Help.....meaning of phrase "political correctness".......

[HardWorkingDem]

Years ago in a New Republic article, Michael Lerner had an article on what the phrase "political correctness" meant and how the popular meaning of it is not actually correct.

Can someone help me out on what his meaning was or the location of that article? It might be ten years old or so...

thank you...

[Lindacooks]

1. This isn't what you're looking for, but I think that 'PC'

is just another way of being polite.

[Mythsaje]

3. In some ways it reminds me of the Victorian etiquette

which stated that no one should ever be offended by what they heard...calling things what they are be damned. I think that sometimes being polite might act to hide something that maybe sometimes shouldn't be hidden at all.

[Zenlitened]

2. A right-wing way of sneering at CD, "common decency"

[HardWorkingDem]

4. No, it wasn't quite that...it was more deep and meaningful..

than just pointing out things as they were or being polite. I've regretted throwing that article out for years.

It was something like "The True Meaning of Political Correctness." Something like that....

[Ferry Fey]

7. my recollections of the origin

I haven't seen the article being discussed, so I can't help from that level.

But my recollection of the origin of "politically incorrect" is that while the phrase now seems to be something that is sneered by grumpy conservative men, I first saw it used in the context of progressive lesbian activists -- maybe in the late seventies or early eighties?

It had a far more wry and ironic tone then, something you might ruefully say about yourself. It wasn't a serious put-down the way it is now.

Say you were living in a macrobiotic commune, and snuck away to White Castle in the middle of the night to get some burgers, hoping your housemates wouldn't see you. You might say you knew it was politically incorrect, but you just had too strong a craving and couldn't help yourself.

Others may have seen it in other contexts, my impression may not be the only one.

[gumby]

5. "Political Correctness"

has a history. But, its current definition was fomented by Dinesh DeSousa, where PC means that any racial, sexist, homophobic, bigoted slur can be discounted by the right-wing as a left-wing attack tagged as "political correctness."

DeSousa wrote "The End of Racism." Perhaps he should look at the deliberately designed deaths of thousands of poor black people in New Orleans and revise his putrid ways?

On the other hand, David Horowitz is getting laws enacted that "punish" "leftist" speech on college campuses. So just who is Politically Correct?

"PC" is simply a tool to stifle ANY speech that the extreme right-wing disagrees with.

BTW, DeSousa and Laura Ingrham were an "item" in college. Does that give you a clue? Google is your friend.

[Montauk6]

6. Belated "Welcome to DU!!!!" You should really check out this book

"The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education" by John K. Wilson, Duke Univ. Press

PC, to answer your question, is a rigid set of standards and guidelines in which one comports him or herself (ah, there's an example right there, I place "him" before "her," which makes me politically incorrect because it's a typically male chauvinist approach... you following me so far) with regard to politics, ideology, and culture. This is most prevalent, supposedly, on college campuses where students are expected to toe the line drawn by the former campus radicals of the 60s who took over the administration.

Anyway, Wilson basically exposes all this as horsecrap and, more importantly, shows how the whole "PC" ruse was yet another right-wing trojan horse set up to further the agenda by intimidating the left into submission (so ironic since this is what they accuse the left of doing).