Political Correctness: The Scourge of our Times

washingtondispatch ^ | 3/20/2002 | Agustin Blazquez

[mercy]

C.S. Lewis wrote a quite thorough and enlightening little book on PCness in the forties. "The Abolition of Man"

[piasa]

Thanks for posting this.

[gcruse]

I'll accept the author's word that the term Political Correctness was born in 1923 if he says so. However, the concept of euphemising something unpleasant to make those who partake in it less so goes back at least to the exchange of 'welfare' for 'dole.' Most likely, dole was a polite way of saying something worse at one time itself. Do you think hanging PC on communism is beating a dead, and possible incorrect horse?

[Righty1]

Hitlery, Dashole, and Reno worship at the PC altar for obvious reasons. The extent to which this mind altering form of mental terrorism has taken over universities is repugnant. I for one will not contribute to a PC U. My two alma maters just don't get it. The tute is sending some poor sacrificial nerdlein to find out first hand if I mean it!

[TLBSHOW]

No. Cuba and China and North Korea come to mind as does the liberal communist in America.

[weikel]

bookmarkked bttt

[68skylark]

For those who are interested in this sort of thing (i.e. the history and evloution of ideas), my favorite writer by far is Camile Paglia. I can highly recommend her books, even though a lot of what she writes is over my head.

She traces the origins of political correctness (or "social constructionism") to French philosophers, starting with Rousseau. And it reaches it's most hideous modern development in Focoult -- who's like a god to two-bit left-wing academics.

It's intersting that the people who seem most enthused about PC thinking (like journalists, left-fringe politicians, and various "activists") have very little knowledge about where their ideas come from.

[Dakmar]

Frankfurt School

[Dakmar]

A penny for your thoughts. :-)

[upchuck]

I recently attended a dinner where the speaker was, shall we say, "unsighted." When it came time for him to be introduced, the woman doing the introduction said he was, "vision impaired."

When he got up to speak, he thanked her for the intro and then said, "But you've got my disability all wrong. I'm not vision impaired, I'm blind as a bat." The audience kind of shifted nervously. He picked up on this and said, "No really, I'm totally blind, can't see a damned thing." The audience gave him a round of applause. And he gave a GREAT speech on the Constitution. It was amazing all the info he held in his mind since he didn't use notes.

[TLBSHOW]

Thank you for the link.

[Dakmar]

You're welcome. Do you know why they have that cow logo on their site? That's not a riddle, I really don't know. It struck me as odd, though.

[boris]

"However, the concept of euphemising something unpleasant to make those who partake in it less so goes back at least to the exchange of 'welfare' for 'dole.'"

I thought it was the exchange of 'homeless' for 'bum'.

'Hobos' seem to have disappeared completely.

--Boris

[boris]

"Do you know why they have that cow logo on their site?"

It is a link. Don't know why the cow; but if you click on it you go to more information on the Frankfurt School.

--Boris

[cva66snipe]

Here is another source on Political Correctness from Bill Lind if you ever go into Free Congress Foundation's site much then you know who he is.

Click here to get to the link

[gcruse]

A good read. Thanks.

[Octar]

Thanks for posting this.

[cva66snipe]

Anytime. Lind and Janet Parshall's brother Brad Kena {sp} used to have a show called Next Revolution on a satellite network. It was not as far fetched as the name makes it sound though. They had some very good debates on this issue and many others.

[TLBSHOW]

Your welcome. And Happy Easter.