Who the hell made the term "Politically Correct" a liberal trait????

[neoteric lefty]

All I have to say towards him or her is "Fuck That!"

I just read over an old article about why Right-Wing talk radio is so much more popular to liberal radio. Someone said, "Politically correct radio is just boring." Being politically correct has nothing to do with your political affiliation. It has everything to do your attitude towards the culture and those in power. I think most "so-called" political correctness falls into two categories: non-derogatory speech and political "ass-kissing" speak.

I believe in free speech and I love that any person can speak his or her mind to almost no bounds. However, I do feel that, at least in many settings, respect should be given to those who may be different than you and the most direct way to do that is through the way you talk. I am glad that we don't (usually) use slurs and generally unappreciative terms in public life. I am glad I don't have to hear such things like nigger, spic, gwap, homo, dyke, cracker, faggot, slut, chink, etc. while at work, or at a restaurant, or in the gym. I think words like those are used to put labels on people without any consideration of who that person truly is.

However, there are many people whose prejudices get in the way of this. They think not calling a black person a nigger, or not calling a teenager who is pregnant a slut, is boring. I think they are full of shit and are either trying to get ratings through controversy, or so scared of equality in our nation, that they cannot characterize individuals by any means other then stereotyping. Either way, I don't really care to hear what they have to say.

On the other hand, speech is being more and more used to associate with those in power and delegate the opposition to some sort of second class. Let us take the "War on Terror" (or for you trolls reading this, the "War on Terra") for example.

First, the term itself is complete bullshit. How the hell can we be at war with a complex mental state? Terror is a feeling that arises when one is faced with adverse circumstances that seemed insurmountable. If there is to be a true "War on Terror", then we should be battling scary movies, dark alleys, spiders and the boogey-man. Even if we decide to use the term "War on Terrorism" then that is no better. Terrorism is just a tool that people use to fight their enemies. The term is relative at best and is used mainly as propaganda to insight fear and hatred in the masses towards the enemies of those who are in power. This "War on Terror" needs to be change to the "War on Al Queada" because those are the motherfuckers that attacked us. However, the administration and its friends like to use the term "War on Terror" as a sort of blank check to give credence to many unrelated and otherwise unpopular activates. The public begins to use this term due to the fact that it is said that you are unpatriotic if you do not. That brings me to another example.

'Patriotism' is now becoming P.C. speak. Patriots are now "those who agree with the administration and its actions in the world" and not "those who love this country and believe in its ideals and will fight against enemies both external and internal". This is very scary because political affiliation is becoming a litmus test of patriotism when in fact, patriotism transcends all political parties.

For the past decade, the Right (and to be honest the Left too, but to a much lesser extent) has been shaping and molding the American lexicon to be able to manipulate the views of the American people. This is sad, scary and infuriating to a lot of us. Political correctness is not a liberal quality in the least. Actually the Right are the ones who are manipulating language for political gain. We really need to fight this assault and take back our language and our country.

[aquart]

1. Freeper definitions are odd. Just really odd.

When George is being particularly creepy, they claim he's really a liberal.

I feel it is necessary to ask them to define the terms they are using, as too often we mean different things by the same word.

I have that trouble here, too. I haven't the smallest clue what people mean when they say "progressive." I've actually begun to define it as "rigid of mind," based on the writers who spout it.

The solution, of course, is to listen to my mother whose sage advice was "Never play by their rules." If they tell you the game is soccer, grab a bat and a glove.

[neoteric lefty]

2. i love that advice

sounds like you have a very wise mother.

[Don_G]

3. Everyone With An Agenda

And made thinking for "one's self" a treasonous act during the years Dem's" were in control and "they" wern't.

[doni_georgia]

4. Exactly - the right also has their own version of PC n/t

[unblock]

5. once upon a time, "politically correct" was a liberal term

the term originated as through discussions among a hardcore liberals wondering what actions they should take to be consistent with their own political philosophy. for example, if one is politically in favor of kind treatment to animals, it might be considered "politically correct" to become a vegetarian. or, if one is in favor of strict gun control, would it be "politically incorrect" to hunt for pleasure? or, if one is opposed to hunger in the u.s., is it more "politically correct" to finish ever scrap of food on your own plate or not?

you get the idea. the main point is that the whole concept centered around being consistent with your own political philosophy. it never said, e.g., that racist jokes were, in and of themselves, "politically incorrect". what it said was that if you go around campaigning for affirmative action and equal respect for blacks, then telling a racist joke would be politically incorrect. but if your political position was less charitable to blacks, then such jokes would not be politically incorrect, as they would not be inconsistent with your stated philosophy.


somewhere along the line, republicans got wind of these discussions and decided to pretend like those involved were telling them how to behave. which was a complete and utter lie.

then, as conservative promoted the term in order to celebrate their own indignity, a few misguided lefties tried to use the term to spread their views. so, just enough lefties started using the term exactly as republicans pretended it was always used. of course, the right wing then displayed those errant lefties front and center as if those were the spokespeople for the left, which they weren't.

so, thanks to right-wing distortions, the term now has come to mean some people trying to dictate to others how to think and act and talk, usually so as not to offend someone. a far cry from the original term.

the right wing are indeed masters at manipulation of language, primarily to imbue terms with the desired emotional conotation.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. "Politically Correct" was the Miss Manner's guidelines to avoid ethnic

conflict. Right-Wingers thought that Liberals were too sensitive in parsing words in order to avoid hurting the feelings of ethnic cultures in America. The Right-Wingers were right. The Liberals did go out of their way to attempt to alleviate the tension between ethnic cultures; and if they had succeeded, it might have helped the assimilation process for many.

But the Liberals were also right. Now that the wall is down and people are saying what's on their minds, the tension between the cultures in this country has never been more tense -- because the criticism goes both ways.

I think now the "Anglo-Protestants" in this country are beginning to understand that ethnic cultures in this country don't want to be like stink'n Anglo-Protestants. Instead, they want to find their own niche as Americans.

[HamdenRice]

7. Maoist Origins

Actually the origins go back further. The term, "politically correct" has its origins in Marxist-Lennism and Maoism. Communism had a strong belief in the scientific nature of its thought. Just as mathematicians cannot have equally valid opinions about the area of a triangle or the volume of a cone -- there is only one correct way to measure the volume of a cone -- "scientific socialism" as communism called itself, believed strongly that its conclusions were scientifically derived and not subject to debate.

Of course, leaders used this to repress all dissenting voices. If the leader had been chosen by "objective historical forces" and the always correct dictatorship of the proletariat, then the leadership's ideology was the "correct line." This was especially true in Maoist China, where debates and brutal purges were carried out over who had the "correct line" and whose politics were objectively "politically incorrect."

The unassailability of the leadership's line in China caused it to belabelled in bizarre ways, such as "Marxist-Lennist-Maozedong Thought".

During the 1960s some American leftist groups were so radical, that they adopted Maoist terminology. Some thoughts were objectively "politically correct" and some were "incorrect."

Liberals who knew the origins of the terminology never used the term "politically correct" approvingly, but the right started using it to refer to left liberal thinking that had elements of a belief in "objective" political theorizing. The term therefore denigrates the left as not just narrow minded, but "Stalinist."

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Hamden Rice!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[HamdenRice]

12. Thanks for the Welcome

I started posting a day or two ago, but have been lurking for months.

[sendero]

9. IMHO...

.... PC, as it was originally defined, not the revised version - absolutely applied to liberals.

"You can't say that" was a catch phrase of many who felt they were champions of minority and female rights, but in fact did more damage to the cause than any other single factor.

To say it another way, the practice of PC admonitions alienated more people from liberal causes than anything I can think of.

[bobbieinok]

10. 1st time I saw term was in an article saying 'left was preventing free

speech'

The article was in Time or Newsweek (I think) and was all about this evil new movement sweeping college campuses that was stomping on people's freedom......

So whenever I hear the term, I 1st think someone is complaining that s/he 'can't fly a conferedate flag', etc.

When I feel comfortable with people I'm talking to, I tell them this story...

...In the early 60s I was auditing a poli sci class. The instructor (young, popular male) said students could take 1 of 2 attitudes toward the class - either fight it or 'like a woman being raped, lie back and enjoy it.'

I then say something like - I much prefer today's PC rules to those that permitted that instructor to say that without fear of adverse reaction/comment/complaint.

[HamdenRice]

11. Maoism, Stalinism and the Panthers

I did a quick google of 'origins term "politically correct"' and came across a linguistics discussion list that also suggests the connection with Maoism -- maybe my guess was right.

Most of the references folks are using here are from the 1980s, when PC was already mostly pejorative and ironic. What's odd is that for a short while in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the US, the term was used unironically in the Maoist sense.

The ironic, even oxymoronic, use of the term is based on the idea that all politics is opinion; there can be no such thing as a "politically correct" idea. The term is as impossible as correct or incorrect art.

But the Maoists believed that through scientific political analysis, the party could discern the one true, or "correct" political line:

Here is the website and some excerpts, which I admit are selective:

http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-1230.html

>
> Based on dim personal recollections, my sense of the latter term
> is that "politically correct" first surfaced in English in Maoist
> literature. There it was used with a straight face, since
> correctness was viewed as being, like everything else, subject to
> constant definition and redefinition by the Party. I recall
> feeling that this world-view implicit in the phrase was so
> contradictory to democratic ideals that only a person who accepted
> political authority over truth could possibly use it without
> ironic intent.
>
> Does anyone have any more concrete data on the history of this
> politically loaded expression?
>

<snip>

The term seems to have entered common use in anglophone Canada first of
all as social democrat teasing of the Maoists and the Stalinists
for their pomposity. "Correct analysis" could be used in the same way, as
in, "You have the correct analysis, comrade," for "I agree with you."
this could be said only to other socialists, of course; the totalitarian
left never got the joke. "Politically correct" was - and in safe company
still is - used by the democratic left in self-mockery, as in: "We have
politically correct fruit salad tonight, _no_ California grapes." The term
seems to have become pejorative as it has been taken over by people who
are incapable of seeing the comic side of their own ideals.

================================


But notice that TODAY the American Right uses the term as a PEJORATIVE
term for virtually any notion with any kind of ethical motivation. In so
doing, the Right derides not Maoism, but the ideology of classical liberal
democracy society, where redefinition does not occur by the party running
a one-party state, but by free and open exchange of ideas, and where
ethical concerns (as well as pragmatic concerns) are relevant.

<snip>




A few years ago when reading Krushchev's secret speech in which he denounced
Stalin for the first time (at the 1956 Communist Party Congress) , I noticed
the use of a term in Russian that could be translated as "politically
correct." While denouncing Stalin, Krushchev maintained a belief in the
"politically correct"--which Stalin obviously wasn't.

================================


Re: Mark Mandel's inquiry about the origins of "politically correct":
Ric Dolphin's Not Politically Correct (1992) confirms Mark's belief that the
term originated in the Thoughts of Mao Tse Tung. Dolphin states that its
first use in the U.S. was by Angela Davis in 1971 when she argued that there
could be no "opposing argument to an issue which has only one correct side."
Then in 1975, the then-president of the National Organization of Women said
that organization was moving in "the intellectually and politically correct
direction." The 1971 quotation seems to confirm Mark's view that only those
who accept political authority over the quest for truth could use the term
with no ironic intent.

[truebrit71]

13. Probably the same bastards that tried to make "Liberal" a swear word..

..too bad I don't care...

Liberal...and DAMN proud of it!!!

[maggrwaggr]

14. a lesbian once told me lesbians practically invented it

She told me lesbians were the most PC-police-minded people around, and that they practically invented the concept.

[MrsMatt]

15. While we're on the subject,

Who decided what ideology currently defined as "Right" and "Left"? I think liberals are "Right"!

[HamdenRice]

16. The French Revolution, believe it or not!

The origins of left and right are from the French Revolution. Those opposed to the old regime sat in the right side of their parliament (actually Estates General) and those in favor of change sat on the left side. This general seating arrangement persisted through the revolution. Bizarrely enough, the terms stuck, and right still means conservative, and left progressive or radical.

[Armstead]

17. Liberals started the current use of the phrase

Back in the 70's (or was it the 80's. Age tends to compress time) I remember politically correct lefties used to joke about being politically correct. It spread from a self-depreciating "in-joke" to more general uasage.