COURSE POINT:

BY ESTHER MARGARITA ARIAS CUENTAS

Daily as citizens we are facing public debates in different fields where a variety of actors, their  rights, opportunities and freedoms are concerned. The need to become responsible in public debates has seriously taken the linguistic foreground and now we are witnessing the resurgence of Political Correctness.
According to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary  PC is “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that exclude, marginalize or insult certain racial or cultural groups” . I find this definition useful because it helps to determine a logical relation between a linguistic phenomenon and public behavior. With respect to its origins and contrary to conventional wisdom, the usage perspectives of the term are rooted in history, but the term was first literaly used in the United States and it originates from the U.S Supreme Court decision Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) .

Nowadays, the issues are other, and some of them such as freedom of speech, respect of minorities and moral values have been included into the nub of political correctness. Is it possible to express ideas without hurting sensitive souls and at the same time tell the truth? That seems to be the question raised by many people, both the defenders and the critics of the controversial resurgence of  this phenomenon. To clarify their points of view, I consider it necessary to examine theirs arguments and give some examples in order to better understand  how it is reflected in society.

• Sponsors of  political  language choice

Defenders of political correctness argue that their choice is based on the prevention of exclusion or the offending of people in different fields: gender, disability, religion,  race – ethnic- cultural and others.
Some examples of the defence of political correctness in these fields are:
In gender: As a reaction to the domination of men, even in language, some expressions have changed with time, that it is why in English the term policeman became policewoman when referring to females and finally, attaining a kind of obsession the term became police officer in order to refer to both men and women. Another interesting case concerns the famous Time Magazine selection. I mean, every year the magazine is supposed to publish a portrait of an outstanding person, the problem was that for many years this edition appeared as Time Magazine’s Man of the year and only lately has it become Person of the year.
Concerning disabilities: Physical appearance and health are very sensitive areas for humankind; the idea of being respected, even if you are different from the standards of what is normal has won supporters for politically correct language.
Terms frequently used such as imbecile or idiot to refer to disabilities have become very offensive, therefore new words have appeared, such as mentally challenged. Even more, the modern language of health and socio-professional careers have made a change and included terms such as special need or learning difficulties,  so we can see what was acceptable language before is now perceived as being out of date  and pejorative.
Concerning religion: Based on equality of religions facing the State, some expressions are criticized, especially concerning the domination of Christianity. For instance, the unnoticed content of Merry Christmas bothers some of those who are not believers in Christianity. it seems an anecdote but it is real; since the 90’s  there has been a  war against the term Christmas, which is supposed to be replaced by Happy Holidays.

Concerning ethnicity and race: The controversial concept of progress which is not universal, was historically used to build discrimination concerning race and ethnic groups. Terms such as Indian , or black are perceived as somewhat pejorative because the terms are linked to what is not exactly progress, but poverty for instance. Native or Afro-descending are the terms  preferred.
In this field it does not  only concern spoken language, but also symbolic language, campaigns by American Indian Organizations show this “Those who use Indian names for mascots or sports teams probably don't intend to offend anyone, but the point is that they do. As a state, it's time to reassess our thinking and the pay heed to the sensitivities of American Indians; find other names for sports teams “Redskins, Braves have no place in today’s sport arenas”.
 
These examples help to uderline common goals of changing terminology, according to defenders of political correctness, they can be summarized in the following  points:

• There is the fact of stereotypes limiting certain people to their rights, opportunities or freedoms. Categorizations are not always good.

• Once labelling terminology has become controversial or problematic, people should be aware about how to describe someone.

• Finally, when people are conscious of the ways of describing someone, individual merits rather than merbership of a group, will become more important.

Some defenders of political correctness have also based their arguments on a moderate version of linguistic hypothesis known as “ Sapir – Whorf” , which states that the world  may be influenced by the kind of language we use. For instance, the idea that grammatically male language has contributed to male dominion.

• Criticism of the choice of political language

Sectors against political correctness state that it is a ban on the crucial importance of free speech. People rejecting political language choice point out the imposition as a form of tyranny, political correctness is seen just like an strategy of conservatism to maintain what is just considered as public decency. Indeed it is considered as a world of resctrictions where freedom of speech doesn’t have any place because political correctness involves censorship which interferes with the freedom of cultural creation, such as literature, arts, advertising, music and films.
The refusal of  political correctness as a censorship addresses the danger of fixing limits to language and also setting boundaries to public debate, but the most important fear concerns who may decide the limits to be fixed in society?
Another argument consists in using a politically correct language as a mechanism to escape or evade personal responsability, for instance, when the term juvenile delinquants is replaced by children at risk. At this point political correctness is not the exclusive property of conservatives sectors.
Generally, the feeling against political correctness is the accusation of a dissembling censorship whose goal is the elimination of intellectual and artistic creation, so, sceptics consider the persistent recourse to euphenism finally leads to the corruption of language in a  coercive atmosphere  surrounded by guilt, fear and an intimidation which inhibits the easy interchange of human discourse, the health of democratic institutions, and ultimately man's own personal  life.
All these reactions have been emerging and the use of political language modification has been the object of ridicule in films, literrature, art; etc. One of the most well – known is the book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories5, which reverses the roles of good and evil in traditional fairy tales with the objective of  showing that political correctness misunderstands morality. Sceptics point out the misunderstanding of language rules, they denounce the establishment of a program based on linguistic hygiene, purging speech of all the verbal correlates that predispose us to evil or any kind of discrimination is not  enough because evil actions invariably follow from offensive or incorrect thoughts, so, they wonder if it is worth the fight. Gore Vidal represents a great example of this point of view, his book Myron was rewritten after being censured by the U. S Supreme Court in 1974. Indeed, he changed the dirty words of its first version book by clean words composed of the names of the judges that had participated in the decision, for instance; he changed the expression “ head of ****”  by “Head of Rehnquist” which form was clean.6
Finally it must be said that sceptics of political correctness are not just people beyond  stereotypes such as I noted in the first part concerning defenders. Sometimes persons included in these categories refuse euphemisms because they contain a message which subliminally tells persons they should feel resigned to their fate. It was the case of Christopher Reeves –know for his role of Superman- who adopted a refusal to be called a handicapped person, despite all, until his death he was not resigned, that it is why at the time it was said that the man who cannot move has not stopped moving.

• Personal conclusion

I have tried to select the most important arguments of the defenders and critics of political correctness and at the same time I have tried to illustrate them with living examples. However I have not expressed my personal point of view yet.
Against conventional wisdom, which suggests political correctness claims for a cleansed language without swear words, we could seeby examinating the pros and cons of this phenomenon; that this vision is limited because political correctnes deals with more and several issues. So, It is not just a question of decent terminology...
Actually I totally agree with political correctness, in my opinion it is not a simple question of an euphemistic world, political correctness deals with  sensitivity and it is a real subjective aspect in humankind. Indeed it is often difficult to identify what kind of comment or action may  bother someone; in this sense political correctness is a great method of prevention, obviously in some cases real facts are not going to change but at least you may be sure your speech or your actions won’t hurt sensitivity, but in other cases political correctness could made public opinion more aware, as has happened in some countries with gay movements – formerly ridiculed with pejorative terms-
Concerning political correctness as a censorship in cultural creation,I  must say that bans have existed and will continue to exist forever. That does not mean – history shows this – that cultural creation is handicapped but more responsible.                                                             A respectful world can be built with different elements, the linguistic background is just one, if respect is the goal of political correctness its use and diffusion are legitimate. Nevertheless it would be ingenuous to attribute it a monopolistic function in this construction.