Political correctness: Disecting the narrative

No one calls themselves a terrorist. No one calls themselves a bigot. No one calls themselves a heretic. And no one calls themselves politically corect.

The term 'politically correct' was coined in the 70s by marxists and radical feminists to describe cultural artifacts which they saw as in some way reflecting political realities or ideologies accurately. This could include terminology (the main target of the modern term 'politically correct'), where, for example a person the generic term police officer was more politically correct than policeman since women can work for the police too, and excluding women from the terminology of police work could help foster an environment in which women were excluded from the reality of police work, thus meaning police officer was both more realistic and ideologically preferable. This relitively inoffensive (to most) semantic game has become (to some) the chief evil of modern society.

As I mentioned, no one these days calls themselves politically correct. It is one of the modern west's terms of abuse. Instead of being seen as a way of bringing terminolgy into line with reality in an outcome positive way as was the case when the term originated, political correctness is seen as the distorting of reality with the implied subtext of the imposition of a unwanted and outcome negative ideology.

I think the above is pretty uncontroversial, and can be easily verified by those who take an interest. What I am about to say is perhaps more controversial, though I also suspect it can be just as easily verified.


Political correctness does not exist in any objective sense. It is still an ideologically laden term, but it simply refers to wrong trends of language or concept use rather than correct language or concept use.

The context for the existence of the term is the climate of anti-politics fostered by popular alienation from the political process that results from the deficit of democracy that is increasingly apparant in the west. Politics is something that happens to us (like the imposition of language trends) not something we do ourselves. It tends to be politicians who seek to exploit this alienation (perhaps because they want it to be unconsciously accepted as appropriate or inevitable) that use the term themselves. The thinking goes that people should be alienated from power centers they have some influence on (politics) to increase their reliance on and acceptance of power centers they don't.

Political correctness refers as much to the errosion of an old narative as the imposition of a new one. The term politically correct is these days used mainly to refer to language which is seen as giving protection to sectors of society that are historically underprivileged. It is also most resented by people whose historical privileges are most under threat. The term is also used selectively so that discouraging language that denigrates the group an individual belongs to is not seen as politically correct, whilst discouraging denegration of another (particularly a rival group) is. The more under threat one feels one's privilege to be, and the less symptathy one has for those the privilege would be extended to, the more distaste one has for an individual instance of 'political correctness'. How many of the vocal protesters against political correctness are not straight white males? Interestingly, straight white males whose privilege is not based on those features, but rather on wealth seem to be less interested in political correctness than those on the more tenuous end of the economic spectrum. This is hardly surprising since the one type of grouping that has almost no presence in the political correctness conception is class, for reasons it's easy to guess at.

The main focus of the phantom 'political correctness' seems to be perceived as being the eradication of the truthful and/or jocular obsevation of group differences, but also extends to quite specific terminology to do with group nomenclature. Group differences is, of course a difficult concept. The ideaw that they exist at all is an assumption. The assumption of the anti-PC lobby is that covaritation between groups and features should, for the purposes of genral comment, be asumed to be total. Blacks, in general, for the purposes of jokes, should have big penises, the Irish should be drunk, gays should be camp and women scared of mice. This is seen as harmless and 'common sense'. What's more, traditional terminology is also seen as common sensical. This coincides with the common assumption that common sense itself, and in particular its specific contents, in inherant, and not culturally or historically conditioned, a belief that is so clearly false, as can be shown from cross cultural or even intra-cultural analysis, that the observation that it is false should be, but is obviously not, trivial. Perhaps this is because the assumption is tacit.

I fear this post is already becoming too long to attract readers, so I'll stop. I hope to continue the discussion with people who have some sort of insight into the idea of poitical correctness itself, rather than just a history of using the term.


Main Points
The idea of political correctness:
is more abusive than descriptive
stems from anti-politics
is exploited by the powerful
defends traditional naratives
is subjective, but held to be objective

Regardless my opinion on PC, this is a sophisticated argument. +rep. Some sources on which you base your arguments and conclusion would be nice, though.

Unfortunately, I do not have to add much to the discussion at this point, because I agree with you to large extent.



I might add a facet from my political environment: In the German-speaking popular/political discourse, political correctness is neither as often invoked nor critized as in the US, for example. However, we have the term "Gutmenschen" (literally meaning "goodpeople" or "goodhumans"). It is used derogatively as label for people who supposedly are overly moralist and/or tolerant and/or naive. Those using the label tend to be same as those you describe as using PC in an abusive way.

Yeah, white males usually bash PC the most, because PC is used to embolden minorities. And I don't mean bring the underprivileged minorities to "our level" but to simply strengthen them vis a vi us. Affirmative action in schools and in jobs- I really don't think anyone other than the most deranged and idiotic could say that, being born white, and being born a male, is an advantage anymore. Maybe a minuscule one in certain situations with certain people. But on an administrative level, we are actually discriminated against. PC isn't seen as something thats removing our privilege, its seen as something that is removing our rights. Our right to speak how we want, and our right to equality.

@Scar Face
I understand the arguments, but why do you carry a "white pride" signature?
on the other hand, shouldn't everyone be able to be proud of how they look?

Originally Posted by Groenepuntmuts

@Scar Face
I understand the arguments, but why do you carry a "white pride" signature?
on the other hand, shouldn't everyone be able to be proud of how they look?

Yes, they should. Everyone should be proud of their heritage, be it nationality, religion, culture, race, etc. It seems however, that under the recent PC Climate, that to be proud of being white is not the equivalent of Racism, but to Nazism. So that is why I specifically put it there. A blatant **** you to people who's prejudice against White people is masked through "equality" measure of PC, Affirmative action, and calls for redistribution of wealth.

+ rep Groen for saying everyone has the right to be proud of their hertitage, Whites included.

Being white is great. It's a shame that some of us diminish our potential for good by kicking brown peoples heads in and pretending that it's for our benefit. Not in my name.

A good example of that immediate knee jerk reaction "White pride? He must want to beat minorities". lol

Resistance to fascism has been around for around 75 years,and has been led foremostly by white people. Hardly knee jerk. As you openly support the paedophile, terrorist thugs that are the BNP I guess you are content to let others do the beating for you.

Originally Posted by mongrel

Resistance to fascism has been around for around 75 years,and has been led foremostly by white people. Hardly knee jerk. As you openly support the paedophile, terrorist thugs that are the BNP I guess you are content to let others do the beating for you.

The BNP patently has no Fascist leanings.

Originally Posted by Scar Face

The BNP patently has no Fascist leanings.

No comment on the paedophile, terrorist and thuggish elements? I guess that's a given then.

As for the fascist part.

"National Socialism was the best solution for German people in the 1930s.... When people say ‘Do you take any inspiration from that?’, I mean, I honestly can’t understand how a man who’s seen the inner city hell of Britain today can’t look back on that era with a certain nostalgia and think, yeah, those people marching through the streets and all those happy people out in the streets, you know, saluting and everything, was a bad thing ... would you prefer your kid growing up in Oldham and Burnley or 1930s Germany?"

Mark Collett Director of Publicity BNP

"Do you remember Cabaret with Liza Minnelli, the part where, one by one, the Hitler Youth, our fellas, stand up and start saluting and singing? That is right stirring that is, gets the blood up every time."

Tony Lecomber, BNP candidate, Dagenham.

And then there's the late John Tyndall, founder member . He's the one on the left.Looks like a fascist to me.



There is also the matter of the anti-semitic material the were trying to plug to schoolkids last year, blaming Jews for WW2.

Councillor Steve Batkin denied that the holocaust had taken place.


All in all you don't really know much about the BNP do you? Pretending that the BNP aren't fascist because their current manifesto is different to the policies of fascist movements and governments in the 1930’s, is as nonsensical as saying that the Conservative Party are not Conservative because they do not propose to bring back the Gold standard. Ideologies aren’t static, they evolve.

For starters the BNP are far-right.....

Scar Face, do you sometimes say things just to get a reaction, and just so we can argue semantics and other nonsense for ten pages, or what? You know for an absolute, irrefutable fact that the BNP is fascist.

Originally Posted by ЯoMe ♠ kb8

Scar Face, do you sometimes say things just to get a reaction, and just so we can argue semantics and other nonsense for ten pages, or what? You know for an absolute, irrefutable fact that the BNP is fascist.

No. I just have a love for the English language and its proper use. You cant twist a word here and there and the BNP becomes close enough to Fascism, because its not at all similar. It does not call for Authoritarianism, it does not call for the state interfering with Corporations, it doesn't do anything that resembles the foundation of Fascism. The CLOSEST thing it does is promote Nationalism in its population, but even that is extraordinarily tamed compared to, hell, the mainstream politics in Europe when Fascism was around. You are insulting my ancestors [and very likely your own] comparing Mussolini and Hitler to Nick Griffin.

Originally Posted by Scar Face

It does not call for Authoritarianism,

Yes it does.

it does not call for the state interfering with Corporations,

Yes it does.

Try reading their manifesto.

Originally Posted by ЯoMe ♠ kb8

Yes it does.



Yes it does.

Try reading their manifesto.

Did, you are wrong. They go on about all the time on how they have to change the low voting turnout in UK's democracy, not end it.

Originally Posted by Scar Face

Did, you are wrong. They go on about all the time on how they have to change the low voting turnout in UK's democracy, not end it.

Authoritarian governments can still have votes. Russia and Algeria come to mind. They are against personal freedom, and are against economic freedom.

Fascism is such a wonderfully abused term.

How so?

Nowadays, you can be sure that anything that denotes respect for authority, guidance from or adherence to tradition, discipline, common pride from values or indentity, strictness or merely unpopular opinions will be repeatedly denoted as having "fascist" connotations. Many of the younger people also use "fascist" indiscriminately for anything that binds them to authority, duty or anything beyond their own self-gratification, while left wing groups use it as a way to further their victimhood complex as a generic response to the criticism of their often misguided and idealistic view of the world.