Lawrence Solomon writes:
2016 wrote the epitaph to political correctness, the most insidious of the evils facing society and also among the most toxic. To silence challengers to today’s orthodoxy, self-styled “social justice warriors” on the left have been quick to label dissenters as racists, sexists, homophobes or Islamophobes, unaware that in previous generations the dissenters from the orthodoxies — those who fought for emancipation of the slaves, women’s suffrage, gay and other civil rights — succeeded precisely because upholders of the orthodoxies were unable to silence dissent.
Political correctness is not benign, as many imagine. It hampers everything from fighting the war on terror, to acquiring energy independence, to alleviating poverty. Neither is political correctness popular with the general public — opinion polls show two-thirds to three quarters of Americans, including millennials and students — oppose it.
