Political Correctness

Started by Solar, November 28, 2017, 08:18:18 AM

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Solar

I read where dictionaries were purging language not deemed PC in the 80s and 90s, though later, after many complaints, returned it to its rightful place, so they claim.
Well, in the process I stumbled across an article published in an encyclopedia, titled: "Political Correctness BIBLIOGRAPHY"
Anyway, I bolded a few of points you might find entertaining, or in the least, evidence of Marxist fingerprints all over the PC movement, which by the way, started, of all places, in Communist Russia.


The term political correctness was first used in the innumerable and acrimonious discussions among Communist ideologues that took place, both in Russia and among members of Communist parties abroad, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The term was used, without any irony, to judge the degree of compatibility of one's ideas or political analyses with the official party line in Moscow. Because the Kremlin position kept twisting in response to nationalist and personal interests much more than to ideological consistency, staying politically correct required agile intellectual gymnastics.

After the demise of international Communism around 1990, when there no longer was a correct, official line to be measured against, political correctness took on a second life as a term of derision used mostly by ideologues on the Right. The term was now meant to ridicule or stigmatize conformity with the opinions, or simply the vocabulary, of liberal or leftist intellectuals, mostly in academic circles. The principal targets of that ridicule were generally movements aiming to reduce prejudice and stigmatization against racial and ethnic groups, women, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.

Since the most noticeable change brought by such movements was the adoption and diffusion of neologisms and euphemisms aimed at enfranchising such groups, the semantics of tolerance became the main butt of ridicule, notably "gender-neutral" language (e.g., chairperson ); the use of new ethnic labels (such as Native American for American Indian, Roma for Gypsy, or Inuit for Eskimo ); or euphemisms (such as differently abled for disabled, or educationally challenged for slow learner ).

Soon, however, the critics of political correctness extended the scope of their attacks from the relative trivia of semantics to what they saw as a stultifying climate of hypocrisy and conformity, rampant, they alleged, on college campuses. Political correctness, they argued, stifled intellectual discourse in and out of academia, or, worse, punished the pursuit of legitimate research on, for example, the genetic bases of human behavior, sexual orientation, or gender differences.

Some scholars found themselves under assault from both the Left and the Right. For instance, the few social scientists who tried to suggest (and show) that human behavior was the product of biological as well as cultural evolution were simultaneously berated as "secular humanists" by fundamentalist Christians and as racist and sexist by their colleagues in the mainstream of their disciplines.

Intellectual climates keep changing, however, so that what may appear to be the menacing shadow of political correctness from the Left may eventually be neutralized by a rising tide of conservatism from the religious Right and the "intelligent design" movement. Reason and sanity, it seems, are always under attack, from the Left, from the Right, or, indeed, from both simultaneously. The university campus is the main theater for such jousts, and thus, also, the main depository of much nonsense. In the end, each swing of the ideological pendulum leaves a little residue of good sense. We must, however, be vigilant that the university remains the one venue where anything can be said fearlessly, and, thus, where political correctness has no place. Any restriction on intellectual discourse, even when internally generated, clashes with the central mission of the university, namely the critical examination of ideas and the diffusion of knowledge.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/political
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walkstall

So I will keep all our old dictionaries and encyclopedias and pass them down. 
A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.- James Freeman Clarke

Always remember "Feelings Aren't Facts."

Solar

Quote from: walkstall on November 28, 2017, 06:43:03 PM
So I will keep all our old dictionaries and encyclopedias and pass them down.
I have a huge Websters from the 1850s I reference often, so I'm certain to get the truth.
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Lea

I can't tell you how badly this toasts my buns. If we older generations don't start educating these young'uns, we are all going to be in deep poo. I've done my part with my kids and grand kids and they get exactly what is going down.