Political Correctness

Great Debates
21

I haven’t used “PC” in the sense referred to here since the mid 80’s. I say “euphemism”, “buzzword”, “doublespeak”, “hipocrisy” with a qualifier to point out ideological origin if necessary (e.g. “ivory-tower euphemism”, “fundamentalist hipocrisy”). I personally try to avoid adopting – or rejecting – any attitude due to its “correctness”

“PC” or “politically correct” in its recent derisive sense arose out of liberal academia itself, as a negative term along the lines of: “It is not politically correct to say so, but…” used to point out to dogmatists when real-world experience required making a conclusion (or designing a line of inquiry) divergent from the ideology-du-jour’s preachings.

Dinesh D’Souza and others on the right seized upon this and proclaimed “PC” to be a specific leftist ideology of language-hijacking.

JRD

22

Sake Samurai wrote:

I will refer to someone whose family has lived in this nation since 1740 as “really really really old, if they’re even still alive after 260 years.”

23

I have a tee-shirt that proudly reads:

Fuck PC, THINK!

I think that sums up my attitude, even though much of my thinking does happen to coincidentaly fall under the PC umbrella.

Yer pal,
Satan

24

thanx, jrd! i was going to post a remark along the lines of your “liberal academia…origins” comment, but since i’ve seen your post, i’ll ask you a question: do you have a source for the approximate date of origin/author/institution first associated with the term? look forward to the info.

the hog squeal of the universe is coming from my modem!

25

You insensitive asshole. You want to be called “really really old” just cause your over 200 years old. Have a little respect when you refer to those of heightened temporality.

26

suiyobi:

Am looking into hard sources, but in the meantime here’s some light anecdotal evidence:

1985-86 independent film “Parting Glances”, obviously liberal in its theme, gay character uses the term “politically correct” against another one in the sense of too dogmatic.

Personal experience, at JHU 1979-83, “politically correct” used commonly by faculty/student liberals to deride hardliners among them. FWIW at the time Stanley Fish, later to star in many PC vs AntiPC battles elsewhere, was in the faculty.
jrd

27

jrd:

thanx (again). i remember reading something along the lines of your explanation, but wanted to be able to back it up should i use it in the future.
–sorry to reply so late.

happy valentine’s day
and to those who need caps: HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

28

The practice of politcal correctness does not bother me too much. It’s just another code, who’s main purpose seems to be identifying people who are too hung up on nomenclature to be taken seriously.

What frosts my shorts, though, is the phrase itself. “Politically correct.” This implies that there are some ideas that are inherently incorrect. This is not how open debate in a free society works.

“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord

29

Wasn’t the phrase originally coined by the opponents of the concepts it embraces, in an attempt to make them look bad?

(Sorta like how the early Medieval period only started being called “The Dark Ages” during the Renaissance, by people who prefered the world of their contemporaries to the world of the past.)

30

PC has gone too far. way too far. A woman who checks parking meters is a Meter maid, or (a meter man, if its a man) If the person who is in charbe of a board of Directors happens to be a man, HE’s a chairman. If its a woman, its a chairwoman. Not Chairperson. And definitely not Chair.
Fair enough, I dont use the N- word, but I will still use the term “Black-out” when the Electricity goes out. why? because it all goes dark. I also use “White-out” when a power surge occurs.
“The pot calling the kettle black”
If anyone finds this racist, hold a kettle over an open fire and see what color it goes, and hold a pot over there too. the phrase means hypocrisy to me, not that it is bad to be of an African American descent.
I have respect for other cultures, and I do not to tell offensive jokes. But start changing my vocabulary because someone might find it offensive or sexist, well I’m sorry, but you can blow it out your ass for all I care.

J
“Attemptedmurder? pah, you dont get the Nobel Prize for Attempted Chemisty”
Homer Simpson

31

I’m going to jump in here, without having read all of the thread very carefully. I just noticed it in passing, and thought of a way (the only time) I’ve used the phrase. (We don’t have it in Danish, although it’s becoming part of the language.) It’s in my introduction to a document (so far about 40 pages) I’m writing about chiropractic, from a sceptical viewpoint. I hope to make it available on my website soon. Here’s the paragraph in question:
“As a collection of my thoughts on the subject, this essay is not intended to be exhaustive or balanced, and is biased, for good reason. I write from my viewpoint, and feel no burden to defend the “other side of the coin”. That’s the job of those who hold that opinion. Their viewpoints are clearly the easiest to find. I just hope to even things up a little. By daring to openly express the truth as I see it, this essay is politically incorrect. That is, in fact, justification enough for writing it. Democratic principles demand it. Falsehood will ultimately triumph, if unpopular truths are swept under the carpet of political correctness.”

If anyone wants to comment on this use of the term, please notify me by e-mail, as I only monitor the current discussion of Cecil’s article on homeopathy, which, BTW, is very interesting!

FWIW,

Paul Lee, PT
Denmark

E-mail: healthbase@post.tele.dk
HF List Intro: http://www.hcrc.org/wwwboard/messages/197.shtml
The Quack-Files: http://www.geocities.com/healthbase

32

I’ve always thought the term “politically correct” originally emerged as a derogatory label, a perjorative. It was, I think, a term for doublespeak, the way politicians craft their speeches in order not to alienate anyone, so they end up saying nothing.
So, to my way of thinking, if I were arguing, and trying to outline my position, and somebody were to say, “You’re being politically correct,” what they’re trying to tell me is that I’m speaking in circles, I’m adding too many disclaimers, I’m burying myself in cliches, and I should try being succinct.
An example of politically correct (at least in the way the term should be applied) might be saying something as insipid as “Yes, I am pro choice. And I am pro life. I am in favor of everyone’s right to choose his or her own life.”
Somehow, somewhere along the line, people decided this means of non-expression was desirable. (I dunno why, but I can guess. Perhaps because of the explosion of information and communication, any old schlub could wake up one day and find his words as instantaneously disseminated as a politician’s. So with so much available so easily and so quickly, and with so little control of where it ended up, people got cautious. And scared.) And the words “politically correct” became somehow honorific.
Now, though, I think we’ve slowly, gratefully moved back to the term’s original intention.

33

Okay, I’m not claiming total recall, so don’t anyone quote this as an authoritative source for a doctoral dissertation.

Some time in the mid- to late-seventies, I read a story in the South Bay Daily Breeze (for reference, a daily newspaper, even then in the Copley chain, serving primarily the beach communities south of LAX, and north of Long Beach, as well as a couple of land-locked towns – not exactly a major metropolitan newspaper, but more significant than a green sheet). The story was probably from a wire service, and told of a new phenomenon beginning to thrive in academia, to wit: political correctness.

As I recall, the intended purpose for the code of political correctness (according to the story) was to raise the level of civility in public discourse. Or, to paraphrase a comment I read in the L.A. Times just last week, to “remove subtle forms of discrimination.”

While both of the above describe laudable goals, I have come to believe that it was a flawed method of attempting to achieve those goals, probably doomed to failure because it attempted to achieve them through a short-cut method involving the reduction of the available vocabulary, with the result that, being left without hateful words to use, hate-filled people would use loving words instead, and in the process, shed their hatred.

Instead, as I have written in another thread (unless that was the one that got eaten up a couple of weeks ago), the phrase and code were extrapolated out to lengths of absurdity. This resulted in some genuinely funny jokes, amid a plethora of lame ones (“don’t call him ‘short;’ he’s ‘vertically challenged.’”, “he’s not a scoundrel, he’s ‘ethically impaired.’”, usw.) IMO, this satirizability, if that’s a word, coupled with indignation at the notion that people were being manipulated (even with the best of intentions), led some of the targets of Political Correctness, to accuse the code of being the tool of the New Thought Police.

The result, ironically, was that eventually, people whose level of discourse could stand a bit of uplifting were able to adopt the counter-term “politically incorrect” as a badge of honor, knowing that the dittoheads who heard it would recognize it as shorthand for “fearless, patriotic, scrupulously independent, intellectually honest, and unassailably well thought-out in my conclusions.” Perhaps that is a valid definition in some instances, but in my experience, the term is more likely to denote an attitude that because one’s opponent (or an opposing position) has been labeled “politically correct,” that person or position may justifiably be dismissed from any given debate or discussion.