Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? Interrogating a Right-wing Conspiracy Theory
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Overview
Woke social justice warriors lurk around every corner, ready to cancel free speakers and police common sense. Muslims love nothing better than abolishing Christmas. FemiNazi's throw false accusations at the pillars of our society. Decried by right-wing pundits and politicians alike, the idea of 'political correctness' is often painted as a form of left-wing totalitarianism but in this pithy, clear-headed account, Tony McKenna explains how the concept itself is in fact one of the great conspiracy theories of our times.
From the fear of 'cancel culture' to the demonization of grassroots social movements, this is a searing dissection of how the exclusionary agendas for so long played out in our media and party politics have been successfully dressed up as campaigns for freedom and common sense. Tackling some of the favourite bogeymen of tabloids and scaremongers, McKenna dissects the language, rhetoric and ideology that turns refugees into insects, social justice into 'wokery', and makes predators out of anyone from dark skinned men to trans women. He provides a full analysis of historically important social liberation movements like BLM and #MeToo, giving the historical and cultural contexts for their emergence. As the tried-and-tested politics of stigmatization and exclusion shift from old targets to new, this an explanation of one of society's most insidious narratives, and how it allows dominant orthodox culture to cast the subjects of its oppressive tactics as the dreaded 'global liberal elite'.
A punchy, pacey skewering of right-wing scaremongering – its tactics, targets and traditional narratives. Provides a powerful and historical description of the radical movements like MeToo and Black Lives Matter which that same concept is deployed to undermine.
Uses the framing of a conspiracy theory to characterise the methods and characteristics that the Right uses to stigmatize and delegitimize its opponents
Provides a full analysis of historically important social liberation movements like BLM and Me Too, giving the historical and cultural contexts for their emergence
Breaks down the key arguments against the 'woke' and 'politically correct', and why they don't hold water when put under scrutiny
1. Muslims Murdering Christmas
2. Me Too and the Rise of the Feminazi
3. Black Lives Matter Stole my Statue
4. Trans People are a Menace to all God-Fearing Toilets
5. Cancel Culture and the Cancelation of the Space-Time Continuum by the Woke Left
6. Immigrants are Eating the White Working Class
Conclusion
- Title: Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? Interrogating a Right-wing Conspiracy Theory
- Author: Tony McKenna
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 248
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350429598, 9781350429574, 1350429570, 1350429597
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350429598
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:14:37Z
Tony McKenna is a journalist and cultural commentator who writes regularly for Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, ABC Australia, TRT World, New Statesman, The United Nations, New Internationalist, The Progressive, and Adbusters. He is author of Toward Forever: Radical Reflections on History and Art (2020), Angels and Demons: A Radical Anthology of Political Lives (2019), Art, Literature and Culture from a Marxist Perspective (2015) and The War Against Marxism (Bloomsbury, 2021).