As I recall, the phrase “politically correct” originally arose on the radical left back in the '60’s to describe those whom one considered to have the correct attitudes concerning politics. The phrase was meant seriously and used with a straight face, and radicals quite seriously referred to others as “politically correct” or “politically incorrect.” The overuse of the phrase and its parrot-like quality*–“Politically correct! Squawk! Politically correct!”*–quickly led to ridicule, and as early as 1971 *National Lampoon’s Lemmings * parodied the Weather Underground’s use of the phrase. Conservative political journals began using the phrase derisively. By the '80’s “political correctness” came to mean aggressive, rude and sometimes violent efforts by liberals and radicals to pressure others into superficial conformity with their political doctrines. It has little or nothing to do with protecting the dignity of others. It has to do with harassing and bullying other people into silence when you didn’t like their ideas.
Well you see, again, that’s what the term “Political Correctness” was all about when it first appeared. It didn’t mean “say that again and I’ll see you in jail”. It was conceived as a gentle, polite way of saying “Well, you can still say that, it’s just not, you know, politically correct”.
That eminently admirable movement became capitalised (both literally and figuratively) and then taken to dubious extremes: PC gone mad. Finally, when it had largely achieved its original aim of removing socially unacceptable language from mainstream use with as little fuss and confrontation as possible, the “gone mad” was gradually dropped and all that is left is, if anything, the opposite of what political correctness is really about.
How’s that for irony?
The proles, old man, the proles. No, I have a great affection for the unwashed masses.
I read a book on the phrase about fifteen years ago; from my memory, there are almost no recorded cases of the phrase’s use in a positive light. (There are a very few cases–thus “almost no”). It’s always been used as an insult.
AFAICT, the new political correctness is to be politically incorrect. Baah, baah, baah humbug.
Daniel
Sorry, playing poker. And I am cheating really. I was thinking of the often used, “My mother always told me that PC means ‘polite conversation’”
The aspect of PC that is most laughed at is the invention of new phrases for existing problems.
But the idea of relabelling “PC” because it has acquired negative connotations seems to me to prove why PC phrases are such BS.
To those of you deriding political correctness – is it OK to call someone a nigger? Why or why not?
From here:
Political correctness may have begun as an attempt to fight bigotry, but it has become a joke. It has not stopped people from being racist or discriminatory.
Slight hijack:
I encounter two categories of people who decry ‘political correctness’.
The first group, while they may be conservative and/or Christian, is essentially of a libertarian bent: they sincerely believe that adults should be allowed to own firearms, look at porn, drink alcohol, smoke grass, and sleep with any other consenting adults they choose, as long as they take responsibility for the consequences. Even if not interested in doing any of these things themselves.
These people are perfectly justified in decrying ‘PC’.
The second group talks a lot about ‘freedom’, but on closer examination, not only doesn’t care about freedoms they don’t partake in, but actively seeks to hinder certain other peoples’ freedoms.
It often seems like their strenuous advocacy of freedom is a defense tactic to obscure the sereptitious part of their agenda. These people invariably identify as conservative and Christian.
This group is free to pursue their agenda, but I wish to hell they would shut up about ‘political correctness’ as something practiced only by secular liberals.
(The reason I’m not griping about liberals in this post is that, while plenty of liberals do indeed wish to ban certain freedoms (notably firearm ownership) I rarely, if ever, hear them gripe about ‘political correctness’, so they are innocent of that particular bit of hypocrisy.
Also, I have left abortion off the list of freedoms opposed by conservatives because, while I am pro-choice, I consider it a more complicated issue with respect to freedom).
I had some peripheral involvement with student radicalism of the early '70’s era, and I recall a number of occasions when the term was used apparently without irony and with a straight face. It was certainly in common use among a radical fringe element, or at least the ones I had some contact with.
In any case, it is simply nerve-wracking to be around someone who scrutinizes everything you do and say for signs of heresy. I know. I grew up with religious fundamentalists …
But political correctness (of the left wing variety) was never simply an attempt to fight bigotry. It was an almost surrealistic, Orwellian movement to induce an essentially mindless conformity to political ideology.
It’s not ok.
I think what a lot of people get upset about is that the labels du jour are constantly changing.
To use a personal example, I grew up in Houston, specifically in a part called Alief. From what I’ve read, it’s the second largest Vietnamese community in the US (42% vietnamese) and also populated by many other ethnic groups. White-bread land it wasn’t, and isn’t.
I’m just a plain old white boy whose parents bought a house there in the early 70’s.
Growing up, the preferred word among the Vietnamese and Chinese people I knew was “Oriental”, unless you knew the actual nationality or ethnicity of the person and it stayed this way until sometime in the 90’s from what I could tell.
Then, what seemed to be all of a sudden, I was getting told by white friends of mine that “Oriental” wasn’t polite, and that “Asian” was the word they preferred.
I always had called my Oriental/Asian buddies by what they called themselves because I thought I was being polite. Now I was being a bigoted jerk.
I’m sure that the same feeling came from older people about the whole “negro/colored/black/african-american” business as well. No real intention to do bad, just a lack of keeping up on the latest PC lingo.
That’s what’s bad about PC- many proponents tend to use it as a way to feel superior and more ‘enlightened’ than the rest of us, and to lord it over us.
Interesting! Perhaps I’m misremembering the book, or perhaps the authors were just grinding an axe. As for your second point, I agree: what’s the point of being a blasphemer if you can’t blaspeheme against yourself, I say?
Daniel
Actually, PC is not “good manners”. Quite the opposite, actually. For example, it is more offensive to refer to someone as “differently abled” than it is to refer to them as “handicapped”, which is the correct term.
Left wing, right wing, whatever - I truly believe the movement, such as it is, was begun with good intentions, and has since been co-opted by the “thought police.”
Actually, I agree, actually. Which is why I think that “differently abled” is actually not PC but PC gone mad, ie. taken to an absurd extreme, actually.
How come somebody with such an awful prose style has the cheek to say anything at all about language?
Prose style notwithstanding, the sentiment makes sense.
PC HAS become meaningless gibberish, and it has altered the way we think. Again, though, it has not changed the fact that some people are bigots, but instead has made the rest of us tiptoe around one another linguistically so as NOT to be considered bigots. Meanwhile, people who actually ARE bigoted can use the same language and hide behind it.
Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s said with the intent to be offensive. Quite the opposite, in fact. OK, maybe quite the opposite with a side of arrogance.
I couldn’t disagree more. ‘Political Correctness’ (I despise the term) is simply the Right’s insult-word for the politeness of those who prefer to avoid words which cause gratuitous offence, like ‘nigger’, ‘paki’, ‘poof’, ‘cripple’ and so on. If you wish to align yourself with the continued use of these words, and with the comic character Alan Partridge, you may feel free to do it. I will feel free to consider you a jerk.
Strangely, the death knell for PC ought to be linguistic research showing that language doesn’t alter the way we think: we think naturally in a languageless state, which we then translate into words. Orwell’s Newspeak is a scientifically flawed concept, however ingenious it is as fiction.
This at least according to Stephen Pinker. I’m not sure I buy his reasoning here, but he makes a powerful case.
Daniel