I stumbled upon a question about the danger in lying and Andrei's answer caught my attention. He claims that '...key qualities of good character are: Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility'. Then it made me wonder - is being politically correct an obstacle on the way to enlightenment?
By the term political correctness I understand 'enforced language, ideas, or policies that address perceived discrimination against political, social or economical groups ("protected classes")'.
It seems that:
Lots of public figures no longer say what they really think but they mince their words so as not to offend any of the groups.
Media doesn't report certain facts/events/results of studies in fear of offending groups which won't feel comfortable with certain facts/events/results.
Most of the time it is not based on honesty.
Clearly this leads to violated integrity.
In everyday life we also seem to be forced into political correctness.
Challenging someone's views can be perceived as an attack and more and more jokes are perceived as offending (although it used to be a great virtue to be able to laugh at oneself).
I would be mostly interested in what contemporary Buddhist teachers and masters think about this topic.
Please refrain from sharing personal opinion if it's not based on specific teachings. I am looking for advice from Buddhist masters and texts mostly.