Anti PC-Strategies. How Actors of the Political Right Use the Concept of Political Correctness to Maintain Power and Influence the American Public
Jessica Ulrich
Examination Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Würzburg, language: English, abstract: This paper first examines and looks into the definitions, development and sources of political correctness as a cultural concept, which has significantly been coined in a certain direction since its first occurrence. Beforehand, as a framework and to put it into a sociological relevant perspective, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour and their findings about the connection of language, society and their mutual influence will be discussed. Furthermore, putting theory into practice, three speeches of three different politicians representing anti-PC-strategies via three different sorts of media will be analysed. Moreover, respective repercussions in society will be outlined and associated with results of the analysis."Political Correctness belongs in the dustbin of history", Alice Weidel, faction leader of the far-right populist German party AFD enthusiastically demanded on the nationwide party´s conference in 2017. This statement made her and her party´s position regarding political correctness perfectly clear. When it comes to the emotional debate about being pro or anti political correctness, it seems to be that the far-right parties across Europe and many conservative politicians in the United States have similar attitudes to this topic.The urgency of exploring and revealing strategies which connect PC and far-right propaganda and thereby coin a dangerous cultural narrative, can be observed for instance in Germany in respect of the predominantly anti-muslim blog Politically Incorrect News (PI news), which is under surveillance of the Bavarian constitution protection and counts 10.000 daily visitors in 2017. The blog´s operators describe their site as against mainstream, pro-American and pro-Israeli, and in a constant battle for the German constitution against the ´ideology´ of multiculturalism.Now, the United States of America have been functioning and still work in many diverse realms of cultural and respective political changes as a blueprint and virtually as a forecast for developments in Europe. This has been and still is the case with political correctness as a phenomena, which seems to be a connecting piece of society and politics. Consequently, examining and understanding PC and anti-PC as a presumed strategy of politicians of the right means tracing it back to its origins in the U.S.. Eventually, analysing its effects and consequences can possibly provide an idea how to counteract the difficulties which it also causes in Europe.
