I don’t think that turning pointed
anger and discrimination against any group is acceptable at all, perhaps
because it supposedly goes against the PC ideals I would have thought, and also
because most white working class men, and the broad mass of working class
people in general, are, and have been historically, the victims of injustice
and bear the brunt of economic downturns. In short, two wrongs don’t make a
right. Promoting one prejudice as acceptable, under the guise of challenging
many others, is also unjust, anti Christian, and actually perniciously is
playing economically marginalised groups off against each other and getting them
to blame each other, and accept in the end that one group prospers at the
expense of another, which whether true or not, is disgusting and unfair and
borders on a kind of fascism, rather than left liberalism which many of those
who are PC would earnestly claim to be. Any intelligent and honest person can
see that PC has taken on a life of its own and is merely giving very vocal
groups, and the political establishment, the self righteousness to challenge
everyone else’s right to free speech and a difference of opinion and actually
to close down any kind of debate. That is anti democracy, anti free speech,
anti freedom and dividing people up. Again, the very opposite of what the PC
thought police would claim. We all know the reality of it though, I suspect. At
least, those of us who think for ourselves.
PC Positives and Negatives
The Positive Aspects of PC:
·
Promotes equality
·
Anti racist, anti homophobic, anti sexist
·
The acceptance that affluent white people are not the
only people with needs
·
There are other opinions
·
Many contentious issues should be beyond mainstream
politics
·
Left wing politics have as much credibility as right
wing politics
·
An acknowledgement that the white male dominant culture
has been oppressive.
The Negative Aspects of PC:
·
Doesn’t ever seem to accept that class discrimination
against poor white people is also a problem
·
Claims to be liberal and tolerant but has increasingly
become fanatical and almost fascistic in nature
·
Has increasingly devolved into ‘rights’ for very small
minority groups which though might be acceptable is missing the point
·
Has ended up turning minority groups against each
other and the poor white working class and effectively playing them off against
each other
·
Is silencing free speech in the very name of tolerance,
diversity and acceptance which is a complete contradiction in terms
·
Can be rather white and rather middle class in outlook
The Silencing of Dissent & Debate, the End of Democracy?
One thing that we should all be
concerned about is the reality that those espousing a claim to be tolerant
liberals are becoming dangerously more and more anti democratic, anti free
speech, almost regardless of whatever is said, and there seems to be in the air
the feeling that that mob mentality, which it is, is almost waiting for someone
at any time, at any place and in any way to say something, even in a slip of
the tongue or an off the cuff joke, who is then to be pilloried and tried by a
jury of those hungering for a victim in the most unfair and nasty way by a
baying mob that sometimes sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place in
revolutionary France, or acting like the worst kind of racists and ‘gay bashers’
and ultra right wing and ultra left wing reactionaries. Ironic really. Some of
the PC faithful are acting as intolerantly, obviously in speech, as the
racists, homophobes and the sexists they claim are utterly intolerant. It can
be the classic mob mentality. It is not about equality where I’m standing from,
it is merely in some cases all kinds of nasty and unprincipled individuals
jumping on a bandwagon to hate, despise, offend and hound off the air or out of
jobs anyone who says anything that is deemed unacceptable, and perhaps someone
who says something that secretly some of the PC faithful wish they could say
but wouldn’t get away with. It is classic censorship of the unfocussed, the
unprincipled, the angry and those who want their day in the sun, but in all the
wrong ways and mostly for all the wrong reasons. It all started so well, how is
it now ending so badly?
Economic Inequality Has Got Worse
What’s probably the most ironic of
all, is that in all the cries for equal rights, equality, racial equality,
women’s equality and so on, the economic divisions in the UK particularly have
widened to levels not seen since the dreadful and desperate economic hardships
of the 1930s and as reported perhaps even as bad as it was a about a hundred
years ago. The economy seems to work very well for the very richest, fairly
well for the affluent middle class, and not very well at all for those at the
bottom of the economic pile, be they white, black, Asian, the broad mass of the
working class and immigrants. So, for all the talk of equality, and it getting
louder and more urgent, there has been a reverse in economic equality, educational
opportunities for poorer people, a rise in insecure and low paid employment,
austerity imposed on those who can least bear it and it’s now almost impossible
for aspiring working class people to pull themselves up and move on. So, is PC
just a smokescreen for destroying working class communities, tea and sympathy
in effect, but no real concern for anyone or from anyone who could do something
about it? I do truly wonder.
The Totalitarianism of ‘The People’
One of the problems that is perhaps
less obvious with the whole PC movement, is just exactly what the definition of
equality really means. On the surface, the vast majority of people would
assume, I assume, that equality means just exactly that, equal rights before
the law, equal access to educational opportunities, equal access to jobs, equal
treatment in all ways that iron out the differences in a divided society.
Because, of course, if there is a push for equal rights and often in such a
vociferous and vocal way, we are of course saying that the UK is very far from
equality? I would assume so, anyway. Well, that would be the argument for
equality, of course. But more sinisterly, the idea of equality has become
confused with the idea that we should all be the same in some unexplained way,
and that the loudest and most aggressive group will dominate. So, simply put,
‘equality’ begins to become everyone having to think the same thoughts, be the
same, accepting the same things, disagreeing with the same things, and where
all original thought and particularly independent honest opinion is derided,
denounced and clamped down on, obviously if it is seen as Non PC. This is
similar in principle to how right wing fascism works and also totalitarianism
communism, where a person subsumes their individuality to some notion of a collective
political ideal and the individual doesn’t really matter anymore. Such enforced
conformity eventually needs an outlet and a target to attack, to strangely
enough give vent to peoples anger at having to conform in the first place. It
is why we need to replace PC extremism with the democratic right to free
speech, so we can criticise and healthily debate with whoever wishes to censor
anything which is seen as unacceptable, starting with the increasingly nasty
and intolerant and unacceptable notion of PC itself. The biggest irony is the
intolerance of tolerance and the fascism of the majority against those who
refuse to fit in, or just don’t fit in or have a difference of opinion. Isn’t
that what PC was originally challenging in the first place?
The Christian Response
This is far more than an appendage
to the whole argument presented here, but I can tell you straightaway that
Christianity, and the practise of Christian faith, is really in no way
compatible with PC. It may seem to be, with the PC stress on anti racism, anti
sexism, anti homophobia and so on, but there are irreconcilable differences.
Christianity is a complete lifestyle, where the emphasis is getting yourself
right with the divine help of an infinitely wise, all seeing, all knowing and
all powerful God. Instead of trying to change the world, we are really
transforming ourselves first. PC is really the opposite. It is assuming that by
saying continually you are non racist, non sexist, non homophobic and so on,
that you then have the right to persecute others who are not demonstrating the
same zealousness as yourself. It has now become a persecutors charter, to
supposedly challenge the persecution of others! It is then, a muddle of
contradictions like most human secular faiths become sooner or later. I may
add, that when PC is on its way out, or a massive backlash finally sees it off,
the majority of those voraciously clinging to it now and the power it gives
them, will be the first to disown it by saying something like “I was never
really into it, I stood out from the crowd, whereas all my friends were so PC,
and so intolerant!”, but they will know the truth of it.
14 The
entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as
yourself." 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or
you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians
5:14-15 NIV)
