Culture & Political Correctness

Cross-cultural communication challenges today are more complex than before. One of the reasons for this is the trend in being what is referred to as “politically correct”. This trend has taken enormous proportions in North America, but it is also very present elsewhere. Politically correct communication is not straight forward. Some people go to extremes in being politically correct making communication difficult.

One of the first things I noticed when I first came to France over 20 years ago was the number of train strikes and how it was deemed “politically incorrect” to complain about the people on strike in public. Even if this has eased up somewhat, it is generally considered wrong to complain about the people who are on strike and the inconvenience it may have on your life or your business.

Of course, over time I learned more about the history of France and why this came about. But it was only after I started my own company that I fully understood this political correctness in all its dimensions. This is too long to explain in this article, which is more about the cross-cultural challenges created by political correctness.

Political correctness acts as “excess baggage” or “barriers” in cross-cultural exchanges and it prevents real dialogue. When one person follows a set of communication “rules” and another person doesn’t know these rules exist and has a completely different set of communication “rules”, well, it’s very difficult to engage in effective conversations. And political correctness is a set of communication “rules” established over time and within a specific cultural environment. This series of articles is on how political correctness effects your cross-cultural communication.