What is ‘political correctness’

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http://www.lnat.ac.uk/assets/sample_political.pdf

This shows an interesting feature of political correctness. Political correctness hides behind denials. Politically correct people insist that the thing they will not say (because it is politically unacceptable to say it) is not true.  After all, they have to insist that it is not true in order to avoid admitting to believing it. They have to insist, for
example, that there are no national or ethnic quirks to make jokes about; there is not a grain of truth about any nationalities in Little Britain, Father Ted, the Kumars, or Kath and Kim. This is why one will rarely hear  someone admit to being politically correct. Instead they will just say that they are correct. And they may even have convinced themselves to believe it.

Perhaps this explains why ‘politically correct’ has become a term of abuse. Political correctness is intellectually dishonest. It differs from more old-fashioned methods of self-censorship. Before the era of political correctness, people already understood that it was a bad idea to offend or upset people. They had complex systems of manners that involved a certain amount of dishonesty to spare people’s feelings. Some truths were  not to be spoken in public, in good company, in front of the servants, etc. But this was not political correctness. Why not? Because the refusal to speak offensive truths depended on the time and the place and the occasion. When the people likely to be offended or upset were out of earshot, one could quietly admit one’s real beliefs. Political correctness goes further. There is no setting in which a politically correct person can admit that he believes an offensive truth. He has to keep up the denials, perhaps even to himself. This is not just dishonesty but intellectual dishonesty.

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