Political Correctness, Political Cultures, and The Civilizing Process

Abstract

The theme of this essay is twofold: the emotional, radical, even violent Brazilian reaction against the very idea of Apolitical correctness"—which is typical and telling about Brazilian culture—and the possible meanings and effects "political correctness" language games could express and achieve, if they are interpreted from the standpoint of the "civilizing process." The main thesis stated could be synthesized as follows: From a historical perspective, civilization could be understood as an ongoing movement of denaturalization of both social order and the other, which means and implies a complex and contradictory dynamic of self‐fashioning. More and more realms of the other become unknown before explicit self‐presentation, for more and more spheres of the self become open to creative intervention and definition. Nevertheless, this openness brings a dark side: the social, institutional cultivation. Therefore, the history of liberty is presented as a paradoxical process of domestication and control: process though open to renovation through interventions on the political and micropolitical levels, where denaturalization can be experienced and staged, once again.