The New antiPC Problem, Part 2
It seems that Muriel Newman isn't the only person perplexed and confused over what political correctness means. One would think that if people are going to attack a concept that they could at least define the concept in some coherent way. But, in politics at least, that doesn't appear to be the case.
Newman specifically argues that political correctness is a sin that can only be committed by minorities. Apparently the new anti-PC guru for National has a similar view of things. He defined political correctness as "a set of attitudes and beliefs that are divorced from mainstream values."
That doesn't say much really. In fact it says nothing. There are plenty of minority viewpoints in the world that are not politically correct. Seventh Day Adventists go to church on Saturday. Does that mean they are guilty of political correctness because they hold a set of beliefs divorced from mainstream values? In fact attending church at all in New Zealand is contrary to mainstream values in the sense that the majority of people do not attend any religious service.
In a telling interview with Gaynz.com (the best I've seen done there) Mapp tries to explain himself and basically bumbles along with nothing more in his intellectual arsenal than arguing numbers. He tries to clarify his view on political correctness by saying "It's essentially when minorities try and tell majorities how to think."
Oh, that clarifies everything! Teachers are a minority and they tell children, the majority in any school, what to think. Is that political correctness? Where is line drawn?
When asked what are mainstream values he resorts to head counting again: "Mainstream is essentially what most people think." Now I know some people hate the illustration of 1933 Germany but it was such a telling example it is worth using. In 1933 German being Jewish was against mainstream values. Did that mean that opponents of anti-Semitism were guilty of political correctness trying to shut off debate? Surely the mainstream can be wrong or does Mapp's definition of right and wrong depend entirely on the number of people holding an opinion?
Has he overthrown any concept of individual rights for rampant majoritarianism? Can the majority of secular Kiwis regulate the minority of fundamentalists? He says they can't but then says they can. It all depends but he doesn't seem to know on what it depends. If he likes the regulation than they can do it and if he doesn't like the regulation then they can't.
What is missing is the concept of individual rights. Mapp doesn't seem to know where one person's rights end and another's begins. He is constantly referring to majorities and nothing more. There are no principles involved at all. Here are just some examples of this litany from the interview:
"Mainstream is essentially what most people think."
"One of the characteristics of social engineering is when society gets changed in a way that most people don't want."
"Basically, my views are essentially in common with most people."'
When Mapp seemed to realise that all he was doing was appealing to the size of a mob he tried to backtrack but not very effectively. He said: "This is not primarily about minorities and majorities. This is primarily about...the things that really offend against common sense." So it's not about minorities and majorities it about things that offend the views of most people! Perhaps he means that "common sense" is not actually common and is the viewpoint of an elite minority? I think not. I think what he was saying was that this is not about who has the majority it's about going against what the majority think!
The anti-PC crowd seem to oppose something they can't define. If you try and get a principle out of them they flounder about like a tuna on the beach. Mapp and Newman both immediately appealed to numbers-to minorities versus majorities. But they also used other definitions that are contrary to the appeal to size.
Newman said political correctness is something that cuts off debate. But surely in a civilised culture there are things which are beyond debate. Are there no debates that Newman wants cut off? If she is such an advocate of free speech why didn't she support abolition of censorship? Well, she happens to believe in censorship. She happens to think there are topics that should not be discussed or promoted.
There are also two different aspects to consider here. One is a societal response to issues and the other is a state response. In society people may voluntarily shun individuals who espouse killing all Jews. Surely Newman would want to do this? I hope! Though I take it from her favourable quoting of Frank Ellis she does not think it necessary to shun racists.
We have groups like the National Front who are openly racist in their viewpoints. Is it wrong to shun them? Is it wrong to condemn them? I am not saying that we need to have legislation making their opinions illegal. Voluntary, non-coercive shunning of people can shut off debate and I would think Newman would actually want that.
I find it particularly odd that anti-PC advocates are condemning political correctness for "shutting down" debate. I find it odd because none of them are advocates of unlimited debate. They want to shut down debate all the time. They want certain publications banned. They want to exclude specific viewpoints from the public arena. I didn't see Newman or Mapp defending David Irving when he was banned from coming to New Zealand to express his views on history. They seemed comfortable with debate being shut down then.
Mapp almost came out in support of free speech in an interview with Sunday Star-Times. I say almost because he quickly decided that the political consequences of standing up for a principle were to great and retracted his position. The paper asked him for examples of political correctness and he floundered about trying to come up with something that made sense. He failed miserably. Remember the anti PC corps says that it stifles debate and paint themselves as advocates of freedom of expression. Mapp pointed to the banning of David Irving as one example. "I don't have a problem with people like that visiting. I fundamentally disagree with him, but... I suppose my opposition to his views is to basically have him say them, and then be condemned." Before any applauds the paper reported: "Mapp phoned later that night. He'd been thinking about Irving, and changed his mind. It was right that Irving wasn't allowed here. The eradicator considered Irving was just too offensive."
Does it all come back to numbers? Are they comfortable shutting down debate when the majority of people seem to want censorship? And are they opposed to it when the majority is pricked? One would have thought the Irving case a perfect example of how these people define political correctness. Denying him the right to speak in New Zealand shut down the debate. And it did so specifically at the behest of a minority group. These are the two criteria used by Mapp and Newman to define political correctness.
Here is what I suspect is behind the confusion and contradictions. Both Mapp and Newman have NO concept of individual rights. Rights are what the majority approve of and when the majority disapprove there is no right. As Mapp said: " Social engineering is when you essentially change the social fabric of the country in ways that people don't want, and I think the prostitution legislation was a good example of that. Local communities can no longer pass bylaws to regulate soliciting or the placement of brothels in their communities. That's a good example of social engineering."
Now several things are involved here. One is the question of whether individuals have the right to exchange sexual acts for money and whether or not they can do so on property they own or have a right to use via a lease, for instance. In other words do people have a right to do with their own bodies as they wish on their own property? Wayne Mapp says they don't. Why? Because the community (the majority) may not approve. So the property rights of the individual are sacrificed to the will of the majority.
But clearly Mapp knows that such a definition leads to rampant majoritarianism and could lead to some very unsavoury things. He doesn't want that either. He just has no idea how to draw the line. But that is because the concept of rights seems absent from his discussion.
His view of social engineering is disguised majoritarianism. He says, "social engineering is when society gets changed in ways that most people don't want." Apparently it is not social engineering if you have the state interfere with human existence provided the majority approve of it.
How do we determine the majority? Well historically in the West that is done through elections. Representative democracy is the means by which this sort of majority is determined. But Mapp doesn't like that either. The Prostitution Reform Bill passed with a majority vote in parliament yet he condemns the act.
Not only did the bill pass but the people who pushed the bill through parliament are back in office for another term. Mapp is not happy with that which is why he's in the opposition not in Labour.
The anti-PC campaign is actually something quite different from what it appears to be on the surface. It is collectivism against individualism. Individuals can not make the decisions that matter in their own life if their decisions go contrary to what the majority believes. If the majority doesn't like prostitution then prostitution will be illegal and the Wayne Mapps of the world think that ends the debate.
The great individualist Frank Chodorov said something which applies very well to Mapp's view: "Putting aside the wordy explanations of this slippery concept, it turns out to be in practice good old majoritarianism; what fifty-one percent of the people deem right is right, and the minority is perforce wrong. It is the general-will fiction under a new name. There is no place in this concept for the doctrine of inherent rights; the only right left to the minority, even the minority of one, is conformity with the dominant 'social attitude.'"
"It is a state of mind that does not recognise any ego but that of the collective. For analogy one must go to the pagan practice of human sacrifice: when the gods called for it, when the medicine man so insisted, as a condition for prospering the clan, it was incumbent on the individual to throw himself into the sacrificial fire. In point of fact, statism is a form of paganism, for it is worship of an idol, something made of man. Its base is pure dogma. Like all dogmas this one is subject to interpretations and rationales, each with its coterie of devotees. But, whether one calls himself a communist, socialist, New Dealer, or just plain 'democrat,' each begins with the premise that the individual is of consequence only as a servant of the mass-idol. Its will be done."
Mapp's defence of banning prostitution is that the majority is offended by the practice. Actually I suspect that is not the case. I tend to think that only a vocal minority of religious fundamentalists were leading the charge and that Mapp confuses organised political pressure groups with majorities. But even if the majority opposed the practice is that sufficient warrant for using state violence to prevent it?
The majoritarians argue that practices they find offensive are really harmful. This was the view of Maxim and others who led the unsuccessful campaign against the new law. But John Stuart Mill had their species of argumentation in mind when he wrote: "There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it."
Mapp has no problem with social engineering provided National are the engineers. Mapp does not advocate getting the state of marriage. He advocates having the state engineer what the private sector sees as marriage. So marriage is a legal construct not a social one. See if it were merely social there would be no centralised control. Institutions, like churches, that would perform marriages, would do so under their own rules and those would vary from church to church. For decades now, long before any government did so, various churches have performed same-sex marriages.
Societies evolve and the fact is that marriage was evolving privately. Private churches were performing gay marriages. Private businesses were granting benefits to same-sex couples. And the Religious Right, which pretends to be against social engineering, is pushing an agenda to stop such private actions. For instance various US states have now passed laws, under pressure from fundamentalists, that would even ban private companies from granting benefits to same-sex spouses of their employees. Yet none on the Right dare call that social engineering. Why? Because it is done with the sanction of the majority.
And this is why I argue they are not advocates of individual rights at all. They are collectivists of the most raw and unformed kind. They argue that the majority do not want gay marriage so gay marriage is wrong. Of course where they are in the minority they stop appealing to majoritarianism and instead invoke God as their foundation.
The principled liberal instead argues from the concept of individual rights. And that baffles non-liberals like Newman and Mapp. Because they don't understand rights they resort to majoritarianism. And that creates all sorts of problems for them.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (The New antiPC Problem) - Next (Cheap politicians and expensive petrol)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
More journal entries...
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Institute for Liberal Values, Friday September 10th 2010. |
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