Political Correctness

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 or cultural groups being described. The term is normally used in a Pejorative or ironic sense, and is a frequent target for Comedians and Satirists .

The concept has been extended by Conservative and some Liberal (Hentoff 1992, Schlesinger 1998, Brandt 1992) commentators, particularly in the United States , to describe what they see as a larger Left-wing "political correctness movement" focused on Censorship , Multiculturalism , Identity Politics , Social Engineering , and influencing Popular Culture through venues such as Music , Film , Literature , Arts and Advertising .

Some liberal and progressive commentators, however, argue that the term "political correctness" was hijacked by United States conservatives around 1980 and redefined 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).

USAGE (PERSPECTIVE)

The term PC is often used to mock 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 mocking usage often targets 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 the expression "differently abled" rather than "disabled", or the systematic use of "Native American" rather than "Indian", are all sometimes referred to as "politically correct" to characterise proponents as overly sensitive or even coercive. PC terms are also applied to otherwise ordinary inanimate objects ("Maintenance cover" instead of " Manhole Cover ", q.v.), further muddying the debate.

The term PC is frequently used in a manner that implies, first, that there are a significant number of people who make conscious political choice of the words they employ in their speech and writing, with the intention of influencing broader usage and, through that, social outcomes; second, that this group is roughly equivalent to the political Left , or some large sector of the left; third, that these conscious political choices of words constitute a single phenomenon, designated as "political correctness"; and fourth, that these usages are enforced in a manner that is repressive to Freedom Of Speech .

Some people whose language choices and/or politics are so characterised argue, in turn, that the term "political correctness" is part of larger attack on social equality or policial progressivism (Messer-Davidow 1993, 1994). They argue that expressing an opinion about, or making a public argument about, the use of language cannot in itself constitute intolerance or Censorship .

Those who use the term in a derogatory fashion often express a concern about the potential dilution of speech and the failure to articulate important societal problems. They argue that the political criticism of diction may inhibit freedom of speech, particularly the expression of opinions that risk offending some group. It is often suggested 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.

Having been used in 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). 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".

Earlier uses

The literal phrase "politically correct" has earlier citations, leading the concept's supporters to suggest that linguistic sensitivity to political expression is nothing new. 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 {Link without Title} . 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 , 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 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 .

LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND

One argument for using language dismissed by critics as politically correct is to prevent the exclusion or the offending of people based upon differences or handicaps. Another involves the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis , which states that a language's grammatical categories shape its speakers' ideas and actions. In both cases the goal is 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.

Two common examples of this practice are to use the word ''disabled'' in preference to ''crippled'', and ''mentally ill'' in preference to ''crazy''.

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 .

Proponents argue that the goal of changing language and terminology consists of these four points:
# Certain people have their rights, opportunities, or freedoms restricted due to their categorization as members of a group with a derogatory Stereotype .
# This categorization is largely implicit and unconscious, and is facilitated by the easy availability of labeling terminology.
# By making the labeling terminology problematic people will be made to think consciously about how they describe someone.
# 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.

CRITICISMS OF POLITICAL LANGUAGE CHOICE

Critics of political language choice argue that it amounts to censorship and is a danger to free speech. Some argue that limits placed on language and the boundaries of public debate will inevitably lead to limits on conduct. Some conservatives would also view many "politically correct" terms as linguistic cover for an evasion of personal responsibility, for instance when "juvenile delinquents" become "children at risk".

Some on the political left reject the conservative definition of the term when applied as a blanket political epithet to all liberals and leftists, but do concede there is indeed a pervasive political correctness which has become a problem on the left. They argue the emphasis on the left has shifted in recent years away from traditional left concerns of Social Class , Socialism , Labor Unions , Ecology , ending racial Discrimination , and related issues, and has instead turned toward such things as Postmodernism , Post-structuralism , multiculturalism, academic theories of structural or institutionalised oppression such as White Privilege and Heterosexism , all of which are seen as either antithetical to the traditional left emphasis on the Working Class , divisive, exclusionary toward the white working class, or incomprehensible to most of the general public outside of certain sectors of mainstream academia.

Orwell

George Orwell 's novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four '' holds the best-known fictional example of politically-driven language change. Newspeak , a Bowdler ized 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.

Newspeak is Orwell's best-known criticism of political obfuscation, but not his only one. In the essay " Politics And The English Language ", Orwell found fault with writers who conceal meaning in long and pompous phrases.

SATIRICAL USE

The use of political language modification has a history in Satire and Comedy . A major theme of Scott Adams 's '' Dilbert '' Comic Strip is the meaninglessness of management catchwords, used to mask unethical and incompetent management behavior. One of the earlier, and most well-known, satirical takes on this movement can be found in the book '' Politically Correct Bedtime Stories '' by James Finn Gardner , in which traditional Fairy Tale s are rewritten from an exaggeratedly-PC viewpoint. The roles of good and evil in these PC stories are often the reverse of those in the original versions, with the goal of showing that political correctness ignores or inverts morality. For example, in the "politically correct version" of '' Hansel And Gretel '', Hansel, Gretel, and their father are evil.

''Politically Correct Fairy Tales'', by John Hawkins, consists of very brief satires {Link without Title} . In Hawkins' version, Hansel and Gretel are not evil. They make the ultimate sacrifice:
:Hansel and Gretel were lost in the woods when they came upon a house made of candy and cake. An old witch invited them in and then captured both of them intending to eat them. Gretel had a chance save both of them by pushing the old woman in an oven but she decided that it would be wrong not to respect the witch's cultural traditions. So Gretel and her brother allowed themselves to be cooked and eaten. The witch was so happy with the children's actions that she invited all of her witch friends to the area. Soon thereafter, they ate every child in a hundred mile radius. Soon the whole area was filled with nothing but child eating witches and all the witches were very happy!

The practice of satirizing politically correct speech took on a life of its own in the 1990s, though its popularity in today's media has largely declined. Part of what it is to understand the meaning of political language modification is to be familiar with satirical portrayals of political correctness. Such portrayals are generally exaggerations of what actual language modification looks like. For example, in a satirical example of political correctness 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 his and others health and safety, and this one tree in particular, he thrust the mobility-disadvantaged 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 feline with the intention of returning it to the person who claimed to 'own' the naturally free animal. The firefighter later filed a lawsuit claiming compensation for unjustly suffering the indignity which happened to breach his Human Rights and exposure to possible injury that climbing a tree entails. He won 100% compensation, thus making tree climbing impossible forever. The council later cut the tree down to avoid such an incident occurring again.

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."

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Political Correctness