They define it as a pejorative because it largely is used as a pejorative. The Wikipedia article lists five sources to support the claim.
And why is it largely used as a pejorative?
If you are looking for a single simplistic monolithic universal human response to almost anything, you're not going to find it. However...
Who says I'm looking for that? Have you heard of generalizations?
People will generally be polite to people like themselves, for varying definitions of "polite" within the group dynamic. They generally will not be polite to people unlike themselves. "Us vs Them" is a pretty strong impulse in humans.
Politeness is not an in-group dynamic, it's exactly the opposite. It's for communicating with the Others.
If that were true, you wouldn't find politicians labeling themselves as "conservative" the way politicians used to, and perhaps still do, distance themselves from "liberal" in favor of "progressive".
It's not a pejorative to the conservatives, obviously.
Same as "atheist" is not a pejorative to atheists.
But you don't see that, do you? In fact, politicians and commentators proudly embrace the label of "conservative". It's not an insult in the same fashion.
Maybe not in the same fashion, but it's an insult among liberals. When you read the liberal leaning press, it's blatantly obvious.
That is very subjective and meaningless.
It's neither. It's less subjective and meaningless than 'polite', 'courteous' and 'respectful'.
For someone to be even a little bit concerned about a group you don't like (the dreaded Other) might seem excessive to you, when by any objective standard, the change being asked for is a very small one.
For some reason you have this idea that people who object to excessive PC don't like some particular marginalized group. I can't tell if that's an honest misconception or deliberate rhetoric.
You're going with this subjective argument, ok. "Treating other people with respect" is totally meaningless and subjective. What might be respect to you, might be highly offensive to others.
This is why identification as PC is something that has to applied externally. No one who believes they are doing the right thing or even merely just being polite is going to see it as excessive. It being excessive is the perception of someone else. Typically, the perception of someone who does not approve of the politeness.
Being polite is never the problem.
I agree that there are issues with modern universities, but what you characterize as a problem with being PC, I see as a matter of economics. Schools are competing for money and trying to provide what they perceive as being the demanded by their clients who are, Ed help us, in their late teens and early twenties. Yes, it's going to end up being idiotic.
Whether the motivation is economics is irrelevant to whether the actions and sentiments put forward there are actually what we could label as political correctness. I agree there are a wide variety of motivations, some good, some less so, for being politically correct
I have no idea what that is.
To clarify, are you unfamiliar with Matt Taylor and Tim Hunt media cases?
And, you'll notice, so are you. You're denying that it is a pejorative, despite numerous references to it as one.
Here you're mistaken again. I am denying that it is
merely a pejorative, a point that I was reminded I missed before. You'll find me agreeing plenty of times that it's
also a pejorative. In fact, in this very post, you're responding to a conversation tree that started with me asking why do you think PC is a pejorative, hoping we could arrive to actually exploring the reasons what it means to people that makes it a pejorative for them.
The very definition you use for it requires it to be something that someone applies to someone else.
No. I can apply it to myself if I would fit the description.
The definition describes situational context. You could argue it's hard to say what's excessive or who's marginalized, or what is polite, or what's offense, or what is perceived, but then we'll be stuck in semantics for the rest of this thread. It's no more difficult of a definition than racism or sexism. You'll have edge cases not knowing whether it applies there, but generally you recognize it when you see it.
It is not inherent in the intent of ones own actions.
I don't know what that means.
Although I suppose any thing is possible, I doubt you'll find many people that you would call PC who set out to intentionally be excessively concerned not be perceived as as excluding or offending groups that are considering marginalized.
What you set out to be is not what you actually end up being. Are you suggesting people can never describe themselves as "excessively [adjective]"?
It's a pejorative like "sexist", you'll possibly find very few people who self-identify as sexist too. It's not because it's semantically impossible, it's because of their ego.
Just as a point of interest, do you consider Bill O'Reilly's War on Christmas crusade to be politically correct?
I'm not familiar with it. But I'd think O'Reilly is more concerned about being a good Christian than being PC. I might be wrong. Maybe he's all PC.
