Universities/Colleges and Political Correctness

Today universities are the battleground for intense conflict between people demanding power. What some call political correctness includes speech code and sensitivity training for people considered to be unenlightened. For example, a woman who opposes abortion is cast as one trying to strip other women of power and dignity and masking her power grab in the language of “protecting babies.” To the forces of political correctness, this person needs to undergo reeducation to adjust her antiquated view. Similarly, people who think homosexual practice is wrong are said to be using the language of morality to strip homosexuals of their humanity, and this must be corrected at the earliest age before bigotry takes hold.

Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg.377

The Need for “Profiling”

We have become so obsessed with political correctness that both common sense and self-preservation have to take a back seat. We don’t dare “profile” anybody going through security checks because that’s not politically correct. Far better to be blown to smithereens than to be politically incorrect.

Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.47

American Culture: An Immoral Man-Centered System

Our nation's morality is changing into an immoral man-centered system devoid of the divine. Through political correctness and tolerance doctrine, Americans are bullied into accepting perversity as normal and healthy, violating norms and mores that historically maintained social decency from Moses' time. Political correctness is a strategy developed by Marxists to undermine biblical values and culture to transform the West into a Marxist paradigm. It is a hammer, an instrument of destruction. Economic Marxism proved inefficient in and of itself to alter the power and influence of Christian values.

Pastor Stephen E. Broden, “The Rise of Black Girly Men”

It’s a PC World

In the world of political correctness, arguments are resolved by social force and shaming, not by discussion, evaluating evidence, or civility.

Erwin W. Lutzer, We Will Not Be Silenced, pg.84

"African-American"?

Let's stop with the stupid, condescending, divisive, insulting term "African American." I am an AMERICAN who is Black. Congress banned importation of new slaves in 1808, 212 years ago. Why do I have a descriptive for the continental origin of my ancestors but whites who came to America later do not?

Larry Elder, Random Thoughts On and Around Election Night

The Real Division in America

The Slippery Slope

Word Weapons

"Homophobia" and "transphobia" are junk-science scare terms designed to end rational dialogue and debate, and instead to promote censorship and reeducation camps, possibly even setting the stage for future psychiatric commitment through suggestion of mental illness.

Robert A.J. Gagnon, posted on Facebook by Mike Adams.

Financing AIDS Detracts From More Important Issues

The impact of the health consequences of gay sex is not confined to homosexual practitioners. Even though nearly 11 million people in America are directly affected by cancer, compared to slightly more than three-quarters of a million with AIDS, AIDS spending per patient is more than seven times that for cancer. The inequity for diabetes and heart disease is even more striking. Consequently, the disproportionate amount of money spent on AIDS detracts from research into cures for diseases that affect more people.

John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D., “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Research Council paper

Encouraging Risky Sexual Behavior Is Unethical

Encouraging people to engage in risky sexual behavior undermines good health and can result in a shortened life span. Yet that is exactly what employers and government entities are doing when they grant GLB couples benefits or status that make GLB relationships appear more socially acceptable.

John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D., “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Research Council paper.

Thoughtfulness vs Thoughtlessness

In the age in which you will be living, if you’re a thoughtful person, if you ask questions, if you seek answers, if you’re willing to be honest with yourself, and if you’re willing to, as they say, call a spade a spade, you will be dismissed by the thoughtless with a label that was fed to them by a thoughtless culture, so don’t be surprised when it happens. It’s a self-defense mechanism designed to allow the name caller to acquit himself while indicting you. Evil will shout down everything contrary while providing a warm, cozy place for itself to incubate. It will counter a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument with a mind-numb chant. It will inlist the magistrate to outlaw opposing views in the name of freedom. It will enlist the court to decree what the majority rejects and declare it democracy in action, and it will actually believe its declaration. In short, evil will be thoughtless. Don’t you be.

Danny Wright, The Evil Of Thoughtlessness

Family Is Still the Building Block of Society

The methodical, deliberate redefinitions of terms such as life, gender, marriage, identity, etc. and the replacement of critical institutions, like the family and the faith community, with the government, have created the new normal. Many citizens now look to government programs to fulfill needs and solve problems, releasing them from a sense of personal responsibility or ownership and lessening dependence upon family.

Today, one’s identity is warped into a social construct permitted by some conjured up “right” to reject biology. Marriage, similarly, has been redefined to make a political point instead of its purpose as a key in a healthy society to procreate and provide sustenance and support. These reckless maneuvers borne on the political Left aimed to establish a more “progressive” society are, in fact, resulting in its destruction and material harm to individuals. …

The Left demands “educational equity” in schools but won’t dare touch the facts that children do better when parents are their first teachers, and a home is comprised of a mom and a dad. The “liberated” women of the Left, now even more angry and militant than ever, seem to thrive in the newly defined male persona of either an effeminate and compliant being or excessive in masculinity that translates into violent, oppressive, and sexist behavior. As noted in the June 2014 edition of the Institute for Family Studies, these women, united in their grievances, completely disregard social science that demonstrates “daughters whose fathers have been actively engaged throughout childhood in promoting their academic or athletic achievements and encouraging their self-reliance and assertiveness are more likely to graduate from college and to enter the higher-paying, more demanding jobs traditionally held by males.”

Robin Smith, The Family Is Still the Building Block of Society.

Body Problem or Mind Problem?

Does a man who has a healthy arm surgically removed because he doesn't feel it is a rightful part of his body have a body problem or a mind problem? When a man who is fifty-two identifies as a six-year-old girl, does he have a body problem or a mind problem? Does a woman who has anorexia and starves herself to death have a body problem or a mind problem? Just so, when someone who argues that they are transgender and, therefore, contemplating irreversible gender reassignment surgery, we must help them understand that they do not have a body problem, but a mind problem. It goes without saying that there is also a spiritual problem!

Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness, pg.161

The War of Political Correctness

… In a liberal democracy seemingly everything is permissible, but politically incorrect events immediately trigger an avalanche reaction of resistance: intellectuals protest, journalists on television twist their faces in moral indignation, comedians use the whip of satire, and the lumpen-intelligentsia, delighted with all that indignation, whistle, heckle, stomp their feet, and demand exemplary punishment of the perpetrators. …

The warriors of political correctness thing of themselves in the category of the struggle between David and Goliath. Nothing can be further from the truth. They belong to the mainstream, having all the instruments of power at their disposal. On their side are the courts, both national and international, the UN and its agencies, the European Union with all its institutions, countless media, universities, and public opinion. The illusion they cherish of being a brave minority heroically facing the whole world, false as it is, gives them nevertheless a strange sense of comfort: they feel absolutely safe, being equipped with the most powerful political tools in today’s world but at the same time priding themselves on their courage and decency, which are more formidable the more awesome the image of the enemy becomes.

Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, pg.104-105

With Liberals, What Is Incidental Must be Treated as Systematic

In both communism and liberal democracy we encounter the same peculiarity: what is incidental is treated as a systematic problem, which really means that whatever happens is systemic and nothing is incidental to the system. It thus becomes natural for true liberal democrats—as it was for true communists—to harass their colleagues because of a causal remark, or a lack of vigilance, or an improper joke, making the lives of unruly individuals difficult by constantly admonishing and creating further regulations and stricter laws. By doing so, the self-proclaimed guardians of purity see themselves as carrying on their shoulders the responsibility for the future of liberal democracy worldwide. If not for their effort and dedication, this great political enterprise, they think, would become fouled, and then—perish the thought. 

Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, pg.103

Political Correctness

There is nothing mysterious about [the rise of political correctness].  It is simply a practical consequence of the view that the duty of citizens of the liberal-democratic society is to participate in the great collective enterprise, where everyone cooperates with everyone else at all levels and under all circumstances. I we look at three…examples—family life, a book’s content, and popular jokes—we can see that from the politically correct perspective they are no longer irrelevant trivialities. They illustrate what is absolutely crucial for the entire logic of liberal democracy. Because the logic of this system turns on “dialogue,” “respect,” “equal rights,” “openness,” and “tolerance,” everything is by definition political, and nothing that relates, however remotely, to these notations is trivial, minor, or irrelevant. A slight offensive remark must always be regarded as a manifestation of mortal sin. What seems a barely visible mark on the surface conceals underneath swirling currents of hatred, intolerance, racism, and hegemony. The body responsible for ensuring that these terrible things do not surface is the state, with all the instruments at its disposal. It is the state that should incessantly work to impose and improve cooperation policies by removing all real and potential barriers, creating a favorable legal environment, and reshaping public space and education in such a way that the people’s minds internalize the rules of politically correct thinking.

Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, pg.100

When Freedom Becomes Slavery and Slavery Becomes Freedom

Over the last few decades we have observed legislation that has been passed in the name of freedom and of liberal democracy, but which led, with little social resistance, to a considerable limitation of liberty. Parity and quota regulations are a case in point. Although they are typical egalitarian measures, and as such inherently inimical to freedom, they have been largely accepted as a political imperative of a liberal society. One cannot nowadays appoint an executive or elect a representative, be it in politics, business, or art, without a prior selection according to sex, ethnicity, or some other nonrelevant criterion. Another type of legislation, extremely dangerous and also illustrating “coercion to freedom,” relates to what has been called “hate speech,” and still another to “domestic violence”; these phrases tend to incriminate more and more acts of conduct and speech, allowing for further drastic intervention by the government and the courts in family life, the media, public institutions, and schools. When such laws were being passed in some European countries some time ago, an immediate reaction was far from favorable. Many people and institutions—especially in the Untied States—voiced an opinion that such measures were Orwellian in nature, in the sense that the libertarian rhetoric was used to cover up coercion, making people believe that slavery is freedom and freedom is slavery. Later on, the adjective “Orwellian” was dropped and more countries, including the United States, adopted similar regulations spontaneously carried by the general will, with more and more support by the people or those who claimed to represent the people’s will; anyhow, the citizens did not protest, probably having been convinced that they were witnessing a global civilization of freedom in the making.

A similar pressure is exerted on education in general, the result being a rigorous conformity of thought and conduct—all, naturally, in the name of empowerment of students and teachers. Consequently, teacher, like parents, can do less and less, although most of them probably think that the changes are inevitable, and that never before did they enjoy so much freedom. The real power has been shifting to government officials, who—ostensibly ignorer to empower young people—decide how their minds should be formed, free from the potential subversive influence of teachers and parents. But then both teachers and parents have ceased to rebel because over time they also have become part of the great universal liberal-democratic will, bragging about their sincere and deep devotion to it. Coercion and spontaneity overlap in an almost perfect symbiosis. And if there is still someone who has not resigned himself to it, he will soon be called to order by the government and the courts.

Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, pg. 67-68

Rage of the Snowflakes

A toxic combination of identity politics, an increasing tendency to perceive campus problems as medical problems, and altered parenting styles has produced a student body intent on ridding their environment of any ideas deemed threatening. This requires the bastardization of language. Though the mainstream media portrays campuses as extraordinarily unsafe, the crime rate at most U.S. universities is far below the national average (not counting underage drinking). But the perceived danger has called forth a new vocabulary, with “vulnerable” students demanding “safe spaces” to protect them from the unknown. The label “vulnerable,” first used by U.S. media to refer to university students in 1991, appeared 1,407 times in indexed publications in 2015-16. The “remarkable increase in allusions to the vulnerability of students,” [Frank] Furedi writes, “provides a striking illustration of an important transformation of the way that university students are represented and perceived.”

Students and their bureaucratic campus allies demand protection in a variety of ways. “Safe spaces”—like vulnerability, a term that has proliferated and broadened in meaning in recent years—allow students to avoid viewpoints with which they disagree. … Combating “microaggressions,” meanwhile, provides cover for restricting the most innocent speech, if “marginalized” students interpret it (regardless of intent) as hurtful. Students obsessed with identity politics perceive “slights as a form of victimisation” and employ “rhetoric that continually reminds the world of [their] victim status.” …

Campus social life is an easy target for adherents of this new, infantilized order. Harvard’s senior administration recently resolved to penalize students for joining off-campus, private, single-sex social clubs—a policy enforceable only if students report on their colleagues. … At Bowdoin in early 2016 some students held a tequila-themed birthday party. Moved to act by the “traumatizing” presence of tiny sombreros, the school offered counseling to students “victimized” by the morally offensive “cultural appropriation.” Two student government members who attended the party faced impeachment hearings. Other students had to move out of their dorm. It’s no surprise that some Bowdoin undergraduates informed the Washington Post that the lesson they learned from the affair was to keep their opinions to themselves.

Calls for outright restrictions on campus speech have become common. Writing in Slate, University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner justifies campus speech codes on the grounds that “students today are more like children than adults and need protection.” He contends that speech codes, far from reflecting the ideological agenda of “lefty professors” (although speech codes are almost always targeted at non-leftist speech), are popular because “universities are simply catering to demand in the marketplace for education,” supplying “what most students want.”

Read the whole, thought-provoking article by KC Johnson

It’s Just the Emperor’s New Clothes Updated

We're living through a strange era, one in which logic and reason has been turned on its head, forcing us to view the world through the lens of the seriously deranged.  These insidious distortions of reality come in many forms, but, in this instance, I'd like to address the issue of biological sex.  A mere few decades ago, who would have imagined that one day we'd be told that there are more than two sexes?  With a plethora of scientific and commonsense evidence describing a male and female as the necessary ingredients for the continuation of the human species (and non-human species) on this planet, we are now instructed to learn that there have been many other sexes hiding in the shadows. … Unless we want to lose our grip on reality, we should always keep in mind that there's a natural order to the universe.  Yet it's tough to keep an orderly mind when one's cerebral cortex is constantly inundated with some frivolous science made up of whimsical proclamations from politically correct politicians and social theorists.

Bob Weir, Making sexual dysfunction appear normal

Toxic Masculinity?

We take a young man and kick his father out of his life, send him to school where he has mostly women teachers, barrage him with negative messages about masculinity, then turn him loose at college where we treat him like a guilty-until-proven-innocent rapist, and after all that, we blame "masculinity" when he goes off the rails despite the fact that he spent a lifetime bathed in femininity. Unsurprisingly, the more women try to change masculinity, the more negative and toxic it actually becomes.

John Hawkins, “The More Young Men Are Bathed in Femininity, the More 'Toxic Masculinity' You Will See”