by Mary Curtis

Created on: October 27, 2008

Can democracy survive in a politically correct world?

This is a very interesting question because your answer depends on how you define the phrase. Because of misinformation and misuse of this phrase, "politically correct" has come to mean different things to different people and, depending on how you feel about certain social issues, being "politically correct" may be a good thing or a bad thing.

In researching what it means to be "politically correct" for this article, using online search engines, the results produced page after page all of them offering different "definitions" explaining their own interpretations to advance and advocate a particular socially-based controversial issue to politically influence opinion; with the potential to set legislative policy, either for or against, on issues involving rights, religion, race or national origin, gender, behavior, etc. In other words, online research produced a myriad of explanations as to what "political correctness" means, some of them reasonable and some way out but none offering a clear-cut meaning which could be applied across the board. These web pages use "politically correct" or "political correctness" to drive a social issue and either knocked the phrase or praised it. Although these issues mentioned by these web pages have serious potential consequences, and deal with issues involving race or national origin, religion, gender, homosexuality, and some other potentially controversial issues, we will not deal with the specifics of any of these issues themselves as that is not the point of this article.

Obviously, these instances of using the words "politically correct" or "political correctness" to make a case to favor or oppose particular issues don't ring true; none define "politically correct" in a way that is plausible or could fit in general or universal usage.

Additionally, attempts to find a specific definition, using standard dictionaries both online and hardcover, didn't help either because different dictionaries disagreed with each other as to their meanings of this phrase. So it became obvious at this point that something else was going on here; when even our dictionaries can't agree on the meaning of words, then that indicates that something else is in play to confuse, perhaps deliberately perplex the meaning.

So the next step was to ask the question, "Why all the confusion over this phrase?" And then, "Is there a way to get past it? If so, can we find an accurate and universal definition

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