double fault

"The most important part is keeping our eyes on the master metaphor of the Fault Line. The society is split along five faults, and we try in vain to paper them over, fill them in or pretend they aren't there. ... (These) underlying forces, like those in the center of the earth, will thwart us until we come to see out differences as deep, but completely natural things, as natural as geologic fault lines. We don't have to resolve our differences. We can agree to disagree." ~Robert C. Maynard

That quote was on a handout from my newspaper editing class. We were talking about editing for taste and style when the concept of these five faults - race/ethnicity, gender, generation, class, geography - came up. The idea is that society is shaped based on these underlying characteristics. From my interpretation of Maynard's quote, journalists need to recognize these divisions in order to write tastefully and un-offensively.

There's nothing wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned. But I think it can be over-applied. Trying so hard not to offend actually perpetuates the prejudices those fault lines address. No, someone's race, gender or age isn't always relevant to any story, but I think more often than not, it is. Those fault lines are the basic characteristics for self-definition. Leaving that kind of information out implies that all people are the same, and, well, they aren't.

That said, I understand the effort of journalists, and maybe bloggers, too, to be unobtrusive, tasteful, ultimately politically correct. In the short term, it saves everyone from a huge headache. But maybe in "agreeing to disagree," we should start celebrating those differences that Maynard says we don't have to resolve. There's value in respecting one's identity, too, and I'm pretty sure there are ways to do that tastefully.

So what's better, editing out potentially offensive fault-line characteristics, or including self-identifying fault-line characteristics? I honestly don't know. Any suggestions?