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The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: "The Trojan Horse Of Political Correctness". American Daily. July 27, 2004.

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POV and self-awareness

The fact that many people who are critical of what they call "political correctness" are oblivious to their POV (such as Same Spade above) does not make their lack of selfawareness an example of NPOV.--Cberlet 18:00, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please refrain from ad hominems (and hypocracy), discuss the article and not the editors on this page, thanks. Sam Spade 18:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sam, your lack of self-awareness that you have a highly biased POV about this topic is the major problem at this point. Your bias is palpable and vivid in the above paragraph, and you do not seem to be able to step back and see it; nor are you willing to engage in a debate over the merits. You cannot see your bias, and thus construct it as NPOV. It is a closed loop. The concept of "political correctness" was invented as a frame by conservatives out to bash progressives. The concept was first employed to attack liberals and leftists in colleges. These facts belong in the lead. When I cite conseratives and progressives backing up my claim, you sweep them away while refusing to provide cites for your point of view. Then you get self-righteous and claim this is all an ad hominem attack. --Cberlet 19:58, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lets simplify. Your asking me for a citation as to the origins of this term, correct? Sam Spade 20:03, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Partly. I am asking you for a citation as to the origins of this term, and a definition from a mainstream source of what the term means and how it came to be used and by whom.--Cberlet 20:10, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

. Sources don't have to be "mainstream" btw, they just need to be cited. Either way I think The American Heritage Dictionary is pretty mainstream. Sam Spade 20:40, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the quality of published sources is debated here at Wiki all the time, so the claim that material just has to be cited is patently untrue. Most of the sources cited or linked to on this page are conservative to ultraconservative. I added the cites to the progressive books. Editors here are constantly advising that dictionary definitions are insufficient. But even if we accept The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms definition (not from the main dictionary, thanks), it raises the issues I am discussing.

"Showing an effort to make broad social and political changes to redress injustices caused by prejudice. It often involves changing or avoiding language that might offend anyone, especially with respect to gender, race, or ethnic background. For example, Editors of major papers have sent out numerous directives concerning politically correct language. This expression was born in the late 1900s, and excesses in trying to conform to its philosophy gave rise to humorous parodies."

The other definition is better at showing the struggle over meaning:

"Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.

Being or perceived as being overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters."

That is a more NPOV definition. Compare it to the current lead.

"Political correctness describes the attempted erection of boundaries or limits to language, the range of acceptable public debate, and conduct.

"The term most often appears in the predicate adjective form politically correct, often abbreviated PC, and is often used mockingly or disparagingly.

The most common usage for the term is to describe the alteration of language so as to not be objectionable, especially in terms of avoiding offense based on race, gender, disability, or any other protected group.

Now compare it to my suggested lead:

"::"The concept of Political correctness is based on the claim that some on the political left seek to erect boundaries or limits to language, the range of acceptable public debate, and conduct. The controversy erupted in the early 1990s as part of a conservative challenge to curriculum and teaching methods on college campuses in the United States (D'Souza 1991; Berman 1992; Schultz 1993; Messer Davidow 1993, 1994; Scatamburlo 1998). The term most often appears in the predicate adjective form politically correct, often abbreviated PC, and is often used mockingly or disparagingly. The most common usage for the term is to describe the alteration of language so as to not be objectionable, especially in terms of avoiding offense based on race, gender, disability, or other status.

That's an NPOV lead. It is based on the arguments made in the 1991 book by conservative luminary D'Souza. If you disagree, cite an actual source that has probed the issue in depth from a scholarly perspective (such as the folks I cited). A popular dictionary definition from the Internet does not count.

Then we can turn to how this page is overwhelmingly a laundry list of conservative bashing of the left based on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. --Cberlet 21:03, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Since no discussion has resulted from my request for cites to defend the lead, I am editing the page.--Cberlet 20:05, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Intro

Actually, you rudely demanded a cite, and then ignored it when it was given to you. here it is again: "This expression was born in the late 1900s".

Want more (I thought the dictionary was good enough, but I guess not..)?

Shall I revert your intro, or place a factual accuracy dispute header? Sam Spade 21:10, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

NM, I rewrote it and placed a dispute header. The dispute header can be removed as soon as things settle down, and we have a moments concensus. Sam Spade 21:39, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Avoid self references

The current lead is an example of the controversy over the term political correctness and why critics of the term claim it is a framing construct of far right ideologues. The lead is based on the work of William Lind, an ultraconservative analyst who is increasing straying into far right antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories about a concept he calls "cultural marxism." See the article at the SPLC Intelligence Report. The cites used for writing the lead include the following:

• The Origins of Political Correctness],

An Accuracy in Academia Address by William Lind

• Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times an article posted on NewsMax.com, a right-wing website awash in conspiracy theories.
• An individuals website at the University of Toronto with no identification other than "Alexander."

I removed the above as inappropriate for a wiki article. Merge whatever you can back into the article, but avoid self references, and please consult NPOV. Sam Spade 22:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? Citing The Poverty Law Center for anything related to the Right is like citing the Nazi Party for anything relating to Jewish culture. Some phrases such as "white nationalist Pat Buchanan" or claiming that the term has anything to do with anti semitism.I don not know this Lind character or if he is an anti semite, what I do know is that the SPLC is by no means a respectable civil rights organization. It has been criticised by the NAACP and other groups for doing more to fund raise than fight racism. There is a reason that the word controversial is written after every mention of SPLC.

Guy Montag 05:06, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

There was no self reference, it was an accurate summary. And, the footnote for the first sentence was false, the page linked turns up no such underlying text.--Cberlet 22:33, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Read further down. Sam Spade 22:44, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I went to the footnote from your version and there was no mention of a comic or the 1920s. The dictionary definitions on that page have no connection to the text you wrote for the lead. It is all from the Lind article or variants snatched from it.--Cberlet 23:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

There was no mention of a comic, nor the 20's, you are correct. there was however a mention of the origin of the term, in the late 1900's. Look @ entry sourced by The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997. Cripes, politically I'm a left leaning centrist, but fallacious conversations like this make me want to join the christian coalition!. Sam Spade 23:24, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

The term became an issue in the late 1990s. That's what the cite supports. Nothing else. What comic strip? You cannot cite a sentence with multiple claims to one cite that does not cover all of them. It's not appropriate as a citation. The Frankfurt school fled Germany in the 1930s. All your other cites are to right-wing sources and an anonymous person on a campus. Anyway, it all tracks back to Lind. Lind is the basis of your lead. I asked for published cites from reputable sources. You provide nothing of the sort, and then claim to be a left-leaning centrist and rely on the work of a right-wing ideologue with a theory that most scholars reject as a crackpot right-wing conspiracy theory. The lead I wrote was based on a conservative book by D'Souza in 1991. Have you even looked at this book? Have you looked at any printed source on this matter. Do you just rely on the Internet for research?--Cberlet 23:52, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I cut my text pending an answer.--Cberlet 00:36, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I think we need a mediator or some such, I'm hard pressed to keep from cursing at you :) Sam Spade 00:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you should restore your old lead, and then we both should give it a rest for a week. :-) --Cberlet 00:44, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Hm... do you think a RfC would help? Or a header? You seem to be being pleasent all of a sudden, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Sam Spade 01:09, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Tin foil hat time

What is going on in this article? It has gone from bad to worse. Just to take up things from the lead paragraph

• "Born from a comic strip in the late 1900s…" Huh? A comic strip? Where on earth did that claim come from?
• "…and developed at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany (which later became known as "the Frankfurt School")" Whee! The term "Frankfurt School" doesn't refer so much to this particular school in the literal sense as to the school of thought that grew out of it. (Its direct descendant as an actual school is New York's New School University.) Also, in what sense was "political correctness" developed at/by the "Frankfurt School"?
• "…political correctness (or PC) has been a central ideological component of all forms of state communism, and most forms of radical leftism." Oh dear, this is just turning into a right-wing diatribe. Keep in mind that in the 1980s, "politically correct" was a comically disparaging term within the Left.
• "The concept is said to be…": weasel words supreme!
• "…advocates of …gay rights, feminism, multiculturalism and the disability rights movement.…" A fine laundry list of the Right's bugaboos. I don't even know how to respond to this, other than to say that I can't think of anyone much less PC than gay rights advocate Dan Savage or disability rights advocate John Callahan.

Jmabel | Talk 06:23, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

How about you read my citations? Sam Spade 10:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph did not contain any citations when I looked at it and made this remark, nor does it now. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:14, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Read this talk page, and the articles history. I added the applicable links just recently. Sam Spade 21:19, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Stalin quote

The introduction of the Stalin quote opposing letting one's enemies have ideas seems to me to be here only for polemical purposes. No one (or no one sane) doubts that Stalin was repressive (and that's an understatement), but suggesting that all limitations on speech are equivalent to Stalinsism is absurd. If they are, then the state of Texas stands equally condemned for censoring textbooks, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany for repressing the use of Nazi symbolism since the war, etc. But the use here is even more absurd than that, because few of those who are accused of enforcement of politcal correctness are in positions of any more power than perhaps that of the professoriat: they are hardly equivalent to those with the power of life and death over millions and the willingness to use it on little more than whim. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:40, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

A requested comment

Unfortunately I don't have any time to address the problems with this article myself right now, but since it's been put on WP:RFC, I will comment all the same: I think it's a quite weaselly right-wing POV piece casually covered with some see-through "NPOV" phrasing. I hope it gets the drastic collaborative rewrite it needs for real NPOV. I'll try to be back to help later. Bishonen | talk 14:33, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Seems to me that it ought to be deleted, as this is a topic that is inherently POV. Other than a definition (and good luck to anyone who even tries that), there is nothing that can be said that isn't POV. I would ask that anyone find a single person who will claim to be in favor of political correctness, per se. If no one says, "I want our speech to be politically correct," then all we're left with is, exactly as you've said, Bishonen, an insult. If no one self-identifies that way, you've got a pejorative, and there's no point in trying to have an article on that. Geogre 15:48, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Why not? We have articles on plenty of them, even Asshole. Sam Spade 16:10, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, the reason we shouldn't is that there is no there, there. I.e. it is a signifier of without signified. There is no actual group or specific behavior to point to, because there is no group actually in favor of political correctness. Instead, there are people who claim that other people are for political correctness, but that means that this article should, like nigger, be not about any purported reality, but instead about the history of the usage of the term, the goals of those who employ it, the social stresses that might account for the usefulness of the term. I.e. it would be an article about a phrase, and not a phenomenon, or about the phenomena behind people wishing to insult in a particular way. The closest analogy I can think of would be "Revisionism." Once, there was a real thing called "historical revisionism," and it was a good thing. Then there were the two Communist Parties in the USSR and China calling each other "Stalinist/Maoist Revisionists" as insults, and then the pejoration of that got carried over to historical revisionism so that today "revisionism" is used as a term of opprobrium. The difference is that once upon a time there really were people who would call themselves revisionists. I can find no such for political correctness. Geogre 18:37, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I basically agree with Geogre, and would like to see this article deleted. Putting it on VFD was my first thought, except that I just can't imagine any consensus to delete. We've still got the irredeemable racism-magnets List of ethnic slurs (read that talk page!) and List of ethnic stereotypes, which have both been VfD'd, I think (I think so—I may not be remembering the details right, as there are presumably complexities to do with their mutual relationship,, but there's certainly been VfD'ing), so how's the community ever going to agree to delete the inherently rather less offensive Political correctness? I think we're stuck with it, and should clean it up. Deep-clean.--Bishonen | talk 16:38, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think it's going to be inherently POV, and there have been deletions of articles like that (List of Republican celebrities, and I saw Dumbest man of 2001 yesterday that I hope is on VfD). If there is going to be a real article, it's going to have to be (in my opinion anyway) about the emergence of women workers, the advent of academic Feminism, the Black Is Beautiful movement, and the reinterpretation of harassment laws in the US all combining to make this term a favorite for those who feel that their powers and perogatives have been eroded. That's a long, linguistics haul, I think, and it would nearly be original research (that someone in a Linguistics dept. needs to do). Geogre 18:37, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I can imagine an excellent and NPOV article on this topic, but this sure isn't it. Roughly, the outline of that article would be:

1. A brief definition of how the term is used in contemporary political discourse.
2. A brief history of the use of the term ("correct line" in Marxist parties ==> in-joke on the left ==> criticism of the left and of identity politics).
3. A few examples of the sort of language shifts (etc.) that have been described as politically correct.
4. Critique of the concept (mainly as an effort to lump together several diverse agendas)
5. Some discussion of overt campaigns for "inclusive language"
6. Coda, return to use of the term, this time with more of a focus on how it has passed into popular usage.

-- Jmabel | Talk 20:28, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Here is the current lead:

"Political correctness is censorship based on the social mores of the times. Born from a comic strip in the late 1900's , and developed at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany (which later became known as "the Frankfurt School"), in the early 1920's, political correctness (or PC) has been a central ideological component of all forms of state communism, and most forms of radical leftism. The concept is said to be particularly embraced by advocates of certain forms of identity politics, especially gay rights, feminism, black power and the Disability rights movement."

The current lead is an example of the controversy over the term political correctness and why critics of the term claim it is a framing construct of far right ideologues. The lead is based on the work of William Lind, (note there is no attribution which raises the issue of plagiarism). William Lind is an ultraconservative analyst who is increasing straying into far right antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories about a concept he calls "cultural marxism." See the article at the SPLC Intelligence Report. The cites used for writing the lead include the following:

-- The Origins of Political Correctness], An Accuracy in Academia Address by William Lind

--Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times an article posted on NewsMax.com, a right-wing website awash in conspiracy theories.

--An individuals website at the University of Toronto with no identification other than "Alexander."

So the current lead only reflects a far right view of the issue rather than an NPOV approac. This is not appropriate, yet SamSpade continues to revert all attempts to make the article NPOV. This situation should be discussed.--Cberlet 22:40, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

• I've commented extensively on this Talk:Political_correctness#Tin_foil_hat_time above. Besides what I said there, there is nothing in the link cited in the lead to back up the claim about a comic strip that it is apparently intended to bolster, and also: how can something begin in the late 1900s (in the sense here, clearly, of late 20th century) and then be developed at a school that was closed down by the Nazis in the 1930s? This doesn't even make good nonsense. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:20, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Plagerism allegations

This sentence now avoids the serious plagiarism of the work of William Lind in a previous version:

"According to a series of essays by ultraconservative ideologue William Lind, political correctness, is censorship based on the social mores of the times. Born from a comic strip in the late 1900s, and developed at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany (which later became known as "the Frankfurt School"), in the early 1920s, political correctness (or PC) has been a central ideological component of all forms of state communism, and most forms of radical leftism."

I still think it is an almost incoherent ultraconservative rant, but if SamSpade wants it in the text, he needs to avoid the issue of plagiarism of Lind's work.--Cberlet 02:28, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I get the impression your incapable of anything resembling intellectual honesty. Sam Spade 02:53, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Examples

Markaci: It might make sense if you read the article and numerous examples of politically correct inclusive language. NIV Inclusive Language Edition Nobs 02:19, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

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