Starting the conversation about political correctness, at first it is necessary to say what it is and where it came from. Political correctness is practice of the direct or mediated interdiction for the use of words and the expressions which are considered offensive for certain social groups, allocated on the basis of race, a sex, age, creed, sexual orientation, etc.
The first aim of political correctness is aspiration to avoid political problems in multiracial, multinational, multiconfessional, democratic societies. In the United States it is especially important: the political correctness there is elevated to one of the fundamental principles of the state. For example, once the society decided that it was not correct to call Negroes like that, and they started calling them black. Then they decided that this can be offensive too, and now they´re called African-Americans.
There are some examples of incorrect usage of words by famous politicians. President of Georgia Mikheii Saakashvili followed former President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko were accused of xenophobia. Criticizing customs officers he stated that their searching of luggage of tourists and citizens of Georgia was inadmissible, and influences the authority of the country and the development of tourism. «When you go to Europe, are you or your luggage searched by anyone? Are we Negroes or what? Why do we behave as if we were savages?» In a similar way in April last year Viktor Yushchenko, during a meeting in the Kyiv region pertaining to agriculture Issues, compared a good-for-nothing worker with a Moldavian: «You are like a Moldavian», he told him. And then he specified right away: «I´m sorry, I didn´t mean the nation». Then he was demanded to apologize, the Moldavian diaspora was especially persistent, and during a press conference he stated that it was a bad joke.
Certainly, neither Saakashvili nor Yushchenko intended to offend Negroes or Moldavians. They just used language constructions that exist in the Georgian and Ukrainian languages. And each of the languages contains lots of similar expressions. For example: «Changeable as the Gypsy´s sun». When we use this proverb, we don´t have any intentions to offend the Gypsies. Similar idiomatic expressions slip out of our mouth mechanically, without any ulterior motives. From the viewpoint of political correctness it is wrong, but that is the way it is.
Библиографическая ссылка
Седых М.А., Васильченко А.С. ЗНАЧИМОСТЬ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ КОРРЕКТНОСТИ // Успехи современного естествознания. – 2012. – № 5. – С. 145-145;URL: https://natural-sciences.ru/ru/article/view?id=30236 (дата обращения: 19.04.2024).