Political correctness adjectivally: politically correct ; commonly abbreviated PC is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Early usage of the term politically correct by leftists in the s and s was as self-critical satire ; usage was ironic, rather than a name for a serious political movement.
The modern pejorative usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late 20th century.
This usage was popularized by a number of articles in The New York Times and other media throughout the s, [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] and was widely used in the debate surrounding Allan Bloom 's book The Closing of the American Mind. Commentators on the political left in the United States contend that conservatives use the concept of political correctness to downplay and divert attention from substantively discriminatory behavior against disadvantaged groups.
William Safire states that the first recorded use of the term politically correct in the typical modern sense is by Toni Cade Bambara in the anthology The Black Woman. In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In , The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct".
As MarxistβLeninist movements gained political power, the phrase came to be associated with accusations of dogmatic application of doctrine in debates between American Communists and American Socialists. This usage referred to the Communist party line which, in the eyes of the Socialists, provided "correct" positions on all political matters. According to American educator Herbert Kohl , writing about debates in New York in the late s and early s,. The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics.
