Political Correctness: Necessary good or unnecessary evil?

The United States Constitution, which contains the 1st Amendment.

Political Correctness is either seen as a good thing or as an awful thing there is usually no in between. Political correctness can limit a person's ability to say what they really think. Which can hamper a person's individuality.

According to a study called Hidden Tribes by Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Míriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon “on issues ranging from Gender and Islam to Race and Immigration, at least 50 percent of Americans claim there is ‘Pressure to think a certain way’.... This pressure is highest regarding Islam, about which fully 66 percent of Americans say they do not feel that it is ‘acceptable’ to voice their opinions. Context matters, though: More than two-thirds of Americans say they feel less inhibited voicing their perspectives when they are among ‘people like me’.”

This leads to concerns about whether people’s freedom of speech is being encroached. The other side of the coin is hate speech, which 67% of people surveyed is a problem. Contrasted to the 74% of people who think that political correctness is a problem. The FBI’s website says this about hate crimes “A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.”

Since hate itself is not a crime what makes hate speech so concerning? Generally bullying is the main concern, and we can all agree that bullying is a bad thing, and no one would argue that bullying is a good thing but one could argue that people are oversensitive, and perhaps they’re right. But which is more important? People’s feelings or the ability to say what you think?

The 1st Amendment states

very clearly which one is more important as there is no “right to not be offended” but there is a right to freedom of speech. Which generally gives you the impression that the founding fathers had more of an interest in people being able to think than people being not offended.