Political correctness

In the United States in modern usage, the term appeared in the 1970s and parodied the terminology of Marxist-Leninist states , requiring their citizens to adhere to the "party line" ^[1] .

It was initially used by the left to criticize views that they thought were overly Marxist doctrinaire ^{[2] [3]} .

In the 1990s , mainly in the US university environment, the term acquires its quite modern meaning of the fact that in English it is also expressed by the concepts of inclusive or neutral language - a concept based on the Sepir-Whorf hypothesis , which postulates that linguistic categories form the speaker's concepts and actions ^[4] .

Political correctness involves replacing words that have a gender identity with gender-neutral terms, for example, “chairperson” instead of “chairman”; replacement of words for people with physical disabilities (“blind”, “lame”, “disabled”) with various forms with “challenged” (literal translation: “one who is forced to overcome difficulties”) or “impaired” (with reduced or limited opportunities for ...).

• Religion and society . For political correctness in the religious sphere in some English-speaking countries, the traditional wish “Merry Christmas” (“Merry Christmas”) has often been replaced by “Happy Holidays” (“happy holidays”) in cases when it is addressed to people of unknown religious practice (for example, to the general public )
• Sexual orientation and society . In the last 10-15 years, the concept of political correctness gradually began to extend to sexual minorities . Political correctness in relation to them implies the inadmissibility of calls for any discrimination or restriction of rights or for the persecution of representatives of sexual minorities promoting intolerance towards sexual minorities, homophobia , heterosexism (heterosexual chauvinism), as well as the inadmissibility of using insulting names for sexual minorities .
• Gender identity . The correct designations for transgender people are MtF and FtM . Confusion in the media about how to name transgender people (he / she, ex-man, ex-woman) is caused by a lack of understanding of the essence of this phenomenon. The expression “change gender” (instead of “ gender correction ”), which is considered incorrect by transsexuals, is still widespread. To designate people of an unknown sex, special pronouns invented in those languages ​​where they did not exist or where they became obsolete (for example, in English, most words are not gender, for inanimate objects a pronoun of the middle gender is used, but for people in the third person singular feminine and masculine pronouns are usually used )
• National Relations . An example of political correctness in relation to national and ethnic minorities is the public recognition in the USA of the inadmissibility of calling black Americans "Negroes" (Negroes). One reason is the proximity of the word to the abusive "nigga." In Russian, the use of the word “Negro” in the meaning “black man” is absolutely acceptable, since in the cultural and historical tradition it does not bear negative connotations and insulting meanings. Jews can not be called “ Jews ” ( English “kikes” ), Hispanic Americans “Latinos” ( English Latina ) (correctly - English Mestizo ^[5] ), Indians should be called Native Americans ( English “native Americans” ). The propaganda of ethnic hatred , calling for discrimination, the segregation of minorities, was also recognized as unacceptable.

Unreasonable or insufficient change of terms

Supporters of Better Social Integration ^{[ who? ]} argue that the practice of political correctness is insufficient because it replaces a real increase in the level of society’s culture , raising tolerance for minorities in society and solving the problem of xenophobia by merely hushing up and obscuring the problem, putting intolerant individuals and organizations out of the public discourse instead of combating manifestations of intolerance and xenophobia . Moreover, in their opinion, the practice of political correctness even contributes to the growth of hidden, marginalized, non-negotiable xenophobia (be it homophobia or national, racial chauvinism) in society, since the imposition of political correctness inevitably gives rise to resistance not only to opponents of the phenomenon itself, but also to opponents of political correctness itself.

Some steps towards equality are sometimes called into question. ^{[by whom? ]} for excessive paternalism, "fatherly care" for minorities who may have their own view, which does not necessarily destroy established terms.

According to the BBC news portal, the strong imposition of political correctness has led most Britons to fear and shun topics related to criticizing national minorities and ethnic crime for fear of being accused of racism. This leads to the fact that topics related to controversial religious customs and violence are often ignored, the same applies to ethnic crime, BBC journalists describe cases where the organized crime of an ethnic group was not intentionally suppressed by the local police because of the fear of being accused of racism. The most notorious case is described by the Pakistani sexual exploitation network in Rotherham (about 1400 white teenage girls were raped in 16 years ^{[6] [7] [8]} ), police and social workers knew about it, but did nothing. In the investigation of murders and crimes, social workers may give false testimony regarding the ethnic origin of the offender, attributing to him English roots ^[9] .

Scientific Correctness

Political correctness should also not be confused with the scientific correctness of certain concepts. Political correctness is in a complex and ambiguous relationship with scientific correctness. Sometimes politically correct terms contradict generally accepted scientific ones, and advocates of political correctness seek to replace scientifically correct terms with politically correct ones. Sometimes the scientifically correct term coincides with the politically correct one. The term “ homosexual ” instead of, for example, the term “ homosexual ” or the term bipolar affective disorder instead of the term “manic-depressive psychosis” is used today by the scientific community as an attempt to replace it.

Satyr and excess charges

In German there is no word meaning "parent": the plural word " Eltern " (parents) is usually used. In 2010, the media (including German, Russian and Swiss) misinterpreting each other’s messages about the PACE resolution on the dangers of gender stereotypes (including ridicule of the word “parent”, mentioned in the earlier Berne manual for officials ^[10] as permissible) made popular the prohibitions in official documents or in any Western countries in general of the words “mother” and “father” and their replacement with “parent-1” and “parent-2”. ^[eleven]

• Self censorship
• Tolerance
• Censorship

• Vitaly Korotich on political correctness as a form of censorship
• Vladimir Bukovsky: political correctness is worse than Leninism
• Gleb Pavlovsky: New Political Correctness - Against Hate speech
• Tatyana Ushakova Political Correctness: a game of what or by whom?
• d / f "The Abduction of Europe" ( RTR , 2015)