Eric Stoller's Blog

| higher education | technology | consulting |

Political Correctness

with 3 comments

Kai Chang has written the best critique of “political correctness” that I’ve ever read.

Simply put, the great “PC” cliché, as commonly deployed in mainstream discourse, is cultural propaganda designed to befuddle and misdirect while defending the current power structure. All politics deal with power relations, and in the debate over America’s alleged climate of “political correctness”, there’s a stark asymmetry of power between the defiant megaphone-wielders who complain of being constrained by humorless hypersensitivity from below, and the under-represented people of color, women, LGBT, handicapped, poor, and otherwise marginalized or dispossessed people who have no choice but to absorb the linguistic, cultural, and physical barbs of the ruling class. The megaphone-wielders feel psycho-emotionally oppressed by their inability to crack puerile ethnic jokes without criticism; the under-represented simply are oppressed.

Related posts:

  1. Furloughs and Privilege
  2. More on privilege
  3. Angela Davis
  4. The Meritocracy Myth
  5. Roger Williams University

Written by Eric Stoller

November 22nd, 2006 at 9:42 am

3 Responses to 'Political Correctness'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Political Correctness'.

  1. You’re right, Eric. That’s the best exegesis of political correctness I’ve seen as well. Expect a trackback ;-) .

    Dennis

    Dennis Bennett

    23 Nov 06 at 3:11 pm

  2. Thanks, Eric.

    Kai

    27 Nov 06 at 10:16 am

  3. [...] I’ve often found it disappointing that people label justice, equity and dignity as “political correctness.” I’d rather work with people who are not racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, etc. What’s so brutal about that? Smart Specialties – Student Affairs/Student Life. The work is unusually pleasant [...]

Leave a Reply