Tuesday, August 09, 2005

THE POINT OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS NOT TO HELP ANYBODY BUT TO PUFF UP THE LEFTIST

For Leftists, all evil is mass evil -- "systemic," "institutional" evil -- against which only they stand. Just look at how over these past decades American racism has contracted in practice (largely because of the revolt against government-imposed segregation) but exploded in Leftist theory. The "rape culture" has also become a "racist society." It's gone from bigotry being the province of an Archie Bunker to this being a nation of Archie Bunkers -- and worse. Contemporary America is routinely described by such figures as Julianne Malveaux ("two hundred million white racists"), Joe Faegin ("every major aspect of life [here] is shaped ... by racist realities"), and Maulana Karenga ("increasing racism and continuing commitment to white supremacy") in terms honestly applicable only to apartheid or Nazism. But it's a progression not without its own logic: The greater the evil of the social masses, the greater the good of the socialist elite.

And how to make that evil greater but by making it absolute, i.e., manifested in every possible alternative? Consider this in relation to one of the Left's more asinine projects: Is the purpose of "politically correct" Newspeak to construct a language free from bias? An intriguing answer can be found in the example of feminist "thealogian" Mary Daly. Using a sometimes-specific term in a universal sense (e.g., "the pseudo-generic 'man'") will earn an accusation of sexism, while using only universal terms (e.g., "human") will draw an accusation of deliberately trying "to avoid confronting the specific problems of sexism." No matter what language a person uses, the Left reserves the right to condemn it for bias -- and to damn him as evil.

(And to exempt itself from any standard. After all, if not to "gender angle" the tragedy of violence, why speak of only a "rape culture"? What about other acts of violence against women -- robbery, assault, murder? Has it anything to do with the fact that these, too obviously, are also crimes against males?)

Even the economic inequality of the market substantiates the moral superiority of the Left, since the latter is the singular good that will vanquish the evil of the former. "Greed," like rape and racism, is judged yet another evil spreading throughout society. And the greater the evil of the social masses, the greater the need for the good of the socialist elite. "What you need," reveals Catharine MacKinnon, "is people who see through literature [!] like Andrea Dworkin, who see through law like me, to see through art and create the uncompromised women's visual vocabulary." While the Left condemns the free market for a division of labor based on ability and the alleged concoction of "false needs," its own politics centers on the dire need of the endarkened masses for axiological experts.

It is precisely the mechanics of this moral elitism that produces a superstructure of political elitism, the coercive rule of self-appointed experts, which is what every socialist government to date has been. What the Left has always condemned "capitalism" for most profoundly is its legal egalitarianism, its "formal equality" -- that is, its granting of political equality to moral unequals. In such a society, a Catharine MacKinnon has no more power than anyone else to censor others. Would-be Lenins and Maos and Castros are reduced to the Man on the Street. Each citizen controls his own property, and no cete of socialists is authorized to redistribute that wealth according to any scheme.

More here



Moral Issues

From Liberty Corner

A common complaint from the Left about the Right (especially the religious of the Right) is that the Right seeks to impose its moral values on everyone. I don't know about that, but I do know that the Left -- with help from the Center -- has been imposing its moral values on everyone since the 1930s. Among the moral values revealed by the Left's political successes and present agenda are these:

* Murder is wrong, except when it is committed against the unborn, the newborn, and other defenseless persons.

* It is better to allow innocent persons to be victimized than to execute dangerous criminals or put them away for good.

* Theft is wrong, except when it is committed by the state in the name of "compassion" (i.e., taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive) or for any "public purpose."

* Discrimination is wrong, except when it is committed against white males (soon to be white, heterosexual males).

* Two wrongs don't make a right, except when the aforementioned discrimination is committed in the name of rectifying "injustices" by discriminating against white (heterosexual) males who had no hand in the "injustices."

* People should be free to live their own lives, except that they shouldn't be able to smoke in "public" places (i.e., privately owned businesses), decide with whom they will do business, decide how to run their own businesses, send their children to schools of their own choosing (unless they pay extra for the privilege), and on and on, into the night.

* War is wrong -- even though it saved Europe from Hitler -- and large defense budgets are wasteful and provocative -- even though they brought an end to the Cold War.

* Free speech is a paramount value, except when it comes to politics, business, and non-Leftish opinions on campus.

* I've got mine, now we can impoverish those who don't have theirs, in the name of environmentalism.

The question for the floor is this: How on earth can the Left and its fellow travelers claim to be offended by the Right's putative insistence on imposing its morality on everyone else? The Left's moral obtuseness is of a kind with its refusal to admit "liberal bias" in the media.

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