What is Political Correctness?

Political Correctness is a term and concept that is often invoked by those on the right when they detect an attempt to restrict speech or other discourse that those on the left find objectionable. It has been invoked so often though, that it occasionally becomes cover for those who have no deeper desire than to be provocative or promulgate hateful views.

This ubiquity also results in a general haziness when it comes to defining exactly what Political Correctness is or is not; so much so that many have no notion of it beyond restrictions on using speech that is racially charged or telling jokes that in a previous generation would have been known as off-color. The fact is that Political Correctness is much more, and much more dangerous, than that simple notion.

William S. Lind writing at the @TAC blog:

Political Correctness is cultural Marxism, Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms.

But what, exactly, does that mean? Marxists thought that war between the working classes from different nations was impossible. World War I proved just how wrong they were about this. In response, Marxist thinkers cast about for an explanation.

They said that Western culture and the Christian religion had so “blinded” the working class to its true (Marxist) class interests that Communism was impossible in the West until traditional culture and Christianity were destroyed...destroying traditional sexual morals would be a major step toward destroying Western culture itself.

In the middle part of the twentieth century, this thinking entered into books and curriculum for college students and then became the dominant mode of thinking. Lind describes just how deeply this cultural Marxism penetrated the generation that came of age during that time and how little this phenomenon is recognized today, saying it was injected,

into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now that generation’s ideology. We know it as “multiculturalism,” “diversity” or just Political Correctness.

That is the dirty little secret of Political Correctness, folks: it is a form of Marxism. If the average American knew that, I suspect Political Correctness would be in serious trouble.

Lind's post is a short but informative narrative of how cultural Marxism came to be, and came to dominate the thinking of much of the left in this country. He reminds us that Political Correctness has an agenda much broader and more dangerous than the simple notion of protecting the feelings of others. An agenda that should be resisted by those who recognize the value in our traditions and wish to preserve them.