What is Political Correctness?

What exactly does it mean to be politically correct? If you look the word up in the Webster’s New World Dictionary, (and yes the word is actually in the dictionary) it is defined as holding orthodox liberal political views: usually used disparagingly to connote dogmatism, etc. If you go on line to Wikipedia political correctness is stated as a term applied to language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged or other identity groups. To be honestly blunt and to the point it means to use language that is free of any offensive descriptions. This means when we see a disabled person or a retarded person we do not use the words disabled or retarded as they have negative connotations that some people may find offensive. We instead call them physically challenged or mentally challenged. The term disabled means not able and as we know most physically challenged people are capable of doing most anything they put their minds to do.

Political Correctness started in a think tank (called The Frankfurt School) in Germany in 1923. The purpose was to find a solution to the biggest problem facing the implementers of communism in Russia. So when did we start worrying about being politically correct? This happened around 1990 in the United States. Suddenly as a society we became overly concerned with being politically correct in an effort not offend anybody. Being politically correct is not a concept that is evident only in America. The term is familiar and politically correct language is used all around the world. Is it actually possible to talk anymore without offending somebody? I think the answer to that question is no! No matter what we say and how we say it we cannot please all of the people all of the time. There is always someone who will find offense with what we say. But is that what political correctness is all about? No, of course not!

What we need to do is free our language of discriminatory remarks and sayings. Once that is done we do not need to worry about whether somebody agrees with us or not. It is not as easy as it sounds though. You need to be aware of what terminology is acceptable and unacceptable in the society you live in. How do we rid our language of discriminatory remarks if we do not know what they are?

As a linguistic concept in the Wikipedia it states that using “inclusive” and “neutral” language is based upon the concept that “language represents thought, and may even control thought”. This is quite a strong statement to make as it essentially means that our language controls our thought process. So in essence if we use derogatory terms to describe someone it has an effect of controlling how we feel about what we said and how we feel about that person. Then other people who hear those remarks may even feel the same way! With that said, I guess it is a good idea of watching what we say and how we say it.