OT: Origin of "Politically Correct", was Re: Hressa-Hlab

In a message dated 3/8/2003 11:04:44 AM Eastern Standard Time,
cowan@MERCURY.CCIL.ORG writes:


> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
> > > (Remember, the phrase "politically correct" started out as a leftist
> > > joke.)
> >
> > It did?
>
> It began as a humorous critique by moderate leftists of doctrinaire
> Marxists, who were implicitly accused of having two standards of truth,
> the ordinary one and the what-is-good-for-the-Party one.  The Stalinist
> phrase "objective enemy" for anybody with too much money, however
> supportive of the Revolution, is the kind of thing we had in mind.
> See also George Orwell's _1984_, where the ruling party calls its ideology
> "Ingsoc" (English Socialism) because it is utterly opposed to any kind
> of socialism.
>
> > I find it most commonly used against leftists, particularly of
> > culturally radical flavour, so it appears they tasting their own medicine
> then.
>
> That has come to be the case, yes.
>
>
I remember reading an anecdote about a woman who bought a T-shirt proclaiming
herself "Politically incorrect" back when it meant "sure I believe all the
right liberal things, but I'm not inflexibly, humorlessly dogmatic about
them" and then had to discard it when the meaning changed to something more
like "I'm completely opposed to all liberal positions."  (I'm paraphrasing
her views on the changing meanings of the phrase, not providing mine.)

For interested parties, here are two web pages discussing the phrase:

http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/PC/pc-orig.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_correct

Doug