.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Thursday, July 11, 2019

What Are the Limits to PC'ness?

Slavoj Zizek, "Anti-Semitism & Me Too complaints challenge freedom of debate"
Some British Jews feel affronted by alleged anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party. But how many of the complainants empathize with complaints from West Bank Palestinians?

Throughout history, thinking at variance with the mainstream was always unpopular and risky. However, at various times, it has been tolerated to different degrees. Today, it’s less and less acceptable than in the recent past.

Liberals of all colors like to repeat German socialist Rosa Luxembourg’s critical stab at the Bolsheviks: “Freedom is freedom for those who think differently.”

And, to spice it up, they often like to add Voltaire’s maxim: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

That said, does our recent (and not so recent) experience not show that freedom for those who think differently is now acceptable only within the constraints of the predominant social pact?

We can see this clearly, right now, as the unwritten rule which determines the limits of what is acceptable is breaking apart, and different visions compete to impose themselves as hegemonic. Years ago, Noam Chomsky caused a scandal when he followed Voltaire’s maxim to its extreme: he defended the holocaust denier Robert Faurisson’s right to publish his book, and his argumentation even appeared in Faurisson’s book as an afterword.

Today such a gesture would be immediately identified as anti-Semitic

Big numbers

Holocaust denial is today not only criminalized, the terms of its criminalization are sometimes even numerically circumscribed.

For example, an idea circulated a decade or so ago that it should be punishable to set the number of holocaust victims at lower than five million. Other mass crimes were then added to the list – such as when France made it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide.

Even if something is not legally criminalized, it can be submitted to de facto criminalization. Typical here is the fate of Martin Heidegger, until recently considered the key philosopher of the 20th century. After his ‘Black Notebooks’ were published, a group of liberal critics made a coordinated campaign to academically criminalize his thought.

The idea was that, due to his direct links with the Nazi ideology, Heidegger doesn’t even deserve to be the topic of a serious philosophical debate – he should be simply dismissed as unworthy of such an approach since, as Emmanuel Faye put it, Heidegger not only supported Nazism, his thought is nothing but the introduction of Nazism into philosophy.

This procedure of extra-legal criminalization reaches its peak in today’s politically correct version of MeToo. Sometimes it looks as if its partisans care more about a couple of affluent women who were shocked when Louis CK showed them his penis than with hundreds of poor girls being brutally raped. In replying to those who insisted on a difference between Harvey Weinstein and Louis CK, MeToo activists claimed that those who say this have no idea about how male violence works and is experienced, and that masturbation in front of women can be experienced as no less violent than physical imposition.

Although there is some truth in both of these claims, one should nonetheless impose a clear limit to the logic that sustains this argumentation: the limits of freedom are set so narrow here that even a modest debate about different grades of abuse is considered unacceptable­.

Is freedom (of debate) then not de facto reduced to freedom solely for those who think like us? Not only must we accept the general (PC) consensus and then limit our debate to minor details, even the scope of the details one is allowed to debate is very narrow.

Ticking boxes

Am I then a diehard liberal who pleads for total openness? No, prohibitions are necessary and limits should be set. I just hate those hypocrites who don’t admit the obvious fact that, in some sense, freedom effectively IS freedom for those who basically think like us.

The partisans of the criminalization of “hate speech” predictably try to concoct a way out of this paradox; their usual line of argumentation is: hate speech deserves criminalization because it effectively deprives its victims of their freedom and humiliates them, so the exclusion of hate speech effectively widens the scope of actual freedom.

This is true, but problems arise with the PC procedure of prohibiting even an open debate about this scope, so that an arbitrary exclusion (like the prohibition of Louis CK) is itself excluded from debate.

The argument evoked against defenders of Louis CK is the same as the one pushed by those who accuse the British Labour Party of tolerating anti-Semitism: who are we to judge if the complaints of the self-proclaimed victims are justified or not?

It is up to the affronted to decide this – if they feel hurt, then this is it. But really?

Let’s take the case of anti-Semitism: so we should take seriously the complaints of those UK Jews, who feel offended. However, are they ready to take seriously the complaints of the West Bank Palestinians, or is this considered a different case of a complaint where the victim’s word is not to be trusted?

If so, it’s proof that the claims of one’s own victimization are never to be taken at their face value but always coldly analyzed.

As the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze put it decades ago, all politics which relies on the unique experience of a limited group is always reactionary.

19 comments:

Franco Aragosta said...

Political Correctness is an artificial construct dreamt up as a means of gaining despotic authoritatrian control of the way we human beings will be PERMITTED to address one another. (!)

"PC" is, therefore, a powerful form of INSTITUTIONALIZED HYPOCRISY –– an ingenious way to SUPPRESS and even CRIMINALIZE thoughts, terms, and modes of expression that run contrary to the mode or modes of public –– and even interpersonal –– communication –– approved by our self-anointed elitist masters.

If this is NOT tyranny, I'd like someone to tell us what THEY think what ELSE it might be.

Franco Aragosta said...

O___F___F ......T__O___P___I____C:

POSTED IN HOPES OF GENERATING A SENSE OF WONDER AND CURIOSITY WHILE PRODUCING A PLEASANT CHANGE OF AIR:

Back in the days when I lived near a great salt marsh on the Middle-Atlantic coast, I often observed the behavior of flocks of Canada Geese and other migratory birds stopping near us on their way from from Northern to Southern climes.

I was struck by how well-organized they seemed to be, and how cooperative they were to their designated leaders –– almost like a military operation.

It also seemed to me these birds had a high regard for one another and were better at working toward a unified purpose than most human beings.

All this is glibly attributed to “INSTINCT” meaning it is supposed to have nothing to do with a conscious, creative application of “INTELLIGENCE,” but after looking at the remarkably well-organized, –– even decorous –– behavior of the Canada Geese, I can’t help but wonder . . .

I’m tempted to suggest that a spark of Divine Intelligence must be present in all forms of life –– just as in the sub-atomic, atomic, molecular, cellular and organic levels all the way up to the solar system and the largest phenomena the fill the Cosmos.

Gert said...


I've been life-banned from several blogs, for alleged racism. Harry's Place, perhaps the largest UK pro-Zionist blog, permabanned (IP blocked) a gaggle of anti-Zionists (mostly Jewish ones) and me. Ironically their motto is:

Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear. Indeed...

'We Hunted the Mammoth': their clique of radfems started calling me 'fattist', 'classist', 'sexist' and later also 'antisemitic' from very early on. The latter on the grounds that I use the term Zionist, considered there to be a 'dog whistle'. Dumb does as dumb is, of course.

Then, by popular demand, I was also banned from WHtM.

Gert said...

I left WHtM on a final note (probably deleted):

"PC: changing the World, one word at a time!"

Speedy G said...

I've been banned from a few platforms, myself. The Drudge Retort kept giving me "strikes" for posting the truth about the Kent State riots and statistics related to transmissibility of heterosexual and homosexual HIV. The truth really is "hate speech".

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

@ Franco...

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I for one am presently enjoying the "more PC than thou" shitfests currently perpetuating the Pelosi vs. AOC and Joe Biden vs. Himself conflicts.

Gert said...

I swear to tell MY truth, all of MY truth and nothing but MY truth, so Help me Athe.

*****************

Joe Biden: Hillary Clintooon in drag!

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Disagree. Biden would have left office with a helluva lot more (illegal) money if he was 1/10th as competent as Hillary.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

The reason it won't be Biden vs. Trump is that Dems don't want to spend a year using Biden as the voice of offended retarded people.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

"Trump should apologize to all mentally retarded people for pretending Biden is one of them not that that would be a bad thing...." etc.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

So what's the story, beamish, who you supporting this round? Tulsi Gabbard?

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Well, my lifelong contempt for extrene far left socialists keeps me from supporting Trump, so I'm not sure. Maybe someone with the balls to declare every person on the planet to be an American citizen and send out the MX missiles to put down insurrections?

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Guess I'll have to run for President again...

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Beamish 2020.... I'll Kill Everybody

Joe Conservative said...

...we could do worse.

Gert said...

Guess I'll have to run for President again...

Typical. If you want something done, you'll have to do it yourself!

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Exactly. As Prez, I could:

- Declare emergencies and areas to be in insurrection
- Pardon assassination squads

My first act would to ask Congress to mint one (1) 100 Trillion Dollar coin and give it to China and ask them to give us the change.

Thersites said...

They'd probally do it in Bolivares...