This threat to American culture is 'political correctness on steroids'

Political correctness never went far enough to spark meaningful ire. But that is over

By David Marcus | Fox News

Over the past decade or so a rhetorical shift has occurred in our political and social discourse. "Political correctness," the long-standing standard term for the ideological excesses of the left, was replaced by the term "woke."

在过去十年左右的时间里，我们的政治和社会话语发生了修辞上的转变。长期以来，“政治正确”一直是左翼意识形态泛滥的标准术语，现在被“觉醒”一词所取代。

steroid /ˈsterɔɪd/ /ˈstɪər‑/ n.甾族化合物；类固醇，其中一类被用于治疗阳痿等，这里指的是“社会警醒”这个术语相当于“政治正确的春药”。

ire n. /ˈaɪə(r)/ 愤怒• to arouse/raise/provoke the ire of local residents 激怒当地居民

rhetorical adj. /rɪˈtɒrɪkl/ 1.(问题) 反问的；反诘的。2.(常用于负面表述) (言语或文章) 辞藻华丽的；虚夸的；花言巧语的3.修辞的；修辞性的；带有修辞色彩的•the use of rhetorical devices such as metaphor and irony 诸如暗喻和反讽等修辞手法的运用

discourse /ˈdɪskɔːs/名词：1.论文；演讲•a discourse on issues of gender and sexuality 关于性别和性行为的论文2.[ U] (语言)语篇；话语•spoken/written discourse 口头╱书面语篇。动词：discourse on/upon sth讲述；论述

ideological excesses：意识形态泛滥

Woke即指清醒状态。从1930年代开始，为黑人争取民权斗争中使用，概指对社会种族不公正和种族歧视保持警醒。到2010年，这个词开始包括更为广泛的社会公正内容，泛指对一切社会不公正和性取向歧视保持警醒状态。共和党则在近年里开始赋予woke贬义。

Is this change simply a style shift, a new word to describe basically the same thing as the old? Or does wokeness differ significantly from the concept of political correctness?

这种变化仅仅是一种风格的转变，一个用来描述与旧的基本相同的东西的新词吗?还是说“社会警醒”与“政治正确”的概念有很大的不同?

I posed this question on social media recently, as well as to some colleagues who write often on the subject and the general consensus seemed to be that wokeness is a kind of industrial strength PC, as one person put it, "PC on steroids."

我最近在社交媒体上提出了这个问题，也问了一些经常就这个问题撰文的同事，普遍的共识似乎是，“社会警醒”是一种工业强化的政治正确，就像一个人说的那样，“吃了春药的政治正确”。

PC：political correctness的缩写，政治正确

But what makes wokeness so much more aggressive than political correctness? What are the sinews that give it such industrial strength?

但是，是什么让“社会警醒”比政治正确更具侵略性呢?是什么力量赋予它如此强大的工业力量?

sinew n. /ˈsɪnjuː/ 1.肌腱2.力量的来源；关键环节；要害之处

Both terms date at least back to the mid-Twentieth Century, both saw their meanings alter during that time, but unlike woke, PC was never a term that progressives used about themselves in a positive way. By the mid 1970s PC was being used by academics on the left to self deprecatingly warn against becoming too attached to orthodoxies.

这两个术语至少可以追溯到20世纪中期，它们的含义都在那个时候发生了变化，但与“社会警醒”不同的是，“政治正确”从来都不是进步人士用来积极描述自己的正面术语。到20世纪70年代中期，左派学者开始使用“政治正确”，自嘲地警告不要过于执着于正统。

deprecate v. /ˈdeprəkeɪt/ 对…表示极不赞成；强烈反对

orthodoxy n. /ˈɔːθədɒksi/ 1.正统观念；普遍接受的观点•an economist arguing against the current financial orthodoxy 一位批驳现行正统金融观念的经济学家。2. 正统的信仰（或做法）3.正教会；正教信仰与做法

It was not until 1987, and Allan Bloom’s book ‘The Closing of the American Mind’ focused on campuses, that the term became an attack widely used by the right against a left who they accused of shutting down speech in deference to those very orthodoxies.

直到1987年，艾伦·布鲁姆的《美国心灵的关闭》一书关注校园，这个词才被右翼广泛使用，用来攻击左翼，他们指责左翼为了尊重那些正统思想而压制言论。

in deference to 听从，鉴于，考虑到，遵从

By 1992 Pat Buchanan had made fighting political correctness central to his presidential campaign. The eventual GOP nominee, George HW Bush, who was far from a culture warrior, even decried it in a 1991 commencement address, specifically mentioning the problem in universities.

到1992年，帕特·布坎南已经把反对政治正确作为他总统竞选的核心。最终的共和党候选人乔治·HW·布什远非一个文化战士，他甚至在1991年的毕业典礼演讲中谴责了这一问题，特别提到了大学中的这一问题。

GOP：共和党的别称—大老党

decry v. /dɪˈkraɪ/ ~ sb/sth (as sth) ( formal ) （公开）谴责；（强烈）批评

commencement n. /kəˈmensmənt/ 1.开始；开端•the commencement of the financial year 财政年度的开始2.( NAmE ) 学位授予典礼；毕业典礼

Throughout the 1990’s there was room to gently mock PC culture, as ‘Seinfeld’ famously did in the episode where Kramer declines to wear the red AIDS ribbon. "Who doesn’t want to wear the ribbon!" an activist bellows. We are meant to be on Kramer’s side and laugh at the absurd virtue signaling. Importantly, Kramer even supports the movement, he just doesn’t want to be told how to express it.

在整个20世纪90年代，人们都有机会温和地嘲笑“政治正确”文化，就像《宋飞正传》中克莱默拒绝佩戴艾滋病红丝带的那一集那样。“谁不想戴丝带啊!”一个激进分子怒吼道。我们应该站在克雷默一边，嘲笑这种荒谬的道德绑架。重要的是，克莱默甚至支持这项运动，他只是不想被他人安排做事。

bellow /ˈbeləʊ/ v. 1.~ (sth) (at sb)（对某人）大声吼叫，怒吼•They bellowed at her to stop. 他们吼叫着让她停下。2.（公牛等）吼叫

Political Correctness was much more of a loose social contract than the set of codified rules that would take hold with wokeness. Importantly the speech codes of the PC era tended to be restrictions on subject matters such as black on black crime, issues in the gay community, or the cultural impacts of mass immigration.

政治正确更像是一种松散的社会契约，而不是一套固定的“社会警醒”成文规则。重要的是，政治正确时期的言论规范倾向于对主题的限制，如黑人对黑人犯罪、同性恋社区的问题或大规模移民的文化影响。

codify v. /ˈkəʊdɪfaɪ/ (术语)把…编成法典

Compelled speech was not typically a feature of political correctness, that would change with the rise of wokeness.

强迫性发声并不是政治正确的典型特征，这将随着社会警醒的兴起而改变。

Occupy Wall Street in 2011 offers an early example of the codification of progressive ideology that marks wokeism. The governing body of OWS, known as the General Assembly, employed what is called a "progressive stack" for its meetings. Anyone could speak, but slots were given in order of how marginalized the speaker's identities were. A black, trans lesbian would speak very early, a straight white guy would speak last, if time permitted.

2011年的“占领华尔街”运动提供了一个标志着“社会觉醒主义”的进步意识形态法典化的早期例子。占领华尔街的管理机构，即联合大会，在会议上采用了所谓的“渐进堆栈”。任何人都可以发言，但顺序是根据发言者身份的边缘化程度来分配的。如果时间允许的话，一个黑人、变性女同性恋会很早发言，一个白人直男会最后发言。

OWS：占领华尔街运动的缩写

The idea here was to redress centuries of straight white guys doing most of the talking in government, but it was far more explicit in its silencing of those voices than PC had ever been.

这里的想法是纠正几个世纪以来在政府中白人直男掌握话语权的现象，但它在压制这些（白男）发声方面比要“政治正确”明确得多。

redress /rɪˈdres/ /rɪˈdres/ 纠正；矫正；改正•to redress an injustice 纠正不公

redress the ˈbalance恢复公平合理的情况；恢复平衡

explicit adj. /ɪkˈsplɪsɪt/ adj.清楚明白的，详述的；直截了当的，坦率的

A few years later, in 2015, over 80 theater companies around the country would sign a pledge, called Jubilee 2020, that promised in that year they would produce no plays by straight, cis, able, white men. The loose social contract was calcifying into the tablets of the law. And in this set of woke commandments, compelled speech would play a major role.

几年后，也就是2015年，全国80多家剧院签署了一份名为“禧年2020”的承诺，承诺在那一年，他们将不再创作由异性恋、顺性、能干的白人男性出演的戏剧。松散的社会契约已固化成法律条文。在这一套“社会惊醒”的戒律中，强迫发声扮演着重要的角色。

cisman是指cisgender man 直男或顺性男，即出生为男性，心里认同为男性。

calcify v. /ˈkælsɪfaɪ/ (术语) t（使）钙化，骨化

Unlike the relatively flexible speech restrictions of political correctness, wokeness requires us to affirmatively use the "correct" pronouns, to sign the confessional statement at our company’s DEI training, and to wear the pride jersey.

与政治正确相对灵活的言论限制不同，“社会警醒”要求我们明确地使用“正确”的代词，在我们公司的DEI培训中签署忏悔声明，并穿上荣誉战袍。

Affirmatively /əˈfɜːmətɪvli/adv.肯定地；断然地

DEI ：Diversity,Equity&Inclusion 多样性、平等和包容

Jordan Peterson’s meteoric rise to fame began with his refusal to use his student’s pronouns. It was a tipping point for many who had seen political correctness as tedious but tolerable but, like Kramer, couldn’t abide being forced into speech.

乔丹·彼得森的迅速成名始于他拒绝使用学生的代词。对于许多人来说，这是一个转折点，他们认为政治正确乏味但可以忍受，但像克莱默一样，无法忍受被迫发表演讲。

Jordan Peterson临床心理学家和头牌畅销书作家，因为抨击学术界“安全空间”，贬低女权主义，讴歌父权秩序，哀叹“阳刚气质危机”，以及拒绝使用变性人心仪的人称代词而迅速成名。

meteoric adj. /ˌmiːtiˈɒrɪk/ 1.迅速成功的•a meteoric rise to fame 迅速成名2.流星的•meteoric craters 流星撞击形成的坑

tedious adj. /ˈtiːdiəs/冗长的；啰唆的；单调乏味的；令人厌烦的

can't/couldn't ~ sb/sth （十分厌恶而）不能容忍，无法容忍•I can't abide people with no sense of humour. 我讨厌和没有幽默感的人打交道

The upshot of the transition from PC to wokeness has thankfully been a swift backlash in recent years, not only from pundits but from political leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, both of whom have championed laws and regulations aimed at weakening wokeness’ hold on society.

值得庆幸的是，近年来，从“政治正确”到“社会警醒”的迅速转变引起了反弹，不仅来自专家，还来自唐纳德·特朗普和罗恩·德桑蒂斯等政治领导人，他们都支持旨在削弱“社会警醒”对社会的控制相关法律法规。

upshot n. /ˈʌpʃɒt/ 最后结果；结局

pundit n. /ˈpʌndɪt/ 行家；权威；专家

champion 作动词是为…而斗争；捍卫；声援

Americans aren’t just rolling their eyes anymore, they see a real threat to our schools, to kids indoctrinated by gender ideology, to corporations held hostage by DEI departments, and even to art and storytelling.

美国人不再只是翻白眼（旁观），他们看到了对我们的学校、对被性别意识形态灌输的孩子、对被DEI部门劫持的公司、甚至对艺术和话语叙述的真正威胁。

hostage n. /ˈhɒstɪdʒ/ 人质• He was held hostage for almost a year. 他被扣为人质几近一年。

For 25 years political correctness walked a tightrope, never going far enough to spark meaningful ire, in the age of wokeness that is over. A new cultural battle has been joined, and this time there seems to be very little room for compromise.

25年来，政治正确一直在走钢丝，但从没有走到足以引发有意义的程度愤怒，但（和平）在这个“社会警醒”的时代已经结束。一场新的文化战争已经开始，这一次似乎没有什么妥协的余地。

tightrope n. /ˈtaɪtrəʊp/（尤指马戏团表演用的）绷紧的绳索，绷紧的钢丝

英文链接：https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/this-threat-american-culture-is-political-correctness-steroids