Right to free speech not an excuse for spewing nastiness

Dear Miss Manners: In the light of rude comments made by political candidates under the guise of not being politically correct, could you please explain how to be polite without being politically correct?

Gentle reader: Good question. As modern usage of the term “politically correct” has meant refraining from delivering wholesale insults to groups of people, that would be difficult.

The usual defense by those who express nastiness is that they are being frank and honest about what they think. As indeed they are. But that does not make their spoken opinions any less nasty.

When much of the public stopped tolerating hate talk, Miss Manners was thrilled. It became her favorite counter-example to those who believe that etiquette has steadily deteriorated since the days of King Arthur — or at least their own vaguely remembered childhoods.

But now this tremendous advance is being threatened by both detractors and supporters of political correctness.

Those who scorn the term declare that political correctness is a danger to our constitutional right to free speech, which Miss Manners, like all Americans, holds sacred.

No, it is not. Surely you have noticed that lots of people are exercising their legal right to spew obnoxious thoughts, and there are no legal reprisals. Etiquette relies on voluntary compliance.

True, there are social reprisals. Those who seize their right to be offensive should not be shocked that others take offense.

But name-calling is not conducive to debate. All serious arenas of conflict — legislatures, courtrooms, athletic contests — have rules against this. That is necessary because holding opposing goals and debating actual issues require treating opponents with respect.

Yet even that has been perverted by some of the proponents of political correctness. An aggressive form of what calls itself sensitivity — and yet attacks people for perceived slights when clearly none was intended — is, itself, insensitive to the point of rudeness.

What these critics and proponents of political correctness have in common, besides an ugly presumption of ill will in others, is an inability to imagine, much less strive for, a civilized society in which sincerely held differences can be safely aired.

The resulting confusion is that many people deplore political correctness when they only mean to declare that they support the principle of free speech and dislike arrogance disguised as sensitivity.

That blanket condemnation puts them in the position of defending cruelty, vulgarity and bigotry. So she suggests that everyone take a look at the content of what is said in the name of eschewing political correctness — is it expressing something nasty? — and judge political candidates accordingly.

Dear Miss Manners: Regarding etiquette in a car, what are the extent and limits of the driver’s authority?

Does the driver decide where to go, as well as how to get there? Should he or she discuss each likely stop or detour? Should he or she yield to the passenger’s wishes regarding stops or detours?

The attitude of the driver to the passenger seems to be like a bride’s toward her attendants, though milder and potentially more consequential.

I’ve been on both sides of the console and have been shocked by my own unwillingness to consult the passenger about details of the trip that would certainly be discussed if we were on the train. There seems to be something special that arises when someone is “in the driver’s seat” — exacerbated, possibly, by the prevalence of solo commuters, whose car is their domain.

Gentle reader: The phrase “in the driver’s seat” is not commonly understood to mandate consultation — or even basic compassion. This is unfortunate.

That the driver has the power, either figuratively or literally, to swerve into oncoming traffic does not, to Miss Manners’ thinking, make doing so a good idea. The polite driver consults his guest’s reasonable comfort, whether that means clearing errands that will lengthen the trip or submitting to bathroom stops without argument or comment.

This is true even if the driver is bestowing a favor. The rider may “only be along for the ride,” but a driver’s authority stops short of the point at which a ride home feels like a kidnapping.

To send a question to the Miss Manners team of Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin, go to missman

ners.com or write them c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.