Political Correctness

The business section of yesterday's NYT ran an article on American Idol and Simon Cowell. Here is a paragraph from it:

The whole Fox network operation impressed Mr. Cowell because there was never a hint of an attempt to censor him or to turn him into a sweetheart of a guy. Fox seemed to him to be bravely acknowledging that the American audience, like the British audience, was ready to rebel against what Mr. Cowell called "the terrible political correctness that invaded America and England."

Here is another paragraph from the article:

"Pop Idol" made Mr. Cowell one of the most talked-about cultural figures in Britain in the winter of 2002. He was a tabloid newspaper's dream: seen by millions every week on television, saying something outrageously quotable ("You're a disaster"), doing something unconscionably cruel (several young women left the auditions convulsed in tears after hearing his corrosive assessments of their talents) and tirelessly promoting his program (by doing every sort of interview in print and on television and radio).

What's interesting to me is the meaning of political correctness in this context. In the first paragraph, political correctness is linked to censorship and politeness (good manners). The Fox Network is not politically correct. And, this means that it neither censors nor attempts to make people be nice to others. It tells the truth, no matter how harsh or ugly. In fact, it is brave in doing so. It's lack of manners, in other words, is justified, grounded in, truth. In the second paragraph (which comes about a page before the one I cite first here), Cowell's behavior is described in excessive terms: outrageous, unconscionable, and cruel. So, does this mean that to be politically incorrect is to be outrageous, unconscionable, and cruel? Does it mean that one promotes (another word used to describe Cowell's actions) or tolerates cruelty? Does it mean that the truth is itself cruel, a harsh outrage which we must acknowledge?

If left or liberal critics attack Fox for its cruelty, are we not simply stating the obvious? In fact, is it not the case that, if articles such as this one are not off base, Fox does not claim to be otherwise, precisely insofar as it prides itself on not giving in to political correctness? Indeed, when we criticize Fox for being incorrect, we support their claims to bravery, their sense of themselves as righteous defenders of truth (and the best commenter on this is clearly Stephen Colbert).

What is missing from this line of thinking is of course politics: the equation of political correctness with lies and with manners. The element of manners is the easiest to deal with: anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia are not about being nice; they are about equality. This can perhaps get blurred (by idiots) when terms such as equal consideration are used (which suggests as well the limits of liberal concepts). But struggles for equality, particularly in equality of distribution, cannot be reduced to being nice.

But what about truth? I think this is more complicated because we can speak of truth in various ways: we could say that the politically incorrect speak the truth of and from their partisan position. So of course it will be diametrically opposed to ours. We can say that we speak from a truth that we are bringing into being. And we can say that we speak from a truth of the past and of history that cannot and will not be erased. These cases indicate the struggle over truth at the heart of political correctness.

So, it's interesting here that the second paragraph includes these outrageous elements, the excesses part of any struggle. On on hand, the paragraph (like the show) performs and naturalizes (in an innocuous space) the excisions and eliminations constitutive of neoliberal markets--there are losers. Deal with it. Only the weak, the nice, the self-deceived think otherwise and require such a gloss of manners. Only those who actively seek their own degradation, who readily participate in rituals of humilation, need the superficial shield of politeness. On the other, it can do so because it effaces the possibility of politics, that is, of actual resistance, contestation, refusal. It does so because it has turned the weapon of political correctness into mere manners, mere politeness.

What, then, would it be like if a real and terrible political correctness invaded England and America? All should tremble in its wake.