Study: 80% of Americans Believe Political Correctness Is a Problem
"Most members of the 'exhausted majority,' and then some, dislike political correctness."[/h]https://reason.com/2018/10/11/political-correctness-americans-vote-maj/
Except among a tiny minority of far-left Americans, political correctness (P.C.) is deeply unpopular. Some 80 percent of people said they viewed P.C. excess as a problem.
That's according to a
fascinating survey conducted by
More in Common, an international research initiative. The researchers asked respondents dozens of questions about race, immigration, sexism, free speech, and other hot button issues, and then sorted them into seven different categories: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the apathetic, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives. The two conservative categories constituted 25 percent of the total; the progressives, just 8 percent.
Everyone else, according to the researchers, form an "exhausted majority" whose views are not so different from one another, even across racial and gender lines.
"Most members of the 'exhausted majority,' and then some, dislike political correctness,"
wrote The Atlantic's Yascha Mounk in a terrific write-up of the survey. "Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that 'political correctness is a problem in our country.' Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages."
"Youth isn't a good proxy for support of political correctness—and it turns out race isn't, either," Mounk observes.
The best proxies are education level and income: the most highly educated Americans are more likely to think hate speech is a big problem, but political correctness is not.
