My Analysis of Political Correctness

For me, political correctness made its first appearance around 1976. I don’t think it was called political correctness then. I was working hard. I was studying for a degree which was intended to get me out of the type of work I had been in since I was fifteen, and working, and running a house and raising three daughters. It is surprising I noticed anything, but I was also involved in the Women’s Collective so, when the appellation ‘Ms’ was mooted as an alternative to ‘Miss’ or ‘Missus’ for women it was certainly brought to my attention.

Now the use of ‘Ms’ is not necessarily politically correct, but there were also other uses of language which were under scrutiny by feminists (feminine diminutives, the generic use of ‘he’ for example) and because my attention was caught, I remember mostly this particular appellation. I was in favour of its use.

My second memory at about this time (because I was doing an English degree) was the demand by feminists for greater inclusion (in university courses) of the study of women writers, also the proliferation of crèches (or day nurseries) and a general demand that women be given more respect on the street and in the home. Domestic violence, which was endemic in New Zealand at that time and had been for decades, was being addressed and women’s refuges set up. All of these things I was (and still am) in favour of.

Parallel with feminist demands were demands from people of colour for the same type of linguistic changes. They too wanted rights and respect. Then homosexuals and lesbians wanted rights and respect. And so it went on until practically anyone who wasn’t white and male had a gripe they had to have satisfied within the law.

The problem with liberalism is, by virtue of its name and ideology, it has no boundaries. Once liberalism takes hold nobody seems able to be illiberal. Liberalism snowballs, as it has, into ludicrous situations. Well, we thought it was liberalism, until recently, when it seems all the changes which have taken place in societies since the early 1970’s are not actually liberal at all. We are being choked by change. We are confused and unhappy. We now live in a world which is threatening and uncertain, a world where to tell the truth may lead to a prison sentence, a world where to tell a joke or draw a cartoon may lead to death.

Young people, born since 1970, may not notice too much difference but I do. I once worked (1965) for an engineer boss whose father was a Protestant clergyman. My boss knew I had been convent educated and many were the Protestant/Catholic jokes told in that office. I wouldn’t dare do that now. It is politically incorrect. Even if I worked for the same boss, neither of us would dare laugh about something like that anymore in case ‘someone’ overheard and took offence.

What has happened? Political correctness has morphed into something else. That ‘something else’ has entered every area of life – into schools, hospitals, the workplace, entertainment, everywhere I can think of. It is no longer political correctness, although we think of it as such. It is now dialectics.


to be continued...