News came from Oxford this week where the University’s ‘Equality and Diversity Unit” opined that those who failed to look other people in the eye were guilty of racism. Meanwhile, Americans were reminded yet again that women who breastfeed their babies are promoting rigid gender roles. The insanity of political correctness continues.
Political correctness is a manifestation of Post-Modernism, the decrepit and failed “intellectual” movement that arose in the 1960s which has defined much of what is laughably called modern thought. Post-Modernism was an attempt to pull up Western Society by the roots and redefine everything by creating an intellectual and moral chaos in which only those versed in its nuances could guide us to a new future.
The problem revolutionaries have always had with their attempts to reinvent human nature is that the butterfly of beautiful brave new expectations never survives colliding with the windshield of reality.
Human nature is resilient in its conservatism, rooted as it is in biology, tens of thousands of years of evolution, and centuries of cultural practice. So many visionaries have been smeared by the sheer inertia of human nature since the Pharoah Akhenaten tried to reinvent Egyptian society back in the 14th Century BC.
What often happens is that the revolutionary gets frustrated and invents ‘crimes’ against the new order, for which people have to be punished. This has certainly happened with political correctness. Inevitably, this fails and the revolutionaries get more and more insistent and more butterflies encounter the windshield.
At some point a beautiful moment occurs and the people have had enough. Egyptians ran through the streets excising the names of Akhenaten and his family from all monuments and tearing down his temples. The Parisian mob first mercilessly mocked Robespierre at the apex of his power in his ‘Festival of the Supreme Being,’ and a few months later cheered as he was guillotined. At one point, his closest compatriots and bodyguards stood around over a supine Stalin and carefully avoided calling a doctor to deal with his stroke.
One would not, quite, wish such fates on the likes of the Oxford Equality and Diversity Unit… well, maybe not literally.
However, it remains that almost every modern government and institution is facing hard financial times, and fat-heads make excellent targets for fat-trimming. No true politician is incapable of sacrificing someone else to save their own butt. This is especially true when the populace cheers the expulsion of those who considered themselves as our guides and betters, and the people are – sometimes literally – taking to the streets to express their derision and scorn.
Political Correctness began by parting with reality, and has only gotten worse since. The counter-revolution is coming.
John Thompson is a researcher, writer and commentator on defence and security issues at www.thinktankofone.com
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