Center for Cultural
Conservatism
“Political Correctness:” A Short History of an
Ideology
“Political Correctness:” A Short History of an Ideology is a product of the Free Congress
Foundation, a conservative, non-profit public policy institution in
Forward - What is “Political Correctness?” The following book, “Political
Correctness:” A Short History of an Ideology, answers that question.
Introduction & Chapter 1 -As
Russell Kirk wrote, one of conservatism’s most important insights is that all
ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one
or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality
ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But
the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to
abandon the system.
Chapter II - America is today
dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes and values that we have come
to know as “Political Correctness.” Political Correctness seeks to impose a
uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore
totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which seeks a
radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social
revolution.
Chapter III - On a growing
number of university campuses the freedom to articulate and discuss ideas – a
principle that has been the cornerstone of higher education since the time of
Socrates – is eroding at an alarming rate. Consider just one increasing trend:
hundreds (sometimes thousands) of copies of conservative student newspapers
have been either stolen or publicly burned by student radicals. In many cases
these acts have taken place with the tacit support of faculty and
administrators. The perpetrators are rarely disciplined.
Chapter IV -Literature is,
if not the most important cultural indicator, at least a significant benchmark
of a society’s level of civilization. Our nature and environment combine to
form each individual mind, which in turn expresses itself in words. Literature,
as the words society collectively holds up as exemplary, is then a starting
point of sorts – a window into the culture.
Chapter V -Perhaps no
aspect of Political Correctness is more prominent in American life today than
feminist ideology. Is feminism, like the rest of Political Correctness, based
on the cultural Marxism imported from Germany in the 1930s? While feminism’s
history in America certainly extends longer than sixty years, its flowering in
recent decades has been interwoven with the unfolding social revolution carried
forward by cultural Marxists.
Chapter VI -This is the
sixth and final chapter in the Free Congress Foundation’s book on Political
Correctness, or – to call it by its real name – cultural Marxism. It is a short
bibliographical essay intended not as an exhaustive resource for scholars but
as a guide for interested citizens who want to learn more about the ideology
that is taking over America.