Political correctness
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"Political correctness" (adjectivally "politically correct"; commonly abbreviated PC) is a term used to describe language,[1][2][3] policies,[4] or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.[5][6][7] Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against, particularly groups defined by ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. In public discourse and the media,[4][8][9] the term is generally used as a pejorative with an implication that these policies are excessive or unwarranted.[10][11]
The phrase politically correct first appeared in the 1930s, when it was used to describe dogmatic adherence to ideology in
Commentators on the
History
Early-to-mid 20th century
In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct".[5]
The term political correctness first appeared in Marxist–Leninist vocabulary following the Russian Revolution of 1917. At that time, it was used to describe strict adherence to the policies and principles of the
The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance.
— "Uncommon Differences", The Lion and the Unicorn[4]
1970s
In the 1970s, the American
Thereafter, the term was often used as self-critical
Stuart Hall suggests one way in which the original use of the term may have developed into the modern one:
According to one version, political correctness actually began as an in-joke on the left: radical students on American campuses acting out an ironic replay of the Bad Old Days BS (Before the Sixties) when every revolutionary groupuscule had a party line about everything. They would address some glaring examples of sexist or racist behaviour by their fellow students in imitation of the tone of voice of the Red Guards or Cultural Revolution Commissar: "Not very 'politically correct', Comrade!"[15]
The term probably entered use in the modern sense in the United Kingdom around 1975.[11][clarification needed]
1980s and 1990s
Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, a book first published in 1987,[28] heralded a debate about "political correctness" in American higher education in the 1980s and 1990s.[8][29][30] Professor of English literary and cultural studies at CMU Jeffrey J. Williams wrote that the "assault on ... political correctness that simmered through the Reagan years, gained bestsellerdom with Bloom's Closing of the American Mind."[31] According to Z.F. Gamson, Bloom's book "attacked the faculty for 'political correctness'".[32] Prof. of Social Work at CSU Tony Platt says the "campaign against 'political correctness'" was launched by Bloom's book in 1987.[33]
An October 1990
What has come to be called "political correctness," a term that began to gain currency at the start of the academic year last fall, has spread in recent months and has become the focus of an angry national debate, mainly on campuses, but also in the larger arenas of American life.
— Robert D. McFadden, "Political Correctness: New Bias Test?", 1991[41]
The previously obscure far-left term became common currency in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in the secondary schools and universities of the U.S.[10][42][43][44][45][46] Policies, behavior, and speech codes that the speaker or the writer regarded as being the imposition of a liberal orthodoxy, were described and criticized as "politically correct".[17] In May 1991, at a commencement ceremony for a graduating class of the University of Michigan, then U.S. President George H. W. Bush used the term in his speech: "The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expression off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits."[47][48][49]
After 1991, its use as a pejorative phrase became widespread amongst conservatives in the US.
During the 1990s, conservative and
Liberal commentators have argued that the conservatives and reactionaries who used the term did so in an effort to divert political discussion away from the substantive matters of resolving societal discrimination,[53][54][55] such as racial, social class, gender, and legal inequality, against people whom conservatives do not consider part of the social mainstream.[8][18][56] Jan Narveson wrote that "that phrase was born to live between scare-quotes: it suggests that the operative considerations in the area so called are merely political, steamrolling the genuine reasons of principle for which we ought to be acting..."[9] Commenting in 2001, one such British journalist,[57][58] Polly Toynbee, said "the phrase is an empty, right-wing smear, designed only to elevate its user",[59] and in 2010 she wrote "the phrase 'political correctness' was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say Paki, spastic, or queer".[60] Another British journalist, Will Hutton,[61][62][63][64] wrote in 2001:[65]
Political correctness is one of the brilliant tools that the American Right developed in the mid–1980s, as part of its demolition of American liberalism.... What the sharpest thinkers on the American Right saw quickly was that by declaring war on the cultural manifestations of liberalism – by levelling the charge of "political correctness" against its exponents – they could discredit the whole political project.
— Will Hutton, "Words Really are Important, Mr Blunkett", 2001
Glenn Loury wrote in 1994 that to address the subject of "political correctness" when power and authority within the academic community is being contested by parties on either side of that issue, is to invite scrutiny of one's arguments by would-be "friends" and "enemies". Combatants from the left and the right will try to assess whether a writer is "for them" or "against them".[66] Geoffrey Hughes suggested that debate over political correctness concerns whether changing language actually solves political and social problems, with critics viewing it less about solving problems than imposing censorship, intellectual intimidation and demonstrating the moral purity of those who practice it. Hughes also argues that political correctness tends to be pushed by a minority rather than an organic form of language change.[67]
Usage
The modern pejorative usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late 20th century. This usage was popularized by a number of articles in The New York Times and other media throughout the 1990s,[34][35][36][39][41][68] and was widely used in the debate surrounding Allan Bloom's 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind.[8][28][29] The term gained further currency in response to Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals (1990),[8][17][52] and conservative author Dinesh D'Souza's 1991 book Illiberal Education.[8][10][17][69] Supporters of politically correct language have been pejoratively referred to as the "language police".[70]
Education
Modern debate on the term was sparked by conservative critiques of perceived
Preliminary research published in 2020 indicated that students at a large U.S. public university generally felt instructors were open-minded and encouraged free expression of diverse viewpoints; nonetheless, most students worried about the consequences of voicing their political opinions, with "[a]nxieties about expressing political views and self-censorship ... more prevalent among students who identify as conservative".[73][74]
As a conspiracy theory
Some conservative commentators in the
Media
In the US, the term has been widely used in books and journals, but in Britain the usage has been confined mainly to the popular press.[79] Many such authors and popular-media figures, particularly on the right, have used the term to criticize what they see as bias in the media.[9][17] William McGowan argues that journalists get stories wrong or ignore stories worthy of coverage, because of what McGowan perceives to be their liberal ideologies and their fear of offending minority groups.[80] Robert Novak, in his essay "Political Correctness Has No Place in the Newsroom", used the term to blame newspapers for adopting language use policies that he thinks tend to excessively avoid the appearance of bias. He argued that political correctness in language not only destroys meaning but also demeans the people who are meant to be protected.[81][82][83]
Authors David Sloan and Emily Hoff claim that in the US, journalists shrug off concerns about political correctness in the newsroom, equating the political correctness criticisms with the old "liberal media bias" label.[84] According to author John Wilson, left-wing forces of "political correctness" have been blamed for unrelated censorship, with Time citing campaigns against violence on network television in the US as contributing to a "mainstream culture [that] has become cautious, sanitized, scared of its own shadow" because of "the watchful eye of the p.c. police", protests and advertiser boycotts targeting TV shows are generally organized by right-wing religious groups campaigning against violence, sex, and depictions of homosexuality on television.[85]
Inclusive language
Inclusive or Equity Language is a language style that avoids expressions that its proponents perceive as expressing or implying ideas that are sexist, racist, or otherwise biased, prejudiced, or insulting to any particular group of people; and instead uses language intended to avoid offense and fulfill the ideals of egalitarianism. This language style is sometimes referred to as a kind of "political correctness", either as a neutral description or with negative connotations by its opponents.[86] At least some supporters deny an association between the two. ("Political correctness is focused on not offending whereas inclusive language is focused on honoring people's identities.")[87]
Satirical use
Political correctness is often
The Colbert Report's host Stephen Colbert often talked, satirically, about the "PC Police".[93][94]
Science
Groups who oppose certain generally accepted scientific views about
Right-wing political correctness
"Political correctness" is a label typically used to describe liberal or left-wing terms and actions but rarely used for analogous attempts to mold language and behavior on the right.
See also
- Agenda-setting theory – Ability of the mass media to influence the public agenda of a society
- Anti-bias curriculum – Educational plan meant to reduce perceived racism and sexism in education
- Binnen-I – Style for gender-neutral written German
- Campaign Against Political Correctness – Defunct minor British lobby group
- Cancel culture – Modern form of ostracism
- Christmas controversies – Christmas ideological, political and religious disputes
- Common sense – Sound practical judgement in everyday matters
- Conventional wisdom – Ideas generally accepted by experts or the public
- Cultural Bolshevism – Nazi slogan opposing modernist and progressive cultural movements
- Cultural Marxism– Far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory
- Distancing language – Phrasing technique which disassociates speaker from subject
- Framing (social sciences) – Effect of how information is presented on perception
- Groupthink – Psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people
- Gutmensch – Pejorative German term for a sanctimonious do-gooder
- Kotobagari – Japanese term for euphemistic speech
- Linguistic relativity – Hypothesis of language influencing thought
- Logocracy – Form of government by use of words
- Microaggression – Term for commonplace slights
- Newspeak – Fictional language in the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four"
- Pensée unique – Pejorative term for ideological conformism
- People-first language – Putting the person before the diagnosis
- Politics and the English Language – 1946 essay by George Orwell
- Red-baiting – Discrediting opponent's argument by accusing them of being a radical leftist
- Reverse discrimination – Discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group
- Self-censorship – Act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse
- Snowflake (slang) – Pejoratively, an easily offended person
- Social justice warrior – Pejorative term for a progressive person
- Speech code – Non-statutory restriction on word choice
- Sprachregelung – German term for prescribed form of official communication
- Toe the line - meaning either to conform to a rule or standard, or to stand in formation along a line
- Trigger warnings– Warnings that a work may cause distress
- Truthiness – Quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than actual truth
- Woke – Term meaning alert to racial or social injustices
Notes
- ^ In The New York Times newspaper article "The Rising Hegemony of the Politically Correct", the reporter Richard Bernstein said:
Bernstein also reported about a meeting of the Western Humanities Conference in Berkeley, California, on the subject of "Political Correctness and Cultural Studies that examined "what effect the pressure to conform to currently fashionable ideas is having on scholarship".[51]The term "politically correct", with its suggestion of Stalinist orthodoxy, is spoken more with irony and disapproval than with reverence. But, across the country the term "P.C.", as it is commonly abbreviated, is being heard more and more in debates over what should be taught at the universities.
— The Rising Hegemony of the Politically Correct, The New York Times, 28 October 1990[50]
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Further reading
- ISBN 1930865538.
- ISBN 006019006X.
- ISBN 0393318540.
- Debra L. Schultz (1993). To Reclaim a Legacy of Diversity: Analyzing the "Political Correctness" Debates in Higher Education. New York: National Council for Research on Women. ISBN 978-1880547137.
- John Wilson (1995). The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on High Education. Durham, North Carolina: ISBN 978-0-8223-1713-5.
External links
- Media related to Political correctness at Wikimedia Commons