The Inhumanity Of Political Correctness: Cheering The Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Booing Free Speech
Brendan O'Neill writes at The Spectator of Trinity College, Dublin, students who cheered a speaker who implied that the Charlie Hebdo staff, slaughtered for Allah, got what they deserved:
But the audience at last night's debate was not part of any cynical, self-styled community group. They were young. They were mainly liberals. They were pretty cool. Some were painfully PC. And yet some of them -- a significant chunk of them -- cheered Bukhari's explanation for the Charlie killers' actions, and applauded his suggestion that my question must have been motivated by racism.During my speech, students had hollered 'Shame! Shame!' when I suggested that Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' should not be banned on campuses. And yet they listened intently, with soft, understanding, patronising liberal smiles on their faces, as Bukhari implied that Charlie Hebdo brought its massacre on itself. This is how screwed-up the culture on Western campuses has become: I was jeered for suggesting we shouldn't ban pop songs; Bukhari was cheered for suggesting journalists who mock Muhammad cannot be surprised if someone later blows their heads off.
It provided a glimpse into the inhumanity of political correctness. The PC gang always claim they're just being nice; it's just 'institutionalised politeness', they say. Yet at Trinity last night I saw where today's intolerance of offence and obsession with Safe Spacing minorities from difficult ideas can lead: to an agreeable nod of the head when it is suggested that it's understandable when poor, victimised Muslims murder those who offended them.
No, a PC student at such a prestigious college as Trinity is very unlikely to kill you for being offensive. But if someone else does, they won't be outraged or upset. They'll think you had it coming. Nice? Polite? Please. Political correctness is murderous.
Here's an excerpt from O'Neill's October 1 speech at Trinity College on the right to be offended -- "Let yourself be offended; it's good for you." It lays out how infantilizing (and in that, dehumanizing) "the anti-offense lobby" is:
The new student intolerance of offence gives offence to women, whom it views as wilting wallflowers, so pathetic that they can't even hear 'Blurred Lines' without crumbling into a distraught state.It's offensive to Muslims, whom it treats as so fragile, so child-like, that they must be protected from criticisms of their religion.
It gives offence to young men, whom it views as so rapacious, so robotic, that they can't be trusted to read the Sun or Zoo or Nuts without turning into beasts who will despoil and hurt women.
No one escapes the ironically offensive slurs of the anti-offence lobby. Every single constituency on campus finds itself either patronised or demonised by these caring censors.
It's the great paradox of PC: it presents itself as fair and nice and cute and concerned about other people's welfare, yet it defames everyone. It treats everyone as fragile and gullible, or as weak and wicked.
It depicts all "white men" -- yes, they use that sweeping generalisation -- as self-entitled rapists-in-waiting. It treats all "black women" -- yes, they think all black women are exactly the same -- as feeling beleaguered by sexist/racist words. It treats all Muslims -- a group as socially and economically mixed as any other -- as less capable of having their beliefs criticised or their idols mocked than, say, white Christians.
The PC paradox: in the very act of seeking to save minority groups from offence, it dehumanises those groups, lumping them all together as an indistinguishable mass; and it infantilises them, treating them as sorry creatures in need of protection from harm by the more enlightened, the more switched-on.
via @damianpenny
Why do I get the feeling these students would find their outrage if a Christian baker smote a gay couple inquiring about a wedding cake?
I R A Darth Aggie at October 3, 2015 6:48 AM
So the victim deserved it. Does the same apply to a woman dressed provocatively who is raped?
Steamer at October 3, 2015 7:41 AM
No Steamer. But it does apply to a white man murdered by a black person.
You have to remember your group rankings. Men are lower than women. Whites are on the bottom too. I you don't know which groups the attacker and defender are in you cannot tell if the action was acceptable or not. I.e. racism, sexism, and bigotry.
Ben at October 3, 2015 9:05 AM
Ben gets the pecking order for the grievance hunting.
Amy Alkon at October 3, 2015 9:41 AM
Ben: "I you don't know which groups the attacker and defender are in you cannot tell if the action was acceptable or not."
That's exactly right. PC liberals, progressives, leftists have no internalized sense of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice. To them, whether an act right or wrong, good or evil, just or unjust depends not on the nature of the act itself, but on who speaks or does it.
Ken R at October 3, 2015 10:03 AM
Steamer: "So the victim deserved it. Does the same apply to a woman dressed provocatively who is raped?"
If I asked a feminist baker to bake me a custom cake to celebrate Nurse Day, and he refused because baking cakes for male nurses goes against his beliefs, I wouldn't be a victim. I'd be a nurse happily on his way to buy a cake from a different baker.
If my sexy swagger and provocative smile tantalized a straight white man (i.e. a rapist) and he raped me, then I'd be a victim - of rape culture, and probably some sort of bigotry, and also legitimately in the eyes of the law. But then again, maybe not in the eyes of the PC liberal, since as a straight white man I too would be seen as a rapist and an advocate of the rape culture. They might say I was hoist by my own petard.
However if I got raped by a black lesbian, then it would be my fault for tantalizing her, and for thousands of years of oppression, and because she has no power. In this case a PC liberal wouldn't even need to know what happened and who raped who. All he needs to know is black vs white, gay vs straight, woman vs man.
Ken R at October 3, 2015 11:30 AM
If I asked a feminist baker to bake me a custom cake to celebrate Nurse Day, and he refused because baking cakes for male nurses goes against his beliefs, I wouldn't be a victim. I'd be a nurse happily on his way to buy a cake from a different baker.
See, that's your problem right there. That live and let live attitude. You have white privilege and you need to use it.
Shout "Allhu Akbar!", chop the offending baker's head off and stick it on a pike as a lesson to the next 10 generations of nancy boy bakers not to piss you off.
Wut?
I R A Darth Aggie at October 3, 2015 1:37 PM
"The PC paradox: in the very act of seeking to save minority groups from offence, it dehumanises those groups, lumping them all together as an indistinguishable mass; and it infantilises them, treating them as sorry creatures in need of protection from harm by the more enlightened, the more switched-on."
I wonder if you here have noticed: collectives are not possible unless individual rights are asserted. These people completely forgo their own individuality in order to be one of the "winners" - in an environment where no one can win unless someone also loses (the rich can't be that way without stealing from the poor,etc.).
Radwaste at October 3, 2015 4:54 PM
Let's be honest, PC is just a mask for narcissism. Now the mask is coming off, and we're seeing that a lot of PC'ers are sociopaths. JK Rowling absolutely nailed this mindset with her portrayal of Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter books -- the sort of person who does enormous harm, yet sleeps soundly at night, convinced beyond a doubt that her virtue is infinitely superior to all around her. Once people like this have made it out of childhood with their delusions intact, the only thing you can do is either remove them from society, or start a new society far enough away to be out of their reach. Basically, the latter is what happeend when America was founded. Now, there's no land mass on Earth far enough away. Barring the possibility of what would pretty much be a world war, the only long-term hope for the truly virtuous is to go into space, and then let events on the world they left behind run their course.
Cousin Dave at October 5, 2015 7:06 PM
Well, the Charlies kind of did get what they deserved. Free speech in the pursuit of truth is a good thing. Free speech in the pursuit of hurting people is a bad thing. And I just don't have a problem with people who like to hurt people being removed from society. Wouldn't the world become a better place if that were done more often?
Alan at October 8, 2015 5:14 PM
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