Welcome to The Conservative Cave©!Join in the discussion! Click HERE to register.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
redqueen“Political correctnessâ€: decoding a vicious, pernicious code word I always cringe when I hear the phrase “political correctness†being used. It’s a deeply coded phrase, and what it encodes is a stubborn, neoconservative cultural politics, a politics of entitlement and disrespect. And yet that politics is so deeply coded that one encounters the phrase being used by people who should know better; and maybe they will learn to avoid the phrase, if they take the time to get caught up on its context and complexity. If I never see it being taken out and waved around in public discourse again, it will be too soon. ... More plain-spoken versions of this definition appear as ripostes to a diatribe against political correctness that was published (unsurprisingly enough) on the Richard Dawkins Foundation website: “Political Correctness†– Buzzword used to express the absurd notion that the majority is being dominated by the minorities. (foundationist) Political correctness is formalised good manners. It has been a benefit to society. Before it became influential it was common to see overt racism, sexism, homophobia, jokes about the disabled and so on. Fortunately a culture of respect for diversity developed and with it a culture of disrespect for rudeness – political correctness. … The term ‘political correctness’ can be used as a verbal weapon by those who want to do extreme things, things which would attack equality and human rights. When others complain, the response ‘that’s just political correctness’ is supposed to be a conversation stopper, because political correctness is supposed to be wrong. Complaining about political correctness is as absurd as complaining about good manners. The response ‘that’s just political correctness’ usually translates as ‘that’s just being polite’. (Zara)In other words, “political correctness†is a nasty way to describe talking nicely, as though talking nicely is nasty. This rhetorical duplicity, coupled with the privileged, dominant positions from which pronouncements on political correctness typically come, has made the phrase “political correctness†slippery, robust, and insidious. The phrase thus provides a present-day example of “political speech and writing†as “the defense of the indefensible,†as criticized by George Orwell, in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English language.†The phrase “political correctness†is a perfect example of a phrase whose cryptic complexity lets it smuggle into one’s speech or writing a formidable freight of covert (and perhaps, sometimes, unintended) meanings that can detract from or even derail the point of a statement in which it’s used, when it’s not being openly used to justify oppression. Amidst the flame wars, troll rampages, and other hostilities that attend a digital mediascape much more populous and interactive than it was in the mid-1990s, it is a tragedy of English vocabulary and public discourse that one of the main progressive take-away points from the “political correctness†furore – that we be courteous, thoughtful, sensitive, inclusive, and above all respectful in our language – has been lost, body-snatched by a sneaky and vicious code word for the privileged, entitled, and bigoted to claim not only license but even moral high ground for their vituperative sound and fury. http://academicalism.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/political-correctness-decoding-a-vicious-pernicious-code-word/http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5256418
Political Correctness = Not being able to call a spade a spade without being labeled racist for using the word "spade"
