Two Kinds of Political Correctness

Political correctness:  the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against

A 2017 article at Quartz, a site self-described as being for ‘bold arguments and big thinkers’ commented: “Not long ago, political correctness stood for an ideal of fairness and open-mindedness. Yet today, “PC” is a widely bashed catchphrase, with politicians gaining popularity worldwide by destroying its rosy image. .... Politicians who aim to discredit the notion of PC point to its moralistic connotations. Implicitly endorsing traditional social conventions and hierarchies, they commonly portray political correctness as a norm that is imposed on society in a top-down manner. By constructing political correctness as an arbitrarily enforced, biased agenda, anti-PC politicians adopt common discursive strategies across the globe in their attempt to undermine and discredit PC.”

The article points out that right wing politicians, including the current US president and populist right wing parties, were attacking the PC concept. The president was quoted as characterizing the attacks on PC in terms of cost: “We just can’t afford anymore to be so politically correct.” Exactly what the president referred to was, as usual, not specified.

Are there two kinds of political correctness?

Given the sophistication of conservative messaging, the attacks on PC raise the question of why the political right has chosen to attack the concept. Conservative and populist messaging usually chooses tactics for a good reason. What is the good reason? After consideration, a possible explanation comes to mind.

Some people who attack PC appear to see two kinds of PC. One is trivial and that criticism goes something like this: “Jeez. If we are too PC, it will get to the point where no one can say anything bad about anyone else. Just look at the PC run amok on college campuses. People are attacked for just expressing opinions that might offend someone else. That’s nuts.”

When pressed, those folks will usually concede that blatant expressions of bigotry, racism or hate go too far and generally ought not to be used in public.

Where the logic fails is in how to draw the line between the acceptable PC against bigotry, racism or hate and the acceptable ‘trivial’ kind of PC. In fact, the line often isn’t drawn at all. Thus, when a politician publicly utters expressions of racism, the politician and defenders either deny it is racist or they claim people are being too PC, too sensitive, too snowflake.

In essence, attacks on PC by conservatives and populists amount to a defense of speech that polarizes and divides a society. That kind of speech includes expressions of unwarranted bigotry, racism, hate, anger, intolerance, disgust and distrust. It is used to attack democracy, fact, truth, reason, personal freedoms and the rule of law, while promoting irrational demagoguery, corruption and/or authoritarianism

Why defend and use that kind of speech? Because it works. As discussed here before, non-PC speech helps dehumanize and/or distort political opposition. In turn that makes it easier to be irrational in thinking about political opposition and vilifying it.

Therefore, it may be the case that conservative and populist attacks on PC are part of a process to normalize polarizing, divisive speech. As discussed previously, experts judged the current US president to be the most polarizing president in US history (and the least great). That accords with his frequent use of non-PC speech.

What about liberals and pragmatists?

 What about attacks on PC by other political groups? To the extent other political groups attack PC, that can be for the same reasons that conservatives and populists attack it now, i.e.  to polarize, divide and emotionalize politics. Some criticism of PC by the left points to something more akin to the trivial kind of PC, e.g., “person of size” instead of “obese” or “person who lacks advantages that others have” instead of “poor person”, but some of it undoubtedly is the more virulent kind of non-PC speech that the right frequently uses. There is no reason to think that the rationale to polarize and divide would not be used by both the right and left. That said, it seems that the tactic is more common on the right than the left.

Whether the tactic works as well for liberals as it does for conservatives is an open question. It might. But given the differences in mindset and attitudes toward facts, truths and logic between the two groups, it is plausible that non-PC speech works better for conservatives than for liberals. Social science research indicates that liberals and conservatives are not alike in how they perceive the world and react to it, and that presumably extends to non-PC speech.