The apotheosis of political correctness

One insufficiently noted aspect of the current presidential election is the historic apotheosis of "political correctness." By this I mean attacks on the opponent based on convenient principles asserting that certain statements are not to be allowed because they might offend.

One of the problems with political correctness, as it was originally conceived, was that it was often unclear whether anyone was in fact offended by a given statement, or how strongly felt that offense might be. This problem is magnified in the current environment, in which it has become clear that there have been many cases in which no one at all was offended by a statement, but the opposing party took up the statement as a cudgel on the theoretical basis that it could offend - "lipstick on a pig," for instance. This is meant only partly to inspire a sense of offense in those the theory asserts should be offended; it is more powerfully intended to undercut the moral authority of the opponent by offending the moral righteousness of those many millions (in some cases the entire population) who could never be personally offended by the statement per se.

What interests me about this is that it seems to be trumping every other kind of argument. Civilized behavior seems to have become confused with some sort of fictive, perfect political correctness, which judges everything from candidate's families to their level of honesty to be unmentionable by the opponent. The candidates - mostly the Republican side, but the Obama people are playing too - seem to to be mainly concerned with staking out the highest territory on Mount Outrage. Promises from both sides to shun negative campaigning have not until recently been dropped in favor of traditional negative campaigning, but nevertheless have long been dropped - in favor of negative attacks claiming outrage at the negativity of the opponent's campaign.

So it seems to me the chickens are coming home to roost for liberals who thought it was a good idea to declare various kinds of speech out of bounds. It turns out the enemy can play that game just as well, with the inevitable consequence - escalation. The outrage arms race is banning more and more innocent statements, leaving no content but the feigned outrage itself. We free speechers told you so.