1

Talking Sense about Political Correctness

Over the last seven years or so the expression political correctness

has entered the political lexicon across the English speaking world.
Hundreds of opinion
pieces in newspaper and magazines have been written about political
correctness as well of scores of academic articles about it and the
debates in which the expression gained its currency.

It is close to

being received opinion in Anglo-American popular culture that a

coalition of feminists, ethnic minorities, socialists and homosexuals
have achieved such hegemony in the public sphere as to make
possible their censorship, or at least the effective silencing, of views
which

differ

from

supposed

politically

correct

orthodoxy.

Correspondingly, it has become a popular tactic, especially in

conservative political circles, to accuse ones political opponents of
being politically correct.

In this paper I want to make a number of points about political

correctness.

Although

individually

these

arguments

seem

straightforward - and will

hopefully be uncontroversial - put together in context they reveal the
idea of

a politically correct,

left-wing dominated, media or

intelligentsia in Western political culture to be a conservative

bogeyman.

The rhetoric of political correctness is in fact

overwhelmingly a right-wing conservative one which itself is used

mainly to silence dissenting political viewpoints.

But the same

investigation also suggests that a politics of speech is an inevitable

fact of social life and that some sorts of censorship are likewise
inevitable.

The question of censorship is therefore revealed as not

Whether we should tolerate all sorts of speech? but Which sorts of

speech should we tolerate?.

Before I continue I should make it clear what I am talking about when I

talk about political correctness.

I intend only to discuss political

correctness as it relates to the regulation and politics of speech. In

treating political correctness in this way I am deliberately narrowing
the scope of my inquiry. In the United States, for instance, political
correctness is used to refer to a whole series of progressive
initiatives concerning changes to the literary canon taught at
universities, the teaching of post-modern and critical literary theory
and cultural studies, affirmative action for racial and ethnic minorities
as well as women,
sexual assault and harassment and regulations regarding campus
hate speech.1 In Australia, also, the term has some currency in the
conservative attack on multiculturalism and on attempts to rectify the
injustices perpetrated in the past and continuing in the present
against Aboriginal Australians.

Indeed contemporary usage of the

term suggests that its application has arguably

widened to refer to progressive politics as a whole. But despite such
wider uses, its primary meaning in the Australian context, is to refer
to the criticism and regulation of speech and it is the coherence and
implications of this sense of political correctness that I wish to discuss.

1 For an account of the history and politics of the wider political

correctness debate in the United States, see Wilson, John, The Myth
of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education,
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995). There is now an
extensive literature on the political correctness phenomenon.

For

an introduction to this literature see the bibliography of Williams,

Jeffrey (ed) PC Wars: Politics and Theory in the Academy (New York:
Routledge, 1995).

Furthermore, even in this limited sphere, it seems to me that there are

two discourses of political correctness in existence today, although
one is rapidly being replaced by the other. Both of them purport to
describe the same
phenomenon, albeit in very different ways.
One of these, the one which is being overwhelmed, is what I shall
characterise as a discourse from the Left, which embraces political
correctness as the effort to be careful in our use of language in order
not to exclude members of social groups, such as women, non English
speakers, homosexuals or the disabled,
from full political and civic participation and more generally to avoid
expressing disrespect, whether intentionally or unintentionally, for
members of oppressed or marginalised social groups. 2

Those who

have been concerned with the

2 In fact I have my reservations about the extent to which a Left wing discourse of
political correctness, in Australia at least, did exist prior to and independently of
the right wing attack on it. There was a concern with the politics of language and
culture which was reflected in the promotion of gender-inclusive language and a
sensitivity to issues of representation in general.

But the term political

correctness had no widespread currency. I suspect the use of the language of

political correctness by some sections of the Left to refer to these commitments
was the result of a failure to resist the discourse of the Right when the term began
to appear in the popular press. For the origins and history of the expression in the
United States, see Wilson, op cit, Chapter 1.

For a brief history of the debate

about political correctness in Australia, see Davis, Mark, Gangland (St Leonards,
N.S.W: Allan and Unwin, 1997), Chapter 3.

See, for instance, Perry, Richard and

Williams, Patricia Freedom of Hate Speech in Paul Berman(ed), Debating PC (New

York: Laurel Trade, 1992), 225-30; Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin, The Great Backlash in
Dunant, Sarah (ed), The War of the Words: The Political Correctness Debate
(London: Virago, 1994), 55-75.

See also the history of PC politics in the U.K.

provided by Stuart Hall in Some Politically Incorrect Pathways, in Dunant, 164183.

politics of speech in this fashion are typically also concerned with

social justice more broadly and are willing to enlist the state and
redistributive welfare spending in the attempt to overcome the
disadvantages facing various
oppressed and minority groups.3

The other, a discourse from the Right, which is in my judgement the

dominant discourse, is hostile to political correctness, which they
understand as an attempt by the Left to impose a certain political
vision on an unwitting community and to silence dissenting political
opinion. According to the Right there are some things that people are
not allowed to say, or are perhaps too frightened to say, because of
the hegemony of a feminist, gay and anti-racist politics in the
universities, media and intelligentsia.

This notion of political

correctness gained currency through the writings and activities of a

number of high-profile conservative and neo-conservative authors in
the United States, such as Allan Bloom, Dinesh DSouza, Roger
Kimball and Nat Hentoff,
sometimes with the benefit of funding from conservative Christian
think tanks.

Its proponents are often religious traditionalists or

cultural conservatives, are typically hostile to feminism, socialism and

homosexuality and opposed to affirmative action programs and other

redistributive social welfare programs.3

I will be largely concerned with the discourse of political correctness

as it is used by the Right. One of my aims here however is to provide
a qualified
defence of the discourse of the Left.5

I. The first thing we need to do to understand the issues around

political

correctness

is

to

distinguish

between

criticism

and

censorship. Much of the debate around political correctness treats the

issue as one of censorship.

But, in fact, most of what is labelled

political correctness by the Right is merely criticism of opposing

viewpoints, rather than the demand that the state should intervene to
3 Bloom, Allan, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1987); DSouza, Dinesh, Illiberal Education (New York: The Free Press, 1991), esp.
Chapter 5, The New Censorship; Kimball, Roger, Tenured Radicals: How Politics
Has Corrupted Our Higher Education (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991); Hentoff,
Nat, Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). For
an account of the involvement of conservative think tanks in the US in shaping the
debate on PC and funding conservative authors see Neilson, Jim, The Great PC
Scare: Tyrannies of the Left, Rhetoric of the Right in Williams, op cit. For more
general discussion of the politics of the campaign against PC in the US, see the
introduction to Berube, Michael, Public Access: Literary Theory and American
Cultural Politics (London & New York: Verso, 1994). For the Australian case, see
Davis, op cit.

Of course this distinction is somewhat overdrawn.

It is a minor

feature of the debate around political correctness that a number of prominent left
wing and liberal commentators have seen fit to take up the usage of political
correctness pioneered by the right. See, for instance, the contributions of Melanie
Philips and Christopher Hitchens in Dunant, op cit But it is the argument of this
paper that, despite the liberal intentions of some of its proponents, this discourse
of political correctness is a profoundly conservative one with reactionary
consequences. See also Alibhai-Brown, op cit.

prevent a view from being heard. Thus, for instance, criticism of a

film for being sexist or racist will be labelled as an attempt to enforce
political correctness and thus characterised as an attempt to censor
an exercise of free speech.

But there is a large gap between

criticising something and saying that it should be censored. Even if

the critics review said something along the lines of This is a terrible
film. It is a sexist film. It should have never have been made and,
now that it has been made, no-one should go and see it this is still a
far cry
from saying that the government should have intervened to prevent it
from being made or distributed. Indeed it is quite common for people
to make the most damning criticism of an intellectual position they
dislike but defend the right of their opponents to voice it. This is, after
all, a standard liberal move. There are obvious dangers involved in
censorship, due to the nature of state power, which may well give us
cause to pause before we demand that the government should step in
to prevent an opinion that we dont like from being heard or voiced.
But they give us no reason not to say that we dislike the opinion and
that it is a stupid opinion that no-one in their right mind could take
seriously. Thats criticism, not censorship, and it is a normal - indeed
a
necessary - part of political debate.

This slide between criticism and censorship is large part of what

makes the right-wing discourse of political correctness so powerful.
After all, no-one likes a censor.

Usually, however, it is a dishonest

slide. In fact, on the Left, calls for actual state backed censorship are
uncommon.4
4

Most of what is labelled political correctness is just

The exception

pornography

of

course being

championed

by

feminist campaigns

Andrea

Dworkin

and

against

Catherine

McKinnon. But these calls have notably also been supported by the

political criticism and thus, in these cases, discussion of the evils of

censorship is a red herring.

Recognising this distinction alone is

sufficient to dismiss a substantial proportion of the uses of the term in

day to day
political life.

In many cases then, when the Right condemns political correctness,

their real target is political criticism.

But this hostility to criticism

obviously occurs selectively. When people are critical of a racists

public statements they are guilty of political correctness and by
implication of siding with the censors.

When the racist expresses

their racist sentiments they are exercising their freedom of speech.

This convenient flexibility as to what counts as censorship and what

counts as speech is another feature of the right-wing discourse of
political correctness which contributes to its effectiveness as a
powerful conservative rhetorical tool.

Of course, it is possible for a repressive orthodoxy to grow up in a

community.

Governments are not the only source of effective

censorship.

There is also the possibility of, what Mill described as,

the despotism of custom acting to effectively silence dissent. 6 This

Moral Majority and in any case have been largely unsuccessful.
5 This paper was written in a period following the election of an
Independent MP, Pauline Hanson, to the Parliament of Australia.
Hanson was widely criticised for her open racism. She responded to
her critics by calling them politically correct. In the same period the
Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard, refused to criticise her expression of
racist views on the grounds that she had a right to free speech.
6 Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, ed. David Spitz (New York: Norton & Co.,
1975), 66-67.

informal but equally effective censorship may even be more

pernicious then censorship by the state, which has at least the virtues
of being explicit and usually heavy handed. Certain opinions might be
so widely and strongly held in community that dissident views are
subject to such a barrage of criticism that they cannot be heard or
that people may become too intimidated to voice them. And this is
presumably what conservative critics of political correctness in are
claiming has happened.7 This is apparently why so many, although
not themselves racist, embrace the open expression of racist opinions
- they admire speakers saying what others have been too scared to
say, supposedly because of their fear of a torrent of condemnation
from PC critics.10 I will consider the plausibility of this claim shortly.

Before I go on however, I want to note the irony of the fact that the
conservative attack on political correctness actually concedes that
criticism - mere speech - does have the power to influence and to
silence others in politically significant ways. This is after all the
starting point of a left-wing concern with the politics of speech.

It

seems therefore that the Left and the Right in the debate surrounding
political correctness actually agree, contrary to traditional liberals,
that the
things we say and the rhetorics we use to express them may limit the
possibilities for other different viewpoints to be expressed and heard
and are therefore a proper subject for public political concern. Where
they differ is on is their assessments of who is in danger of being

7 See for instance, DSouza, op cit, Chapter 5. See also Davis, op cit.

10

It was for

instance the implication of Australian Prime Minister John Howards claim after his
recent election, in a political context where Independent MP Pauline Hanson had
also been elected as an open racist, that there was a new atmosphere of openness
in Australian politics and that this constituted a victory for freedom of speech.

silenced and marginalised in contemporary political discourse and

what sorts of discursive practices are
responsible for this silencing.

II. The next thing which needs to be said is to point out that, in reality,
the vast majority of both formal (state) and informal (social)
censorship originates on the Right.8

Before we get too concerned about the sorts of things that the Left
would prefer we did not say, we should have a look at what sorts of
speech we are already forbidden. In fact its quite a bit. From time
immemorial, governments have made it a crime to voice certain
opinions in public and continue to do so till this day. 12

Thus, for

instance, in most jurisdictions around the world legislation exists that

forbids speech which encourages criminal activities or incites riots,
which defames or libels, or which threatens the national interest.
There is also the censorship of film and literature which offends
community standards, which goes on under the auspices of various
8 For accounts of the history of censorship in Australia, see Coleman, Peter,
Obscenity, Blasphemy, Sedition, (Brisbane: Jacaranda Press, 1975), Martin, Brian et
al

(ed),

Intellectual

Suppression:

Australian

Case

Histories,

Analysis

and

Responses, (Sydney: Angus and Robinson, 1986), and Pollack, Michael, Sense &
Censorship: Commentaries on censorship violence in Australia, (Sydney: Reed
Books, 1990). For a discussion of censorship on the grounds of public morality in
the United Kingdom and United States see MacMillan, Peter, Censorship and Public
Morality (Aldershot: Gower, 1983).

12

As Wilson, op cit, p 91 notes, the US Supreme

Court has accepted limits on fee speech in cases of immediate harm, captive
audiences, criminal threat, obscenity, immediate riot and time, place and manner
restrictions.

The relevant cases, according to Wilson, are Shenck v. United

States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919): Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298 (1974);
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973): Brandengurg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 44 (1969):
Heffron, 452 U.S. 640 (1981).

10

boards of censors or offices of Film & Literature Classification. Such

censorship,

by

appointed

panels

of

government

officials

or

upstanding members of the community, goes on explicitly to

prevent materials which offend prevailing community standards from
reaching our shores. For most of history this has included such things
as explicit representations of sexuality, writing about various forms of
sexual experience, attacks on the church, communist propaganda
and other materials deemed blasphemous, seditious or obscene. 9
Censorship on conservative grounds has been enforced vigorously for
most of recent history and it continues to occur, although less often,
to this day.

Rather than being the work of feminists, socialists or homosexuals,

the interests protected by this legislation are overwhelmingly
conservative - which may go some way towards explaining why we
hear so little discussion of these restrictions on freedom of speech
in discussions of political correctness.
Besides this array of legal prohibitions, the threat to freedom of
speech from the Left looks insignificant.

There simply isnt any

comparable state backed program of regulation of speech which is

motivated by left-wing concerns. Admittedly, in various jurisdictions
around the world, there is now legislation intended to deter
incitement to racial hatred.

But such legislation merely extends to

members of ethnic groups a similar protection from harm as is

granted to the nation as a whole.

The idea that speech can be

regulated to protect a group (i.e. the nation) from harm is, as I shall
argue further below, already accepted across the political spectrum.
The only thing new about legislation against incitement to racial
hatred is that the group which is protected is sub national. Compared
to legislation which exists to protect the national interest or the
9 See note 11 for sources.

11

reputation of public figures from defamation, the legislation protecting

members of racial groups from vilification is also typically weaker,
invokes smaller penalties and is used less often.10
Perhaps critics of political correctness might admit that the main
threat of censorship does not arise from the state legislating in the
public sphere but instead originates from what they perceive as a
rising tide of efforts to impose formal, but non state, censorship, in
institutions such as schools, universities and
perhaps the press. There have indeed been various attempts to
introduce guidelines and in some case regulations into these
institutions

concerning

campus

hate

language use, sexual harassment etc.

speech,

gender

inclusive

But again, concern for the

public culture of institutions is hardly a recent phenomenon or

exclusively or even mainly the prerogative of the Left.

There have

always been standards about what it was appropriate to teach and

say and do in schools and universities.

Repeated conservative

outcries when sex or drug education groups try to publish materials

which talk openly about gay sex or drug use or introduce them into
the education system should serve to remind us that an enthusiasm
for censorship from the Right in these forums continues to this day. 11
Not only has popular political pressure often been brought to bear on
these institutions to prevent inappropriate voices being heard within
in them, but most institutions also maintain formal mechanisms of

10 For an overview of legislation concerning racial vilification within

Australia and internationally see Duranti, Victor, Racial Vilification: An
Overview of the Issues (Department of the Parliamentary Library,
1994).
11 For discussion of what he calls Conservative correctness on
campuses in the US, see Wilson, op cit, Chapter 2.

12

censorship which can be mobilised if radical voices are raised too

loudly and too often. Most
university statutes, for instance, contain provisions that allow that
staff may be dismissed and students expelled for conduct which
brings the university into disrepute. Schools have codes of behaviour
which they expect their students to
abide by and they may expel them if they do not.

Most non-

government publications which receive government funding are

subject to formal
restrictions as to the purposes to which it can be used or at least face
the prospect of the withdrawal of their funding if they offend the
(conservative) powers that be too grossly.

Even in the supposedly

left-wing arena of the schools, universities and the media, then, it

would be difficult to argue that the major threat of censorship arises
from the Left.12

Perhaps the real threat to freedom of speech, then, occurs not directly
from the government or in the universities or the media but in the
workplace? In some jurisdictions around the world, laws have been
passed concerning sexual harassment in the workplace which
establish penalties for verbal or written sexual harassment such as
unsolicited sexual comments, propositions or innuendo.

Or, as a

result pressure from the womens movement, corporations have

themselves developed policies designed to curb sexual harassment
which target speech of this sort.

The existence of such policies is

claimed by the Right as evidence of political correctness. But again

regulation of speech in the workplace is nothing new, nor is it solely,
or even mostly, the province of the Left.
almost

entirely

conservative,

censorship

There is a great deal of,

which

occurs

in

the

12 For a discussion of political correctness and campus speech

codes see Wilson, op cit, Chapter 4.

13

workplace as a result of the restrictions placed on workers when they

enter the wage-labour agreement. Along with the other freedoms
which workers agree to forgo in return for an income goes freedom of
speech. In some cases the restrictions on the speech of workers will
be explicit, as in cases when workers are forbidden to distribute union
materials or organise in the workplace and when union officials are
denied contact with the workers. Of course, these restrictions operate
only in the workplace and leave workers free to speak their minds
outside of working hours. But restrictions which bind workers outside
of the workplace and working hours are also common. Workers in the
public sector as well as many in the corporate sector are bound by
confidentiality and privacy agreements which restrict their right to
speak both inside and outside of the workplace. 13

Even in the

absence of such formal regulation of speech in (and outside) the

workplace there are almost always informal prohibitions which limit
what is said in and outside the workplace implicit in the wage-labour
contract. The sorts of speech forbidden by these informal edicts are
by and large not racist or sexist remarks but rather criticism of
management, complaints about working conditions, advocacy of
unionisation or anything else the owners of the means of production
disapprove of.

Such limitations do not need to be made formal

conditions of the employment

contract because they are implicit in the power relation between the
worker and management which allows management to threaten the
income of workers. Workers who argue with or are disrespectful to
their bosses, who speak up in defence of their wages and conditions
or who express their true opinions about their firms products or
services to customers jeopardise their employment in doing so.
Workers are well aware of what they can and cannot say within the
13 Legislation concerning privacy, commercial confidentiality and
copyright in fact constitute a

14

workplace without risk of dismissal and those who are not are quickly
made aware of these limits, often by reprimand or threat from the
employer.

Those who continue to voice incorrect sentiments are

removed by sacking. Because they occur in the private sphere of

contract between worker and owner, the implicit restrictions on liberty
which are an integral part of the wage-labour agreement are one of
the least acknowledged sources of censorship.

Yet they prohibit

free speech, for those who work, for eight hours of each day for
most of their lifetime in a significant discursive sphere.

Thus far I have largely been concerned with formal or state sanctioned
censorship. As critics of political correctness have aptly reminded us,
a prevailing climate of opinion may serve to silence dissent just as or
even more

whole class of restrictions on freedom of speech which are seldom recognised in

discussions of the issue. See Drahos, Peter, Decentring Communication: The Dark
Side of Intellectual Property in Campbell, Tom and Sadurski, Wojciech (ed),
Freedom of Communication (Aldershot:
Dartmouth Publishing, 1994).

effectively than the (not so) long arm of the law.

So now let us

consider whether a repressive left-wing orthodoxy exists in this

country or indeed in anywhere in
the world where the term PC has currency. Is the media or even the
university dominated by feminists, socialists, Asians, aborigines and
homosexuals?

Are men, the business community, WASPS and

heterosexuals scared to voice their opinions for fear of being howled

down by a PC Mafia? When members of these groups do bravely have
their say, is it the case that they are consistently ignored, dismissed,
laughed at or otherwise not heard? I cant see it myself. They are
occasionally criticised, usually when they attack the rights or interests
of members of less privileged groups and sometimes - even more

15

occasionally - widely so, when they do so out of ignorance or malice.

But these criticisms hardly silence them or prevent them from being
heard.

Indeed, if the media circus which typically surrounds open

racists is anything to go on then these criticisms unwittingly provoke

them to speak more loudly and be heard more often, as they are
repeatedly sought after by the media to respond to their critics. The
idea that there exists a repressive left-wing orthodoxy in public culture
just seems laughable.14

In fact a much more convincing case can be made for the existence of
a conservative political culture or orthodoxy which marginalises and
silences progressive concerns. If one really wants a demonstration of
the presence of political correctness in Australian culture then there
is no better way to get it than to walk down to the local bar and start
talking loudly and proudly about ones gay lover or even just walk
down the wrong street arm in arm with ones same sex lover. Unless
one is lucky, the importance of not straying outside the bounds of
accepted opinion will be impressed upon you and most likely a good
deal more forcefully than with a few politely spoken words of criticism.
Less dramatic examples can be found if we consider the fate of
feminism and
socialism in mainstream political culture.

It seems to me that

allegiance to either of these ideologies would have to figure amongst

the most politically incorrect statements to make in the current
climate. Identifying oneself as either a
feminist or a socialist more or less guarantees hostility, trivialisation
and ridicule in most forums outside of the academy and some within
it.

So much is this so that many people are reluctant to identify

themselves as such simply because of the misunderstanding and

difficulties it causes. My own experience of raising issues about the
14 Davis, op cit.

16

undemocratic nature of capitalism in the prevailing political climate,

even in the academy, is that those questions are simply dismissed. If
they are not openly laughed at, they are at least not taken seriously.
They are certainly not addressed. They are simply not fashionable. To
put it another way they are not politically correct.

These examples could be extended indefinitely.

Australian culture,

like other Western political cultures, already maintains a vigorous, if

largely unnoticed, sense of political correctness.

But it is a

conservative, white, racist, male-oriented and homophobic one.

It

was precisely in recognition of this that

some on the Left became concerned with issues about the politics of
representation and of language use.

Furthermore, in the current period the right-wing discourse of PC

actually plays a key role in maintaining this conservative political
correctness. Increasingly, criticism of the existing sexist and racist
culture is labelled as just more political correctness and dismissed.
Sometimes it will even be described as
the dictates of the thought police, intellectual fascism or
Stalinist.15 Painting ones critics as PC today achieves a number of
powerful

conservative

rhetorical

effects.

It

valorises

the

conservatives position by making it appear as

though it were a courageous and free-thinking challenge to a
repressive
orthodoxy rather than the banal expression of bigotry it typically is. It
distracts attention from the content of the criticism and reduces it to
15 See Wilson, op cit, p23 and Neilson, Jim, The Great PC Scare:
Tyrannies of the Left, Rhetoric of the Right in Williams, op cit, for lists
of such references in the conservative literature on political
correctness in higher education.

17

merely another attempt by those with totalitarian tendencies to

censor free speech and in this way mitigates the need to respond to
it. When people come to see that to speak out against sexism and
racism means being misrepresented, ridiculed and
dismissed, likened to Hitler and Stalin, they are less likely to do so. In
this way the language of political correctness, as used by the Right,
itself serves to silence dissent.16

III. As the preceding discussion should make clear, almost no-one on

the
political spectrum is willing to advocate that there should be no limits
on public speech.

If the Left would like to see racist, sexist or

homophobic hate speech outlawed and other less explicit forms of

sexism, racism and homophobia
discouraged, the Right is by no means short of targets for the
repressive force of the law or public opinion either.

In case it is

thought that an enthusiasm for censorship is a trait of extremists at

either end of the political spectrum but not of the enlightened liberals
in the middle, let me remind you that the prospect of immediate and
substantial harm to others occurring as the direct result of an act of
speech, at least, is considered by almost everyone to justify
censorship of some sort.

To raise the hackneyed philosophical

example, few are prepared to defend the right of the troublemaker to

cry fire in a crowded theatre. Nor are too many people prepared to
defend the right of a newspaper to personally vilify a public figure or
deliberately publish lies about a community or business project or to
expose the nations carefully constructed and concealed defence
plans.

The fact is that certain sorts of speech can harm important

16 See Fish, Stanley, Theres No Such Thing as Free Speech (New York
& Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), Chapter 7.

18

interests and this is generally recognised to justify restrictions on

those types of speech.17

This might seem too obvious to point out but it is important. Critics of
political correctness like to portray the debate surrounding it as a
conflict between moralistic censors on one side and staunch
defenders of freedom of speech on the other. But this is a misportrait.
Change the sort of speech being defended and the staunch defenders
of free speech are most likely firm believers in the need for
restrictions on the liberty of some to prevent harm to others even in
the realm of speech.
cannot

over

This is an empirical fact about politics, but I

emphasise

how

important

think

it

is

for

the

understanding the debate around censorship and free speech.

There are few theorists and no governments who would support
absolute freedom of speech.

Some sorts of speech, such as those

which publicise the nations defence secrets to the enemy or which

incite violence against members of the community, destroy the very
fabric of the community which makes speech possible.

The real

debate around censorship is not about whether censorship is justified

in some circumstances, because everyone agrees on this. It is about
what justifies it.

Once the debate is understood in this light it

becomes more possible to have an intelligent discussion about

whether or not harm caused to members of minority groups by certain
sorts of speech act might justify restrictions on speech in exactly the
same way as harm caused by libel or defamation to individuals
justifies restrictions on our freedom to libel or defame or in the
same way that the national interest
justifies censorship.18

17 See note 12 for a list of decisions in the US Supreme Court that the
right to free speech could be limited on such grounds.

19

Not only is there an explicit consensus on the necessity of state and

other sorts of formal censorship but there is also an implicit
consensus, expressed in practice,
on the important and necessary role played by various types of
informal
censorship. In personal conversation we naturally restrict the people
that we are willing to talk to. If someone is abusive or ill-mannered or
talks utter nonsense then we will point this out and eventually, if they
persist in doing so, we will walk away. A certain level of respect for
the other speakers is necessary in order to maintain a conversation.

But, as well as respect for the participants in a dialogue, we also

recognise the need for respect for various conventions about the
content of contributions to a discussion.

In order for a dialogue or

debate to flourish contributions to it must be, as much as possible,

relevant, well informed, clearly expressed, productive, intelligent and
otherwise suitable along any other number of dimensions.

They

should not be ignorant, stupid, obstructive, or irrelevant, etc,

otherwise they will only hamper debate and frustrate the other
participants.

For this reason, in ordinary political practice we

recognise the need for restrictions on the sort of material that one
publishes in a given medium or tolerates in a particular forum.
Editors select the material that they publish. Radio stations choose
who they will interview.

Chairpersons guide discussion towards the

relevant issues and move to silence those who continue to dispute an

issue after it has been resolved or whose contributions are otherwise
unproductive.19

These sorts of limits on speech abound because

18 Fish, op cit, 106-11.

19 The guidelines to the procedure of the House of Representatives of
the Australian Parliament, House of Representatives Practice, Third
Edition (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1997),

20

speech is always for something.

Our (and others) speech is

important to us not because we simply like to make noise but because

we are involved in common projects with those we are speaking to.
We are trying to decide a certain issue, seeking the truth, trying to
resolve our disagreements without recourse to violence or debating
legislation, etc. Speech is a means rather than an end in itself. But
once we acknowledge this we can see that some sorts of speech, in
some circumstances will not serve those ends - and thus the very
same grounds we have for defending open debate will work in
these cases to justify silencing these sorts of speech.24

The point that I want to emphasise here is that the grounds we have
for making decisions of this sort are always political.

That is, they

necessarily involve reference to our commitments about the issues at

hand. The best way to
recognise a stupid argument is that it consistently leads to stupid
conclusions. Our judgements about the relevance or irrelevance of a
contribution to a debate
cannot be divorced from our understanding of substantive issues. Our
assessment of what counts as a productive contribution will depend
on what we think the debate is about and where it should go. In this
way we are making political judgements about what sorts of opinions
should be published or heard
or criticised all the time.
for example, contain an entire chapter (Chapter 13) on Control and
conduct of debate which governs when Members may speak (458465), the manner in which they may speak (465-470) and insists that
Of fundamental importance to the conduct of debate in the House is
the rule that no Member may digress from the subject matter of any
question under discussion(470). Further restrictions on the content
of Members speeches are

21

So again we find there is a consensus on the need for informal forms

of
censorship.
inevitable.

Indeed, as I will argue below, these are actually

outlined at 470-485.
24

See Fish, op cit, Chapters 8 and 9.

IV. Up to this point I have been talking largely about empirical facts
about the politics of the debate around political correctness. I now
want to introduce some more philosophic reflections about the nature
of communication and the concept of freedom of speech which also
impact on the debate. A quick excursion into semiotics reveals to us, I
believe, that absolute freedom of speech is an incoherent notion.
As structuralism and post-structuralism have argued, the meaning of
signs is a function of the play of difference within a system of signs.
The meaning of a word will be determined as much by what we
cannot do with it as what we can. Indeed these are two sides of one
coin.

Thus the limits on our expression are simultaneously the

enabling conditions of what we can express.

This means that

absolute freedom of expression is an impossibility. A person who was

free to say absolutely anything, to express any unique concept which
came into their head, because they were not limited by the range of
meanings they had available to them could, paradoxically say nothing
at all.

Communication requires restrictions.

It requires that our

concepts have more or less determinate meanings. Our ability to say

what we can is thus founded on our inability to say what we cannot.20
20 Fish, op cit, p103.

22

But perhaps this is just grammatical correctness or speaking

properly rather than, as I am suggesting, a form of political
correctness?

It

is

true

that

when

these

restrictions

are

uncontroversial they will simply appear as rules of grammar or

conventions of proper speech. But, even if it is not challenged, the
structure of language is neither devoid of political implications nor
untainted by
politics in its origins.

The system of differences which gives our words their meaning has
political implications because it makes it easier to say some things
and harder to say others. Some ideas will be easy to express in a
given language because the system of differences will be structured to
capture them. Others will be difficult to convey and even to formulate
because the language will be founded on their
exclusion. Even if it is possible, in a particular case to overcome these
difficulties
by constructing some complex phrasing to capture our intended
meaning, the more elaborate elocutions that we need to use to
convey our meaning when the words we have available are ill suited
to us do not have the same force as the single words or snappy
slogans of those whose ideas are already represented in the
language.

Some political claims will therefore be advantaged and

others disadvantaged.21

The existence of the debate about political correctness is itself

evidence of the political significance of the language available to us.
If the structure of the language had no political implications, if it
21 Cameron, Deborah, Words, Words, Words: The Power of Language
in Dunant, op cit.

23

genuinely didnt matter whether the person running the committee

was called a the chair or chairman, then the debate about political
correctness would never have arisen. The vehemence of the Rights
response to suggestions that we should change the way we speak is
evidence that there is a political issue at stake.

The current shape of our language is political in origin because the

meanings

available

to

us

for

our

expression

are

themselves

determined by the past and present usage of others. Language is a

social product and we all participate, although not always to the same
extent, in its creation and the determination of the meaning of the
words within it. But, as we saw above, not all meanings suit everyone
equally.

Some people will prefer a word to mean one thing, some

another. Sometimes the attempt to impose a preferred meaning on a

term will become the site of an explicitly political struggle, as in the
current debate around political correctness. This debate is, amongst
other things, a struggle over the meanings of our words and the
possibilities of expression available to us. It is clearly a political
struggle consciously engaged in by parties with political agendas and
which are, at least in some cases, supported by organised political
lobby groups.22 But even when such explicitly political struggle does
not occur, each usage of a word is a small act in a history which
determines the meaning of that word and its possible future usages.
Each usage enables some other possible usages and constrains
others. No usage of a word is devoid of consequences for the ways in
which others may use it.

Every usage occurs in a political context

22 See Neilson, op cit, for an account of how the campaign against

political correctness was consciously shaped by the Right in the US
and involved the provision of substantial funds to conservative
ideologues by Right-wing foundations and think tanks.

24

which partially determines which usages will carry authority and

successfully achieve their intended affects and which will not.23

Thus there is always and already a politics of speech - a struggle

over the correct way to use language. Although its political
dimensions may go
unnoticed until a controversy erupts, this is not something that the
Left have invented.

It has always existed because of the way

language works. Saying that one stands for simply for freedom in this
arena is therefore nonsensical, because any and every usage will
increase our freedom to use a word in certain ways and decrease our
freedom to use it in others. Which is not to say that there are not
better and worse ways to use words. Its just that these will not be
distinguished
by the extent to which they impinge on the ability of others to use
them
differently.

It is the content of the meaning of the word which is

important here - not the fact that it has one.

Similar points are true at the level of culture and politics. Any political
climate or culture promotes some ways of life and political opinions
and discriminates against others. Thats just what culture is. It is a
communitys set of conclusions and received opinions about the best
way to lead a human life and consequently about the way we should
order our society and behave towards those around us.

It is

impossible for a culture to include all forms of life and all expressions
of opinion. This is not just a practical impossibility. It is a conceptual
one. Cultures have a determinate content, they have world-views that
they espouse and ways of life that they express and make possible 23 Cameron, op cit.

See also Pocock, J.G.A. Verbalising A Political

Act, Political Theory, Vol 1, No 1. (1973), 27-45 at 31-36.

25

and these function to exclude other cultures. 24 Thus, for instance, we

cannot have a culture where racist statements go unremarked and
where the moral claims of racial minorities to full citizenship are taken
seriously. Part of what it is to take racial justice
seriously is to be offended and want to respond when people make
racist remarks.30

We cannot have a culture where homosexuality is

publicly accepted and where children are protected from the idea
that homosexuality is a valid sexual preference. As these examples
make clear, facts about culture have
political consequences and so culture itself defines a form of political
correctness.

Our culture determines what sort of behaviour is

expected from people and what sorts of speech and behaviour will
cause castigation and outrage. A society without political correctness
would be a society without culture.

It would be a society without

shame, manners, or customs. It would be a society where anything

was possible and nothing frowned upon. It would be a society without
values.25

24 This is not to say that we cannot include elements from different cultures in our
culture or even have a multicultural society. We obviously can. But what results is
not simply a number of cultures coexisting - it is a different culture. And there will
ways of life possible in each single culture which will not be possible in the
multicultural society, such as those which require the participation of all members
of society. Being able to speak the same language as everyone in ones society is a
case in point.

Bringing cultures together is therefore a process of subtraction as

much as it is of addition.

30

See the discussion of reactive attitudes in Freedom

and Resentment in Strawson, P.F., Freedom and Resentment (London: Methuen &
Co., 1974), 1-25.

25 Of course, in other circumstances this is a core tenet of

conservative politics.

26

Some form of political correctness is thus an inevitable fact of social

life. Once the debate is seen in this light it is a question of taking
sides. It is impossible not to limit the possibilities of expression in a
culture.

The issue then is whether one prefers to defend the free

speech for sexists, racists and homophobes and thus diminish the
possibilities for the voices of women, people of colour, immigrants and
gays to be heard or whether one will defend the rights of members of
those groups to be heard by condemning sexism, racism and
homophobia wherever it
occurs.26

Perhaps the conservative case is that it is wrong for the government,

or perhaps for any social group, to consciously concern itself with
language and culture in this way.

This claim would deserve more

attention if the continuing outcry about political correctness werent

so obviously the result of conservative groups and, to a certain extent,
various national governments, doing just that.

Their hostility to

political correctness is motivated by a conscious concern for the

political and intellectual climate in which they find themselves. They
are consciously trying to turn back the cultural clock to the nineteen
fifties, when people had pride in the nation, faith in the wisdom of
government and business and when women were too busy trying to
achieve equal pay and indigenous peoples the right to vote to attack
the government for its sexist and racist language.27
But isnt there something very Orwellian about a government which is
trying to change the way in which people use language in order to
change the way they think? A large part of our hostility to the idea of
a government consciously
26 See Fish, op cit, Chapter 8.
27 See Fish, op cit, Chapter 3.

27

involved in shaping culture stems from justified concerns about the

appropriateness and the consequences of involving state power in this
process. Bureaucracies are simply not very good at shaping cultures
and the instruments they have to do so are sometimes clumsy and
often dangerous.28 But to
acknowledge these considerations is not to concede that the state
should simply not be concerned with culture.

The argument above

sought to show that it is simply not possible to avoid engaging in a

cultural politics. Doing nothing is a policy and one with cultural and
political consequences.

State action, even if disguised as inaction,

inevitably impinges upon culture.35 The question then is, should it do

so consciously or unconsciously? An important fact to consider here,
is that to remain unconscious of our responsibility for the culture in
which we live is, in most cases, to adopt a conservative politics
towards it. By failing to take conscious action we tacitly support the
status quo. Once weve realised this, of course, to then say that the
state should not be conscious of the affects of its
actions on culture is to consciously recommend that it should pursue a
conservative politics.

But, given that the state is necessarily

implicated in a politics of culture, I can see no prima facie reason to

suggest that the state should favour a conservative rather than a
28 Government have often been more successful at changing cultures than many
of us would like to admit.

They seem quite successful at maintaining broad

ideologies for periods of decades and also occasionally of achieving quite specific
changes in behaviours and belief system around particular issues. Consider for
instance the success of efforts, by many governments around the globe, to reduce
the road toll or to educate people around safe sexual practices.

35

Indeed it is

almost impossible for the modern state to even pretend to be doing nothing in the
realm of culture. The modern state has already taken on the job of administering
culture through its funding of the arts, control of school curriculum, responsibility
for national holidays and a plethora of advertising campaigns surrounding health,
civic pride, road safety, recruitment for the military etc.

28

progressive politics in this area.

This needs to be debated on the

merits of the politics rather than stonewalled by insisting that the

state has no role in determining culture.

V.

Of course criticism of some formulations of political correctness

advanced by the Left is also possible on other grounds.

To begin with, political correctness is obviously not a label that one

should rush to embrace. Telling people that they should be politically
correct is setting oneself up for the accusations of smug superiority
or totalitarianism that the Right promotes - which is why the Right
have pushed the rhetoric of PC so insistently.

If we do wish to

consciously promote a certain politics of speech we should instead

simply insist that one shouldnt be racist or sexist. Instead of talking
about politically correct language we should criticise racism or
sexism where it appears. This puts the onus where it belongs, on the
Right, to explain why the speech at issue isnt sexist or why we should
tolerate racist or sexist speech. This is safer rhetorical ground than
being forced to defend political correctness.

But more importantly, concern about the politics of speech and

culture should not distract our attention from the inequalities of
political, economic and social power which underlie them. Changing
the names by which we refer to things does not in itself change the
things themselves.

Political action addressing the social, economic

and political inequalities which result in the marginalisation of certain

groups in language and culture is necessary. While it is undoubtedly
true that the marginalisation of oppressed groups in language and
culture works to maintain their oppression and reinforce their
marginalisation in other spheres, it is not clear that addressing the

29

problems at the level of language will in itself have much affect at all
on the deeper political, social and economic injustices. On the other
hand, addressing these injustices is likely to greatly accelerate the
process of the transformation of language and culture. It would be
wise then to concentrate on this latter project.29

To an extent, the

current interest in the politics of language and culture is the result of

the retreat of the Left into the academy and the bureaucracy from
which vantage points it has been unable to exercise much influence
over these more traditional political matters. Unable (or unwilling) to
participate in any mass based movement which might transform the
political and economic structure of society the Left has been content
to fiddle
about with new speech codes or (more creditably) legislation
outlawing
discrimination. The irrelevance of these initiatives to the problems,
such as low wages, unemployment, the rising cost of living and
homelessness, facing a large number of the members of the very
groups they are intended to serve goes a long way towards explaining
the strength of the backlash against political correctness even
amongst members of these groups.

A complex set of issues about the value and function of state power is
also raised by proposals that progressives should enlist the state in
their efforts to transform culture.

The state is a conservative

institution which is both disinclined and ill suited to achieve many of

the Lefts goals. It may be that attempts to use the state to promote
a tolerant culture or to restrict racist and sexist speech will backfire
and any resulting legislation be employed mainly by the Right against
those very groups it was intended to serve.

But unless one is

29 Ehrenreich, Barbara, The Challenge For the Left in Berman, op

cit, 333-338 at 336.

30

prepared to argue that this is inevitably the fate of any and all
attempts by the Left to win political ground via the state - which
would, it seems to me, be foolish - then this will need to be argued on
the details of each proposed piece of legislation.
Legislating from above also looks unlikely to achieve the deep social
consensus which is necessary to ensure a genuinely non racist or
sexist society.

It may even generate resentment which results in

political effects contrary to its intentions. On the other hand,

legislation also functions as a statement of social consensus and can
therefore send a clear message that certain sorts of behaviour are not
welcome in our community. The political struggle to achieve such a
consensus may itself provide a valuable focus for political activity
through which to raise the level of political consciousness around the
issues in the community at large.

For this reason even legislation

which one admits is never likely to be enforced may be worth fighting

for.

These criticisms are importantly different to those which are made on

the Right.

They do not proceed from the disingenuous assumption

that attempts to be conscious of the politics of speech and culture

involve anything new or necessarily oppressive. Instead they engage
in a genuine debate about the politics of particular attempts to
regulate speech. They contest the importance and effectiveness of
such regulation rather than the right to engage in it. This does not
mean that we should deny that the ability to formulate, express and
have an opinion heard is an important political freedom which is
crucial to the functioning of a democratic society.

Indeed, casting

aside the illusion of free speech as maintained by the Right in

favour of an awareness of the fact that speech is always already
regulated, both formally and informally, makes us

31

better able to consider the politics of such regulation and work to

ensure that it is the best possible.

Only by recognising both the

existing constraints on speech and the inevitably of some such

constraints can we hope to establish a community in which all those
voices whose expression is consistent with the values of our
community can be heard as equals.

VI.

There will inevitably some critics who will believe that I have

completely missed the point. The fact is, they will say, that political
correctness has gone too far and that some sections of the Left have
adopted a victim mentality wherein the slightest deviation from Left
political orthodoxy is seized upon as evidence of sexism, racism or
homophobia. Le Pens politics arent racist. Referring to a woman by
her husbands name isnt sexist, etc. The problem with contemporary
politically correct intellectual culture is that it is simply too quick to
condemn persons as bigots for a failure to use the proper political
jargon or for stating opinions which are currently unpopular.

There

may even be a grain of truth in this claim, although I admit I am

sceptical.

I am obviously not going to claim that no-one has been

falsely accused of being sexist or racist or otherwise bigoted. There is

a genuine issue here. But the point is that the debate should go on at
this level; as a discussion about whether or not certain statements or
positions are racist or sexist or whatever. Claiming that ones critics
are being
politically correct for even raising the question is so much mud in
the water.

Throughout this paper I have tried to show that what the Right has
attempted to characterise as a new tyranny of the politically correct
is either a gross misrepresentation or just the normal operations of
politics, language and culture.

Left-wing proponents of political

32

correctness are not advocating anything new when they suggest that
some sorts of opinions and behaviours should be considered as
beyond the pale and cause for criticism. What is new is that instead
of accepting that the bounds of respectable opinion should be defined
by reverence for God, Queen, Property and Nation, the Left has
suggested that they should be delineated by respect for persons
regardless of race, gender or sexual preference. Of course whether it
should be decided this way or that way is a
political question.
Instead of talking about political correctness, then, we should be
talking about politics. We should be arguing about whether certain
sorts of speech are sexist or racist and about the consequences of
tolerating them or regulating them.

We should be examining the

content of our culture and taking honest stock of whose voices are
silenced and whose promoted. We should celebrate the widespread
criticism which occurs when someone puts forward a racist or sexist
opinion rather than defending their right to do so as free speech
while at the same time trying to silence their critics with accusations
of censorship.

Even when censorship is on the agenda, instead of

mouthing off about the evils of censorship we should admit that we

all agree that censorship is sometimes justified and get down to
discussing whether or not it is in this case. We should be doing all this
without talking about political correctness at all.

The expression political correctness serves only to cloud the real

issues at stake in debates around the politics of speech - which is why
the Right have promoted it so vigorously. It confuses criticism with
censorship and
deliberately mobilises the publics fear of state regulation of speech
where this is clearly not at issue. It does this despite the Rights own

33

extensively documented enthusiasm for using the powers of the State

to silence its critics and despite the extensive restrictions on free
speech which exist to this day. It ignores both the fact that everyone
across the political spectrum agrees that some sort of censorship is
justified and the more philosophically interesting truth that some form
of censorship is actually necessary to enable productive debate to
occur at all. By implicitly opposing political correctness to political
freedom it deliberately obscures the fact that the alternative to a
left-wing

political

correctness.

correctness

is

actually

right-wing

political

These confusions and obfuscations are no accident.

They serve a political agenda.

The main function of the right-wing

rhetoric of political correctness is to attempt to further marginalise

the Left and to silence dissent. Those who do not which to participate
in this silencing should work to expose this rhetoric for what it is
wherever it occurs.30

30 I would like to thank Robert Goodin and Krysti Guest for discussion,
comments and support during the writing of this paper.