Political correctness

Political correctness (adjective: politically correct, both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term that has been variously defined. In a narrow sense, it is used to describe language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize claimed offense to specially protected groups, in particular ethnic minority groups. Conversely, the term politically incorrect is used to refer to language or ideas that these groups are claimed to find offensive.

In a more general, sense political correctness may refer to the predominant view promoted by the mainstream media.

Definitions

Wikipedia narrowly defines political correctness as "an attitude or policy of being careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who are believed to have a disadvantage." This definition can be seen as problematic since it is, for example, relatively politically correct to offend disadvantaged, poor white people ("White trash"), politically correct to offend various groups of "conspiracy theorists", and it is definitively not politically correct to mention or criticize Jewish influence.

Conservapedia broadly defines politically correct as "restrictions on what we can say and how we say it have been imposed by leftists to restrict debate and silence opposition". Such restrictions are argued to apply to many other topics than human group differences. This definition can also be seen as problematic since, for example, various groups of leftists have different views and many have too little power to be able to enforce restrictions.

A better definition may be that political correctness is the predominant view promoted by the mainstream media. This view may not be the view held by people in general and it may not be the scientifically correct view. But it is usually not politically advisable to deviate greatly from the mainstream media view.

Unequal political correctness

Political correctness typically has an anti-White bias, since it is relatively more politically correct to be offensive against Whites than to be offensive against non-Whites. Similar distinctions apply to heterosexuals/homosexuals, Christians/non-Christians, men/women, etc.

Microaggressions, trigger warnings, and safe spaces

Politically correctness has arguably recently increased, with increasing hypersensitiveness and increasing demands for censorship of not politically correct views. This has created a new terminology.

Microaggressions - small remarks perceived by the victims to be objectionable.

Trigger warnings - brief indicators alerting the viewer or listener of that what follows may "trigger" unpleasant memories.

Safe spaces - are places censoring any perceived threatening ideas or comments.

Possible causes of increasing and increasingly leftist political correctness

• Cultural Marxism.
• The mass media has become increasingly influential.
• Mass media ownership has become increasingly concentrated and very often the owners are Jews. Such owners may, for example, be suspicious of criticisms of minorities. See also Jewish influence: Media.
• The executives and influential employees in the mass media are often Jews.
• Journalists are on average more leftist than the general population.
• Widening the franchise (and more effective implementation of existing voting rights) to include women, the poor, and minorities, may have increased various forms of political correctness in order to not offend voters.
• Mass immigration has increased the voting power of minorities.
• During the Cold War, there was competition with the Communist States for the affections of the developing countries. This may possibly have contributed to suppression of, for example, "racist" views.
• Increasing ideological advocacy for laissez-faire economics and economic liberalization. Such ideologies often oppose nationalist economic policies and restrictions on mass migrations.
• Opposition to nationalist ideologies due to profit considerations by companies and the wealthy, since nationalist ideologies often oppose outsourcing and cheap immigrant labor.
• Professors are on average more leftist than the general population.
• Academic attacks (in particular by Jews) on genetic factors as explanations for human differences and human group differences.
• White guilt
• Pathological altruism
• Political correctness has acquired religious aspects, such as for Holocaustianity
• Liberals and conservatives differ in brain structures and cognitive and emotional processing related to fear and cautiousness. Liberals tend to be less fearful and cautious than conservatives. Thus, political correctness may be related to a (pathologically) optimistic and reckless worldview which optimistically feels that all unpleasant group differences can be overcome and prefers to not think and read about any unpleasant facts stating otherwise. This does not explain why liberalism/political correctness is increasing in the Western world, but may possibly be related to modern Western societies due to technological and scientific developments being much less dangerous than earlier societies, which may have reduced overall fearfulness and cautiousness. See also the article on Political spectrum.
• Related to the above is the suggestion that liberalism may represent an r-strategy while conservatism may represent a K-strategy. See differential K theory.
• Genetic causes are seen as unpleasant explanations, since they are seen as implying that various unpleasant aspects of society are difficult to change. See the article on Genetics denialism.
• Psychological effects from endocrine disruptors.

IQ and political correctness

Charlton wrote in 2009 that "In previous editorials I have written about the absent-minded and socially-inept 'nutty professor' stereotype in science, and the phenomenon of 'psychological neoteny' whereby intelligent modern people (including scientists) decline to grow-up and instead remain in a state of perpetual novelty-seeking adolescence. These can be seen as specific examples of the general phenomenon of 'clever sillies' whereby intelligent people with high levels of technical ability are seen (by the majority of the rest of the population) as having foolish ideas and behaviours outside the realm of their professional expertise. In short, it has often been observed that high IQ types are lacking in 'common sense'--and especially when it comes to dealing with other human beings. General intelligence is not just a cognitive ability; it is also a cognitive disposition. So, the greater cognitive abilities of higher IQ tend also to be accompanied by a distinctive high IQ personality type including the trait of 'Openness to experience', 'enlightened' or progressive left-wing political values, and atheism.

Drawing on the ideas of Kanazawa, my suggested explanation for this association between intelligence and personality is that an increasing relative level of IQ brings with it a tendency differentially to over-use general intelligence in problem-solving, and to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense. Preferential use of abstract analysis is often useful when dealing with the many evolutionary novelties to be found in modernizing societies; but is not usually useful for dealing with social and psychological problems for which humans have evolved 'domain-specific' adaptive behaviours. And since evolved common sense usually produces the right answers in the social domain; this implies that, when it comes to solving social problems, the most intelligent people are more likely than those of average intelligence to have novel but silly ideas, and therefore to believe and behave maladaptively.

I further suggest that this random silliness of the most intelligent people may be amplified to generate systematic wrongness when intellectuals are in addition 'advertising' their own high intelligence in the evolutionarily novel context of a modern IQ meritocracy. The cognitively-stratified context of communicating almost-exclusively with others of similar intelligence, generates opinions and behaviours among the highest IQ people which are not just lacking in common sense but perversely wrong. Hence the phenomenon of 'political correctness' (PC); whereby false and foolish ideas have come to dominate, and moralistically be enforced upon, the ruling elites of whole nations."

This has been criticized: "Michael Woodley critiques Bruce Charlton's hypothesis that "clever-sillies" use their high IQs and openness to experience to construct social and political views that are farther from the truth than views generated be common sense and social intelligence. According to Woodley: 1) smart people are not necessarily less socially intelligent; 2) smart people might tend to be politically correct only in cultures where liberalism is the dominant view; 3) high-IQ individuals who score high on conscientiousness (and conformity) will adopt PC views in a liberal environment and conservative views in a conservative environment; 4) traditional cultures value dominance, while the modern West values counter-dominance (or egalitarianism); and 5) adopting politically correct views is a way to signal to others that you are altruistic and support egalitarianism, which is then rewarded with enhanced social status and greater access to resources."

Other possible reasons for highly educated individuals (associated with high IQ) having a tendency to be politically correct include increased exposure to political correct indoctrination in the educational system, highly educated individuals having a distorted perception of groups such as immigrants by mainly having personal contacts with immigrants who also are highly educated, and highly educated individuals being better at concealing less politically correct views.

See also Racism: IQ and "prejudice"

Political correctness and language

One example of political correctness is changing the language itself. For example, "Negro" was perceived as stereotypically offensive and changed to "Black" and increasingly to "African-American".

If there are in fact some truths in such previous offensive stereotypes, then such new terms may also become negatively associated.

Political correctness and news

Crimes by non-Whites are often censored by the mainstream media. See the articles Race and crime and Hate crime.

"Coloring the News has been well received in conservative circles as a brave book that lays bare the liberal prejudices and deceptions of the media. [...] big media companies have had open hiring quotas. Many papers enrolled only non-whites in their intern programs, and on recruiting trips to journalism schools the New York Times would sometimes interview only minorities. In 1991, Times editor Max Frankel admitted he hired one non-white for every white, and would hesitate to fire an incompetent black woman. In 1992, publisher Arthur Sulzberger said diversity was “the single most important issue” for the paper. At Time-Warner magazines and the Gannett newspapers, bonuses for executives depended on how diligently they hired and promoted protected classes. [...] Many newspapers made sure that coverage was diverse, too, with USA Today famously decreeing every day there had to be a photo of a non-white on the front page, above the fold. Many papers also rated reporters on their sources, marking them down if they quoted too many white men. At the Los Angeles Times, there is a Latino Team that meets every day to ensure Hispanics get the coverage they deserve. At many papers, says Mr. McGowan, there is a vice president for diversity who makes sure the right people are hired and the news has the right tint. [...] “Many younger journalists,” explains Mr. McGowan, “particularly members of minorities, see objectivity as a reflection of ‘white’ cultural values.” Managers and editors apparently see nothing wrong with this. They gladly send writers off to associations of black, Hispanic, or homosexual journalists, where there is open plotting about how to slant the news."

Political correctness and entertainment media

Engineers and computer experts, for example, are often women in entertainment media, despite this being uncommon in real life.

Regarding race, Affirmative action policies and other changes have increased the prevalence of non-Whites in professional and technical occupations, but the politically correct entertainment media has a tendency to, for example, portray engineers as Blacks instead of East Asians.

Depictions of crime is one of the most politically correct areas, with Whites grossly over-represented as criminals compared to actual crime statistics. See also Race and crime.

Holocaust fictional descriptions, such as Schindler's List, and Hollywood Nazism are other very politically correct areas.

Science fiction and related areas often contains various politically correct messages. See, for example, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Comic book.

See also Homosexuality: Media Propaganda.

Changes "within the form"

Aristotle stated that "People do not easily change, but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about a revolution in the state." Thus, in Antiquity, if change was desired by the rulers, then the outward forms of the ancient laws were often retained while the meanings were changed and/or modifying laws added.

Today there is much less reluctance to completely replace old laws and words with new laws and words (as noted above), but the tactic of attempting to change the meaning of, for example, old words is also used. One example is attempts to change the meaning of race from a biological (genetic) concept to a mere social construct.

Another example is Garet Garrett who used the expression "revolution within the form" and criticized an argued change of meaning of the U.S. Constitution from a document that restricted government power over the individual, to one that endorsed and legitimated such power.

See also

• All men are created equal
• Critical theory
• Cultural Marxism
• Newspeak
• Thoughtcrime

External link

• Political correctness - The Revenge of Marxism
• The Origins of Political Correctness
• Political correctness on Conservapedia