OT:
WJ,
It is a shame that political correctness is now so ingrained into out society that the ridiculous is now commonplace. Here is an clip I have saved that describes PC to a tee:
The Tyranny of Political Correctness
July 22, 1999
William S. Lind
America today is increasingly a conquered nation. What has conquered us? An ideology --specifically, the hideous ideology known as Political Correctness, which is really Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms.
What is ideology? In philosopher's terms, it is a "construct": a system of ideas, derived from one or another theory, that purports to explain reality. In fact, reality is inevitably more complex than the theory can explain, with the result that reality and theory clash.
Here is where the difficulty arises. In science, when reality and theory clash, the theory is revised. But in politics, such revision is considered heresy by the ideologues (In Marxism, "revisionist" was a nasty insult). In their view, the theory is incapable of error. Therefore, reality must be denied, and suppressed. Anyone who recognizes it must be silenced, and punished. The result, as we have seen in Germany, in Russia and elsewhere, is the end of freedom and the growth of tyranny.
In terms of the clash between theory and reality, Political Correctness is an extreme ideology, because it is an ideology of total inversion. Beliefs and social relationships are not merely changed, but turned upside down. The old sins, such as sex outside marriage, become virtues, while the old virtues, such as disapproval of homosexuality, become sins. Women are elevated over men, some (not all) racial minorities over whites, the sexually deviant over the sexually normal, the young over the old. Art is intended alienate, not to beautify. Paganism is preferred over Christianity.
The more violently an ideology conflicts with reality, the more tyrannical it must become. The tyranny of Political Correctness is already seen on many a college campus, where any professor or student who dares question, finds himself in serious trouble. Any public figure who contradicts its dictates must offer a groveling apology or be cast into outer darkness, exiled from the public square.
Why can't more Americans see what is happening? In part, because of the way Political Correctness operates, through psychological conditioning. In part, because it is happening without mobs of workers in the streets carrying hammers and sickles or troops of goose-stepping Brownshirts. In large part, Americans cannot see it because they know "it can't happen here." Only it is happening here.
The great question confronting Americans as the 21st century opens is whether we will have to go through the full totalitarian experience, as Germany and Russia did. The form, of course, will be different, but the reality is always the same: thought control, with dissenters facing prison or worse. That is, in the end, what so-called "hate-crimes" are about: the criminalizing of political thoughts that dare defy Political Correctness. Sad to say, Ronald Reagan was wrong; it's not morning in America. It is twilight, and the night may be a long one.
Bill Lind is director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Cultural Conservatism |
