General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: “Political correctness”: decoding a vicious, pernicious code word [View all]Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)American leftists in the 1970s adopted it in a self-consciously parodic way:
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness#Early-to-mid_20th_century
Stuart Hall suggests one way in which the original use of the term may have developed into the modern one:
According to one version, political correctness actually began as an in-joke on the left: radical students on American campuses acting out an ironic replay of the Bad Old Days BS (Before the Sixties) when every revolutionary groupuscule had a party line about everything. They would address some glaring examples of sexist or racist behaviour by their fellow students in imitation of the tone of voice of the Red Guards or Cultural Revolution Commissar: 'Not very "politically correct", Comrade!'[10]
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Now, it's used as a cudgel by the right against the left (or more accurately, since we don't seem to actually have an American left anymore) against the identity politics folks. Of course, sometimes the identity politics folks make it easy. There are many threads here that could be (and probably are) ridiculed as PC. Huge threads over "a woman scorned" being one example.