Why i hate PC culture

Once upon a time, there was a person. This person identified as male, even though that was what a doctor had so callously decided for him at birth. This boy went to a school where everyone was tolerant and there was absolutely no racism. The school had a no speech policy. Students (although the school decided it was rude to have a power dynamic between student and teacher) were not allowed to speak at all. Teachers were not allowed to speak. At school, they just watched Vox, CNN, and Vice videos for education. If a student was at all triggered, they could raise their hand (although in a jazzy way so as not to trigger anyone with hand-raising) and the teacher would immediately stop the video and comfort the student by playing a song about tolerance.

One day, the boy saw someone new at his school. This person was deemed attractive by the boy’s mind, although that was all subjective and this person obviously had some thin privilege. The boy did not assume the newcomer’s gender because he had not asked them their pronouns. He would not describe the person’s body, as all bodies are the same in equality except if one wanted to transition to a gender they identified with, then bodies were differentiated so as to make one feel better expressing themselves. The person had brown skin, so the boy felt happy he could defend their honor. The person had blue eyes, though, which suggested that somewhere, a POC had decided to procreate with a white oppressor. The person smiled at people when they arrived and the boy liked this person’s smile, but did not say or do anything because showing emotional reactions to events could be misconstrued as a microaggression.

The person sidled up to the boy, who then raised his hand in a jazzy way because the sexual nature of the newcomer’s walk could trigger PTSD in people who’d been through assault, like getting complimented by other people in public.

The person ignored him!

“Hey,” the person said in a flirty tone that definitely did not mean any form of consent because by virtue of this boy being a male, he was an oppressor of this person of unknown gender.

“My name is Sam,” the person introduced themselves.

The boy nodded very slowly.

“Fuck, I am so tired of nobody talking here!” Sam said.

The boy raised his hand again. Sam was speaking. Sam cursed in a triggering way!

“What, are you all slow or something?” Sam asked, irritated.

The boy shook with justified anger. Sam had just made light of a protected class of people.

The Authority Figures who were not in a Power Dynamic Struggle grabbed Sam by the arms and dragged them out of the hallway.

“No! Help, please, not again! Someone, you gotta see this is crazy! Nobody is talking! Everyone is ruled by fear! If we disobey, we have no rights and are hurt! How can you claim to be against fascism and do this?” Sam begged. The boy covered his ears. Sam was saying triggering words.

They dragged Sam to the place where garbage humans and deplorables were reeducated.

The boy never saw Sam again.

But something lingered of Sam’s short stay in the Institute. The boy felt an anger for Sam, a desire to protect them even though Sam was a terrible evil racist bigot homophobe. No, one should protect the innocent, not deplorables. Sam deserved what they got.

New people tended to be like Sam. The Institute was a place for reforming deplorables. The boy was glad he had gotten through the process a better human. More than half of the speech criminals did not survive the process. The boy sometimes found his mind rebelling. He sometimes caught himself trying to remember what he had been like before he was awoken. He was probably a terrible person, he decided. After all, not just anyone got sent to the Institute. Only those who committed speech crimes. The lines were constantly being drawn and redrawn, but the boy felt like the whole world could live in peace if everyone just complied.

The boy sometimes woke with tears in his eyes. Good, he was beating toxic masculinity by crying like a real person-who-identifies-as-male. Although, that was a harmful phrase, perpetuating the problematic ideal of a gender binary.

Sometimes the silence was deafening. Not to be rude to HOH people, but it felt unnatural. Although everything was subjective, so what did feel natural to him might not to others.

There was no entertainment. Books had to be screened and burned if anything problematic was found. There always was something. Television was inappropriate because no matter the channel, no matter the show, there would always be something offensive. There were a few approved news sites, but even those were monitored under a safe space extension.

The boy was given a sketchpad once. He drew a person of unknowable gender with large breasts, a narrow waist, and a large rear end. He was punished violently for making her thin and curvy, as he hadn’t represented all body types. He wasn’t punished, he was saved. Awoken.

The boy liked mathematics, but it was deemed racist and taken away. The boy eventually had nothing. More and more, he thought of Sam. He thought of what they had said before they were taken away. A few mornings with wet eyes turned into every morning with wet eyes. The boy wanted death. Death over obedience. But he was so used to this life. They had saved him. Awoken him. How could he repay them their kindness by wishing death?

The tears started to leak during waking hours. They were deemed offensive, as the boy was white. He did not deserve to cry.

He was enlightened (silenced). He was saved (defeated).

A few words and he could die. He spent time thinking of what words he could choose for his suicide. He did not want it to be offensive, but anything he could think of saying had the potential to be offensive. Eventually, the boy accepted that whatever he said would be offensive to some, and let himself choose anything. He allowed himself choice over the programming in his head, searching for the perfect phrase that had personality!

He came up with one.

Blinking his dry eyes (they’d had his tear ducts removed for crying too much), he spoke for the first time in five long years.

“Give me liberty or give me death!” he shouted.

Everyone raised their hands inoffensively.

He couldn’t help but feel alive as he was dragged away. For the first time in a long while, he had no filter between his brain and mouth.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Sam,” he whispered with a smile as a bunch of silent, empty, scared looking people looked away.




NOTES

I want to note something that is a personal pet peeve of mine: they/them pronouns used for a named character. Notice how in the beginning of the story, when Sam is introduced as a newcomer, they/them pronouns sound more grammatically correct. This is because they are. An unnamed singular character not described by gender can be a they/them. But once Sam has a name, these pronouns are annoying. My brain can't handle them and it pisses me off because I love reading things like fanfiction, but when a character is deemed nonbinary, the pronouns make me want to tear my hair out. So saying 'he thought of Sam and their light hair' just fries something in my brain and if it's repeated enough, I can't focus on the rest of the story.

This usually isn't a problem, but in some fandoms, characters are widely accepted as nonbinary like Haruhi in OHSHC and Pidge in Voltron. Pidge is a girl (spoilers). Her name is Katie. She dressed like a dude for strategic reasons. She didn't stop dressing like a dude. That doesn't determine her gender, it just means she prefers certain clothes, and the assumption that her dress means she doesn't think of herself as female is reliant on considering her clothes too masculine for a girl, which in turn 'perpetuates gender norms' or something. This ties into this fic because it's the reason I wrote it, out of frustration.

Ugh I shouldn't care so much but I do. Life of a politically conservative geek girl, I guess.

Hope you liked my Orwellian dystopia. Was going to be longer with a line about how if you want to kill everyone who doesn't think like you, you'll end up alone.