In a recent conversation about my observation about political correctness not being all bad, someone quipped about the reason the term got a bad name:
The problem is that there are very few people who are both politically correct and intellectually honest.
This is a simple explanation stated confidently so that anyone would believe it—but also one that didn’t feel like it encompassed a universal truth. So I tried to add a bit more nuance to the theory: Even while I don’t believe it, let’s assume the cynical statement “there are very few people who are both politically correct and intellectually honest” is true. I think it is likely that the number of people that are politically correct and intellectually dishonest is also very small. Intuitively, it would follow that the number of people who are intellectually honest but not politically correct is much bigger. Then, if the majority are intellectually honest, isn’t it possible that a vocal minority is creating the biased connotation for the term?
