The War of the Words: The Political Correctness Debate

by Sarah Dunant (Editor)

This work looks at the political correctness challenge to liberalism; how each generation redefines what is acceptable; what we mean by equality and how we go about achieving it. The topics explored range from date rape, the call for a new curriculum, to policing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Sarah Dunant is a cultural commentator, award-winning thriller writer and author of five novels set in Renaissance Italy exploring women’s lives through art, sex and religion. She has two daughters, and lives in London and Florence.

Sarah’s monthly history program and podcast on history can be found via the BBC website.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was published in 1994 and the argument rages on today.
It's a war about when we say "we" what do we mean and who are we anyway. "We" used to be white, male and middle aged as is well understood - you know, the people who drew the maps, laid down the laws and decided what you should find funny. Things were SO much simpler then.

That particular human identity has now been put on trial and found guilty of several serious perversions. The maps weren't right, the laws were despised, the jokes were not funny, they just made other people weep inside. So, Justice has been done, and that we was taken out and shot. A letter stating that it lost its life in brave service to truth and beauty has been sent to its family who shed tears over old photographs and tell each other what a beautiful person we used to be, how we were always kind to our slaves and never chastised women lightly.

So far so good. A job well done. But then the liberal, intelligent people who had dismantled this ugly superstructure either went mad or were replaced like in "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by some other people who looked like them but were completely insane and started barking on about chestnuts being dangerous for kids, ice cream being dangerous for kids, cholesterol and sex being dangerous for everyone, Enid Blyton was a racist, Tom and Jerry was as bad as American Psycho, you can't smoke within a mile of another human being, and everything now had to be printed in 46 different languages including this review. And also, it's compulsory to be a lesbian. It was very confusing and it still is. All those stories from the right wing press about kids being banned from singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" - I thought they were all made up. But then Georgia (aged 6) sang "Baa Baa Woolly Sheep" to me. What??

But it always seemed to me that the people complaining about pc were just right wing shitbags who were fuming that they couldn't call black people, gay people and women the various names that they wanted to. Same people who moaned on about how the word "gay" had been traduced and co-opted and now couldn't be used properly as if a shift in lexical usage was the equivalent of the gulag archipelago.

But then in comes the human rights and health and safely people, and what was a life-affirming and successful campaign has become a hideous thousand armed beast which ties us up in mind-forged manacles every time we try to think straight. Should a guy who preaches jihad against the West be deported from Britain? Er, is he a foreign national? Yes. Well then, yes he should. Oh but his family are all in the UK plus the country he came from uses torture regularly so that would be breaking the human rights convention. Okay. What did the human rights convention say about liquidating 20,000 civilians during the Shock and Awe campaign in 2003? Not a lot really. But we can't sack a Muslim man if he refuses to guard the Israeli embassy in London because he hates Jews. One thing leads to another. I think I am becoming one of my own nightmares.

Bruce Wayne ("Batman") : It's sometime difficult to think clearly when you're strapped to a printing press.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some of the essays meant be a little dated, they are all well written. This collection looks at the debate over being politically correct (mostly in Britian and America, but with a nod to France). The author's are diverse.

Linda Grant's essay about rape and PC culture is rather interesting, but one does have to question the small sample size. Perhaps the two best essays are the ones by Lisa Jardine and Lisa Appignassi. Appignassi's essay is on PC culture in France(there is one, you ask? No, but that's the point). After reading it, I have to wonder if any of this has changed since the DSK mess. Jardine's essay focuses on texts and teaching, and she has some rather intersting remarks on excluded groups.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

"anyone who understands the importance of language knows that meaning cannot be finally fixed because language is by its very nature multi-accentual, and meaning is always on the slide."
"the 'truth' of knowledge is always contextual, always constructed within discourse, always connected with the relations of power which mae it true - in short, a 'politics of truth'"

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book is interesting. I didn't love it. I liked it. I think it would be a fun book to discuss.

[Vikas Datta]

Most fascinating insights into this vexed, pernicious issue...