It seems the man in the street must now be referred to as “the average person.” That doesn’t apply to me and you, of course. And anyway, shouldn’t the average person be walking on the pavement? I learned recently that the slum district in which I grew up was actually “an economically deprived area.” It was certainly deprived of pavements, now I come to think of it. I spent years dodging traffic on a road no chicken would ever want to cross.
Political correctness would seem to sit uneasily with the culture of blame in which we live. How refreshing it was to overhear a man in a garden centre saying, “That sundial I bought last year has already paid for itself.” Not that I had the faintest idea what he meant, but at least he wasn’t there to complain about lack of sunshine.
Blaming the rest of mankind for all the negative things that happen to you — being dismissed from your job, a bad haircut, toothache (sorry to hear that) — seems to be perfectly acceptable these days, as long as you remember to refer to ‘mankind’ as “humanity” — not that some of them seem very humane, fancy firing you because of your haircut! Passing the buck is a habit that has suffered from inflation.
Laying the blame at the door of other people means never having to say you’re sorry. When people tell me life is all about making mistakes, I assure them they are mistaken. “Don’t become a serial blame-shifter,” I often go on to advise them, not that they seem all that grateful.
Free speech is in danger of being undermined, and common sense lost. One university has warned against the use of the pronouns he and she, “to avoid presumptions about identity.” Whatever was he or she thinking? Must the novel ‘She’ now be retitled, along with ‘She Loves You’ by the Beatles?
There are ways to avoid blame. If you accidentally drop some ice cream on the floor of a friend’s house, always try to sweep it under the carpet with your foot, if there is one, a carpet I mean, and fortunately I was wearing white shoes at the time. Although I never was invited back.
Also, always wash your hands thoroughly after you shoot someone, lest the police try to pin the blame on you by using some sort of technical trick — gunshot residue, perhaps, or an eyewitness.
When you plant sunflowers and they don’t grow, it isn’t politically correct to blame the sunflowers — or the sun — but you can probably sue the garden centre under some trading standards law, since you traded your money for their uncooperative blooms.
The only culture we can rely on to grow these days is the culture of blame. Dr Jekyll blamed Mr Hyde, Burke probably blamed Hare, the three bears moaned when Goldilocks ruined their porridge, and some polar bear probably blamed the Titanic for ruining his iceberg. Those all sound like tales of woe, but whoa! Don’t blame me, I’m only the messenger.
