Political Correctness is Wrong

European Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept 5, 2001 | Derk Jan Eppink

[gcruse]

                   Political Correctness Is Wrong

                   By Derk Jan Eppink, a member of the cabinet of
                   European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.

                   European imports of American products, especially cultural ones, have
                   always been a hot topic for pseudo-intellectuals, political militants and the
                   French government. I too would now like to join the ranks and protest
                   against a political phenomenon being rapidly exported from America and
                   not just to Europe, but world-wide: political correctness. Though
                   U.S.-inspired PC rantings cannot of course be blamed for the whole
                   fiasco, the Racism Conference in Durban, South Africa is to a large degree
                   a product of it.

                   This is because political correctness forces politicians to conform to the
                   agenda of any minority that claims victim status. It presses the media to
                   self-censor itself and restricts scientists to investigate only what is
                   perceived relevant to the group in question. Other professions are similarly
                   restricted, but the three named above are among the most important for a
                   healthy civil society. Its restrictive quality explains why political correctness
                   contains totalitarian elements and why, in turn, it becomes a tool of
                   totalitarians.

                   PC began its long road to its present exalted status with the American
                   protest generation of the 1960s, which not coincidentally also made cult
                   figures of such totalitarians as Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh and Che
                   Guevara. Then as now, its practitioners were attracted to it out of a
                   combination of liberal guilt and a fetishistic attachment to egalitarianism.
                   The egalitarian myth implies that all members of the group are of equal
                   value to society, that they desire comforts and risks in equal measures and
                   should hold identical opinions.

                   Various Stages

                   PC gets established through various stages, and it is in identifying them that
                   we gain an insight into the Durban circus.

                        Stage one is the recognition of victim status. Representatives of a
                        group put forward the claim that over a certain period, present or
                        past, they or their forbears have been treated unfairly. (Note that
                        whether the offending activity has ended or not makes no
                        difference.) A self-appointed leadership of the group then tries to
                        convince as many people as possible outside the group of the
                        justness of their cause.

                   They then find a "victimizer." For racial minorities in America this was
                   "white people." For feminists this was "men." For those whose inferior
                   cultural products could not compete with the classics, this was the
                   dictatorship of the ancients. When these three groups united through
                   political expediency, the composite victimizer became the "dead white
                   male."

                        Stage two is the negotiating process. The "representatives" of the
                        "victims" then demand compensation from elected officials, who will
                        acquiesce to such demands either out of feelings of guilt or simply to
                        gain re-election. Compensation could be monetary or through some
                        form of positive discrimination with regard to access to jobs or top
                        universities. A free society acknowledges that recognition stimulates
                        self-esteem and, purely for the self-interested reason of correcting
                        social pathologies, may give in and accept some of these demands.

                        But such compensation is not always enough for practitioners of PC
                        (which is really cultural Marxism), which leads us to stage three, the
                        demand for rewritten history. This stage transcends a minority's
                        freedom from majority dictatorship and obtains the obverse: the
                        minority's imposition of an agenda on the majority. Thus some
                        homosexual "leaders" are not content with demanding that the
                        heterosexual majority tolerate their lifestyle, which is a legitimate
                        request, but they insist on "affirmation."

                   The leaders of the group then claim an institutional place in society and a
                   legitimating role in history. It becomes "un-PC" to point out that they may
                   not be representative even of their group's views. It is sufficient that they
                   speak on behalf of the "oppressed." And it's not just the present that must
                   be made to accord with these political considerations; history too must be
                   reinterpreted to give the group centrality, and assign guilt. A wrongdoing of
                   many years ago, for example slavery, is examined according to today's
                   criteria.

                        In stage four, words that hitherto were anodyne become suspect. In
                        the United Kingdom the very word "Britain" becomes an object of
                        controversy because it is deemed to imply a hidden form of racism.
                        According to the Committee on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain,
                        the words "Britishness" and "Englishness" have "a systematic and
                        racial connotation." The "B-word" becomes an obstacle to a
                        multicultural society.

                   'New Moral Order'

                        Finally, we get stage five: a "new moral order." It is indeed, because
                        the bearers of cultural Marxism impose a framework that binds the
                        freedom to speak and (they hope) think. They may no longer
                        dominate the economic infrastructure, given that Marx lost that
                        battle badly, but so they try to dominate the political, cultural and
                        historical superstructure.

                   The consequences -- however un-PC it may be to point this out -- are
                   antiliberal. Whoever infringes the rules is instantly charged with "hate
                   speech," and as with all totalitarianism, to be charged it to be convicted.
                   And the worst thing about is that nobody has won anything. Members of
                   the groups that were identified as victims will no longer feel part of an
                   open, free society, but will be force-fed myths that will lead them to see
                   other groups as the enemy.

                   By now it should have become clear that PC threatens free society. It
                   causes group thinking and enforces conformity through intimidation. It
                   smothers debate and worsens problems. In a free society all may say what
                   they want, dress as they please, eat what they like and pray to the God
                   they believe in. The community, even the world community, is better
                   served by an open debate and intellectual challenge than by a "new moral
                   order" that seems good but isn't.

                   -- From The Wall Street Journal Europe

 

[gcruse]

The article came from Accuracy in Academia, and concluded with
this glaring error:

In conclusion, America today is in the throws of ....

Sort of takes the shine off the rest of it.  Thanks for
the link.  Good article. :)

[fella]

Pogo said it best: "What good is it to be politically correct when your morally wrong?"

[Commiewatcher]

"Thanks for the link. Good article. :)"

C-SPAN covered the event live when Lind gave the address back then; that's where I originally ran into it. The article has been posted several times since.

[gcruse]

Pogo said it best: "What good is it to be
politically correct when your morally wrong?"

Or when he said (think lifestyle police),
"We have met the enemy and he is us."