History and Political Correctness in the Modern West (Based on Materials from the InoSMI Portal)

This chapter examines the distortion of history and historical memory in the modern West under the influence of political correctness (PC), which has become widespread in Western society over the past few decades. The Russian Internet portal InoSMI has paid a lot of attention to this problem, which has been publishing translations of articles from various foreign newspapers and magazines (mainly European and American) for many years. The materials of this portal have become the information base for analyzing the influence that political correctness has on various aspects of modern Western culture. History is actively used by PC supporters to manipulate the consciousness of the masses through various media, school and university education, scientific, cultural, public and administrative organizations. Moreover, PC activists resort to outright fraud and falsification of the historical past to achieve their goals. At the same time, the attitude of Western intellectuals towards political correctness and the policies pursued on its basis is rather ambiguous. And since the PC in its current form is an opponent of traditional Western civilization and its history, the latter automatically becomes a natural victim of political correctness.