“I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

Niceness is now universal in our society. Everyone and everything is nice to one another, by way of being nice to themselves. Niceness has come to define us, so that when historians come to write of our era they will speak of us as people who were unfailingly “nice”.

By the term “nice” I do not mean to refer to anything which is genuine and authentic. Instead I speak of a phenomenon which is based on the desire to be well thought of by everyone we come into contact with. Niceness is narcissism thinly veiled. Whereas someone who is genuinely kind may wish to express how much they like another, a narcissist will be nice simply in order to obtain praise for himself. Kindness and Niceness are uneasy bedfellows, for where one speaks of reaching out, the other is concerned with looking in, and where the one is a virtue, the other is the product of a vice.

As well as being the era of “niceness”, ours is the age of political correctness gone global. The two are, in fact, closely related, and the latter may be seen as the deliberate and inevitable result of the dominance of the former. Political correctness has come to dominate North America, keeping the country’s people locked in an over-regulated linguistically-policed state of mind. Political correctness is everywhere – enforced upon the media as it is upon the lawmakers and those who keep the law. We have no choice in the matter, but must adhere to the doctrine – the philosophy – of political correctness whether we want to or not. To object to its dominance is to mark yourself out as a target. To speak out against the rampant dominance of the politically correct is to identify yourself as hostile to the society which they have come to control. To take this to its logical extreme, anyone who goes so far as to even acknowledge that The Game exists is skating on very thin ice. To maintain your conviction, moreover, is the ultimate form of political suicide.

Political correctness is niceness elevated to the level of philosophy. It is the new orthodoxy, literally defining North American society. It is reflected in the media, in our laws, in our politics. Being politically correct in your presentation is not a matter of choice; it is a social mandate. Taking any strong position on any topic is tantamount to social suicide. These days, someone being politically incorrect is the equivalent of having spoken out against the party in the Soviet Union or decrying Christian values in the Victorian era. For instance, even the vaguest suggestion that the game exists, is a complete faux pas in the politically correct world. If one is foolish enough to press the point, one risks become a social pariah.

What exactly is political correctness? It is easier to say what it is not. It is not racist, it is not sexist and it is not restrictive. It is not anything at all! It is intolerance of intolerance itself. Any ideology draws a boundary somewhere as to what is acceptable and what is not; what is tolerable and what is not. Propriety, in the past, was prescribed by dogma. Ironically, political correctness denounces dogma as being intolerant, yet manages to be no less judgmental. In the end all we are left with is blandness, tepidness, mediocrity; in other words, niceness!

It is the coup de grace on the part of the players who designed the game. Now they can do as they wish and cover their tracks with long speeches dripping with false sentiment. Anyone who speaks out against their schemes is marginalized for being too negative. As our rights are taken from us, and as we are herded about we are completely oblivious to the fact that we are in a gigantic prison, because it is so very, very nice!

John Berling Hardy debunks the myths which frame our world. For more of his writings please visit www.playingtheplayers.com