The Notion of Political Correctness as a Language & Cultural Phenomenon

INTRODUCTION

   The notion of political correctness (also politically correct, P.C. or PC) has become actual and widely being studied during last century. It has already faced many antagonistic and favorable evaluations within the society, where it occurred and still exists. Moreover this phenomenon is facing many debates whether it has the right to exist or not.  Some people consider the PC notion as the immense rule of higher society cluster, thus some suppose it to be a political ideology and nothing more.

   Political Correctness refers to matters of inclusive speech, advocacy 
of nonracist, nonageist, nonsexist terminology, and insistence on affirmative 
action policies, avoidance of Eurocentrism as reflected in a "traditional" canon 
of literature, acceptance of multiculturalism as a valued feature of American 
society, and dismantling hierarchy as controlled by a white male power structure.

   PC as the concept of Linguistics, i.e. its branch – Lexicology, and as the cultural object to be studied has spread its existence all over the world, taking the enormously great part in the highest branches of human relationships. Having sources in political and philosophical circles it overspread among almost all spheres concerning the ignorance of behavior rules, vulgarity, showing moral values and/or hiding the absence of them, proving a lack of refinement and making an attempt at changing the way an attempt we look at things.

   PC is a term used in various countries to describe real or perceived attempts to impose limits on language, terms, and viewpoints in public discussion in order to avoid potentially offensive terminology. While it usually refers to a linguistic phenomenon, it is sometimes extended to cover political ideology or public behavior. Sometimes it has a pejorative or even ironic meaning — typically connoting an excessive attempt by social or political liberals to alter language and culture. It is also sometimes used to describe attempts to respect marginalized groups (e.g., the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press Canada 2001) defines political correctness as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that exclude, marginalize, or insult certain racial or cultural groups"). ^[1]

  PART I.

The Notion of Political Correctness as a Language & Cultural Phenomenon 

   The widely used and covering many aspects of everyday life electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia includes an article concerning PC in ^[2]. From the point of view of Ruth Perry, and Debra L Schultz, political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent. Nowadays, the term is primarily pejorative ^[3][4], while the term politically incorrect (Someone or something which does not meet a standard of PC) has been used as an implicitly positive self-description.

   Examples of the latter include the conservative The Politically Incorrect Guide published by the Regnery editorial house and the television talk show Politically Incorrect. In these cases, the term PC connotes language, ideas, and behavior unconstrained by a perceived orthodoxy or by concerns about offending or expressing bias regarding various groups of people ^[5].

   Discussion of PC is usually critical. For example, structuralist philosopher Julia Kristeva in the article “Correcting Her Idea of Politically Correct” published in New York Times criticized this problem in strict way, labeled identity politics and political correctness in general as totalitarian^[6] . The academic Camille Paglia said that PC empowers the enemies of the Left, and alienates the masses against feminism. “My message to the media is: ‘Wake up!’ The silencing of authentic debate among feminists just helps the rise of the far right. When the media get locked in their Northeastern ghetto and become slaves of the feminist establishment and fanatical special interests, the American audience ends up looking to conservative voices for common sense. As a libertarian Democrat, I protest against this self-defeating tyranny of political correctness”. ^[7]  

I. 1. The PC as The Specific Phenomenon in American Culture 

   Mr David Mark Reid, a graduate of University of Chicago (M.A.), USA, of Heidelberg University, Germany, and now is  working as a teacher of English as a foreign language at Samara Nayanova University, has written an article concerning PC in the USA uniting this language phenomena with different social disabilities. He writes, that due to the rise in known cases of pedophilia, it is no longer politically correct to pat an unknown child on the head in public. Also, there are more suits for sexual harassment — false as well as real. Therefore male professors and doctors never see a female student or patient alone in a closed office. To be politically correct (“PC”) is not only in good taste, but also safe. 
    Being “PC” is also good for advertising and vote-getting. Americans worship youth. To be reminded that one is “old” or even “aged” is uncomfortable. But if “senior citizens” is a euphemism, “respected citizens” is a misnomer. “The third age” sounds like the Riddle of the Sphinx. The “golden age” is definitely not golden. But nonetheless, “Golden Age Retirement Villa” is a common name for a common living area for “the aging.”

   The British have allowed similar language change. On both sides of the Atlantic, one refers to “sex workers” instead of “prostitutes”. Your chromosomes determine your “gender”, not your “sex”. In general, however, the phenomenon is stronger in the USA. America calls itself “The Land of the Free”. Well, maybe, but you must still watch your step. ^[8]

   Jeffrey Escoffier supposes that the notion of ‘politically correct’ speech is probably the most highly publicized effect of identity politics on public discourse ^[9]. Most communities, originally Americans, have used this term for years in an ironic and self-deprecatory way. PC implies an awareness that community members had residual feelings and opinions that conflicted with their ostensible political identities. Moreover, it has implied the value of political etiquette in the USA, thus ironically, because they had long experienced political moralism (on the Left and in the women’s movement), as well as strong community pressures to conform. However, jokes about political incorrectness marked either emotional ambivalence or quiet disagreement with prevailing political attitudes. ^[10]

   From the C.J.S. Hayward’s point of view ‘politically correctness’ is avoidance of certain words judged to embody closedmindedness and prejudice (and ostracism of anyone who does). For example ‘m-nk-nd’ (mankind) is deemed an inappropriate word to use to refer to all members of Homo sapiens, because the word ‘m-n’ (which originally did not specify gender) has come to sometimes a perbeing who is specifically male. Thus, the only reason anyone would say ‘m-nk-nd’ is out of spite towards every woman. Also in his dictionary, Hayward denotes the notion of PC-USA, the institution with such contradictory ideas occurring only in America. PC-USA is a church in which there is neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality, monotheism nor polytheism, orthodoxy nor heresy. ^[11]

   Linn Wisson identifies PC of modern America with the idea of positive thinking, while the latter belongs to them from the very birth, but the former is the notion, that immensely depends of the environmental society processes, which form the PC thinking each day.  ^[28] 

I. 2. Origin and Modern State of PC 

     Mr David Mark Reid wrote in his article, that PC as the concept began to exist nearly in 18^th century when the statement “All men are created equal” firstly was said as a reaction to royal rule. The rule of law was supposed to replace the rule of man. “Justice is blind”. Unfortunately, the law was discriminatory. It treated women, slaves, children, non-citizens, etc. differently. However, the strong individualism of the settlers reinforced egalitarianism. Discrimination in the law also diminished. You cannot just legislate away the social practices of centuries. Attitudes are resistant. The language is resilient. Equal rights for women and minorities have been legislated; but there is still a lot of fine-tuning to be done. This is enforced in part by the ubiquitous guns. America continues to resist gun control. More importantly, Americans love to drag each other into court. Lawyers encourage this. Mr David Mark Reid suggests an idea, that if you sue someone, you pay the lawyer only if you win. originally, political correctness meant that language and social practices should correspond to spirit of the law. Language and gestures shape thought, which shape action. The 1^st step was to discourage derogatory names for minorities, such as “wop” or “kike”. The offending “nigger”, “boy”, “black Sambo”, “blackie”, “colored” were changed to “Negro”, then “black”, and today “Afro-American”. Some terms were considered implicitly derogatory. An example of this can be the following: the “Indian”, had been “damaged” by Hollywood stereotypes. Today “Native American” is more politically correct. “Spic” is a shortening of “Hispanic”, but the former is insulting, and the latter is politically correct. ^[8]

     The term "politically correct" have been firstly used in different contexts, which do not relate to the current terminology. Some scientists suppose that PC has the roots in the USSR history of the 20^th century connecting it with the Marxism movement. It was going to be called The Institute of Marxism but in order to hide its Marxist roots it became known as The Institute of Social Research. The purpose was to find a solution to the biggest problem facing the implementers of communism in Russia. ^[19]

       However the examples originate from 18th century. The previous meaning was 'in line with prevailing political thought or policy'. The term earlier used 'correctness' in its literal sense and without any particular reference to language that might be considered offensive or discriminatory. For example, J. Wilson's comments in U.S. Republic, 1793:

     "The states, rather than the people, for whose sake the states exist, are frequently the objects which attract and arrest our principal attention... Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our common, even in our convivial, language... ‘The United States,’ instead of the ‘People of the United States,’ is the toast given. This is not politically correct." ^[15]

     By 1970, New Left proponents had adopted the term political correctness. In the essay The Black Woman, Toni Cade Bambara says: ". . . a man cannot be politically correct and a [male] chauvinist too." The New Left later re-appropriated the term political correctness as satirical self-criticism; per Debra Shultz: "Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the New Left, feminists, and progressives . . . used their term politically correct ironically, as a guard against their own orthodoxy in social change efforts".^[2] Moreover, Ellen Willis says: " . . . in the early ’80s, when feminists used the term political correctness, it was used to refer sarcastically to the anti-pornography movement’s efforts to define a ‘feminist sexuality’ ".^[16]

     The term ‘politically correct’ and its derivatives began to spread when it was adopted as a pejorative term by the political right in the 1990s, in the context of the Culture Wars. Writing in the New York Times in 1990, ^[17] Richard Bernstein noted "The term 'politically correct,' with its suggestion of Stalinist orthodoxy, is spoken more with irony and disapproval than with reverence. But across the country the term p.c., as it is commonly abbreviated, is being heard more and more in debates over what should be taught at the universities." Bernstein took to account a meeting of the Western Humanities Conference in Berkeley, California, on "'Political Correctness' and Cultural Studies," which examined "what effect the pressure to conform to currently fashionable ideas is having on scholarship". Bernstein also referred to "p.c.p" for "politically correct people," a term which did not take root in popular discussion.

     Within a few years, this previously obscure term featured regularly in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against curriculum expansion and progressive teaching methods in US high schools and universities. In 1991, addressing a graduating class of the University of Michigan, U.S. President George H. W. Bush spoke against "a movement declare certain topics 'off-limits,' certain expressions 'off-limits', even certain gestures 'off-limits'" in allusion to liberal Political Correctness. The most common usage here is as a pejorative term to refer to excessive deference to particular sensibilities at the expense of other considerations. The converse term "politically incorrect" came into use as an implicit term of self-praise, indicating that the user was not afraid to ignore constraints associated with political correctness.

     Examples of language commonly referred to as "politically correct" include: "mentally challenged" instead of "retarded" and other terms, "African American" instead of "Black," "Negro", "Colored", "Monkey" (however, "Black" is used in English-speaking countries other than the U.S.),  "Native American" (or "First Nations" in Canada) instead of "Indian", Caucasian" instead of "white", also gender-neutral terms such as "firefighter" in place of "fireman", the use of the word "gender" instead of the word "sex" to distinguish males and females, terms relating to disability, such as "visually challenged" or "hearing impaired" instead of "blind" or "deaf", "persons of color instead of "ethnic minorities" or "non-whites" in countries populated predominantly by people who are white, "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and other holiday greetings. ^[2]

     The more structural classification can be observed in the part of report below as regard PC as a linguistic concept.

     The fundamental principle is: try not to offend. For example, the insulting term “invalid” is replaced by a neutral “handicapped”. However, positive is better than neutral. Therefore the terms “physically (or mentally) challenged” and “differently abled” have become widespread. ^[8]