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Political Correctness and Organizational Nihilism

Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, Schwartz{at}Oakland.edu

Political correctness represents the attempt to eliminate the father, often referred to as the patriarch, who is seen as having deprived us of our connection to mother and all of her goodness. But what has really deprived us of our connection to mother’s goodness is not the father, but reality itself. Political correctness therefore represents an attempt to destroy reality. This attempt to destroy the father as the representation of reality represents a different way of constructing meaning than we have in the traditional Oedipal arrangement. But the traditional arrangement made organization possible, whereas anti-paternal psychology undertakes to destroy organization. When organizations give themselves to political correctness they therefore reorganize themselves toward self-destruction. I call that process organizational nihilism.

Key Words: father • nihilism • organization • patriarch • political correctness

Human Relations, Vol. 55, No. 11, 1275-1294 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726702055011918


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