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"Political Correctness" Is About Control, Not Etiquette
Submitted by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,
I’d like to speak today about what political correctness is, at least in its modern version, what it is not, and what we might do to fight against it.
To begin, we need to understand that political correctness is not about being nice. It’s not simply a social issue, or a subset of the culture wars.
It’s not about politeness, or inclusiveness, or good manners. It’s not about being respectful toward your fellow humans, and it’s not about being sensitive or caring or avoiding hurt feelings and unpleasant slurs.
But you’ve heard this argument, I’m sure. PC is about simple respect and inclusiveness, they tell us. As though we need progressives, the cultural enforcers, to help us understand that we shouldn’t call someone retarded, or use the “N” word, make hurtful comments about someone’s appearance, or tolerate bullies.
If PC truly was about kindness and respect, it wouldn’t need to be imposed on us. After all, we already have a mechanism for the social cohesion PC is said to represent: it’s called manners. And we already have specific individuals charged with insuring that good manners are instilled and upheld: they’re called parents.
Political Correctness Defined
But what exactly is PC? Let me take a stab at defining it: Political correctness is the conscious, designed manipulation of language intended to change the way people speak, write, think, feel, and act, in furtherance of an agenda.
PC is best understood as propaganda, which is how I suggest we approach it. But unlike propaganda, which historically has been used by governments to win favor for a particular campaign or effort, PC is all-encompassing. It seeks nothing less than to mold us into modern versions of Marx’s un-alienated society man, freed of all his bourgeois pretensions and humdrum social conventions.
Like all propaganda, PC fundamentally is a lie. It is about refusing to deal with the underlying nature of reality, in fact attempting to alter that reality by legislative and social fiat. A is no longer A.
To quote Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
[T]he masters … stipulate that aggression, invasion, murder and war are actually self-defense, whereas self-defense is aggression, invasion, murder and war. Freedom is coercion, and coercion is freedom. … Taxes are voluntary payments, and voluntarily paid prices are exploitative taxes. In a PC world, metaphysics is diverted and rerouted. Truth becomes malleable, to serve a bigger purpose determined by our superiors.
But where did all this come from? Surely PC, in all its various forms, is nothing new under the sun. I think we can safely assume that feudal chiefs, kings, emperors, and politicians have ever and always attempted to control the language, thoughts, and thus the actions of their subjects. Thought police have always existed.
To understand the origins of political correctness, we might look to the aforementioned Marx, and later the Frankfurt school. We might consider the work of Leo Strauss for its impact on the war-hungry think tank world. We might study the deceptive sloganeering of Saul Alinsky. We might mention the French philosopher Foucault, who used the term “political correctness” in the 1960s as a criticism of unscientific dogma.
But if you really want to understand the black art of PC propaganda, let me suggest reading one of its foremost practitioners, Edward Bernays.
Bernays was a remarkable man, someone who literally wrote the book on propaganda and its softer guise of public relations. He is little discussed in the West today, despite being the godfather of modern spin.
He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and like Mises was born in Austria in the late nineteenth century. Unlike Mises, however, he fortuitously came to New York City as an infant and then proceeded to live an astonishing 103 years.
One of his first jobs was as a press agent for President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information, an agency designed to gin up popular support for US entry into WW1 (German Americans and Irish Americans especially were opposed). It was Bernays who coined the infamous phrase “Make the World Safe for Democracy” used by the committee.
After the war, he asked himself whether one could “apply a similar technique to the problems of peace.” And by “problems,” Bernays meant selling stuff. He directed very successful campaigns promoting Ivory Soap, for bacon and eggs as a healthy breakfast, and ballet. He directed several very successful advertising campaigns, most notably for Lucky Strike in its efforts to make smoking socially acceptable for women.
The Role of “Herd Psychology”
Bernays was quite open and even proud of engaging in the “manufacturing of consent,” a term used by British surgeon and psychologist Wilfred Trotter in his seminal Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War published in 1919.
Bernays took the concept of herd psychology to heart. The herd instinct entails the deep seated psychological need to win approval of one’s social group. The herd overwhelms any other influence; as social humans, our need to fit in is paramount.
But however ingrained, in Bernays’s view the herd instinct cannot be trusted. The herd is irrational and dangerous, and must be steered by wiser men in a thousand imperceptible ways — and this is key. They must not know they are being steered.
The techniques Bernays employed are still very much being used to shape political correctness today.
First, he understood how all-powerful the herd mind and herd instinct really is. We are not the special snowflakes we imagine, according to Bernays. Instead we are timorous and malleable creatures who desperately want to fit in and win acceptance of the group.
Second, he understood the critical importance of using third party authorities to promote causes or products. Celebrities, athletes, models, politicians, and wealthy elites are the people from whom the herd takes its cues, whether they’re endorsing transgender awareness or selling luxury cars. So when George Clooney or Kim Kardashian endorses Hillary Clinton, it resonates with the herd.
Third, he understood the role that emotions play in our tastes and preferences. It’s not a particular candidate or cigarette or a watch or a handbag we really want, it’s the emotional component of the ad that affects us, however subconsciously.
What We Can Do About It
So the question we might ask ourselves is this: how do we fight back against PC? What can we do, as individuals with finite amounts of time and resources, with serious obligations to our families, loved ones, and careers, to reverse the growing tide of darkness?
First, we must understand that we’re in a fight. PC represents a war for our very hearts, minds, and souls. The other side understands this, and so should you. The fight is taking place on multiple fronts: the state-linguistic complex operates not only within government, but also academia, media, the business world, churches and synagogues, nonprofits, and NGOs. So understand the forces aligned against you.
Understand that the PC enforcers are not asking you, they’re not debating you, and they don’t care about your vote. They don’t care whether they can win at the ballot box, or whether they use extralegal means. There are millions of progressives in the US who absolutely would criminalize speech that does not comport with their sense of social justice.
One poll suggests 51 percent of Democrats and 1/3 of all Americans would do just that.
The other side is fighting deliberately and tactically. So realize you’re in a fight, and fight back. Culturally, this really is a matter of life and death.
We Still Have Freedom to Act
As bad as PC contamination may be at this point, we are not like Mises, fleeing a few days ahead of the Nazis. We have tremendous resources at our disposal in a digital age. We can still communicate globally and create communities of outspoken, anti-PC voices. We can still read and share anti-state books and articles. We can still read real history and the great un-PC literary classics. We can still homeschool our kids. We can still hold events like this one today.
This is not to say that bucking PC can’t hurt you: the possible loss of one’s job, reputation, friends, and even family is very serious. But defeatism is never called for, and it makes us unworthy of our ancestors.
Use humor to ridicule PC. PC is absurd, and most people sense it. And its practitioners suffer from a comical lack of self-awareness and irony. Use every tool at your disposal to mock, ridicule, and expose PC for what it is.
Never forget that society can change very rapidly in the wake of certain precipitating events. We certainly all hope that no great calamity strikes America, in the form of an economic collapse, a currency collapse, an inability to provide entitlements and welfare, energy shortages, food and water shortages, natural disasters, or civil unrest. But we can’t discount the possibility of these things happening.
And if they do, I suggest that PC language and PC thinking will be the first ornament of the state to go. Only rich, modern, societies can afford the luxury of a mindset that does not comport with reality, and that mindset will be swiftly swept aside as the “rich” part of America frays.
Men and women might start to rediscover that they need and complement each other if the welfare state breaks down. Endless hours spent on social media might give way to rebuilding social connections that really matter when the chips are down.
More traditional family structures might suddenly seem less oppressive in the face of great economic uncertainty. Schools and universities might rediscover the value of teaching practical skills, instead of whitewashed history and grievance studies. One’s sexual preferences might not loom as large in the scheme of things, certainly not as a source of rights. The rule of law might become something more than an abstraction to be discarded in order to further social justice and deny privilege.
Play the Long Game
I’m afraid it might not be popular to say so, but we have to be prepared for a long and hard campaign. Let’s leave the empty promises of quick fixes to the politicians. Progressives play the long game masterfully. They’ve taken 100 years to ransack our institutions inch by inch. I’m not suggesting incrementalism to reclaim those foregone institutions, which are by all account too far gone — but to create our own.
PC enforcers seek to divide and atomize us, by class, race, sex, and sexuality. So let’s take them up on it. Let’s bypass the institutions controlled by them in favor of our own. Who says we can’t create our own schools, our own churches, our own media, our own literature, and our own civic and social organizations? Starting from scratch certainly is less daunting than fighting PC on its own turf.
Conclusion
PC is a virus that puts us — liberty loving people — on our heels. When we allow progressives to frame the debate and control the narrative, we lose power over our lives. If we don’t address what the state and its agents are doing to control us, we might honestly wonder how much longer organizations like the Mises Institute are going to be free to hold events like this one today.
Is it really that unimaginable that you might wake up one day and find sites with anti-state and anti-egalitarian content blocked — sites like mises.org and lewrockwell.com?
Or that social media outlets like Facebook might simply eliminate opinions not deemed acceptable in the new America?
In fact, head Facebook creep Mark Zuckerberg recently was overheard at a UN summit telling Angela Merkel that he would get to work on suppressing Facebook comments by Germans who have the audacity to object to the government’s handling of migrants.
Here’s the Facebook statement:
We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue. We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government, and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.
Chilling, isn’t it? And coming soon to a server near you, unless we all get busy.
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your whole spiel smells of race and creed logic. Like the hate mongers of Pope and Crusader days.
You don't believe is reason. You are totally immersed in cabalist and obscurantist logic.
The West has seen many counter-revolutionary logics as POWER PLAYS :
1° Counter Reform which led to the eviscerations during the 30 year War. It ended with the demise of the Hapsburgian Empire.
2° Counter Revolution which led to the Metternichian Colonial construct. It came down with WW1. it led to the demise of Rule Britannia and France. It eviscerated Germany one more time.
3° Fascism which led to WW2. Europe and Japan destroyed.
4° Now the counter-Enlightenment regression into western neo-feudalism in Pax Americana's global plays.The rule of the 1% and their false nosed "libertarian" bretheren like Ted Cruz and Donald Duck.
Nothing new under the Sun in your racialist knee jerk.
Don't use the Israeli excroissance of Western neo-Templar State doing Pax Americana's local policing as an excuse. The Matrix is much bigger then that. It has to be the OIL is THERE !
"Give me liberty or give them death"...haha, some perversion of a motto.
PS / Harry Truman was the guy who launched bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So his spiel was more devastating than Corn Cob's racial slurs!
Pax Americana is Truman's Hiroshima legacy to mankind. Thats the hard reality. The racial slurs are just the paper wrapping around "that MIC gift" that never stops giving.
Have you been to DC "falak pema"? If you have, you would have no question in your mind who controls America. Every think tank, every institution, every governmental organization is infested with zionists. Jews are less than 2% of the population, yet they are vastly disproportionately represented in the US power structure and the media.
It is hard to discuss an issue like this with someone who does not already understand it, because it is like the sun, its not hidden, so if you don't see it, its because you don't want to see it.
the feminist movement, Hollywood, immigration, Wall street, education, WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST, even your reference nuclear bombing of civilians in Japan, all tools of control by zionist forces.
BTW, how many heart wrenching movies has Hollywood made about the use of a nuke on Japan, as compared to lest say, the Holocaust or slavery?
Its about propaganda, they don't want idiot America seeing the consequences of our actions, but they always build up the bogymen, the Nazi's, the Muslims, slavery, all so they can scare us into submission.
Education is not anti anything, its just information: https://thezog.wordpress.com/
+100
Very good point about how many heart wrenching movies has Hollywood mading about the use of a nuke on Japan.
Well said, there is a huge difference in saying the "N" word, which is obviously offensive, and counter productive, and using a term like illegal immigrant.
The zionists media use PC to control the message, if you can't use common terminology to discuss an issue, you can't discuss the issue: Illegal immigration is the best example of this.
Open borders in America is a top priority for many Jewish organization, a nation (America) at war with itself has little time to question Middle East policy. What better way to destroy decent than import millions and millions that don't (and won't) speak English? What is always galling, and telling, is how those same organizations support quite a different migration to Israel...
"if you can't use common terminology to discuss an issue, you can't discuss the issue"
And that my friend is the whole point. And time is on their side, demographics being a good example. At current trends people of European and Christian origin will be a minority in their own lands within a few generations.
Found this over at jsmineset.com on being "politically correct".
Interesting.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, happy holidays whatever your faith or no faith may be! We have become a “politically correct” society where people get offended for the most ridiculous, or should I say “we are told” to be careful what we say or do because we might offend someone. A reader sent me the below regarding “political correctness.”
What is meant by the modern term referred to as ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’…
Someone found the definition of “political correctness” in 4 telegrams at the Truman Library and Museum in Independence Missouri.
The following are copies of four telegrams between President Harry Truman and Gen Douglas MacArthur on the day before the actual signing of the WWII Surrender Agreement in September 1945.. The contents of those four telegrams below are exactly as received at the end of the war – not a word has been added or deleted!
(1) Tokyo,Japan
0800-September 1,1945
To: President Harry S Truman
From: General D A MacArthur
Tomorrow we meet with those yellow-bellied bastards and sign the Surrender Documents, any last minute instructions?
(2) Washington, D C
1300-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur
From: H S Truman
Congratulations, job well done, but you must tone down your obvious dislike of the Japanese when discussing the terms of the surrender with the press, because some of your remarks are fundamentally not politically correct!
(3) Tokyo, Japan
1630-September 1, 1945
To: H S Truman
From: D A MacArthur and C H Nimitz
Wilco Sir, but both Chester and I are somewhat confused, exactly what does the term politically correct mean?
(4) Washington, D C
2120-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur/C H Nimitz
From: H S Truman
Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end!
Now, with special thanks to the Truman Museum and Harry himself, you and I finally have a full understanding of what ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’ really means…..
100 plus++ Nice piece of research.
Very interesting, so the media was already at it back then.
NOTE: the media is NOT liberal, or conservative, it is certainly Zionist and corporate, in others words, anti-American.
Political correctness has become/morphed into Political compliance. It is now a litmus test for anyone seeking to advance themselves within society. Those not in compliance with the strictures of political correctness are automatically ostracized. This is how the media control and manipulate politicians. Media control politician's legacy narrative: "If you violate the standards of PC, we'll tar and feather you until kingdom come". It is a legal blackmail system that has been well re-fined.
And this is precisely why media is scared to death of Trump. Trump doesn't care about media disdain for he and his campaign. Media will not be able to manipulate his decision-making; Media interests and the liberal's agenda will not be served (the people's interests will be instead).
One reason for hope is that exactly the same situation applied in the USSR right up to the time it suddenly collapsed.
It's all fun and political correctness till someone breaks out the .223. Then suddenly it all turns to shit. PC is the absolute opposite of critical thinking. Destroy a populations ability to think critically through your education system then absolute control through political correctness is possible. Either use your brain or donate it. Jeez
a concise overview of the orwellian semiotic mind control methods;double plus good! Give me honesty any day of the week (except sunday)
a concise overview of the orwellian semiotic mind control methods;double plus good! Give me honesty any day of the week (except sunday)
After 8 years of living in Obama's Wacky World, the educational system has finally gone full retard.
so how do we take our language back?
define some fundamentals?
define "politics" as simply the "business of the people" - nothing else but how we exchange and store value.
Money - as just an exchange of Value. realize that Currency is not Money.
then on to recapturing the language for storing and applying Money as Wealth & Capital
and realize the source of all Value is Labor.
focus on the fundamentals, the rest are just harmonic distractions.
Who actually speaks in PC? I still speak the way I always have, don't you? The media just amplifies the minority, but real people don't participate in this crap.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas.
And Happy Federal Holiday to you!
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"Cultural Marxism: The Corruption of America"
A great primer on the problem of the PC culture, where it came from, the mentality, their tactics.
It's just shocking to really begin to understand how they've done it to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdBuK7_g3M
Required viewing for those who are in the fight, but don't know where to begin.
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