PC World

Cardale Jones, the gifted third string quarterback who led Ohio State to whatever they call the college national championship, got a little extra fame for this tweet:

"Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL," Jones wrote. "We ain't come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS."

Naturally this was quickly condemned by all and sundry. It was not just another harmless bit of undergrad fun - the problem is that it was obviously 100% true. That, to my mind, is the essence of what is objectionable in PC. Speech or writing that challenges the official myth is aggressively punished - especially when the official myth, like the NCAA's fiction of the student athlete, is manifestly false.

A variation occurs when the forbidden speech voices an idea that is widely believed - correctly or incorrectly, or perhaps at least partially true - but contrary to the official myth. The cases of Watson and Summers come to mind. Of course it's considerably worse in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Jones kept his "scholarship," and none of them were publically beaten to death.

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