[lbo-talk] Definition of "Political Correctness"

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Aug 14 11:20:30 PDT 2007


BobW

In simpler words, Woj, it's a put down. it says you are too dumb to realize you are just following the herd in what you just said. It is sort of a perfect right-wing attack, accusing the left of conformity (the worst offense, to an intellectual), and of being merely "political", rather than the fully-realized man of high culture the right-wing idolizes.

[WS:] I think you got it all backwards, Bob. I am not criticizing the Left for being "politically correct." I am criticizing the US political culture in general, left or right, for being overly sanctimonious and holier than thou in its rhetoric. Stated differently, I do not see any significant differences between the left and the right in this respect, only different labels. The essence of the behavior is the same however, exhortations and hyperboles aimed mainly to establish moral credentials of the speaker rather than to say something informative about the subject.

This line of criticism is nothing new, of course. Alexis deTocqueville already bemoaned the bombastic nature of the political discourse in America. More recently, Harry Frankfurt described it in his short treatise _On Bullshit_.

Wojtek



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list