Taking into account the crosscultural differences in prescriptive attitudes in various linguistic communities, a theory of three types of prescriptivism--human-oriented, language-oriented, and error-oriented prescriptivism--has been offered [Strelevica-Ošina, Dace. [2011] 2012. "Kapec mes gribam, lai valoda ir pareiza? Ieskats preskriptivisma vesture, teorija un prakse" [Why Do We Want Language to Be Correct? An Insight into the History, Theory, and Practice of Prescriptivism]. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas instituts]. This paper presents a synopsis of this theory, with the main emphasis on the situation of Latvia and the attitudes towards language correctness and correction in the Latvian-speaking community. An insight into the historical and political backgrounds of these attitudes is presented as well. We might say that the dominant type of prescriptivism in Latvia is the language-oriented prescriptivism, based on a belief that language needs protection from outside influences and from becoming "incorrect", in order to ensure its survival in the future. Historically, the prescriptive concern for the purity and correctness of the Latvian language has sometimes been a symbolic political protest against foreign power. Nowadays, as the situation has changed, we can observe a clash of different viewpoints concerning the issues of language, its "correctness", and the role of linguists in this context as seen by the Latvian society.