Political correctness. It’s a term we hear everywhere around us – on social
media sites, in political speeches and debates, and even during everyday
conversation. It’s also a term that divides our society into two categories -
those who abide by it, and those who scoff at it.
But before you write something off as being “too PC”, ask yourself the
following questions: What exactly do I mean when I use the words “political
correctness”? Does my understanding of the expression match its actual meaning?
What is it about the expression that invites so much contention? And finally,
is it important for me, as an individual, to be politically correct today?
First, let’s learn what the term political correctness means, and when and why
it came about. According
to Britannica, the term first appeared in “Marxist-Leninist vocabulary following the
Russian Revolution of 1917”. Back then, it was used to describe “adherence to
the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”. The
phrase was linked to traditionalism, conformity and right-wing ideology.
This continued into the 1960s, when the term was applied by leftists in the USA
to mock the right’s extreme orthodoxy. It was not only used to criticise the
conservatives, however - the Left also used the term to call out rigidity
within their own party. According to Ruth Perry, a professor of literature at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology who participated in several feminist and civil rights
movements, the expression “was always used as a joke”, when “calling attention
to possible dogmatism” within leftist groups.
Until the late 1980s, this expression was used exclusively by the Left. But
around 1990, the
term was adopted and altered by the Right. Conservatives began to claim that political correctness was the
Left’s device to promote their curriculum and teaching methods on university
and college campuses through “liberal fascism”. For example, during a 1991
commencement speech at the University of Michigan, Republican (right wing)
president George H.W. Bush said the following:
"The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the
land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away
the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new
ones."
Thus, “political correctness”, which came to mean speech that caused the least
amount of offence, particularly when speaking of groups who are socially
disadvantaged or discriminated against, was portrayed in an extremely negative
light. Right propaganda stated that political correctness was censorship, and a
restriction on freedom of speech. Meanwhile, leftists believed that the Right had
villainized the idea of “political correctness”, to get away with hate speech
and other similar discrimination.
Recently, movements like MeToo and Black Lives Matter have prompted more
anti-political-correctness sentiments, mainly from the people these movements
are calling out. Anti-PC crusaders use their philosophy to account for hateful words against marginalised communities. I think this is the essence of why an anti-PC stand is problematic. You can use it to justify any number of statements, and subsequently actions, against victimised groups. I believe that the moment you state that you “don’t believe in political correctness”, you also state that you don’t believe in treating people of persecuted races, religions, classes, genders, and sexual orientations with respect. You state that you are a narrow-minded human being.
This translates into our everyday lives, too! For example, every time you use
the pronoun “he” instead of “they”, you are erasing people of more than fifty
different gender groups. You are indirectly saying that the people who fall
into these categories matter less than males. You are becoming another droplet
in the bottomless well of misogyny.
One common complaint about political correctness is that it has been taken to
an extreme, with “the PC police” correcting you ever time you use a term they
deem incorrect. While I agree that we have taken political correctness to an
extreme, I also think these extreme measures are necessary. Picture a pendulum that
has swung all the way to one end. Before it can return to its equilibrium, it
must reach its maximum height on the opposite end. Similarly, women, people of
colour, and those in the LGBTQ community have been oppressed for so long that to
reach a state of total equality, we must start by taking drastic levels of affirmative action.
If at first we make an effort to be overly politically correct in everything we
say or do, this common decency will someday become the norm.
