backbone so prevalent today. Like everyone else, I wish for a more just and equitable society. However, that doesn’t mean we can overlook the subtle infrastructure which contributes to its makeup. Dharma, or cosmic righteousness, won’t be trifled with nor tolerate fools. Life operates precisely and mathematically not by ungoverned whimsy. There are consequences to actions made in accordance with, or in disregard of, cosmic laws. As such we must realize that whatever exists in our lives does so by subtle principles like cause-effect and energetic-magnetic affinity. Individual, societal, and global activities are governed by these universal laws. Therefore, we must be willing to at least consider the potential contribution our own actions have wrought while also compassionately seeking to correct whatever is amiss. This commentary is not meant to deny the wrenching impact of life tragedies nor substitute PC thinking with spiritually-flavored blame doctrines. That is neither intended nor proper. Karma is too complex a doctrine for such simplicity. Nor are we victims of unalterable fate. As souls we possess free will and the inherent potential to modify karmic outcomes in ways to our liking. That said, we must also accept that every event has it roots in diverse energetic components. When the reflex to deny accountability is replaced with thoughtful consideration of our potential role in shaping life, we begin to approach and remedy life imbalances in ways that are more spiritually correct, and, enduring.