‘Political correctness’: the politics of culture and language

Fairclough, Norman. (2003). Discourse Society, 14 (1), 17-28.

Fairclough locates the controversy of political correctness (PC) around cultural politics, in particular, within the context of a controversy over language. From this perspective, his main question revolves around how to achieve political or social change through cultural/lingual politics.

He explains the grounds of emergence of PC: the increasing impact of culture industries on social life and growing competitive global economy have turned education as a primary concern of right politics in order to form and transformation identities and values through 'cultural governance'. Left politics, however, was behind. He writes:

"Meanwhile, left politics, unable to respond to these social transformations and the ideological assault of the New Right and neo-liberalism with an effective counter-hegemonic strategy (Hall,
1994), has become fragmented. They are no longer centred upon the political parties and social classes but oriented to ‘single issues’ and to a politics of recognition, identity and difference as much as to a politics of re-distributive social justice." (p. 21)

Fairclough sharply points out that PC is cultural interventions (changing representations, identities, and values as a way of social change) orchestrated by Reagan and Thatcher at different levels of socio-economic-political practices as part of projects for changing culture and discourse--neo-liberal discourse.

In responding to his main question, Fairclough criticizes the fragmentation of the left that remains only at a rhetoric level of PC. Instead, he calls for a hegemonic politics that brings together interventions of various levels of the social.

In particular, he calls attention to the critique of PC in the context of the controversy over political asylum as it is crucial to the analysis of contemporary global migration. [I should look for a debate over this issue.]