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# Political correctness

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Political correctness refers to a social movement, primarily of leftists (in the United States, political liberals), encouraging cultural change (especially, but not only, in the use of language), primarily to redress real or perceived persecution of minority groups and women.

For example, adherents of this movement may feel that one should use the politically correct (often abbreviated "PC") term "African-American" rather than "negro" or "black", to avoid offending blacks. It can also include support for such political policies as [affirmative action]? and [multi-lingual education]?; some degree of support of environmentalism? and opposition to capitalism are often regarded as politically correct as well. Other targets of the movement include the gender-specific pronouns of English and other languages that are perceived to perpetuate aspects of male-centered culture. The movement's adherents are concerned with language due, in many cases, to their acceptance of some form of [linguistic relativism]? (e.g., the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), the idea that language influences thought and culture, or even--in some sense--that it constitutes reality itself.

The term is now usually used pejoratively, particularly when used by opponents who consider many advocates to be overzealous. These critics (often, but not exclusively, political conservatives) argue that it can amount to thought control or censorship, or that it at least makes open discussion of important social issues more difficult. Proponents have also been accused of hypocrisy for denouncing mainstream religions as judgmental while themslves engaging in perceived "bashing" of groups such as whites, males, corporations, and others.

Many of those critical of Political Correctness use examples where perceived persecution of minority groups and women is enough for proponents to demand redress (even if no actual discrimination/persecution has been proven to take place).

Political correctness, both the movement and the term describing it, rose to broad usage in the early 1980s. In the view of one conservative commentator, Bill Lind, however, the intellectual roots and attitudes associated with PC are [many decades old] and rooted in radical leftist movements. Also, in a [linguistics mailing list], there was discussion of the term used--sometimes quite straight-facedly--in the early and middle 1970s.

Use of the terms "PC" and "politically correct" declined in the late 1990s, and the (arguably) repressive political attitudes associated with the associated movement have started to fall out of favor somewhat--though they are still very robust in universities and other institutions.

A well-known satirical take on this movement can be found in the book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, in which traditional [fairy tale]?s are rewritten from a politically correct viewpoint and often reverse the roles of good and evil from those of the original version. For example, Hansel, Gretel and their father are evil and the witch is good in the politically correct version of Hansel and Gretel.

In an absurd and satirically overexaggerated example of PC speech, the sentence "The fireman put a ladder up against the tree, climbed it, and rescued the cat" might look like this:

  The firefighter (who happened to be male, but could just as easily have been female) abridged the rights of the cat to determine for itself where it wanted to walk, climb, or rest, and inflicted his own value judgments in determining that it needed to be "rescued" from its chosen perch. In callous disregard for the well being of the environment, and this one tree in particular, he thrust the disabled-unfriendly means of ascent known as a "ladder" carelessly up against the tree, marring its bark, and unfeelingly climbed it, unconcerned how his display of physical prowess might injure the self-esteem of those differently abled. He kidnapped and unjustly restrained the innocent animal with the intention of returning it to the person who claimed to 'own' the naturally free animal, but it immediately fled his grasp, having withstood more insult and injury than it could bear.

/Talk

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Last edited July 27, 2001 5:34 pm (diff)
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