Vanishing American wrote a very long and informative post entitled On political correctness, multiculturalism, and their effects. If you have the time I encourage you to read it as a whole and then skip to my comments near the end of this post.

Here I will pull out what I believe to be the most salient bits. For instance, what is it:

Of course we all have a general idea of how and where these poisonous ideas started. Political correctness is also known as ‘cultural Marxism’, and it is an attempt to apply Marxist ideas to the social sphere. Economic or political Marxism focus on the means of production and the economic connection between human beings, or more accurately, between classes of people. In fact, the economic nexus is the explanation for everything in the Marxist world view. Cultural Marxism tends to focus, again, on groups of people, and on the power relationships between them. And of course those with power, or apparent power, are cast in the role of villains in the same way that the rich or the bourgeoisie are the villains in the economic view according to Marx. The downtrodden, the ‘wretched of the earth’, the workers, the exploited classes, are the heroes in that scheme of things. In cultural Marxism, socially ‘exploited’ or oppressed groups, those who are weak in some way, those who are less successful, those who are outsiders or outlaws are the heroes by virtue of their weakness and ascribed victim status. And the system of speech codes and social hierarchies which we call political correctness is just a way of codifying the social order as seen by the cultural Marxists, with minorities, women, gays, and Third Worlders (not necessarily in that order) as the apex of the pyramid. Members of those groups are to be treated with kid gloves, spoken of in exaggeratedly respectful terms, exempted from criticism and from accountability for their actions, and above all, must not be offended in any way, whether by failing to display proper deference or by using a taboo name to designate these groups.

Who originated it and why:

Much of the ferment in leftist thinking occurred in Europe, with the so-called Frankfurt School (link added) and Critical Theory, which attempted to bring down Western culture simply by relentlessly criticizing every aspect of the culture from the angle of every ‘oppressed’ or aggrieved group. It was an attempt to discredit the existing order of things and to foment more dissatisfaction and anger to be channeled into revolt. And of course by this time, the ideas of Gramsci, who advocated infiltrating all the existing institutions to bring them down from within, had mostly supplanted the old-fashioned idea of armed revolt.

How it ate capitalism:

There was a kind of collusion of interests: Hollywood and the entertainment industry wanted to sell titillating movies and music to a ‘repressed’ public, especially to the baby-boom generation, who represented a very lucrative new market. So good old capitalism was happy to collude, wittingly or unwittingly, with the left’s desire to alienate and radicalize the young, and thus bring down Western culture.

How it coincided with (and I would say invited) the Turd World invasion:

At around this same time in the United States, we began to see mass immigration, on a scale unknown previously, and almost exclusively from non-Western, non-white countries. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, our cities began to be transformed, as more and more exotic peoples and their enclaves became an accepted part of the American landscape. However, during the early phase, most of the immigration was limited to big cities, while small-town and rural America remained as it had always been.

How under its rules everybody is special – except the white Christians who founded and built the West:

In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, Americans of European ancestry had become accustomed to learning to use appropriate terms for black people . . . Women declared that ‘women’s libber’ was a slur, and ‘feminist’ was the accepted term. Asians demanded not to be called ‘Oriental’ . . . Homosexuals were soon demanding special rights, including re-labeling as ‘gay’ rather than homosexual . . .
And, thanks to the agitation by home-grown black Moslems, the term ‘Moslem’ was out, and the preferred term ‘Muslim’ was established . . . But this was the beginning in earnest of politically correct language in this country. One of the things which some people quickly objected to was the arbitrary nature of some of the terminology. The frequent changes of names.

All this analysis is spot on. One of the most identifying traits of PC is the use of constantly shifting meaning and euphemism. In support of which I would cite their obsession with framing, proclivity for deconstruction, and enthusiasm for demented postmodernism.

Vanishing American moves on to address the point that:

the West is being defeated by its own values, its own softheartedness and basically humane sensibilites. The Moslems, in Iraq and everywhere they confront us, are doing the same thing: they are turning our virtues into weaknesses by exploiting them. The Mexicans and other illegals who are invading and colonizing our country have our number, too; they know that for every tough gringo, there are half a dozen soft-hearted ones who want to help them, take care of them, treat them as dependent children. Thus we aid in our own destruction.

I’ve heard it said on numerous occasions that Christianity is to blame for this apparent weakness of Western culture. And I’ve heard it said on equally numerous occasions that Anglo-Saxons are the most liberal of all ethnic groups in this country. Look at Britain, they say; Britain is farther down the road of national suicide than other European countries. And here in America, they say, it’s the WASP elites who sell out their country and advocate multiculturalism and ‘diversity’. WASPs invented multiculturalism, I have heard from various people.

. . .

There may be a grain of truth, too, in the charge that Britain and America were more prone to liberalism, given that Britain seems to have more serious problems than say, France or Germany with immigration and multiculturalism. But did the British, or Anglo-Saxons, invent multiculturalism? I see no evidence of that.

All quite right I thought, but there is something to add. Something that is important I restate here for the record because it is something I’ve been grappling with for some time. It took great effort to think it through, and takes even greater effort say it. To do so requires commission of the most mortal sin there is against political correctness.

I started blogging a little over two years ago with only a vague awareness and revulsion at politically correct dogma and a mild curiousity about its origins and rationale. What I have discovered, slowly, is shocking, and it only gets more shocking with each day’s news.

It began with the recognition that the West’s education and mainstream media are biased and has progressed to the understanding that they are in fact engaged in mass brainwashing, an indoctrination with PC dogma under the cover of deliberately inverted language such as "free thought" and "fairness". It began with the recognition that this PC dogma interferes with the West’s ability to recognize and properly defend itself from the threat of Islamic jihad and has progressed to the understanding that it denies the even larger threat posed by the immigration invasion, which is flooding the West with impoverished, uneducated, dangerous people, including Muslims. It began with the recognition that PC dogma is something believed and propagated by moonbats and progressed to the sad realization that elements of the Right, supposed conservatives, specifically the neocons, are working in concert with the Left in an unholy union called either Globalism or Universalism. It began with an assumption that Jews are white, civilized, and on my side, and has progressed to the tragic and most un-PC of all conclusions that they are indeed my enemy, because their collective words and deeds are destroying my past, present, and future.

As I said, this conclusion has been brewing for a while. Lawrence Auster, a former Jew who often calls out anti-Semitism, helped me recognize the false face of the neocons; and Steve Sailer gave their insane foreign policy a name: Invade the World, Invite the World.

The globalist agenda to erase the world’s borders in the name of increasing trade is supported only by promises written on so much toilet paper. The "economy", we are told, requires immigration, because it helps the "economy". Well whatever this "economy" thing is it doesn’t seem so important as to negate the obviously horrible effects of the immigration it supposedly requires. What good will any "economy" be when the only people left in the West are Turd Worlders squabbling over its remains? Likewise the Left’s pipe dreams of "Civil Rights" and "Universal Healthcare".

Just yesterday I encountered the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It was a long, dry, scholarly paper by Kevin MacDonald titled Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A Historical Review. You may not want read the whole thing, but at least you should skim and understand it before dismissing me or the sentiments I’m expressing here as anti-Semitic.

A reader named Emerson left a comment for Vanishing American that connected the dots:

I’ve read sources that attributed the origin of Multiculturalism to a Jewish female sociology professor in Canada. I don’t know if that’s true but it seems plausible, as I see the same alien presence running throughout your essay:
Cultural Marxism, Frankfurt School, Marcuse, Fromm, historical culprits behind the Immigration Act of 1965 (Sabath, Dickstein, Celler, Javits, Jocobstein, Perlman, Lehman), Feminist movement (Stein, Freidan, Abzug), the sexual revolution (Freud), 1960s radicals (Hoffman, Horowitz, Elsberg) the Civil Rights movement (SPLC and the Reds), the militant homosexual movement (ACLU, ADL, SPLC), the Universal Nation (Wattenberg, Podhoretz, Kristol, Jacoby, and Shylock), Aztecs marching in our streets (funding by Soros), culminating with the neoconservative movement to initiate genocide on all those nasty Arabs, Persians, Iraqis, Turks, Syrians and Kurds, using the American gentile military.
They do have a history: Jebusites, Hittites, Ammorites, Philistines…
It almost makes one paranoid, or wise.

I’ve also read that multiculturalism was invented to mask the failure of blacks to rise to white standards, after it was obvious that Zangwill’s melting pot didn’t work for blacks or Emma’s refuse, but only worked for Christian Europeans.

Also, your observation is true that the West is being defeated by it’s own values and humane sensibilities. American Christians just don’t grasp the fact that white altruism (Do unto others…) is not a trait of the other races, not even the race that passes itself off as white.

The comment I then left sums up my reasoning and makes the point I wished to reiterate and record here:

I agree with Emerson. And I’d also point out that to criticize Jews is to break the most fundamental of all PC strictures.

Isn’t it absurd that anyone would even think to blame Christianity or WASPs for the rise of PC and its catastrophic consequences? Isn’t this in fact a reversal of the truth? Hasn’t the rise and spread of PC eroded the power of Christianity, WASPs, and whites in general? Blaming them is in effect blaming the victim.

Yes, there are Christians, WASPs, and whites who have fallen for the PC brainwashing. Yes, there are some who have taken it so deeply to heart that they work to expand and protect it. That’s the nature of PC. That is its purpose. To control the minds of the people it seeks to destroy. The left, at its root, is all about destruction.

You don’t have to be an anti-Semite to notice where these ideas originate from and who benefits. But you do have to violate PC to say: Jews. Why is that? Is it factually incorrect to note that the West’s entertainment, mass media, and banking systems are disproportionately controlled, even dominated, by Jews? Am I imagining their inordinate sway in academia? Is it pure speculation to note that these institutions overwhelmingly favor everything PC – they are the very tools by which PC is spread?

If we are going to break the chains of PC then we must not be afraid to speak such truths. The very idea to blame WASPs and Christianity, while ignoring the role of Jews, is an indication just how powerful PC is. But it can and must be broken if we are to fix what is wrong with Western civilization.

Jews are not the only enemy, and not all Jews are enemies. I’m not going to sugar coat what I have to say any more than that.