Political correctness is not some sort of politeness, it is a cancer, a disease that eats away at society, allowing the poison to fester, for it stifles free speech and attempts to control our very thoughts, encouraging self-censorship. Freedom to speak means the freedom to offend and those so offended may respond in kind.
These days, if someone calls out “racist” or uses the terms such as “Islamophobe” or “homophobe” or some other variation, I switch off as they have labelled themselves as someone whose opinion I may safely ignore.
It’s nice to see that [Trevor] Phillips has finally seen the light, but the damage has been done and he was part of that.
– Longrider.
But I would respectfully take issue with the last line, which although undeniably correct, suggests a counterproductive sentiment. Nevertheless I strongly suspect from Longrider’s choice of title, Much Joy, that in truth he also sees this much as I do. And thus, although I am an atheist myself, this second quotation actually expresses my view rather well.
“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”
Welcome to the fight, Trevor, let me show you to your place on the forward edge of the battle area.
I suppose we had better welcome former sinners to our side, because if we didn’t the ranks would be very thin.
Ironically the term “Political Correctness” was first used against the Frankfurt School of Marxism by Orthodox Marxism.
However, later the Frankfurt School of Marxism made it their own – and made concentrating on race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation (and so on) the core of the modern Marxist project. These days “Critical Theory” is the “in” term – but “P.C.” will do.
If people want to exterminate “capitalism” and set up a totalitarian system then they should support P.C. – for that it what it is for.
And if people do not want to do this – then they should oppose P.C. Oppose the education system and the “mainstream” media which are dominated by the ideas of this School of modern Marxist thought.
It is that brutally simple.
Political Correctness is the manufacture of victimhood to engineer legitimacy for use of violence and censorship against others.
Being seen as a victim or victim defender justifies any public behavior. That is the propose of Political Correctness.
I wonder if Longrider is a nigger or a spic? Good to see we can offend anyone! (At least I haven’t accused anyone of being a socialist! there are limits!)
You would be well advised to trust Phillips as far as you can throw him.
Marxist cant has been the very foundation of his career and present prosperity. And now a change of heart?
As Mr Ecks points out, this is more like a tactic by a devout believer realising that the cause is harmed by being too literal too quickly.
I think that Messrs Ecks and Ed could well be correct – but they could also be wrong. I am not familiar with this Phillips fellow, so what I would do if I wanted to form an opinion on this latest conversion is examine his incentives – both the obvious and the less obvious. Any ideology can be changed given powerful-enough incentives.
Political correctness actually had a thought-out origin.
Ingrained prejudices – racism, sexism, god-ism, sexprefism – are very seldom, if ever, changed in any given individual. What you grow up with and develop early in life tends to be what you are for the rest of your life. If you’ve ever seriously called someone a queer or a nigger or a raghead, you’ll probably use that word (even if just silently, to yourself) your entire life.
Change only comes when the holders of such views die off.
Political correctness started as a direct recognition of this principle. If one entire generation could be raised and formed without learning such prejudices, those prejudices would disappear with the deaths of the silenced elders.
But it had to be complete. Just as when the almost-successful polio vaccine effort in Africa failed because one or two small regions fell prey to the Islamic claims that the vaccine was an anti-Islam plot and the disease then re-spread across the continent, even isolated pockets of such prejudice will bring it back to life.
So, the expression of bad thoughts – the teaching of them, in effect – had to be completely wiped out, lest some within the next crop of people embrace and perpetuate them.
That was the thinking behind it. Problem is, we all tend to disagree on what “bad thought” is.
If it became politically incorrect to speak approvingly of murder and assault and theft, we might improve society. (Rap music, of course, would wither.) But the socially-dominant left wants to make it politically incorrect to speak approvingly of anything not hard-left.
And so we of the not-hard-left dare them to try to enforce it.
The problem I’ve always had with political correctness, from the moment I first heard the term, is, “’correct’ by whose terms?”. Who are the Lords of Politics who decide what’s “correct” and what isn’t? (And how do we dismiss them if we disagree?)
Of course, much later I discovered what Paul describes above and learned that they’re the Frankfurt Marxists. And wasn’t particularly surprised. I already knew it wasn’t PJ O’Rourke, Rush Limbaugh, or Kelvin MacKenzie.
Longrider is absolutely correct: it’s not (as some of its advocates will claim) simply an extension of politeness, nor is it even a well-meant idea gone wrong; it’s a deliberate hack of politeness in order to promote a destructive agenda.
Over the last couple of years, Trevor has begun (or I could, less charitably, write ‘has begun‘) to repent. I will not echo Messrs Ed and Ecks in saying we should not trust him further than we could spit him; I think he shows the beginnings (or, I could write, ‘the beginnings‘) of genuine awareness. And as we are commanded to forgive all those who truly repent (or could I write, ‘who truly repent’?), we are clearly at least strongly recommended to be welcoming to those who are starting to repent.
This country was welcoming to Trevor and to many other immigrants and descendants of immigrants. Trevor used the free speech and access to politics that this country gave him to join – indeed to become one of the official, empowered leaders of – a conspiracy against its free speech; to take from the UK one of its distinctive virtues. This was a very evil act. I think Trevor now thinks it was a mistake and even a bit wrong. He has a long way to go before he looks in the mirror and sees himself for what he truly was. He has begun that long journey.
He has also a long way to go before he sees all the folly in thoughts he had even before free speech became his target.
– In the programme (a year or more ago) that showed he was beginning to question modern PC, he nevertheless was keen to argue that “if a black man who is best qualified for a job is denied it from prejudice, that hurts the British economy”. That statement is true. It is equally true that if a black man who is not best qualified for a job is awarded it from PC prejudice, that also hurts the British economy. It seemed to me, watching, that the latter was one of the thoughts Trevor had yet to think.
– Similarly, he talked to a black footballer who, after that stage of his career ended, was only offered one job as coach “and that was from a club whose manager is foreign-born”. It did not occur to Trevor that a manager with no minority privilege status might rationally fear to take a chance on hiring a coach who did have that minority privilege status – and so would be costly to fire. (Footballers individually score and pass, or fail to, in public, so can be fired in the latter case. It’s a lot more touchy/feely whether a coach is good for the team or must go, and it can be unfair but necessary when it’s mostly the arrogant team star’s fault that the two don’t get on, but nevertheless they don’t and the star’s a great player so the coach must go.)
Trevor put time and effort into making a TV programme saying he had been wrong about some things, and suggesting that PC had gone too far. That is worth something – quite a lot, actually – in the public domain debate. And it is worth something as evidence of Trevor’s own personal repentance. The temptation in me to write ‘and it is worth something – some small thing as yet – as regards personal repentance’ is precisely the one Jesus was warning against all those years ago.
Perry, Luke 15:7 was the quote I was thinking of and the reason for the heading. My tendency to be a little cautious is simply that he was a part of the damage caused, so we shouldn’t forget it, even if we do welcome him belatedly to the fold.
Neither.
As I suspected 😎
“It’s not (as some of its advocates will claim) simply an extension of politeness, nor is it even a well-meant idea gone wrong; it’s a deliberate hack of politeness in order to promote a destructive agenda.”
This is the best short description of Political Correctness I’ve seen.
Very true. I call the general case ‘victimism’, and the remarkable thing is how few Progressives realize (or, they may not care) that they’re following in Hitler’s footsteps; he was the Twentieth Century’s great practitioner of victimism, and his ‘Jew-exploited German peoples’ were that century’s ur-victims.
Political Correctness is the first step on the path to Newspeak. Doubleplus ungood!
Political correctness sits somewhere on the spectrum between social politeness and political violence like a revolver loaded for Russian roulette.