Political correctness: Good or bad?


Although political correctness as a term came into usage in the 1990s, we can safely say that it is largely a concept of the new millennium in the sense of how we use it today as well as its widespread use that has been seen in the 21st century. As the name suggests, its usage went hand in hand with politics as well as in the media.

The language aspect of political correctness was intended not to discriminate, offend or instill any other undue negativity onto a social group whether it is through race or gender. It has worked well for quite some time as it has put a stop to years of casual discrimination instilled into our daily language since we have been continually exposed to politically incorrect terms via the media or different cultural works such as movies, books, talk shows etc.

However, despite the effectiveness of the method on stomping discriminating wording, it led to complaints over time. After all, everything in life is better in moderation and political correctness isn't any different. New words were added continuously to the bigotry list at a tremendous rate during the late 2010s and as a result, the term itself along with the original meaning started to suffer. Even in the media the term political correctness started to be used as a pejorative that indicates excessiveness. However, as polarization around the world seems to be on the rise in regard to old problems such as race whether it is in United States with the shootings or the refugee crisis in Europe, it seems that once again we have to take a look at the origins of political correctness.

After all, considering there is quite a majority that now considers using politically incorrect words that border on discrimination as a form of sincerity, it is high time for us to debate the subject. Especially considering that these two fronts seems to clash in a platform as important as the United States 2016 Presidential Elections.