About 80% of Americans think “political correctness is a problem”
And lots of people who agree with statements about hate speech being bad, white people starting out with advantages in life, sexual harassment being a problem, etc, also think political correctness is a problem.
How much of this is about the definition of political correctness? I haven’t seen the term used positively since the 90s, while people only seem to care more about correct speech. I suspect many people who say they hate political correctness nonetheless support punishing a lot of kinds of speech.
I don’t recall literally ever seeing the term unironically used positively, only the insinuation that someone else (usually on the left) thought it was a good thing. In the mid 20th Century the term was commonly used among leftists to make fun of party-line Communists, and in later decades, it was commonly used in ironic self-criticism on the left.
I have seen the term used positively in the Trump era. My guess is that this is a reaction to it becoming a rhetorical point that it is bad, which makes others respond that it is good.
Whereas before that, the term had been abandoned due to its negative connotations. Part of my model of this is that people support censoring specific things but are against censoring in general. Just like they say the government/corporation spends too much but are individually in favor of every government program and against firing anyone.
How much of this is about the definition of political correctness? I haven’t seen the term used positively since the 90s, while people only seem to care more about correct speech. I suspect many people who say they hate political correctness nonetheless support punishing a lot of kinds of speech.
I don’t recall literally ever seeing the term unironically used positively, only the insinuation that someone else (usually on the left) thought it was a good thing. In the mid 20th Century the term was commonly used among leftists to make fun of party-line Communists, and in later decades, it was commonly used in ironic self-criticism on the left.
I have seen the term used positively in the Trump era. My guess is that this is a reaction to it becoming a rhetorical point that it is bad, which makes others respond that it is good.
Whereas before that, the term had been abandoned due to its negative connotations. Part of my model of this is that people support censoring specific things but are against censoring in general. Just like they say the government/corporation spends too much but are individually in favor of every government program and against firing anyone.