Rab McNeil

Political correctness is unchallenged in Sweden

THE world of political correctness and language policing went where it traditionally goes – mad – this week, with various edicts issued to the hapless peasantry toiling under the new liberal authoritarian order. Before I get into specifics, let me reiterate the three stages of revolutionary movements. First, you have genuinely well-motivated, morally far-seeing people who advance rights and progress

(my generation essentially). After hard struggles, they win through and their ideas become widespread, with the common herd that once looked away now turning its bovine crania in the same direction, not out of conviction but social convenience.

Thirdly, the once revolutionary ideas now become a rigid, reactionary orthodoxy enforced by psychologically suspect individuals whose moral compass has no hand. Thus, for example, Bolshevism, feminism, and bicycling, all beliefs with which I had sympathy at stages one and two.

I don’t know when or if veganism will ever get to stage three. Conflated with vegetarianism, it’s probably pushing stage two at the moment.

I have great respect for vegans, and it’s clear they’re well-motivated, ethical people. Whether the practice is good for you I cannot tell. An internet meme battle at the moment sees one side highlighting weedy, sallowfaced individuals as representative of the genre, while its proponents adduce various vegan body-builders and MMA artistes.

Certainly, I’m not convinced by the human carnivores’ implication that eating meat imparts strength, as that sounds like Chinese medicine (tiger penis stew enhances your own appendage), and Chinese medicine – with the very slightly possible exception of acupuncture – is, scientifically speaking, pants.

This week, Peta, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (not, as its detractors suggest, People Eat Tasty Animals), advocated removing “speciesism” from our daily conversations. Certainly, I wouldn’t like to try saying “speciesism” after I’d had a few.

But, no, they were referring to common sayings such as “take the bull by the horns”, “flogging a dead horse”, “killing two birds with one stone”, “bring home the bacon”, and even “all your eggs in one basket”.

These, Peta suggested, should be replaced by, respectively, “take the flower by the thorns”, “feeding a fed horse”, “feeding two birds with one scone”, “bring home the bagels”, and “all your berries in one bowl”.

These suggestions have been widely panned, and, given everything I said above, you might expect me to join in. But I’ve never been a fan of intellectual consistency and must say I’ve some sympathy with this – until it becomes compulsory.

“Flogging a dead horse”, for example, is a ghastly expression, as is “more than one way to skin a cat”. I find cats – Satan’s domestic pet – morally deplorable, but have no place for that image in my conversation.

Question: is Peta censoring language or coming up with creative, even fun alternatives? At this stage, it’s the latter. But I fear it will morph into the former, becoming intellectually consistent with the stages theory ad-libbed – sorry, explained – so authoritatively above.

Winter blues

WHEN it comes to political correctness, the unchallenged world capital is Sweden.

I used to be a fan of Sweden’s authoritarian socialism but when, in trying to live up to its own hype about being a “humanitarian superpower”, it tacked on authoritarian liberalism, it seriously lost the plot – and me with it.

In line with its PC conformity (a very Scandinavian trait), Sweden famously has the most self-censoring media in the world since Pravda.

Indeed, further in line with the latter, and in contrast to Scotland’s media, which regularly report how we are the worst country in the UK/Europe/ the world for everything, Swedish media report relentlessly how their country is the best, particularly in humanitarian matters.

It’s the moral equivalent of the old Bolshevik papers boasting about tractor production. Except that, in Sweden, it’s halo production.

However, it seems that even halos run the risk of being politically incorrect now. Some Swedish newspapers have started removing all references to Christmas and