Your fraternity on probation because your last soiree was border patrol themed?

你的兄弟有因為你上次用邊境巡邏當晚會主題而被列入監管嗎？

Busted.

逮捕歸案！

Do you get accosted at the grocery store for having "white-girl-dreads"?

還是因為不是非裔卻編了「髒辮」而被路人指責？

Pull over.

前面的，停車！

People keep angrily snatching your feather headdress off at Coachella?

在科切拉音樂節上，不斷被人憤怒地搶走酋長頭飾？

Go to jail.

入監服刑！

Don't collect two hundred dollars.

進去蹲吧你！

The PC police have spoken.

-- by 政治正確小警察

Are these call outs for cultural insensitivity appropriate or does being politically correct do more harm than good?

抓出這些「敏感」或「政治不正確」言論是否弊大於利？

Opponents of politically correct discourse argue that substituting harmful words for more fashionable alternatives doesn't do much of anything.

反對「政治正確」的人認為，用新詞替代那些傷人的詞彙並沒有多大意義。

In the essay "A Critique of Politically Correct Language", Ben O'Neill argues that politically correct language is pointless as long as the social stigma still survives.

在《政治正確語言批判》一文中，Ben O'Neill 稱，只要社會污名仍存在，政治正確就毫無意義。

Political correctness, O'Neill contends, suffers from a cyclical bully problem:

O’Neill 認為，政治正確存在霸凌循環的問題：

new words replace hurtful language, but individuals remain stuck on a "euphemism treadmill".

新詞取代了罵人的話，但受害者仍舊困在「委婉語跑步機」上。

"Disabled" becomes "physically challenged" and then "differently abled".

「殘疾人」變成「殘障人士」再變成「身體機能不同之人」。

A "toilet" was itself a euphemism,

「廁所」本身就是一種委婉說法，

until making way for more polite words like "water-closet",

直到更禮貌的「洗手間」一詞出現，

and then those were replaced "restroom", and "lavatory".

後來又出現了「盥洗室」和「衛生間」。

"Mouth breather" becomes "a person whose breathing may or may not be inhibited by a deviated septum".

「智障」成了「發育不完全，資質、能力遲緩之人」。

The problem is the new vocabulary tends to be taken up by the same individuals with the same intent.

問題是，新詞彙使用者往往是同一批人，意圖不變。

In other words, the underlying harmful intent never changes.

換句話說，傷害人的意圖一直沒變。

Even worse, other thinkers argue that one politically correct action gives people license to future infractions.

更糟糕的是，其他思想家認為，「政治正確」這張牌形同合法作惡許可證。

Researchers have investigated different moral behaviors and their relation to bigotry and racism.

研究人員調查了不同道德行為及其與偏見、種族歧視關係。

Their paper revolves around the concept of moral self-licensing.

他們的論文圍繞道德自我許可的概念展開。

"Moral self-licensing occurs when past moral behavior makes people more likely to do potentially immoral things without worrying about feeling or appearing immoral".

「道德自我許可發生於人們因其過去所做的『道德行為』更可能做出潛在不道德的事，而不用背負悖德感。」

Imagine a moral bank.

想像有個道德銀行。

Each time a person does something they think is good, they deposit into their moral bank account, and that credit is used in the future to balance out or absolve harmful actions.

每當一個人做了自己認為的「好事」時，就到道德銀行存款，以後要是做了「壞事」，就可以用來抵銷。

In other words, a person might feel like saying the right thing in one instance balances out unethical behaviors elsewhere.

換句話說，某人可能會覺得在某些情況下說「政治正確」的話可以抵消其他不道德行為。

If politically correct language is supposed to suture the wound of harmful speech —

如果說，政治正確的用意在於治癒惡言帶來的傷害，

to create a form of language separated from the pain and historical baggage of bigotry —we should ask: is it actually helping?

創造脫離歷史傷痛、祛除歧視的語言形式，

we should ask: is it actually helping?

我們應該問問自己，這真的有幫助嗎？

But for advocates of political correctness, defending it starts with the idea that the words we use profoundly impact people's lives.

但對政治正確的擁護者來說，它最初的用意始於言語對人們生活的深刻影響。

The central force behind political correctness has to do with philosophy of language.

政治正確背後意涵的核心與語言哲學有關。

Language is not just descriptive — it shapes our reality.

語言不僅僅是表述，也塑造了現實。

Certain forms of injurious speech, in their very utterance, create — and in this case that creation is pain.

某種形式的傷害在他們話語中形成，這種情況下，創造出的便是痛苦。

In her book "Words that Wound", law professor Mari Matsuda explains that hate speech, the moment it's uttered, is violent —

法學教授松田真理在她的著作《傷人的話》中解釋到，仇恨言論就是種暴力。

it places the speaker above the addressee, it enacts the violent exclusion of another person.

仇恨言論讓受害者趨於弱勢，是對受害者的暴力排斥。

Beyond that, there are material implications to harmful language —

除此之外，傷人言論也會造成實質傷害，

it causes emotional distress, forces people to change jobs or schools,

導致憂鬱，迫使人轉學或換工作。

and it creates the isolation that comes with feeling like you're hated and alone in the world.

還會造成孤立感，讓人感覺自己好像被全世界憎恨。

Researchers have also identified some of the psychological implications that stereotypical language has on mental capacity.

研究人員也證實了刻板印象對心智能力的心理影響。

Their various experiments asked women to solve different math problems after they were made aware of the stereotype that men are better than women at mathematics.

他們進行多次實驗，要求女性解決不同的數學題，並在解題前向實驗組女性強調，男性數學能力優於女性。

The women who were made aware of the stereotype did worse than the control group, who were not reminded about the stereotype.

比起沒接收到刻板印象的對照組，實驗組女性表現得更差。

They found that "Stereotype Threat", or the awareness of a negative stereotype, hinders working memory capacity.

他們發現「成見威脅」或對負面刻板印象的認知，會阻礙工作記憶能力。

Our brains are subconsciously aware of the stereotypes that society employs to define us.

大腦會下意識地認知社會用來定義我們的刻板印象。

Stereotype Threat can not only affect women but people of color in their academic or job performance.

「成見威脅」不只殘害女性，更影響有色人種的學業或工作表現。

Language is how we come to understand the world, and it shapes our perceptions of others.

語言是我們了解世界的方式，塑造了我們對他人的看法。

Stereotype Threat seems to reinforce the idea that words have the power to significantly diminish a person's potential.

成見威脅似乎強化了「語言能有效削弱一個人的潛能」這一點。

A choice to censor language, to not replicate potentially harmful stereotypes, may be a totalitarian self-censorship, or it may be a way to avoid harmful language that has a material impact on others.

選擇言論審查，不重蹈傷人的刻板印象，可能會淪為極權主義，也可能是去除嚴重攻擊言論的好方法。

In the end, the language you use is your choice.

到頭來，要說什麼話是你的選擇。

Choosing to be PC may or may not change the way you and others think about the world.

「政治正確」可能會，也可能不會改變你和其他人看待世界的方式。

So, what do you think, dear viewer?

親愛的觀眾，你的看法是什麼？

Is political correctness the right path to fighting prejudice?

政治正確是對抗偏見的正確途徑嗎？

Or are we all just terribly misguided?

又或者，我們都被誤導了呢？