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Political correctness (also politically correct, P.C. or PC) is a term used to describe language that appears calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to the racial, cultural, or other identity groups being described. The term is normally used in a pejorative or ironic sense. The concept typically refers to the English language, but is not exclusive to it. A text that conforms to the ideals of political correctness is said to be politically correct.

The existence of PC has been alleged and denounced by conservative, (Lind, Buchanan, Sobran), liberal (Hentoff 1992, Schlesinger 1998), and other (Brandt 1992) commentators. The term itself and its usage is hotly contested. Some left-wing commentators have argued on the contrary that "political correctness" is a straw man invented by the New Right to discredit what they consider progressive social change, especially around issues of race and gender.

Those who use the term in a critical fashion often express a concern about the dilution of freedom of speech, intolerance of lay language, and the avoidance of social problems. Some further claim that politically correct speech constitutes an excessive indulgence of some particular minority group, and that it is used to avoid acknowledging any misconduct or shortcomings of individuals belonging to such a group.

The term PC is also used to satirize either the idea that carefully chosen language can encourage, promote, or establish certain social outcomes and relationships, or the belief that the resulting changes benefit society. This satire often comments on certain forms of identity politics, including gay rights, feminism, multiculturalism and the disability rights movement. For example, the use of "gender-neutral" job titles ("lineworker" instead of "lineman," "chairperson" or "chair" instead of "chairman," etc.), the use of "differently abled" rather than "disabled", the use of "people of color" instead of "minorities", or the use of "Native American" rather than "Indian", are all sometimes referred to as "politically correct". 'PC' may include alternative spellings such as "womyn" or "wimmin" for women. 'PC' terms are also applied to objects, such as "maintenance cover" instead of "manhole cover", and to make job titles seemingly less degrading, such as "sales associate" instead of clerk or "custodial technician" instead of janitor.

Since the 1990s the concept has been a frequent target of certain kinds of comedians and satirists, partly because the term political correctness has become equated with euphemism.

History

The often quoted "earliest cited usage of the term" comes from the U.S. Supreme Court decision Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), where it clearly means that the statement it refers to is not literally correct, owing to the political status of the United States as it was understood at that time:

The states, rather than the People, for whose sakes the States exist, are frequently the objects which attract and arrest our principal attention *. Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our common, even in our convivial, language. Is a toast asked? 'The United States,' instead of the 'People of the United States,' is the toast given. This is not politically correct.

The first recorded use in the twentieth century was in 1912 in Chapter 1 of Senator Robert La Follette's autobiography.* Speaking of his education at the University of Wisconsin, he says:

In those days we did not so much get correct political and economic views, for there was then little teaching of sociology or political economy worthy of the name, but what we somehow did get, and largely from Bascom, was a proper attitude toward public affairs. And when all is said, this attitude is more important than any definite views a man may hold.[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbum:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbum07510div6))#075100045

Again, this clearly refers to what, in the speaker's own opinion, are incorrect political views, as opposed to the current usage of "politically incorrect".

Another example of the same literal use of the term is from a passage of H. V. Morton's In the Steps of St. Paul (1936):

To use such words would have been equivalent to calling his audience 'slaves and robbers'. But Galatians, a term that was politically correct, embraced everyone under Roman rule, from the aristocrat in Antioch to the little slave girl in Iconium.

The term political correctness is first known to be used in some way related to its contemporary usage as part of Marxist-Leninist vocabulary to describe the Party Line following the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The term was transformed and used jokingly within the Left by the early 1980s, possibly earlier. In this context, the phrase was applied to either an over-commitment to various left-wing political causes, especially within Marxism or the feminist movement; or to a tendency by some of those dedicated to these causes to be more concerned with rhetoric and vocabulary than with substance.

The term again became popular in the early 1990s as part of a conservative challenge to curriculum and teaching methods on college campuses in the United States (D'Souza 1991; Berman 1992; Schultz 1993; Messer Davidow 1993, 1994; Scatamburlo 1998). In a commencement address at the University of Michigan in 1991, President George H. W. Bush spoke out against administrators and academics who would "declare certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits" (Glassner 1999). Conservatives picked up and once again transformed the notion of political correctness to claim that a left-wing movement based in liberal academic circles was attempting to create a new doctrinaire political orthodoxy through social engineering which included changing words and phrases that some groups found offensive. Use of the term then declined in the late 1990s, and it is now mostly seen in comedy or as a political slur with questionable meaning. More recently, the term has been reclaimed by a tiny subset of multiculturalist writers and speakers who reject (or are oblivious to) its controversial connotations and origins. In a bit of tit-for-tat inversion, it is also occasionally employed by leftists to deride what they regard as clichéd or disingenuous conservative themes such as "family values," "compassionate conservatism," or "God and country".

The phrase "politically correct" has become popular in other countries as well. It became common in Scandinavia (politiskt korrekthet=pk) during the 1990s and continues to be used, often by rightist debaters, though it does not necessarily have a strong connection to the right as in the US. For instance, it has been used to criticize how some political thinkers promote more capitalist policies as though they were inevitable and more realistic. However it is probably more commonly used to criticize the left, in much the same way has been used in the US.

Political Correctness as a Linguistic Concept

The modern concept of political correctness arose in the 1970s-80s; at this time, it was becoming socially acceptable in the West for women and non-Caucasians to pursue lifestyles that had previously been held (nearly) exclusively by Caucasian men, such as being a major manager in a large corporation. It was therefore argued that the English language must change its male-centred nouns such as "chairman" to more inclusive terms such as "chairperson".

Other common examples include the use of person with a disability in preference to cripple and mentally ill in preference to crazy.

This belief was based on the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language's grammatical categories shape its speakers' ideas and actions. The objective was (and still remains) to bring peoples' unconscious biases into awareness, allowing them to make a more informed choice about their language and making them aware of things different people might find offensive.

The goal of changing language and terminology consists of these four points:

  1. Certain people have their rights, opportunities, or freedoms restricted due to their categorization as members of a group with a derogatory stereotype.
  2. This categorization is largely implicit and unconscious, and is facilitated by the easy availability of labeling terminology.
  3. By making the labeling terminology problematic people will be made to think consciously about how they describe someone.
  4. Once labeling is a conscious activity, the individual merits of a person, rather than their perceived membership of a group, will become more apparent.

In linguistics, the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that a language's grammatical categories control its speakers' possible thoughts. While few support the hypothesis in its strong form, many linguists accept a more moderate version, namely that the ways in which we see the world may be influenced by the kind of language we use. In its strong form, the hypothesis states that, for example, sexist language promotes sexist thought.

The situation is complicated by the fact that members of identity groups sometime embrace terms that others seek to change. For example, deaf culture has always considered the label "Deaf" as an affirming statement of group membership and not insulting or disparaging in any way. The term now often substituted for the term "deaf", hearing-impaired, was developed to include people with hearing loss due to aging, accidents, and other causes. While more accurate for those uses, the term "hearing-impaired" is considered highly derogatory by many deaf people.

However, critics of political language choice argue the new terms are often awkward, euphemistic substitutes for the original stark language concerning differences such as race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, and political views.

Orwell

George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four holds the best-known fictional example of politically-driven language change. Newspeak, a bowdlerized form of English, is designed to make it impossible to express opposition to the totalitarian Party government. Expressing dissident thoughts, or thoughtcrime, becomes impossible; while the act of making self-contradicting excuses for the ruling powers, or doublethink, is coded into the language itself.

Such a concept of language is representative not only of the pro-PC Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but also of anti-PC views, and is said to be characteristic of totalitarian regimes.

Critics of Political Correctness

Critics argue that political correctness amounts to censorship and endangers free speech, as limits are placed on public debate, especially in universities and political forums.

Some conservatives view many politically correct terms as linguistic cover for an evasion of personal responsibility, for instance when "juvenile delinquents" become "children at risk".

Critics allege that political correctness detects offensive language when there is none. One example is the feminised "herstory" instead of "history" although the word derives from the Greek for an "account of events").

Criticism of political correctness is often associated with the claim that the Left has lost touch with the working class and has instead turned toward such things as postmodernism and post-structuralism, which are seen as incomprehensible to the general public, or has replaced their former emphasis on social class with multiculturalism and identity politics.

Lind and Buchanan have characterized PC as a technique originated by the Frankfurt School in 1930's Germany aimed at undermining Western values by influencing popular culture through Cultural Marxism.William S. Lind states Political Correctness is a form of cultural marxismBuchanan interview on Fox News Some conservatives refer to Political Correctness as "The Scourge of Our Times."Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times - Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton The influence of the Frankfurt School on PC is further shared by University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate, who see "Marcusean logic" at the basis of the hundreds of college speech codes formulated on American university campuses.http://reason.com/9811/fe.kors.shtml

Criticism of the concept of Political Correctness

Some liberal and progressive commentators, however, argue that the term "political correctness" was fabricated by United States conservatives around 1980 and defined as a way to reframe the political scene in the United States. They say that there never was a "Political Correctness movement" in the United States, and that many who use the term are attempting to distract attention from substantive debates over discrimination and unequal treatment based on race, class, and gender (Messer-Davidow 1993, 1994; Schultz 1993; Lauter 1995; Scatamburlo 1998; Glassner 1999).

According to Will Hutton:

  • "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," The Observor, Sunday December 16, 2001. online

Satirical use

The use of political language modification has a history in satire and comedy. One of the earlier and famous examples is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner, in which traditional fairy tales are rewritten from an exaggeratedly-PC viewpoint. Politically Correct Fairy Tales, by John Hawkins, is another example *.

Quotations

  • "If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." - Benjamin Franklin
  • Comedian Billy Connolly, in one of his performance videos (Live 1994), called Politically Correct "the language of cowardice".
  • "I came of age in the 1980s when we had political correctness and people look back at that and say 'ah political correctness was rubbish wasn't it, being fair to people.'" - Comedian Stewart Lee from live DVD "stand-up comedian"
  • Edward Sapir "Language is not merely a tool for representing the world around us....we dissect nature along the lines lay down by our language choice"

See also

References

  • Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003.

Alleging political correctness

  • Dinesh D'Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus New York: Macmillan, Inc./The Free Press, 1991, ISBN 0684863847
  • Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, Villard Books, 1992, paperback 176 pages, ISBN 0586217266
  • Daniel Brandt, "An Incorrect Political Memoir", 1992
  • Nat Hentoff, Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee, HarperCollins, 1992, ISBN 006019006X
  • Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Knopf, 2003, hardcover, 255 pages, ISBN 03754148271
  • Nigel Rees, The Politically Correct Phrasebook: what they say you can and cannot say in the 1990s, Bloomsbury, 1993, 192 pages, ISBN 0747514267
  • Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, W.W. Norton, 1998 revised edition, ISBN 0393318540

Skeptical of claims about political correctness

  • Ellen Messer-Davidow. 1993. "Manufacturing the Attack on Liberalized Higher Education." Social Text, Fall, pp. 40–80.
  • Ellen Messer-Davidow. 1994. "Who (Ac)Counts and How." MMLA (The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association), vol. 27, no. 1, Spring, pp. 26–41.
  • Scatamburlo, Valerie L. 1998. Soldiers of Misfortune: The New Right's Culture War and the Politics of Political Correctness. Counterpoints series, Vol. 25. New York: Peter Lang.
  • 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.
  • P. Lauter. 1995. "'Political correctness' and the attack on American colleges." In M. Bérubé & C. Nelson, Higher education under fire: Politics, economics, and the crisis in the humanities. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear New York: Basic Books, 1999, ISBN 0465014895 / ISBN 0465014909

Further reading

  • 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.
  • Buchanan, Patrick J.2002. The Death of the West, St Martin's Press.''
  • Wilson, John. 1995. The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on High Education. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

External links

Etiquette | Pejorative political terms | Political neologisms | Satire | Sociolinguistics

Политическа коректност | Politická korektnost | Politische Korrektheit | Políticamente correcto | Politiquement correct | 정치적 올바름 | Politically correct | תקינות פוליטית | Politesch Korrektheet | Politiek correct | ポリティカル・コレクトネス | Poprawność polityczna | Politicamente correcto | Политическая корректность | Poliittinen korrektius | Politisk korrekthet | 政治正確

 

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