Political correctness helps us define the terms of our society

The argument

Political correctness is defended here as the mechanism by which a society holds on to the terms it has already settled. Social progress on acceptance, equality and inclusivity was not won once and thereafter secured; the boundaries established by that progress have to be maintained, and political correctness is what maintains them. By keeping speech within boundaries that have previously been established, it preserves the gains rather than requiring each generation to win them again. The mechanism works through speech because speech is where norms are tested. Directing people to be careful in what they say is not, on this argument, an attempt to police private thought but a way of preventing negative polarisation and the gradual acceptance of prejudices. A prejudice that can be voiced without consequence becomes a prejudice that can be voiced routinely, and one voiced routinely stops registering as a prejudice at all. Guarding the boundary at the point of expression is what stops that drift, and it is how progress in tolerance and equality is kept from being lost. The clearest evidence proponents offer is what happens where the norm weakens. The spread of hate crimes, extreme nationalism and prejudice can be attributed in part to a lack of political correctness in politics, and the reason is the position of the people involved. When someone with a platform says bigoted things, the wider population does not hear one individual's private view; it sees a view treated as sayable by someone whose standing implies it is respectable, and takes it as legitimate on that basis. Because political correctness is what defines and holds the terms of our society, this argument concludes, it is necessary and useful.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Society should the decisions it has made as to what is acceptable and what isn’t. We cant rely on the expectation that ideologies our society is built on are true or right. These ideologies must be challenged continually in order for us to progress. Political correctness removes the opportunity for us to open up debates on important issues that are "politically correct."

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Preserving established boundaries is not self-evidently a virtue, since the boundaries a society has settled on have been wrong before and the progress the premise wants to protect came from challenging them rather than from staying inside them. [Rejecting P2] Constrained speech may displace disagreement rather than resolve it, and the counter argues that closing off debate on contested issues leaves the underlying views unexamined instead of changed. [Rejecting P3] Even granting that platformed statements confer legitimacy, that is an argument about the responsibilities of people with platforms rather than evidence that the general norm the premise defends is what produces the effect.