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Cover of: Political correctness – Ideologie – Dogmatismus
Dietz Lange

Political correctness – Ideologie – Dogmatismus

Section: Articles
Volume 114 (2017) / Issue 4, pp. 440-470 (31)
Published 09.07.2018
DOI 10.1628/004435417X15071165043649
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Summary
Political correctness is both a positively and negatively loaded term. When absolutized, it leads to moral terror and assumes the traits of an ideology, which the twentieth century's sociology of knowledge interprets as the collective disguising of own interest as common weal and of prejudice as the plain truth. Historically, ideology is the secularized version of dogmatism – a religious claim to absolute truth. The combination of these three phenomena can lead to an ill set of symptoms developing, as has been seen in some theological discourses on feminism, peace, or the relationship between Jews and Christians. By revealing the cause of the malaise in recent Protestant theology, the author diagnoses ways of alleviating the situation.