Political correctness' suppression of ideas leads to their polarisation

The argument

When people cannot think, share or say their feelings, their feelings do not disappear. These thoughts can intensify and become even more toxic. The mechanism proposed here is that suppression removes the correction rather than the belief. A view that is spoken can be contradicted, tested and sometimes abandoned; a view that cannot be spoken is held privately, where nothing works against it. The frustration felt at the injustice of not being able to express one's views has been shown to exacerbate views, not diminish them — the prohibition itself becoming a second grievance layered on top of the first, and evidence, to the person holding the view, that they are being treated unjustly. The argument then generalises from history. Historically, when a society is oppressed or its views are censored, the people revolt against politicians as their views begin to fester. The pattern it describes is not gradual persuasion but accumulation followed by rupture, because pressure that has no ordinary outlet is discharged all at once when one appears. Proponents point to recent politics as an instance. Donald Trump's success stems predominantly from his lack of political correctness, on this account — the appeal residing less in any particular policy than in the demonstration that the constraint could be ignored. A large proportion of Trump's support comes from people with highly unpolitically correct views. An APPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country, and twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves. Those figures are offered as the argument's own evidence: views of that kind did not form because they were voiced, and they did not dissolve while they went unvoiced. They felt that Trump was addressing issues such as immigration with a brutal approach that others wouldn't dare.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Political correctness does not polarise ideas by suppressing them. Political correctness makes people reconsider whether they are saying something of prejudicial or inappropriate. Political correctness raises awareness about the severity of extreme opinions/toxic views that target minority groups. Political correctness makes people consider that harmful views can lead to more drastic measures down the line. For example, Anti-semitism first showed up as jokes and alienation before it lead to millions of Jews being murdered.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The pressure-cooker model is asserted, and the evidence runs both ways. Social norms also shape what people come to think, which is why attitudes to race, sexuality and disability have shifted alongside changes in what is sayable rather than merely hardening beneath them. [Rejecting P2] Two problems. Political correctness is a social norm rather than state censorship, so the analogy to censored and oppressed populations does not hold. And the polling establishes that some voters held views well outside the mainstream, not that political correctness produced them — those views may equally have preceded it, which is the more straightforward reading. [Rejecting C] The conclusion proves too much. If naming a view unacceptable reliably radicalises those who hold it, then no norm against any view could ever be established, yet norms plainly do change what people say and, over time, what they are willing to think.