There are a few things in life that are offensive to me. They are things with which few people would disagree.

The Holocaust, child pornography and Tiananmen Square are just a few examples of actions that offend me.

Some people’s lists, however, are much, much larger. These people are known as the politically-correct bunch, a group that has turned everything in this country into a boring, lifeless entity.

Political correctness has created a society of lemmings who are now afraid to say or do anything lest they be called racist, homophobic, sexist, etc.

A key example was the controversy surrounding a sign posted for the Philosophy Club last week. It had two pictures: a lingerie-clothed woman and a boxer-clothed man.

It read more or less that the two individuals were into philosophy and asked what you would say if you wanted to impress them. It was an obvious attempt at humor to get people to attend the Philosophy Club meeting.

However, some didn’t see it that way. In a story that ran on the front page on Oct. 16, an English instructor noted her vehement disapproval of a harmless sign that was meant to be purely humorous.

She commented that the sign contributed to the objectification of women, yet said nothing about the picture of the half-naked man. She must not have been offended by that picture, I guess.

She took something that was made purely in jest and blew it totally out of proportion. This sad protest was given merit simply by placing it on the front page.

One tender, thin-skinned individual protests a single sign and we think it’s newsworthy. We give the politically-correct movement energy simply by publishing their “cause.”

The press plays a big role in p.c. One humorous example is that the press changed the pronunciation of the seventh planet of the solar system from Your-anus to Your-en-us. I guess we wouldn’t want everyone believing that scientists found rings around your ass.

Obviously, political correctness is now everywhere. The p.c. movement has given a license to whine to a bunch of hypersensitive, prissy individuals who are offended by one seemingly insignificant thing.

Political correctness is not just a societal ail; it also becomes legislation in some places. Nowhere has the legislation of P.C. taken a stronger hold than at America’s colleges and universities.

Iowa State was even a participant in this hysteria. The dormitory door policy was political hypersensitivity, pure and simple.

Because some people complained that a couple of signs they saw on a door were offensive, the university prohibited everyone from expressing themselves.

Thank goodness the university came to its senses and removed the ban last semester.

A conservative school like ISU may find it hard to continue such policies, but you better believe that ultra-liberal enclaves like Berkeley and the Universities of Colorado, Wisconsin and Iowa welcome this overly-sensitive thinking.

Higher education has played the biggest role in p.c. simply because the movement was started by a bunch of academics who obviously have no desire to live in the real world.

They want a world free of effort, thinking and honest communication.

Now this cancer has escaped and has infested most of this country. We use meaningless euphemisms for fear of offending someone by calling a overweight person “fat” or an African American “black.”

We subject people to “sensitivity training,” a modern notion in which people are slowly brainwashed into thinking they have no opinion on anything and can no longer say what they believe.

We have replaced effective, honest debate with plain, bland conversations which don’t really accomplish anything, since we don’t want to inflame anyone’s emotions.

We now lionize people who are sensitive to everyone and degrade those who might piss us off.

We have created a culture that cringes and cries when it hears or sees something that “offends” it.

All hope is not lost, however. All people have to do is go back to being honest. Say what you believe, not what others say you should believe.

Hopefully, society will cure itself of this disease we call political correctness and take a good helping of the medicine of reality and honesty.

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Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.