Recently Jonathan Chait penned an article in New York Magazine that generated a lot of comment on the web. He complained about the excesses of the progressivism's politically correct and how the language police are perverting liberalism. What we have here is one of PC's chief practitioners, Chait, suddenly worried about the PC war on free speech.
It comes in the wake of the murders at Charlie Hebdo. Immediately after the French cartoonists were gunned down, there was near universal outrage over such a violent attack on freedom of expression. However, it soon gave way, as discerning leftists declared, no we are not Charlie.
Were the slain satirists martyrs at the hands of religious fanaticism, or bullying spokesmen of privilege?
Bullying spokesmen of the politically correct pushing back against the bullying spokesmen of privilege. The social justice industry has discovered another root cause. It's the original sin of privilege. For the eternal question, "Mommy, how come he has more than me?!" progressives have the answer: White male privilege.
As progressives see it, it takes brilliance and sophistication to recognize that kernel of truth amidst the noise and chatter of our complex world. But it implies that their complex world doesn't extend far beyond the proverbial backyard where an eternal Mommy adjudicates, and everybody's dish of ice cream holds exactly the same amount.
With the Charlie Hebdo attack Jonathan Chait has apparently come grips with the violent world that exists beyond the backyard fence. Journalists were murdered. I wonder if the terrorists had gunned down a random group of French Jews, would anyone have paid the slightest attention? Would Chait? But journalists were attacked, so lefty journalists did take notice.
But then, surprise! It turns out that free speech is a bone of contention over which the politically correct have taken sides.
The Marxist left has always dismissed liberalism’s commitment to protecting the rights of its political opponents — you know, the old line often misattributed to Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” — as hopelessly naïve. If you maintain equal political rights for the oppressive capitalists and their proletarian victims, this will simply keep in place society’s unequal power relations. Why respect the rights of the class whose power you’re trying to smash? And so, according to Marxist thinking, your political rights depend entirely on what class you belong to.
Jonah Goldberg hilariously pointed out in what might be considered a rebuttal article to Chait's, that the new left have now even turned on Marx. It turns out he was privileged. These are the very same who adhere to Marxist theory and promote Marxist solutions to everything from income inequality to race and gender inequality.
My buddy James Lileks writes about how left-wing students at Berkeley (sort of redundant, I know) are starting to turn on Marx, not because of his potted theories of the dialectic, his crude reductionism of man to homo economicus, or even the fact that he set the foundation for turning the 20th century into an abattoir. No, Marx is bad because he’s just another dead white guy. The students write in the school paper:
We are calling for an occupation of syllabi in the social sciences and humanities. This call to action was instigated by our experience last semester as students in an upper-division course on classical social theory. Grades were based primarily on multiple-choice quizzes on assigned readings. The course syllabus employed a standardized canon of theory that began with Plato and Aristotle, then jumped to modern philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Marx, Weber and Foucault, all of whom are white men. The syllabus did not include a single woman or person of color.
...Anyway, they go on to gripe that Marx worked from the assumption that there are — or were — differences between men and women. The madman! The professor’s statement in defense of Marx, that “women give birth while men do not,” was enough to make some students flee the room, no doubt in search of a gender-neutral fainting couch.
Maybe these kids just have too much time on their hands, but it's evidently not enough time for them to construct a coherent argument. Quips Goldberg:
It’s amazing. We spent a century trying to explain to the Left why Marx was wrong. It just never occurred to us to try “He’s a white guy!” It should have been obvious.
I'm not sure about the "obvious" part, and I doubt even Goldberg would expect lefties to be persuaded, but it's hilarious to watch. The PC police have long ago thrown in the towel on making a persuasive case. They only argue among themselves, anyway. They're about preventing any arguments from being heard that might be counter to theirs.
By recognizing that the PC police represent liberal abandonment of the very principles for which they say they fight, maybe Jonathan Chait is coming around.
Politics in a democracy is still based on getting people to agree with you, not making them afraid to disagree. The historical record of political movements that sought to expand freedom for the oppressed by eliminating it for their enemies is dismal. The historical record of American liberalism, which has extended social freedoms to blacks, Jews, gays, and women, is glorious. And that glory rests in its confidence in the ultimate power of reason, not coercion, to triumph.
Bludgeoning by the politically correct is not a perversion of liberalism. It is liberalism. There's a conservative strain to Chait's faith that "democracy is still based on getting people to agree with you." I doubt that Chait sees it. I suspect he's still stuck on liberal=good and conservative=bad.
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