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	Political correctness is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 19, 2004 Refreshing brilliant prose Kept March 8, 2004 Featured article review Demoted May 12, 2004 Featured article candidate Promoted July 14, 2004 Featured article review Demoted Current status: Former featured article

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: "Offensive or just too sensitive?". New Zealand Herald. October 29, 2005.

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Some ideas for improving article.

Ok Ive thought a lot about this and rather than the RFC route, I would like to work collaboratively with other editors here. Summer has a point about beating a dead horse with the whole example thing. For the time being, I will no longer push for an example of PC in the article. It appears to be fraught with difficulty, partially because it is indeed an objective definition. I still feel it might help illustrate the concept, but apparently consensus doesn't agree. I really do want to improve this project - can everyone AGF for the moment and give me a chance here?

Moving forward, I had some ideas for improving the article. user:Pincrete, user:SummerPhDv2.0, and user:Koncorde, what do you think about the following: My idea was to choose one of the topics below, do some research on it, and then add to the article.

• A more thorough examination of political correctness as a real phenomena (as opposed to a pejorative or a way to dismiss an argument). The underlying problem is that labeling PC as a pejorative almost suggests that it doesn't exist. After all, the core beliefs of the PC doctrine are certainly something to aspire to, and there are plenty of sources discussing this. I think the perjorative sense refers to PC taken to the extreme - perhaps there is an "acceptable" level of Political correctness.

• Alternatively, perhaps an examination of the dangers inherent in attempting to communicate in a "politically correct" manner. For example, in an effort to avoid offending the most sensitive members of society, we ban the use of perfectly accurate descriptive phrases for fear of running afoul of people with a political agenda. (For example, if we don't know someone's legal status, the phrase "undocumented immigrant" may be accurate. But it is not necessarily an accurate substitute for "illegal immigrant")

• Finally, I was thinking of expanding how PC has evolved over the last 20 years and how millenials now view it (not so much as a political stance, but as a way of life). In the 1980's and 1990's it was a sarcastic reference to the "thought police", whereas today PC is less about enforcing a worldview and more about protecting people from emotional harm (like when that college told students not to wear Halloween costumes that might potentially be offensive. Maybe tie in how social media has amplified outrage?

These were three ideas that I had. If I am completely off base then I give up entirely. But I am hoping that one of the three bullets above describes a way to improve the article. I am happy to do the legwork and then you guys can edit or change or whatever. Let me know. Thank you!! 2602:301:772D:62D0:14D5:1D9B:B292:18B5 (talk) 06:34, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

No one objects to examples per se, they (I?) object to a random selection of examples. 'PC', largely speaking doesn't exist as a philosophy/as a practice/ as a policy etc.. 9 times out of 10 (in public discourse at least) , it is a criticism. If I call a policy or action 'politically correct', I am very rarely saying it is a good thing, I am probably saying it is stupid or unfair or censorious. I am usually not only saying it is a bad idea, but also questioning the motives of the proposer, as if they are simply lefty-clones incapable of independent thought, simply following a political orthodoxy.

The usage has changed in recent years (I think), especially in US. To some there the term is more 'normal', while for the 'alt-right', it almost means 'anything I don't like'. The trouble is we can't extrapolate from original sources to 'prove' this. Good secondary sources (mainly books), need to do this, and they haven't been written AFAIK.

What are the dangers of PC? What words have been banned or are avoided (anywhere). I don't know about any "Halloween costumes" stories, but since the beginning of time people have been advised to avoid wearing things/saying things that offended others. I suspect that this is one of those media examples which might be an example of a stupid policy or piece of advice in some obscure place somewhere, or which is just as likely to be an example of media misrepresentation (see above). Many of the examples in books in the 90's discrediting 'PC', were basically true. The trouble was that all the books used the same handful of examples to prove some general point. A single college/school somewhere comes up with a daft policy or implements it over-zealously perhaps, a book distorts its daftness further .... civilisation as we know it is ending. In the UK, almost all the examples in the media turned out to be fake or distorted beyond recognition, comedic effect and stimulating outrage taking precedence over accuracy. I have in my own life come across examples of speech that I regard as stupidly 'PC" but nobody makes me use, just as I don't have to use business/govermental euphemisms (downsizing? collateral damage?), that are also evasive. Most people use the word 'gay' and avoid racial slurs because they choose to, not because language has been banned, if people don't like daft policies or daft language, they ignore them. Most people don't see anything offensive about the word 'blind', so they use it, others disagree so they don't and medical professionals use medical terms. So?

Who exactly is forcing anyone to do be 'PC', and (from WP's PoV), where are the RSs for these assertions? Pincrete (talk) 08:03, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Well maybe this will make what I am trying to say more clear. The article (as it stands) almost seems to frame political correctness as a term used to criticize a policy or rule or whatever, rather than framing political correctness as the motivating ideology behind those policies. Does that make sense? I believe we need to expand on the ideology itself - not necessarily the term as a criticism.

And regarding your question about the dangers of PC, I probably phrased that poorly. What I was trying to say, is political correctness can lead to the ban of accurate descriptive phrases for fear of offending people with a political agenda. Again, if we don't know someone's legal status, the phrase "undocumented immigrant" may be accurate. But it is not necessarily an accurate substitute for "illegal immigrant". The danger is context becoming lost. ETA - Pincrete you mentioned that you don't use racial slurs - neither do I. But what about the word "niggardly"? It's most certainly not a racial slur but several years back in Chicago there was an uproar leading to an alderman's resignation for using the word. (he was eventually re-hired I believe). Do you see how there was an overreaction in this case? The alderman was initially asked to resign because it was believed his words caused offense - even though there was nothing offensive about them. This is the type of thing I am talking about. 23.114.214.45 (talk) 09:36, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

That's not political correctness, that's stupidity. The issue is decisions are taken by people based upon unknown factors, and someone points at those factors and says "that's political correctness" but there is then almost no actual verification or validation. It's just an accusation / defence. Is that a phenomena? Possibly. Is it one that has been discussed in reliable sources? Not to my knowlwdge, but if they exist then they would add to this article.

In the end you need to bring sourced material. Without that, this is a fishing expedition and close to WP:OR. Koncorde (talk) 09:40, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

The 'niggardly' incident did happen, I know, but so what? A stupid misunderstanding which was sorted out, a mistake more easily made in speech than writing. Any 'rule' (legal or social), can cause unforeseeable results occasionally. A child gets caught simply retrieving his ball from his neighbour's garden and ends up in police custody ... so let's get rid of burglary laws? I'm more familiar with UK examples than US ones and it is pretty reliably documented that most of these media stories are apocryphal, or are turned on their heads to make sure that councils/schools/govt are presented as being too soft on non-whites, women, foreigners, gays and the disabled. The target moves, 25 years ago it was mainly blacks and lesbians, these days it's mainly Eastern Europeans, refugees and Muslims.

Most of the 'millenial' stories in UK are apocryphal. What HAS changed, and is probably a bad thing, is that UK schools etc are now more afraid of exposing kids to physical risk (in pursuit of sport etc) than they were 50 years ago, but the reason for that is increased legislation by govts from both the left and right. Everybody blames it on 'PC', everybody says it's a bad thing - until of course their child is injured, when they immediately sue/complain.

But this is all 'off-topic', phenomena discussed extensively in RS are what count here. Pincrete (talk) 10:34, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

ps re: the motivating ideology behind those policies. Unfortunately that would necessarily be WHAT CRITICS SAY is the motivating ideology behind those policies because those who advance policies never say "I'm doing this in order to be more PC" unless they are being ironic, nor do THEY characterise what 'PC' is, nor do they see themselves as having a single philosophy, all of these are solely in the eyes of the critics. This is full circle to what I say earlier, we identify that critics don't like certain policies (eg speech codes), we don't say at present WHY the critics object to these policies, but doing that neutrally is not easy. Pincrete (talk) 10:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Someone does something. A writer calls it "political correctness gone awry" or some such. That tells us something about the event and something about the actor(s) and the writer. If later sources about the event, actor(s) or writer discuss it, the matter might deserve mention in a Misplaced Pages article about the event, actor(s) or writer. It does not cross the threshold for this article, much as Murder does not include an indiscriminate collection of murders.

This article is not about the events, actors and writers involved in situations that one or more of them call "political correctness". An indiscriminate list of situations that have been called PC here would tell us more about the person or people creating the list that it would about "political correctness".

A cupcake, car, tree or shovel is a thing. For the most part, most people will agree that a Honda Civic is a car and an oak is a tree. Yes, in Car we can certainly discuss which cars to show in the main image and which cars, images and examples are good to discuss in "lighting", "weight", "safety", etc. -- with coverage in independent reliable sources leading the way (I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a section on car "Mass production" that doesn't discuss the Model T). Car buffs, collectors, etc. no doubt have their favorite cars and would like to see them in the articles, but swapping out a photo of a Honda Civic's wipers for those of a Toyota isn't really biasing the article.

Political correctness, racism, tokenism, homophobia, etc. are concepts. People will disagree as to whether or not relabeling "raisins" and "grapes" as "sun-dried raisins" and "fresh grapes" is political correctness or just good business sense (really). We cannot present one incident as the example par excellence of PC. There are countless thousands of would-be political commentators, spin doctors, trolls, etc. with favorite causes that they would like to see included in articles as examples of whatever they would like to label them. Independent reliable sources directly discussing political correctness must lead the way. It allows us to objectively decide whether "racism" more often refers to, for example, Jim Crow laws (according to the New York Times, various academic presses, the United Nations, etc.) or affirmative action (according to Stormfront, Breitbart and the American Nazi Party).

Either you get it or you don't. So far, you just haven't gotten it. Johnny needs to skip a step or get out of the way. - SummerPhD 15:34, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Changing lede from negative to positive

Currently the lede states that PC is the avoidance of language, policies etc which may be offensive. Per MOS, would it not make more sense to have the lede state something like "PC is used to describe language, policies etc designed not to offend". It's a small difference but is supported by sources, and describes PC by what it obstenaibly does as opposed to what it avoids. Any thoughts? 23.242.67.118 (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Current lede is based on dictionary definitions which use "avoidance". Koncorde (talk) 00:10, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

that makes sense. One other question - we could trim down the lede sentence by using "excessively calculated" and then getting rid of "these policies are seen as excesssive". Any thoughts on this? 2600:1012:B008:608:FC78:AD86:DA6B:4876 (talk) 00:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

The whole point of alleging political correctness is to pin unnecessary and excessive behavior on an opponent, as sourced. - SummerPhD 01:44, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

For a long time we had a slightly simpler definition, recently a visiting IP insisted that every word must be sourcable in 'un-paraphrased' form, therefore it was changed to the present version, which is somewhat cumbersome IMO. I don't think it works to 'define positively', the ordinary words for not offending are words like 'courtesy'.'PC', almost by definition, is seen as being excessive/unnec/euphemistic avoidance. Also we should not lose sight of the fact that policies, as much as language, have been targetted as 'PC'. In the US, the original primary focus was higher education and 'equality measures'. Actions not words. Pincrete (talk) 08:17, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Explaining by example

My! but this is a controversial article! I wonder if it mightn’t be easier simply to give an example of political correctness in action. Here is one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of the phenomenon. Notice, for example, the lengths to which one contributor goes to try to avoid criticism either for their views being seen as offensive or for going to such lengths in the first place. 76.80.153.165 (talk) 03:09, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

All I see is a anonymous editor from the Los Angeles area who just doesn't get it. Linking to the article as an example and a completely circular link to the topic you just started don't help. - SummerPhD 03:56, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

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Problematic synthesis in 1980s and 1990s section

This paragraph claims;

"Liberal commentators have argued that the conservatives and reactionaries who used the term did so in effort to divert political discussion away from the substantive matters of resolving societal discrimination – such as racial, social class, gender, and legal inequality – against people whom conservatives do not consider part of the social mainstream."

Liberalism, contrary to Socialism, is not interested in class politics in the way that is implied here. They give lip service to being against racism perhaps, but I don't think liberals even pretend to talk about class at all and are essentially reactionaries who support capitalism themselves. We need to make even more clear that there is no connection between Marxist-Leninist "political correctness" (ie - rejection of revisionism and deviationist tendencies within Marxism) and the Liberal/New Left, Anglo-Saxon thing which is about promoting bourgeois ideas like feminism, homosexual "rights", transgenderism, etc. Specifically, we need to be even more explicit that Marxist-Leninism isn't about what is widely called "political correctness" today; bourgeois social liberalism and proletarian class struggle are not remotely connected. Claíomh Solais (talk) 01:15, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

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