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Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, handicap, and age-related contexts. In current usage, the terms are almost exclusively pejorative, connoting “intolerant” and “intolerance” ^[1][2] whilst the usage politically incorrect, denotes an implicitly positive self-description. Examples include the conservative Politically Incorrect Guides published by the Regnery editorial house^[3] and the television talk show Politically Incorrect. Thus, “politically incorrect” connotes language, ideas, and behavior, unconstrained by orthodoxy and the fear of giving offense.

History

Early usages

Early usages of the phrase, "politically correct", have been found in various contexts, which do not relate to the current terminology. ^{[4] [5]}

The current usage of the term is often traced to Marxist–Leninist vocabulary concerning the ideologically “correct line”, particularly the works of Mao.^{[6] [1][7][8][9]}

In New Left rhetoric

By 1970, New Left proponents had adopted the term political correctness.^[1] In the essay The Black Woman, Toni Cade Bambara says: “. . . a man cannot be politically correct and a [male] chauvinist too”. The New Left later re-appropriated the term political correctness as satirical self-criticism; per Debra Shultz: “Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the New Left, feminists, and progressives . . . used their term politically correct ironically, as a guard against their own orthodoxy in social change efforts”.^[1][2][10] Hence, it is a popular English usage in the underground comic book Merton of the Movement, by Bobby London, while ideologically sound, an alternative term, followed a like lexical path, appearing in Bart Dickon’s satirical comic strips.^[1][11] Moreover, Ellen Willis says: “ . . . in the early ’80s, when feminists used the term political correctness, it was used to refer sarcastically to the anti-pornography movement’s efforts to define a ‘feminist sexuality’ ”.^[12]

Current usage

Widespread use of the term "politically correct" and its derivatives began when it was adopted as a pejorative term by the political right in the 1990s, in the context of the Culture Wars. Writing in the New York Times in 1990,^[13] Richard Bernstein noted "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." Bernstein referred to a meeting of the Western Humanities Conference in Berkeley, California, on " 'Political Correctness' and Cultural Studies", which examined "what effect the pressure to conform to currently fashionable ideas is having on scholarship". Bernstein also referred to "p.c.p" for "politically correct people", a term which did not take root in popular discussion.

Within a few years, this previously obscure term featured regularly in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against curriculum expansion and progressive teaching methods in US high schools and universities.^[14] In 1991, addressing a graduating class of the University of Michigan, U.S. President George H. W. Bush spoke against “ . . . a movement [that would] declare certain topics ‘off-limits’, certain expressions ‘off-limits’, even certain gestures ‘off-limits’ ” in allusion to liberal Political Correctness.^[15] The most common usage here is as a pejorative term to refer to excessive deference to particular sensibilities at the expense of other considerations. The converse term "politically incorrect" came into use as an implicit term of self-praise, indicating that the user was not afraid to give offense^{[citation needed]}.

The central uses of the term relate to issues of race and gender, and encompass both the language in which issues are discussed and the viewpoints that are expressed. Proponents of the view that differences in IQ test scores between blacks and whites are (primarily or largely) genetically determined state that criticism of these views is based on political correctness.^[16]

Examples of language commonly criticised as "politically correct" include:^[17]

• "African-American" in place of "Black", "Negro" and other terms
• "Native American" in place of "Indian"
• “Gender-neutral” terms such as "firefighter" in place of "fireman"
• Terms relating to disability, such as "visually challenged" in place of "blind"
• "Holiday" in place of "Christmas" (see Christmas controversy)

More generally, any policy or factual claim opposed by the political right, such as the claim that global warming is a serious problem requiring a policy response may be criticized as "politically correct".^[17]

Political correctness gone mad

In the United Kingdom, "political correctness gone mad" is a widely-used catchphrase associated with the conservative Daily Mail newspaper. A literal interpretation might be that the catchphrase applies to instances where political correctness, desirable in moderation, is taken too far. In reality, however, "political correctness is almost used pejoratively and the catchphrase is applied to stories (frequently apocryphal) seen as representing extreme forms of political correctness^{[citation needed]} [4]

World-wide

The term politically correct is popular in Scandinavia (politiskt korrekt abbreviated PK), in Portugal, Spain, and Latin America (Sp., políticamente correcto | Port., politicamente correcto), France (politiquement correct), Germany (politisch korrekt), Poland (poprawność polityczna, poprawny politycznie), Slovenia (politično korekten), the Netherlands and Flanders (politiek correct), Italy (politicamente corretto), Russia (политкорректность, политкорректный), and New Zealand,^[18] .

Explanations

As Cultural Marxism

Right-wing, conservative and libertarian critics claim that political correctness is a Marxist undermining of Western values.^[19] In The Abolition of Britain, Peter Hitchens says: “What Americans describe with the casual phrase . . . ‘political correctness’ is the most intolerant system of thought to dominate the British Isles since the Reformation.” William S. Lind and Patrick Buchanan have characterized PC as a technique originated by the Frankfurt School, whose work aimed at undermining Western values, by influencing popular culture through Cultural Marxism.^[20][21] In The Death of the West, Buchanan says: “Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance.” ^[22]

As a linguistic concept

In addressing the linguistic problem of naming, Edna Andrews says that using “inclusive” and “neutral” language is based upon the concept that “language represents thought, and may even control thought”.^[23] This claim has been derived from the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language’s grammatical categories shape the speaker’s ideas and actions; although Andrews says that moderate conceptions of the relation between language and thought are sufficient to support the “reasonable deduction . . . [of] cultural change via linguistic change”.^[24]

Other cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics works indicate that word-choice has significant “framing effects” on the perceptions, memories, and attitudes of speakers and listeners.^[25][26] The relevant empirical question is whether or not sexist language promotes sexism, i.e. sexist thought and action.

Advocates of inclusive language defend it as inoffensive-language usage whose goal is multi-fold:

1. The rights, opportunities, and freedoms of certain people are restricted because they are reduced to stereotypes.
2. Stereotyping is mostly implicit, unconscious, and facilitated by the availability of pejorative labels and terms.
3. Rendering the labels and terms socially unacceptable, people then must consciously think about how they describe someone unlike themselves.
4. When labelling is a conscious activity, the described person's individual merits become apparent, rather than his or her stereotype.

Critics of such arguments, and of inclusive language in general, commonly use the terminology of "political correctness" [5].

A common criticism is that terms chosen by an identity group, as acceptable descriptors of themselves, then pass into common usage, including usage by the racists and sexists whose racism and sexism, et cetera, the new terms mean to supersede. The new terms are thus devalued, and another set of words must be coined, giving rise to lengthy progressions such as Negro, Coloured, Black, African-American, and so on, (cf. Euphemism treadmill).

As an engineered political term

Some left-wing commentators claimed that after 1980, right-wing American conservatives re-engineered the term political correctness to ideologically re-frame US politics as a culture war. Hutton reports:

"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." ^[27]

Moreover, the commentators claimed there never was a “Political Correctness movement” in the US, and that many who use the term do so to distract attention from substantive debate about racial, class and gender discrimination and unequal legal treatment.^[28] Similarly, Polly Toynbee argued that “the phrase is an empty right-wing smear designed only to elevate its user”.^[29]

Commenting on the UK's 2009 Equality Bill, Toynbee wrote that:

"The phrase "political correctness" was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say Paki, spastic or queer, all those who still want to pick on anyone not like them, playground bullies who never grew up. The politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence."^[30]

Criticism

General

University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate connect political correctness to Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse. He claimed that liberal ideas of free speech were repressive, arguing that such “Marcusean logic” is the base of speech codes in US universities. Kors and Silvergate later established the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which campaigns against PC speech codes.^[31]

The academic Camille Paglia said that PC empowers the enemies of the Left, and alienates the masses against feminism.^[32]

Critics of PC have been accused of displaying the same sensitivity to word choice that they claim to oppose, and of perceiving non-existent political agenda.^[33] For example, some newspapers reported that a school had altered the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to read “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep”.^[34] But it is also reported that a better description is that the Parents and Children Together (PACT) nursery had the children “turn the song into an action rhyme. . . . They sing happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep etc.” ^[35] That nursery rhyme story was circulated and later extended to suggest that like language bans applied to the terms “black coffee” and “blackboard”.^[36] The Private Eye magazine reported that like stories, all baseless, ran in the British press since The Sun first published them in 1986.^[33]

Structuralist philosopher and feminist icon Julia Kristeva, seen as a theorist who was instrumental in providing the philosophical basis for American political correctness, denounced political correctness in 2001 in New York Times and said her works have been distorted by Americans. She labeled identity politics and political correctness in general as totalitarian.^[37]

Political correctness and science

See also: Politicization of science

Groups opposing mainstream scientific views on evolution, global warming, passive smoking, AIDS, race, and other contentious scientific matters argue that PC is responsible for the failure of their perspectives to receive a fair public hearing; thus, in Lamarck’s Signature: How Retrogenes are Changing Darwin’s Natural Selection Paradigm, Assoc. Prof. Edward J. Steele says: “We now stand on the threshold of what could be an exciting new era of genetic research. . . . However, the ‘politically correct’ thought agendas of the neo–Darwinists of the 1990s are ideologically opposed to the idea of ‘Lamarckian Feedback’, just as the Church was opposed to the idea of evolution based on natural selection in the 1850s!” ^[38]

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, by Tom Bethell, is a comprehensive presentation argument that mainstream science is dominated by politically correct thinking. Bethell rejects mainstream views about evolution and global warming, and supports AIDS denialism.^[39]

Right wing political correctness

Accusations of political correctness, in the sense of enforced orthodoxy, have also been directed against the political right. Before the US invasion of Iraq, the Dixie Chicks country band played in London. During the 10 March 2003 concert, they introduced the song “Travelin’ Soldier”; The Guardian quoted Texan Natalie Maines: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” ^[40]

Newspaper columnist Don Williams described the resulting backlash against the band as the price for freely speaking political views disapproved by the Right Wing — “the ugliest form of political correctness occurs whenever there’s a war on. Then you’d better watch what you say.” He noted that Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly called the musicians’ comment treasonous.^[41]

Bill Maher's show Politically Incorrect was canceled soon after remarks he made about the 9/11 hijackers. Mr. Maher and other individuals who made statements that were deemed as too controversial suffered as a result of backlash. Ari Fleischer who was White House press secretary under President Bush at the time stated, "people have to watch what they say and watch what they do." Two journalists lost their jobs soon after the 9/11 attacks for statements critical of the president. ^[42]

Linguistic examples of right-wing adjustments to language, criticised as examples of political correctness include renaming French fries as “Freedom fries”^[43] on the model of US manufacturers renaming sauerkraut as “Liberty cabbage” during the First World War as a marketing tool to avoid potential public disapproval of a product with a German name.^[44]

In 2004, then Australian Labor leader Mark Latham described conservative calls for "civility" as "The New Political Correctness".^[45]

Satirical use

Political correctness often is satirised, for example in the Politically Correct Manifesto (1992), by Saul Jerushalmy and Rens Zbignieuw X,^[46] and Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (1994), by James Finn Garner, presenting fairy tales re-written from an exaggerated PC perspective.

Other examples include the television program Politically Incorrect, George Carlin’s "Euphemisms" routine, and The Politically Correct Scrapbook.^[47] The popularity of the libertarian South Park cartoon program on the Right led to the creation of the term South Park Republican by Andrew Sullivan, and later the book South Park Conservatives by Brian C. Anderson.^[48]

Replying to the “Freedom Fries” matter, wits suggested that the Fama-French model used in corporate finance be renamed the “Fama-Freedom” model.^[49]

British comedian Stewart Lee also satirised the oft used phrase of criticism for political correctness: "it's political correctness gone mad." In which Lee, himself, criticised people for over using this phrase without even understanding the concept of political correctness (including many people's confusion of it with Health & Safety laws). He in particular criticised Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn for his over zealous use of the phrase.^[50]

See also

• Anti-racist mathematics
• Christmas controversy
• Euphemism Treadmill
• Hate speech
• Identity Politics
• Kotobagari (a similar concept in the Japanese language)
• Logocracy
• Newspeak
• Non-sexist language; see Satiric misspelling (Alternative political spelling) for a Spanish-language example.
• Pensée unique
• People-first language
• Political consciousness
• Race-baiting
• Red-baiting
• Speech code
• Spin
• University of Pennsylvania controversies
• Xenocentrism

References

Further reading

For

• Aufderheide, Patricia. (ed.). 1992. Beyond P.C.: Toward a Politics of Understanding. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press.
• Berman, Paul. (ed.). 1992. Debating P.C.: The Controversy Over Political Correctness on College Campuses. New York, New York: Dell Publishing.
• Gottfried, Paul E., After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State, 1999. ISBN 0-691-05983-7
• Jay, Martin., The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950, University of California Press, New Ed edition (March 5, 1996). ISBN 0-520-20423-9
• Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003.

Against

• Buchanan, Patrick J.2002. The Death of the West, St Martin's Press.
• Dinesh D'Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus New York: Macmillan, Inc./The Free Press, 1991, ISBN 0-684-86384-7
• Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, Villard Books, 1992, paperback 176 pages, ISBN 0-586-21726-6
• David E. Bernstein, "You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws," Cato Institute 2003, 180 pages ISBN 1-930865-53-8
• Daniel Brandt, "An Incorrect Political Memoir", Lobster Issue 24: December 1992.
• William S. Lind, "The Origins of Political Correctness", Accuracy in Academia, 2000.
• Nat Hentoff, Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee, HarperCollins, 1992, ISBN 0-06-019006-X
• Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Knopf, 2003, hardcover, 255 page.
• Nigel Rees, The Politically Correct Phrasebook: what they say you can and cannot say in the 1990s, Bloomsbury, 1993, 192 pages, ISBN 0-7475-1426-7
• Kors, Alan C.; Silverglate, Harvey A. (1998). The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-85321-3. 
• Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, W.W. Norton, 1998 revised edition, ISBN 0-393-31854-0
• Howard S. Schwartz, Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003 Revised Paperback Edition ISBN 0-765-80537-5
• Psychodynamics of Political Correctness - Published in Journal of Applied Behavioural Science
• The Campaign Against Political Correctness

Skeptical

• 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.
• Wilson, John. 1995. The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on High Education. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

External links

• Politically correct and proud of it Observer Special Report by Will Hutton
• Possible origins of the term at www.linguist.org
• "Shortcuts" by Thomas Jones, discusses the term "political correctness" in British discourse, London Review of Books, December 1, 2005
• A list of examples cited by the Daily Mail of political correctness in the UK

From Wikiquote

Quotes about political correctness (often abbreviated "PC") which is the presence, enforcement or promotion of that which is in accordance with what has been declared acceptable by a political group. To most people, Political correctness is chiefly associated with the use of language or behavior which is intended, or said to be intended, to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to racial, cultural, or other identity groups

Sourced

• "Political correctness has changed everything. People forget that political correctness used to be called spastic gay talk"
  • Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week.

• It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say "political correctness gone mad" are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he drove me around saying, "this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in," right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and national politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I'm sick, I'm really sick-- 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men." You're a bunch of idiots.
  • Stewart Lee, from Heresy, BBC Radio 4, 16th May 2007

• Immoral (definition): Obsolete expression meaning "politically incorrect".
  • Richard Summerbell, Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary, 1985

Unsourced

• It is an article of passionate faith among 'politically correct' biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intelligence has nothing to do with genes; and that genes are probably nasty fascist things anyway.
  • Richard Dawkins

• Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.
  • Charlton Heston

• We'll be right back to the politically correct program called 'The Good, the Bad, and the Beauty Impaired'.
  • Colin Mochrie, in Whose Line Is It Anyway?

• These 'disguises' make us look like those politically-correct, multi-ethnic gangs that only rob people in bad TV shows.
  • Runaways

• Political Correctness: A doctrine... which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
  • Unknown

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Political correctness