I found the below essay on political correctness stored on a old
laptop. According to the time stamp, I wrote it four years ago for
whatever reason. I think it ties in with my recent posts on feminism.
"Political
Correctness is a heresy of Liberalism. It emerges where Liberalism and
Leftism intersect. What began as a liberal assault on injustice has come
to denote not for the first time, a new form of injustice.... a
dogmatism that is intolerant self-righteous and quasi -religious." -
Peter Coleman a former Australian government minister from the Liberal
Party.
The political correct are more intolerant of
dissent than traditional liberals or even conservatives. Liberals of
earlier generations accepted unorthodoxy as normal. Indeed the right to
differ was a datum of classical liberalism. The PC do not grant that
right a high priority. Those who do not conform should be ignored,
silenced or vilified.
But political correctness is a
rather negative term, used only by its opponents; few people would
describe themselves of being political correct. So what are the
properties of a PC viewpoint? Well, I suggest the following: -
1) The false belief that human nature is perfectible.
The PC inclined tend to accept the view that human nature can be
dramatically improved or even perfected though psychological
and social re-engineering. The PC person believes humans can become more loving,
caring, considerate creatures if correctly 'educated'.
2) Promotion of Re-Education.
Following on from the above point, multiculturalism is vigorously
promoted in classrooms or workplaces through 'diversity training'.
The school curriculum were rewritten to include homosexual lessons; classic
children novels altered to remove non-pc friendly characters
or story lines.
3) Psychologising Arguments.
Instead of addressing the explicit content of an argument, the
politically correct attack what they believe is the hidden psychology
behind the argument: not that their opponents are incorrect, but that
they are bad. If you oppose mass immigration, you will be labeled a
racist by the PC inclined. A less obvious example: if you oppose the
Irish language you will be labeled a west Brit and assumed you have a
psychological flaw such as an 'inferiority complex'. This psychologising
of arguments is nothing but a dressed up ad hominem attack and
serves only to sniffle debate around important issues.
4) Moral Relativism.
Relativism is the view that what's true for one person or one culture
maybe false for another. There's no absolute moral truth, just differing
opinions, all of which are equally valid. Morality becomes a matter of
taste or sentiment, not a matter of objective fact. A recent Irish
example is the Muslim campaign for allowing the hijab as part of a
school uniform. The campaign was conducted with moral and cultural
relativist arguments - "This is true for us. It is discrimination if you
to refuse us." Those who opposed the campaign were denounced as
islamophobes while those who agreed with the campaign
were celebrated as being progressive, enlightened and thereby granted a
false sense of virtue without ever having to consider the objective
moral questions. This is just one example among many of how Muslim lobby
groups are manipulating our obsession with political correctness and
multiculturalism to sneak through their agenda.
5) Group identities and shifting loyalties.
The PC prefer to decide complex moral and ethical issues by diving
humanity into groups of victims united by their victim hood: Blacks,
Muslims, gays, women and the disabled. The PC automatically supports
those they consider victims, classifying them as nearly politically
untouchable, irrespective of whether they merit support or not. In
effect their reasoning is limited to 1) identify the victim and 2)
support them and their interests irrespective of any other factors. This
means the support of the PC lobby tends to shift according to
perceptions. In England the white working classes were supported against
the suppression of the middle classes until it was discovered that
white working classes were higher up the social hierarchy than ethnic
minorities and so the PC targeted their ire at the white working classes
instead. Likewise since the holocaust, Jews have been portrayed as the
ultimate victims and anti-semitism was the ultimate bigot. But after
September 11th, Muslims became the ultimate victim group and
Islamophobia the greatest bigotry.
6) Support for censorship.
Free speech is never an absolute and can never be divorced entirely
from the responsibility for its consequences. Speech should be curtailed
only if it intended and likely to cause physical violence or in
exceptional cases such as national security. However the PC lobby has
moved beyond those limitations and started criminalizing speech that
merely causes offense or incites not violence but an emotion (anger).
PC succeeds by attaching a sense of moral superiority to itself and so
its adherents feel righteous while trying to silence the politically
incorrect. They enforce the censorship with powerfully silencing
accusations of 'sexism', 'homophobia', 'fascism' or 'Islamophobia'. As
mentioned above, the terms are applied because the aim of the PC is not
accurate analysis of the issues but rather to silence the opposition.
Nowadays, is it almost political death for a politician to become widely
seen as holding 'racist' or 'sexist' views. This immediately shuts down
a whole range of important debates over immigration, racial profiling
etc.
Political Politeness is an assault on reason and liberal
democracy. It is assault on reason because the acceptability of a belief
is no longer its objective, empirically established truth but how well
its sits with the canons of current PC wisdom. It is an assault of
liberal democracy because its pervasiveness on media/public policy is
shutting down areas of debate and limiting freedom of speech.