With Barbara Kay – a five part series on video. Start here.
18 Replies to “The Madness of Political Correctness”
And SDA gets quoted at the close of Part 5;)
It’s not “madness”
It’s the deliberate poisioning of the well.
Agreed blame crash. It isn’t insanity, its enemy action. Political correctness is a weapon. I treat it as such whenever I encounter it.
Bring back the Code Duello, I say.
Thanks Kate for posting this link. Having been exposed to many of the feminist perspectives she highlighted, I related to her constructive criticisms.
I really enjoyed her talk and I had not heard of her before, so thank you for the introduction.
The Phantom
[…..Agreed blame crash. It isn’t insanity, its enemy action. Political correctness is a weapon. I treat it as such whenever I encounter it.]
Aye!! You and me both!!
Bring back the Code Duello, I say.
Posted by: The Phantom
It would eventually rid us of cowards, bullies, & power junkies. If they knew you could take measures against their pettiness if not persecution.
How many of these cowards would be able to turn others lives into small hells, if not for goons or a political police behind them?
Allow self defense than see what happens.
In my opinion PC is a ploy to go to the lowest common denominator. You cannot fault the work because that would be sexist or racist. This leads to lower standards which in turn leads to many other problems, morale not being the least. When it doesn’t work, pour money in, stir and wait for the same result.
I’ve read her a long time; but this is the first time I’ve seen her talk.
Sasquatch is correct in that it is a subversive ploy to undermine and destroy Western societies, or a weapon if you like, the same as multiculturalism and many others. The enemies of free societies have long understood the role of language, words and their definitions and how to undermine the existing culture through them. Of course there are now many ignorant and naif promoters of political correctness, who do not have a clue of the strategy or of its goal. They just want to avoid the possibility of offending anyone or any group. As Stalin said they are useful idiots for the cause.
I wonder how many understand that the misuse of “gender” for sex is part of this. Gender is reserved for languages, meaning languages that distinguish nouns as either masculine or feminine, which has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s sex: male or female. This was a ploy to confuse boundaries and the meaning of being either male or female. This gave birth to the “transgendered” group. I remain almost alone in refusing to replace sex with gender, but that I do.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/hate_crime_legislation_back_do.html (May 10)
The tactics of the “politically correct” movement:
1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion.
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children.
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority.
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking.
7. Emptying of churches.
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime.
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits.
10. Control and dumbing down of media.
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family.
Not all of these items are 100% bad however. As an atheist I can’t seriously object to #7, for example.
I would argue that the false ideology of political correctness is easily refuted by a true one (see the works of Ayn Rand for details).
nv53: “Not all of these items are 100% bad however. As an atheist I can’t seriously object to #7, for example.”
And, nv53, in not seriously objecting to #7 you’re not alone and this is the great Achilles Heel of the Western World. Most of # 1 through #10 have been enabled by the abandoning of the faith of our fathers and mothers.
I’ve lived without faith and with faith — and am probably alive because I saw the Light. What faith fosters in people is:
1. refusal to see the world divided into races; we are all sons and daughters of G*d, the Father. Christians don’t tend to take offence, and when we do, we tend to take it to the Lord in prayer not to Human Rights Commissions.
2. faith not on “continual change” but on the Rock of our salvation. We know that confusion is not of the Lord.
3. vigilance in what is taught to our children. Christians are at the forefront of the battle AGAINST the teaching of sex and homosexuality [in the schools] to children. We prefer to be the “first educators” of our children and want the schools to teach the three Rs, not the ABCs of sexuality.
4. honouring our fathers and mothers and anyone in legitimate authority, including teachers who are “in loco parentis” in the schools.
5. knowledge of who we are and not being likely to have our identity destroyed by massive immigration, despite the leftists’ politically correct agenda.
6. enjoying the fruit of the vine, G*d’s creation, after all, but frowning heavily upon excessive drinking.
…
9. personal responsibility and accountability and depending on our faith in G*d, not the state or state benefits. In fact, Christians are by far the most generous donors when it comes to charitable givings.
11. a belief in, and support of, the central importance of the nuclear family, our “First Family” being Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Holy Family. The Church has always encouraged the forming of mother/father families (marriage) and parents, not the state, taking responsibility for the upbringing of their children.
As for #s 8 and 10:
8. Have you noticed that “an unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime” began in the ’60s, just about the time our churches were emptying? ‘You don’t think there’s a correlation? Hmmmm …
10. I and most Christians I know don’t rely on the media for their “news.” They see through the leftist dumbing down of our whole society in order to control our minds and those of our kids. We monitor what our kids listen to and watch. We’re not afraid to be parents rather than our kids’ best friends.
Please give these points serious consideration, nv53. You’ve got things backwards, unfortunately. It’s always a good idea to put the horse before the cart and not the other way around …
Thanks, BTW, nv53, for the American Thinker link, in which appears this stark quote:
“Munzenberg [one of the founders of The Frankfurt School] stated flatly, ‘We will make the West so corrupt it stinks.'”
Frankly, nv53, Christianity stands in the gap between the preservation of the magnificent fruits of Western Civilization and its total corruption and ultimate destruction by politically correct leftists.
Read George Weigel’s short but significant book “The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God.”
batb, I appreciate you taking the time to comment on my post. But as I have repeatedly stated I am an advocate of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, which I regard as the only thing that can solve the world’s problems because it is the only body of organized thought that describes the fundamental human situation correctly. Faith, meaning the refusal to use reason, is simply a dead end. Always has been, always will be.
nv53, one does not suspend one’s reason when one accepts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. In fact, one’s reason gets a boost because of the spiritual dimension of one’s insights. It’s kind of like living in 2-D and then moving into 3-D, or being blind and then being able to see (as pointed out by John Newton in his hymn “Amazing Grace.”) You should try it!
I hate to point this out: 2000 years after the death of Christ there are a couple of billion Christians all over the globe, doing good works, doing reasonable things like feeding the hungry, attending to the needs of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and those in prison, whereas I suspect that in 2000 years from now there will be only a handful of people, if any, who even know who Ayn Rand is — which is more or less the situation now.
By their fruits you shall know them (and you don’t focus on the fanatics among a group to take its true measure). Please, nv53, tell me what the fruits of Ayn Rand’s philosophy are — not just in your life but in the life of the world.
And, BTW, if you are as reasonable as you say you are, please deal with my argument: All the items you present, via American Thinker, that have been washed down the drain in the West have been championed, and still are, by Christians. How is it, then, that you can possibly say that the emptying of our churches has not been significant — or that faith has made Christians refuse to use reason? ‘Seems to me that Christians have been pretty prescient in defending the particular values they do, in order for the most organized and civil communal life possible — and have been defending these values for over 2000 years.
Please answer this question, if nothing else: Do you acknowledge a correlation between the emptying of churches in the West and its capitulation to moral degradation and surrender to relativism and multiculturalism?
If you don’t acknowledge that the emptying of the West’s churches beginning in the ’60s is related to the rapid escalation of civil unrest, multicultural chaos, and the actual limiting of our democratic freedoms because of “protected visible minority” status, please give a reasoned explanation of why not.
Thanks!
Full marks to you on this one batb. What a well-thought analysis/rebuttal.
Owing to no reponse, looks like nv53 is in search of easier adversaries; or perhaps digesting the food for thought presented to him. I’d like to see a comeback though.
batb,
There is absolutely no proof that Jesus is son of God and died for our sins or even that God exists, and the onus is on the believers to prove it, not on the non-believers.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a fairly recent arrival but I suspect it will be here long after religion is gone, because it is a true philosophy (she said religion is a primitive attempt at philosophy, whose task is to give man a comprehensive view of existence).
There is almost certainly a statistical correlation between empty churches and moral degradation etc. but that doesn’t prove a cause-effect relationship.
The genesis of “political correctness” lies in a stream of philosophical thought from Kant through Hegel, Marx, the existentialists, Gramsci, Marcuse, and others. That stream consists of a direct attack on man’s rational faculty, and the promotion of mystic faith (and another of Ayn Rand’s points was that mysticism and political violence are two sides of the same coin). So in order to refute it you have to provide a philosophy based on reason rather than merely a different version of mystic faith – which is what Rand did. Otherwise you’re bringing a cream puff to a gunfight.
Thanks, Snagglepuss. I was feeling pretty alone here!
nv53: “There is absolutely no proof that Jesus is son of God and died for our sins or even that God exists, and the onus is on the believers to prove it, not on the non-believers.”
I guess the only “proof” is in the pudding and, as I said earlier, by the fruits of any given religion/philosophy.
Look at what faith in the Christian G*d has given to the world over the past 2000 years: sublime music (Mozart, Handel, Bach, Palestrina, Victoria, etc.), extraordinary art and literature, public educational institutions (most universities were founded by Christians, not just for themselves but for those of other faiths or no faith, as well), medical facilities (again, most hospitals, certainly here in Toronto — but this holds around the world — were founded by Christians), democratic freedoms based on Christian teachings, beginning with the importance of the individual, guilt having to be proven rather than the other way around, etc. Go to any big city and who’s running the clothing depots, food banks, the in-from-the-heat/cold programs? Almost exclusively Christians, usually on a volunteer basis. Who gives the most to charity? Again, Christians, and this is statistically proven — and they’re not just wealthy Christians, they’re Christians across the socio-economic spectrum.
Go anywhere in the world in the middle of a natural disaster and who will you find as the first responders? Always Christians. I hitchhiked in Europe in the early ’70s with a young man who has subsequently become one of the most celebrated photographers in the world. In a letter I received from him in the ’80s, at the height of the Ugandan atrocities, he told me that Uganda was like a Heironymous Bosch painting and that the only “oasis of sanity” (as he put it) was an orphanage run for blind children by a group of impoverished Catholic nuns. He, by the way, is not a Christian, but has always appreciated my prayers for him.
Is that proof enough for you, nv53? That’s actually a rhetorical question! No one can prove G*d’s existence but no one can prove that He doesn’t exist, either. I haven’t always been convinced of His existence, but since the late ’70s, I’ve experienced enough grace and healing — and have witnessed what the power of the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish in my and other people’s lives — to know that I’m not living on my own, that I have an advocate who hears me when I pray and who answers those prayers, often in the most amazing ways. Don’t get me started on the events surrounding the 7.4-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake my family and I experienced — and lived through to tell the tale!
Blessings and peace to you, nv53 — but I would ask you to please ditch the “Faith, meaning the refusal to use reason, is simply a dead end” position.
Dead end? That hasn’t been my, or millions of others’, experience.
BTW, nv53, are you comparing the G*d of the Universe, who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, to a cream puff?
I’d like to see Aynie and her gun go up against G*d.
I’d pay top dollar for a front-row seat.
And SDA gets quoted at the close of Part 5;)
It’s not “madness”
It’s the deliberate poisioning of the well.
Agreed blame crash. It isn’t insanity, its enemy action. Political correctness is a weapon. I treat it as such whenever I encounter it.
Bring back the Code Duello, I say.
Thanks Kate for posting this link. Having been exposed to many of the feminist perspectives she highlighted, I related to her constructive criticisms.
I really enjoyed her talk and I had not heard of her before, so thank you for the introduction.
The Phantom
[…..Agreed blame crash. It isn’t insanity, its enemy action. Political correctness is a weapon. I treat it as such whenever I encounter it.]
Aye!! You and me both!!
Bring back the Code Duello, I say.
Posted by: The Phantom
It would eventually rid us of cowards, bullies, & power junkies. If they knew you could take measures against their pettiness if not persecution.
How many of these cowards would be able to turn others lives into small hells, if not for goons or a political police behind them?
Allow self defense than see what happens.
In my opinion PC is a ploy to go to the lowest common denominator. You cannot fault the work because that would be sexist or racist. This leads to lower standards which in turn leads to many other problems, morale not being the least. When it doesn’t work, pour money in, stir and wait for the same result.
I’ve read her a long time; but this is the first time I’ve seen her talk.
Sasquatch is correct in that it is a subversive ploy to undermine and destroy Western societies, or a weapon if you like, the same as multiculturalism and many others. The enemies of free societies have long understood the role of language, words and their definitions and how to undermine the existing culture through them. Of course there are now many ignorant and naif promoters of political correctness, who do not have a clue of the strategy or of its goal. They just want to avoid the possibility of offending anyone or any group. As Stalin said they are useful idiots for the cause.
I wonder how many understand that the misuse of “gender” for sex is part of this. Gender is reserved for languages, meaning languages that distinguish nouns as either masculine or feminine, which has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s sex: male or female. This was a ploy to confuse boundaries and the meaning of being either male or female. This gave birth to the “transgendered” group. I remain almost alone in refusing to replace sex with gender, but that I do.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/hate_crime_legislation_back_do.html (May 10)
The tactics of the “politically correct” movement:
1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion.
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children.
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority.
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking.
7. Emptying of churches.
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime.
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits.
10. Control and dumbing down of media.
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family.
Not all of these items are 100% bad however. As an atheist I can’t seriously object to #7, for example.
I would argue that the false ideology of political correctness is easily refuted by a true one (see the works of Ayn Rand for details).
nv53: “Not all of these items are 100% bad however. As an atheist I can’t seriously object to #7, for example.”
And, nv53, in not seriously objecting to #7 you’re not alone and this is the great Achilles Heel of the Western World. Most of # 1 through #10 have been enabled by the abandoning of the faith of our fathers and mothers.
I’ve lived without faith and with faith — and am probably alive because I saw the Light. What faith fosters in people is:
1. refusal to see the world divided into races; we are all sons and daughters of G*d, the Father. Christians don’t tend to take offence, and when we do, we tend to take it to the Lord in prayer not to Human Rights Commissions.
2. faith not on “continual change” but on the Rock of our salvation. We know that confusion is not of the Lord.
3. vigilance in what is taught to our children. Christians are at the forefront of the battle AGAINST the teaching of sex and homosexuality [in the schools] to children. We prefer to be the “first educators” of our children and want the schools to teach the three Rs, not the ABCs of sexuality.
4. honouring our fathers and mothers and anyone in legitimate authority, including teachers who are “in loco parentis” in the schools.
5. knowledge of who we are and not being likely to have our identity destroyed by massive immigration, despite the leftists’ politically correct agenda.
6. enjoying the fruit of the vine, G*d’s creation, after all, but frowning heavily upon excessive drinking.
…
9. personal responsibility and accountability and depending on our faith in G*d, not the state or state benefits. In fact, Christians are by far the most generous donors when it comes to charitable givings.
11. a belief in, and support of, the central importance of the nuclear family, our “First Family” being Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Holy Family. The Church has always encouraged the forming of mother/father families (marriage) and parents, not the state, taking responsibility for the upbringing of their children.
As for #s 8 and 10:
8. Have you noticed that “an unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime” began in the ’60s, just about the time our churches were emptying? ‘You don’t think there’s a correlation? Hmmmm …
10. I and most Christians I know don’t rely on the media for their “news.” They see through the leftist dumbing down of our whole society in order to control our minds and those of our kids. We monitor what our kids listen to and watch. We’re not afraid to be parents rather than our kids’ best friends.
Please give these points serious consideration, nv53. You’ve got things backwards, unfortunately. It’s always a good idea to put the horse before the cart and not the other way around …
Thanks, BTW, nv53, for the American Thinker link, in which appears this stark quote:
“Munzenberg [one of the founders of The Frankfurt School] stated flatly, ‘We will make the West so corrupt it stinks.'”
Frankly, nv53, Christianity stands in the gap between the preservation of the magnificent fruits of Western Civilization and its total corruption and ultimate destruction by politically correct leftists.
Read George Weigel’s short but significant book “The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God.”
batb, I appreciate you taking the time to comment on my post. But as I have repeatedly stated I am an advocate of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, which I regard as the only thing that can solve the world’s problems because it is the only body of organized thought that describes the fundamental human situation correctly. Faith, meaning the refusal to use reason, is simply a dead end. Always has been, always will be.
nv53, one does not suspend one’s reason when one accepts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. In fact, one’s reason gets a boost because of the spiritual dimension of one’s insights. It’s kind of like living in 2-D and then moving into 3-D, or being blind and then being able to see (as pointed out by John Newton in his hymn “Amazing Grace.”) You should try it!
I hate to point this out: 2000 years after the death of Christ there are a couple of billion Christians all over the globe, doing good works, doing reasonable things like feeding the hungry, attending to the needs of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and those in prison, whereas I suspect that in 2000 years from now there will be only a handful of people, if any, who even know who Ayn Rand is — which is more or less the situation now.
By their fruits you shall know them (and you don’t focus on the fanatics among a group to take its true measure). Please, nv53, tell me what the fruits of Ayn Rand’s philosophy are — not just in your life but in the life of the world.
And, BTW, if you are as reasonable as you say you are, please deal with my argument: All the items you present, via American Thinker, that have been washed down the drain in the West have been championed, and still are, by Christians. How is it, then, that you can possibly say that the emptying of our churches has not been significant — or that faith has made Christians refuse to use reason? ‘Seems to me that Christians have been pretty prescient in defending the particular values they do, in order for the most organized and civil communal life possible — and have been defending these values for over 2000 years.
Please answer this question, if nothing else: Do you acknowledge a correlation between the emptying of churches in the West and its capitulation to moral degradation and surrender to relativism and multiculturalism?
If you don’t acknowledge that the emptying of the West’s churches beginning in the ’60s is related to the rapid escalation of civil unrest, multicultural chaos, and the actual limiting of our democratic freedoms because of “protected visible minority” status, please give a reasoned explanation of why not.
Thanks!
Full marks to you on this one batb. What a well-thought analysis/rebuttal.
Owing to no reponse, looks like nv53 is in search of easier adversaries; or perhaps digesting the food for thought presented to him. I’d like to see a comeback though.
batb,
There is absolutely no proof that Jesus is son of God and died for our sins or even that God exists, and the onus is on the believers to prove it, not on the non-believers.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a fairly recent arrival but I suspect it will be here long after religion is gone, because it is a true philosophy (she said religion is a primitive attempt at philosophy, whose task is to give man a comprehensive view of existence).
There is almost certainly a statistical correlation between empty churches and moral degradation etc. but that doesn’t prove a cause-effect relationship.
The genesis of “political correctness” lies in a stream of philosophical thought from Kant through Hegel, Marx, the existentialists, Gramsci, Marcuse, and others. That stream consists of a direct attack on man’s rational faculty, and the promotion of mystic faith (and another of Ayn Rand’s points was that mysticism and political violence are two sides of the same coin). So in order to refute it you have to provide a philosophy based on reason rather than merely a different version of mystic faith – which is what Rand did. Otherwise you’re bringing a cream puff to a gunfight.
Thanks, Snagglepuss. I was feeling pretty alone here!
nv53: “There is absolutely no proof that Jesus is son of God and died for our sins or even that God exists, and the onus is on the believers to prove it, not on the non-believers.”
I guess the only “proof” is in the pudding and, as I said earlier, by the fruits of any given religion/philosophy.
Look at what faith in the Christian G*d has given to the world over the past 2000 years: sublime music (Mozart, Handel, Bach, Palestrina, Victoria, etc.), extraordinary art and literature, public educational institutions (most universities were founded by Christians, not just for themselves but for those of other faiths or no faith, as well), medical facilities (again, most hospitals, certainly here in Toronto — but this holds around the world — were founded by Christians), democratic freedoms based on Christian teachings, beginning with the importance of the individual, guilt having to be proven rather than the other way around, etc. Go to any big city and who’s running the clothing depots, food banks, the in-from-the-heat/cold programs? Almost exclusively Christians, usually on a volunteer basis. Who gives the most to charity? Again, Christians, and this is statistically proven — and they’re not just wealthy Christians, they’re Christians across the socio-economic spectrum.
Go anywhere in the world in the middle of a natural disaster and who will you find as the first responders? Always Christians. I hitchhiked in Europe in the early ’70s with a young man who has subsequently become one of the most celebrated photographers in the world. In a letter I received from him in the ’80s, at the height of the Ugandan atrocities, he told me that Uganda was like a Heironymous Bosch painting and that the only “oasis of sanity” (as he put it) was an orphanage run for blind children by a group of impoverished Catholic nuns. He, by the way, is not a Christian, but has always appreciated my prayers for him.
Is that proof enough for you, nv53? That’s actually a rhetorical question! No one can prove G*d’s existence but no one can prove that He doesn’t exist, either. I haven’t always been convinced of His existence, but since the late ’70s, I’ve experienced enough grace and healing — and have witnessed what the power of the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish in my and other people’s lives — to know that I’m not living on my own, that I have an advocate who hears me when I pray and who answers those prayers, often in the most amazing ways. Don’t get me started on the events surrounding the 7.4-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake my family and I experienced — and lived through to tell the tale!
Blessings and peace to you, nv53 — but I would ask you to please ditch the “Faith, meaning the refusal to use reason, is simply a dead end” position.
Dead end? That hasn’t been my, or millions of others’, experience.
BTW, nv53, are you comparing the G*d of the Universe, who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, to a cream puff?
I’d like to see Aynie and her gun go up against G*d.
I’d pay top dollar for a front-row seat.