I, for one, believe that political correctness has gone too far.

Of course there are still people with bigoted views and ideas in contemporary society who need to be challenged. But it seems to me that it has become impossible to speak about another person's culture without falling into some expression which causes offence.

I remember years ago, when I was in England, how the nursery rhyme Ba Ba Black sheep was no longer to be sung at school and how the blackboard was replaced by the chalkboard. Surely this is over-sensitiveness. How on earth could such expressions cause offence?

In my own writing I have encountered moments when I have attempted to applaud ideas and values from other cultures outside the Western traditions and it is so difficult to refer to these things without falling into the binary of black/white primitive/progressive, reasonable/unreasonable,darkness enlightenment. To not do so would be to ignore the history of the western tradition of thought and the prejudices that are implicit in this historical linguistic polarity. If we cannot name, and speak in these terms then it is difficult to critique them.

Many African-Americans have adopted the word "nigger" as a way of critiquing the racist connotations implicit in its use. I think this is a far more effective and mature method of attacking the word. Language is always changing and through these changes come the changes in the ways that we perceive.

Prohibiting the use of certain words, or certain ideas, just means that they are used privately, and thus persistently remain unchallenged.