Being unconditionally politically correct is starting to get on most Americans’ nerves, particularly young people’s. How else do you explain the popularity of shows like ‘South Park’ or ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?’ It seems like people are ready to get back to their petty, bigoted, mean-spirited roots.

After decades of restraint by stuffed shirts, crudity has outlets accessible to millions of people at once through books, periodicals, television, film, the Internet and even radio (read: Howard Stern). The media is no longer perpetuating the myth of an idealistic culture.

The question becomes: is it better to tell it as it is or, as your grandparents would argue, to put a ‘positive’ spin on things? For instance, the the word ‘promiscuous’ is intended to provide a polite cover for the word ‘slutty.’ Yet whether or not the subject of either adjective is mollified by euphemism is debatable.

Political correctness obviously exists for a reason: it prevents discomfort and hurt feelings. By using the words and terms considered politically incorrect, however, people begin to own them again.

This sense of control frees the derogatory aspects of the words; consider the way blacks have brought demeaning epithets into their own culture. By incorporating these terms, they effectively strip the words of their original malicious intent and therefore their power. You’ll notice that most politically incorrect shows are comedies, as humor is one way to lessen the significance of a situation and helps to bring it back under control.

Watch an episode of ‘South Park’ and count how many stereotypes it utilizes in a half hour, and you’ll see another effect of the new un-PC movement. Television and movies have started putting inequalities and biases right out in the open, and it’s time that society did the same.

Women and men are not biologically or socially equal, more minorities do not go to college, typically blacks make better basketball players, terminal patients are dying and maybe there is no God. By revealing certain sentiments that everybody is aware of but are afraid acknowledge, the problems related to those ideas might be resolved more easily. You cannot repair unfair disparities or bad situations by pretending they do not exist.

We are often so wrapped up in being politically correct and conversing appropriately that it’s no wonder most people cannot communicate properly with their partners or parents. Being PC is a subtle form of mind control, with the government steering us in its intended direction. The freedom of speech is eclipsed by fear of sounding insulting, insensitive or ignorant, but talking realistically does not necessarily constitute vulgarity or rudeness.

It’s commonly held that the truth is the most powerful and sacred factor in human relations. So why can’t we say it? Indeed, it might enable people to cope with the real world more efficiently if what was said to us was not sugarcoated from an early age.

By using language like aspirin, we lessen the immediate pain of a situation but diminish our natural resilience. Perhaps facing the gruesome or depressing actualities of a situation (war, for one) would encourage us to prevent it.