The main drive for political correctness seems to me to be an aim to create or join an elite circle. One example would be people who correct other people's language when they hear a child referred to as autistic. "Don't call them autistic children. They should be called children with autism, because they're human first". It's not so much that the person is ignorant, as they want to impress people with their superior wisdom. And people often tell them they made a good point when they say something like that. Of course saying autistic person is just a more natural way of saying person with autism. If you were to insist on everyone saying "person with U.S. citizenship" rather than "American" because Americans are people too, that wouldn't go over as well most of the time. People are proud to be American and insisting on everyone minimizing that would just show that you think there's something wrong with being American. But I don't think it's ignorance that drives their choice of language, it looks like narcissism. "Correcting" someone like that implies that you have superiority over them, at least in some domain. Then they may pick up followers who want to move up this social ladder. These followers may not really be ignorant, and they may legitimately learn more about autism and learning disorders than most people. For the PC crowd this knowledge will be used to impress people and show how wise and kindhearted they are. They get to be champions of a cause. Correcting people is their way of informing society of their great cause and fighting ignorance. Never mind that the etiquette system they're embracing is just something they made up with little or no justification. Now if a mother of someone with autism or an educator tells someone the polite way to talk about the subject, they'll usually accept it without much of a fight. But they probably won't go around bullying people into using this etiquette just out of ignorance. But for those actually promoting political correctness anyone who doesn't want to conform is an obstacle to their movement and the social status they'll gain. They're in danger of going from being valued for spreading wisdom and changing the world for the better, to just being some nobody that everyone ignores. People who won't conform are their enemy, even if they are more involved in the matter, or even autistic themselves. So I can see someone conforming out of ignorance when they're told the "polite way" to put things. But I don't think the truly absurd behavior that political correctness brings to mind is from ignorance, I think it's from ego.