A few weeks ago, I was heralded as a “Social Justice Warrior” by an anonymous commenter on the Internet. The title was meant, of course, as an insult — but I was elated.

I imagined myself as a superhero, fighting one stigma at a time until the United States became a land of truly equal opportunity.

I suppose I’d prefer to be a Social Justice Ninja, because “warrior” lacks the intrigue and mystery that I always try to emulate in my Cat Woman costume at Halloween.

Nonetheless, to him, I was a warrior for pushing a politically correct agenda by using rhetoric that wasn’t my own, but instead airy slogans right out of the leftist playbook.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but he was right.

I’m a rising junior at Columbia, one of the most PC universities in the country. We consider ourselves a community of protesters that links arms to keep out anything “oppressive,” even when we don’t understand its complexities. Our favorite words are “problematic” and “privileged,” especially when they work hand in hand.

When I moved to New York City from South Texas for college, I wasn’t prepared for the storm of censorship that would come my way. For most of my first year, I walked on eggshells, not knowing what language would offend others even when I meant no malice.

One of my first articles for the Columbia Daily Spectator was on a photo project, “Somos Dreamers,” that investigated the implications of US immigration laws for undocumented residents. My father is a first-generation Mexican-American, and I have a lot of family still in Mexico. I’m a vocal proponent of liberalizing and reforming our immigration laws.

In the story, I used the word “illegal” once or twice — not to demonize the undocumented but to simply acknowledge the problem: Immigrating to the United States without documentation is illegal.

Student groups like Casa Latina and Chicano Caucus were so offended that they ignored how positive the article was and instead attacked my person, asked that the article be removed and even wanted to hold a seminar to teach me why I should reconsider my terminology.

A male classmate of mine recently complimented me on an article I’d written about Columbia’s so-called “mattress girl,” Emma Sulkowicz. He noted that my view was nuanced, one that is in short supply on a campus where such divisive issues create a kind of singular tribal loyalty on either side.

Indeed, as a writer, I do strive to speak the truth. So here it is: Political correctness is problematic.

Today, young adults shy away from real dialogue, or spew jargon too muddled to lucidly communicate.

We recognize the backwardness of our parents and laugh at their “ignorance” while they cry at ours. We isolate certain demographics from discussions because we’ve decided their voice has no place in our movement — or in our lives. Political correctness is a euphemism for exclusivity and closed-mindedness; it blocks all perceptions that defy the liberal millennial mold.

None of this means we can’t draw lines for ourselves or consider certain expressions of bigotry beyond the pale.

But as a country and a generation, we need to be more accepting of viewpoints different from our own.

Homogeneity in ideology isn’t unique to millennials, but it’s getting worse with us, and it inhibits any kind of growth in our ability to interpret and analyze social issues.

We can’t enter a second Age of Enlightenment if we don’t find spaces like those in the 18th century where (yes, white male) citizens gathered to educate themselves.

Atop our crumbling capacity to vocalize our values is a second tier of concerns: Because our energy is focused on how we present ourselves in a purely oratory sense, we’ve become superficial.

Everything is about what we say, not how we respond. We concentrate on the surface, nitpicking diction instead of processing substance.

We’re happy to tear into little things (like Darren Criss’ bothersome joke on Broadway or Amy Schumer’s response to someone calling her racist) that barely reach our heartstrings because we like to be infuriated but don’t want to feel pain or depth.

Our problem as a country isn’t a dearth of PC vocabulary or rhetoric that reflects two years at an Ivy League institution.

Bigotry won’t be eradicated by exchanging one word for another.

As a 20-year-old college student surrounded by the next slew of political leaders, activists and academics, I believe the only way to remedy our systemic shortcomings is for the liberal left to forget PC guidelines and start asking ourselves harder questions.

Alexandra Villarreal is a rising junior at Columbia University and freelance writer.