Disputes of Offence
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Disputes of Offence: Making sense of the discursive construction of Political Correctness Clare Fearon Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University July 2015 Abstract This thesis explores how Political Correctness (PC) is discursively constructed and has emerged in contemporary society as a cultural signifier for a new politics of language and identity. The thesis begins by arguing that the literature has not adequately reconciled the various tensions which continue to underlie how PC is defined and understood. In doing so it examines how the celebration and prevalence of anti-PC rhetoric has emerged alongside our increasing intolerance of ‘politically incorrect’ forms of discourse (such as racist or homophobic language). It also considers why varying levels of PC might be present (and absent) within different levels of discourse. The project uses data from popular cultural and media sources which draw upon the multifarious and increasingly participatory nature of our public domain. The data sources include newspaper articles and editorials; a parliamentary debate; the social media site Twitter; popular comedy and political cartoons. In order to conduct a socio-cultural analysis, the research incorporates the use of various discourse and visual analytical approaches including Bakhtinian dialogism; Bourdieu’s capital theory; Barthesian semiology and Hall’s representational analysis. The thesis argues that our preoccupation with disputes of offence (or ‘PC disputes’) has acquired an increasingly individualised dimension. It suggests that our concern with group rights and identity politics may overshadow how the giving or taking of offence is also attached to the diverse ways in which individual identity is felt and experienced. In particular, it argues that the assertion of offence is increasingly grounded in the hurt offence is felt to cause to the beliefs which form our sense of self-hood or personal identity. The project maintains that disputes of offence relating to wider inequalities (like racism or sexism) are more usefully understood through exploration and recognition of both their broader and individualised contexts. i Acknowledgments I am particularly grateful to my supervisors, Professor Elaine Campbell and Professor William Outhwaite, for their immeasurable support, guidance, encouragement and good humour throughout the previous four years. I would also like to thank friends and family for their patience and support throughout the completion of this thesis including Tony and Audrey Fearon, Geoff and Stanley. ii Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... ii Contents .................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... .vii Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Research Context: Framing the culture and language of offence ........................... 1 1.2 Aims and Outcomes of Thesis: Making sense of ‘PC disputes’ and the culture of offence ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................ 7 Chapter 2. A Genealogy of PC .............................................................................................. 11 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 11 2.2 PC as a floating signifier .............................................................................................. 13 2.2.1 The discursive origins of PC ........................................................................................ 13 2.2.2 The resignification of PC ............................................................................................. 14 2.2.3 PC as a mobile cultural signifier ................................................................................. 15 2.2.4 The contextual nature of PC ....................................................................................... 18 2.2.5 Summary and implications of analysis ........................................................................ 20 2.3 A Foucauldian genealogical analysis of the emergence of PC ................................... 21 2.3.1 The Genealogical Method ........................................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Till Death Us Do Part and the conditions of emergence of PC................................... 22 2.3.3 Political Correctness and the shifting nature of offence ............................................. 27 2.4 Summary and Conclusion ............................................................................................ 27 Chapter 3. PC and the Academy .......................................................................................... 30 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 30 3.2 The case against PC ..................................................................................................... 31 3.3 PC as a flawed progressive project .............................................................................. 36 3.4 PC as a myth ............................................................................................................... 40 3.5 The sociological view of PC and its implications for further research ........................ 42 iii Chapter 4. ‘A puzzle without a solution’1? Researching PC ............................................. 47 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 47 4.2 Research Questions ..................................................................................................... 47 4.3 Methodological Overview .......................................................................................... 50 4.4. Political Correctness and forms of news discourse................................................. ... 52 4.4.1 Reading British newspapers ........................................................................................ 53 4.4.2 Listening to parliamentary debate ............................................................................. 54 4.4.3 Following Twitter and the reporting of ‘Twitter Storms’ .......................................... 55 4.5 Political Correctness and Popular Comedy................................................................. 56 4.5.1 Using capital theory to explore why Jimmy Carr is ‘edgy’ and Chubby Brown ‘offensive’ ..................................................................................................................... 57 4.5.2 Is there a ‘new offensiveness’? Using Bakhtinian dialogism to make sense of the appeal of politically incorrect discourse ................................................................. .. 59 4.6 Political Correctness and Political Cartooning ....................................................... ... 62 4.6.1 Using intertextual analysis to explore discourses of offence ...................................... 62 4.6.2 The reporting of a ‘cartoon crisis’: Using representation theory to explore the British media response to the Danish Muhammad cartoons....................................... 64 4.6.3 Using Barthesian semiology to ‘demystify’ Jesus and Mo ......................................... 67 4.7 Reflections on the research process ............................................................................ 70 4.8 Summary and Conclusion ........................................................................................... 72 Chapter 5. Political Correctness and the production of news ............................................ 74 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 74 5.2 ‘I’m not touchy. However I do take offence at being accused of being politically correct’2: Discourses of PC within British broadsheet newspapers ............................ 75 5.3 Parliamentary Discourse: the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill .............................. 82 5.3.1 Parliamentary Discourse and the role of MPs ........................................................... 82 5.3.2 Brief contextual background to the bill ...................................................................... 82 5.3.3 Debating same sex marriage in the House of Commons ............................................ 83 5.4 The Paris Brown ‘Twitter Storm’ ............................................................................... 90 5.4.1 The emergence of Twitter and social media ............................................................... 90 1 This quote from Paul Berman (1992:5-6) is taken from a lengthier description of the difficulties surrounding any attempt to conceptualise