Political Correctness in Russia

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Alina Israeli wrote:

> I think what is missing in Russian understanding and at times in our
> discussion is a basic definition of what PC is. I suggest PC is
> naming a person to his/her face (or those who empathize with him/her)
> in a non-offensive way. If you want to call them names in the privacy
> of your bedroom, that's up to you, just don't do it to their face.
> 
> Why does PC exist? Very simple: the dominating groups used to (and 
> sometimes still do) call all kinds of minorities all kinds of names.
> Minorities just do not want to be referred to them in a pejorative
> way. Sometimes people confuse naming a spade a spade with being
> abusive. But in this case it's the minorities that should be the
> judge: is being called "cripple" offensive or not? Is being called
> "fat" to your face offensive or not?

Yes, it's important to distinguish between real PC as created and 
implemented by caring, sensitive people and the caricature of PC as 
derided by its opponents. The opposition campaign has been so effective 
in confusing things that many Americans think PC is the caricature -- 
ridiculous names for perfectly ordinary things that serve only to 
obscure the obvious truth and make everybody laugh.

> Regarding the ever changing name of the Negro-Blacks-African-American
> term in American English, this has been done in order to achieve 
> respect and self-respect. Since the previous term did not bring the
> appropriate respect the new term eventually was appropriated. 
> Interesting enough that it was happening approximately every 20
> years. It would be time for another term now, but instead we managed
> to overcome at least some of the stigma and elect a President who
> himself does not use any such terms, BTW.

We could also offer an alternative theory: that when a group has low 
status, their name comes over time to attach to that low status, so a 
neutral name is required. The fundamental problem is the attitudes that 
accord low status, and as long as those persist, fair-minded people (and 
group members who demand respect) will continue to invent new untainted 
names for the group.

> All of the above should not be confused with the Soviet Orwellian 
> language where things were called by their opposite: be it Prague
> 1968 — bratskaja pomoshch' (please in this context refer to a new
> film "Zharkoe leto 68-go"), internatsional'nyj dolg (in Afghanistan)
> and so on. But faithfully to "1984" so was most everything in the
> USSR, beginning with its title Sojuz sovetskix socialisticheskix
> respublik which was neither. A dictatorship was referred to as
> demokratija, and so on. As once was said about Lillian Hellman "every
> word is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'", we could say the same
> about Soviet press (just replace "the" with any preposition or
> particle).

Agreed.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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