Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - Pál Csontos: Is Political Correctness Politically Correct? A Tour along the Alleyways of the Shambles Called Political Correctness

Dictionary," followed by "Other Suspect Words, Concepts, and 'Heroes' to Be Avoided and/or Discarded" to be wound up by Part IV, called "Know Your Oppressor: A Bilingual Glossary of Bureaucratically Suitable Language." The late Mr. Orwell would probably be most outraged by this last one.. Ill Due to constraints of space, for illustrational purposes, I will select only two out of the more than 750 entries, and these with an eye to another concern of mine, namely, that of the application

, i.e. the issue of what use or abuse PC might be put to. The simple reasoning for this is that, following a desirable course of events, anyone can probably visualize a better world to come out of the benefits of political correctness. In my mind's eyes, I can see thousands and thousands of former Donna Ellen Coopermans, who "...after a courageous yearlong battle through the New York State court system, [havel won the right to be known as Donna Ellen Cooperperson" (Beard v). A worst-case scenario, however, seems to be quite eerie and appalling. Among the more radical potential consequences of a verbatim interpretation of PC precepts, let me just mention the "Take Back the Night" marches an appalled witness of which I myself was way back in 1991 as a Sorosfellow at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, or the meetings of the kind advertised in a fashion that can very easily create unease in some people.

1' 1 could probably offer you an impressive list of instances of how potentially dangerous a weapon PC might evolve into when it is used, or abused, for dubious purposes but let me restrict myself to a sample of "prisoners of PC" as cited by Kate Roiphe in an extract of her book The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism

, submitted to and published in The Sunday Times. The two selected entries from the Handbook are 'acquaintance rape' and vdate rape,' because they very neatly second the points made by Ms. Roiphe. Acquaintance rape is a term "defined by a Swarthmore College training manual as spanning 'a spectrum of 1

7 What I have in mind is a copy of a poster advertising a "NO MEANS NO WEEK" that displays the quote "ALL MEN ARE POTENTIAL RAPISTS" as its leading slogan. 34