Special to the Mirror by Charles A. Landis
The term utopia was first coined by Sir Thomas Moore (1418-1535), a catholic Renaissance humanist who wrote a satire, Utopia, about an imaginary political system of an ideal island nation. The first use of the term dystopia was by John Stuart Mill in an address to Parliament in 1868 to mean the opposite of utopia wherein freedoms are abridged in the name of ideals that lead to authoritarian or totalitarian governance. Literary examples of dystopias are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
The utopia of the progressives today has been marinating in the ideology of political correctness. The Petri dish has been (is) the college campus. Where progressives seek a utopia, conservatives see a dystopia.
In the Petri dish, college administrators, professors, and students nurture the culture of political correctness and an Orwellian Newspeak. Political and cultural correctness police monitor speech, words, images, and practices which may offend political, racial, or sexual sensibilities fragile students and should be censured or eliminated.
The progressive utopia may be likened to Oceania, the fictional totalitarian state in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The language is Newspeak which is designed to limit freedom of thought that threatens their ideology and to meet the ideological requirements of socialist authoritarian utopian Oceania.
In Oceania, the purpose of Newspeak was to establish a language to correctly express the new worldview. In time, Oldspeak would disappear and independent thought will be replaced by the new orthodoxy which requires no thinking. The politically correct Newspeak on the new progressive college campus today is not only correct words to use, it includes any thinking or actions (past or present) that would be incorrect.
For example, Christian LaGarde, President of the International Monetary Fund, was dis-invited from giving the commencement address at Smith because of her connection to global capitalists. There was rioting at Berkley over conservative speakers Milo Yiannopolous and Anne Colture because their views were known to incite and inflame violence and thus should not be permitted to speak. So also it would be with anything related to use of the word Trump unless it was anti-Trump speech.
A professor at the University of California LA, was accused of micro-aggression against minorities and students from disadvantaged backgrounds for grammar corrections on papers students write. Objection was on basis the corrections were considered as grammatical choices reflecting white upper class ideologies which create an unsafe climate for people of color.
Demands have been made that students should be able to take exams home where questions can be rewritten to eliminate biases of teachers. That is, the student can give an answer to what the question should be. Newspeak requires language that reflects that grammar corrections should be recognized as choices based upon cultural differences Also, objections to remedial classes for incoming freshman have been raised as being discriminatory against students coming from disadvantaged education backgrounds. Indeed, some have said the word freshman is sexist and reference should be to new or beginning students.
A number of colleges have established bias-free language guides or instructions promoting politically correct language. Ex. It is incorrect to say American because it implies exclusion of immigrants from Mexico, Canada, Central and South America. To say America is the land of opportunity is a covert form of racism against illegal or undocumented students and creates a toxic campus culture. Words like she and her should be avoided because they are insensitive to trans-genders. Calling someone crazy is considered an ableist slur.
Clapping should be avoided because it may trigger anxiety; instead, should wave hands (a jazz wave) because waving a hand is welcoming and clapping of hands may be covertly hiding a mico-aggression. All white bands playing African rhythms is considered cultural appropriation.
Princeton established a micro-aggression reporting service to monitor politically incorrect language or images that may be insensitive to groups that may feel marginalized or exclusive.
At Yale, a protest was made against an image of a Puritan with a musket at his side facing an Indian with a bow at his side. Upon objection, the musket was removed from the Puritan but the bow was left for the Indian. After further protest (bow suggested Indians aggressive against unarmed Puritan), the whole image was removed so no one would be offended.
At University of Minnesota a sensibility class is mandated to right the wrongs of Colonial America.
At Wellesley, an-all woman liberal arts college, a female to male transgender candidate for diversity officer was opposed because he/she had become a white male.
American colleges and universities were once centers of academic freedom where free speech was for the competition of ideas and diversity of ideas was encouraged. Today, they have been transformed into eco chambers of political correctness where 70% have regulations that curtail free speech. Free speech zones are set up on campuses, generally a small section of a sidewalk or and area of 25-50 sq. ft. in a remote area on the fringe of a campus.
To be clear, these zones are not to limit the hateful speech of groups like neo Nazis or a meeting of the KKK wearing white robes. A Clemson student was barred from praying outside a designated zone. A student at the University of Delaware was stopped from pushing an inflated “Free Speech Ball” outside the zone. Security guards stopped a Modesto College student from handing out copies of the US Constitution outside a 25 sq. ft. zone and because he failed to give a required 30 days notice.
What is happening on college campuses today, we were forewarned of by philosopher Allan Bloom in his book The Closing of the American Mind, published in 1987. Bloom said “higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students” and… “the great books of Western thought have been devalued as a source of wisdom.”
Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness, are the portent of new progressive dystopia.
Charles Landis lives in Onancock and is author of An Introduction to the History of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Contact is charland2@verizon.net
Jane Homeowner says
Thank you. This is SPOT-ON.
William T Powell says
Where and how can Lanis’s book be obtained?
wtpowell@juno.com
Charles Landis says
My book can be purchased at: The Book Bin, Barrier Islands Center, Cape Charles Museum, Sun Dial in Chincoteague. Retail is $12.95. Contact is charland2@verizon.net.
tkenny says
Hopefully, Landis’ book on the Virginia shore is better researched than his article. When you read something and it sounds too fantastic 9 times out of 10,it is fantasy.
So how did Landis lead us astray :
1. “Christian LaGarde, President of the International Monetary Fund, was dis-invited from giving the commencement address at Smith because of her connection to global capitalists”
Nope, nada not really close. So, did you know Smith College is a woman’s college? The students signed a petition to revoke the invite because “The IMF has been a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries,” the petition said. “This has led directly to the strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” Sort of changes the spin in the above article doesn’t it?
2. “Princeton established a micro-aggression reporting service to monitor politically incorrect language or images that may be insensitive to groups that may feel marginalized or exclusive”
Oops, Princeton didn’t establish anything. It was a student(s). (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394461/princeton-students-set-microaggression-reporting-service-katherine-timpf) That screws up the argument now doesn’t it.
3. “At Wellesley, an-all woman liberal arts college, a female to male transgender candidate for diversity officer was opposed because he/she had become a white male”
Again, it seems like you missed the mark. Did you research anything you put in your article??? This one is interesting. They had no problems with the transgender. The students thought, outward appearances would be – here is a white male in charge of a diversity program at a woman’s college. The point being what’s so diverse in having a white male being the head of a diversity program. (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390425/students-transgender-woman-cant-be-diversity-officer-because-shes-white-man-now)
Charles, I’m assuming your over 65. There is nothing wrong with being over 65. It just seems that people are now coming out of the woodwork either left or right, black or white. What happened to the gray areas? The middle ground? What’s wrong with a little political correctness? Wouldn’t it be a better world if you knew you might be offending someone?
Wouldn’t it be nice t0 teach our kids Christopher Columbus was one of the founders of North American and he wasn’t really a nice man? That North American resources ( cod, timber) were blundered for Europeans. What happened to all the Indian tribes on Delmarva? Wiped out. Maybe if there was a little political correctness back then instead of conquest this would have been a different world?
Paul Plante says
An excellent recounting of contemporary history in America today.
Well done.
With respect to Utopia, and there have been many attempts in this country over the years at creating Utopias including the Amana Colonies and the Shakers, in his Heritage Foundation article entitled “Social Justice: Not What You Think It Is” on December 29, 2009, the author, Michael Novak, a George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, makes the following mention of it:
In the Inca society under Spanish rule, the first utopia was attempted.
People were assigned by social class certain colors of robes to wear, and regimented hours were established for everything that was to be done throughout the day–even lovemaking hours, with great emphasis on bringing forth more children.
If you are going to make everybody equal, you really have to make uniform crucial items of daily life.
end quote
It is that last sentence that we see playing out in the treatise above, which describes political correctness run amuck in America in an effort to reduce us all down to some kind of warped and twisted equality, where no one will be able to speak a word lest they offend someone else with weak sensibilities.
For example, in Democrat Young Andy Cuomo’s capital city of Albany, New York, which Young Andy has declared a sanctuary city for criminals on the run from the law, a police officer is now under investigation for telling an immigrant. “If you’re going to live in this country, you need to learn to speak English,” this according to the Albany, New York Times Union article “Albany police officer allegedly shouted at immigrants to speak English” on Monday, October 30, 2017 as follows:
ALBANY – The city police department is investigating an incident in which an officer allegedly shouted at a domestic violence victim in frustration over a language barrier.
Acting Chief Bob Sears confirmed that the department was looking in to what happened where the police officer allegedly said, “If you’re going to live in this country, you need to learn to speak English.”
end quotes
According to the article, that upset the sensitivities of some passer-by who then wrote a letter of complaint to the city complaining of a lack of sensitivity on the part of the cop.
Go figure.
As to utopias, our western idea of utopia originates in the ancient world, where legends of an earthly paradise lost to history (e.g. Eden in the Old Testament, the mythical Golden Age of Greek mythology), combined with the human desire to create, or recreate, an ideal society, helped form the utopian idea, and the Greek philosopher Plato (427?-347 BC) postulated a human utopian society in his Republic, where he imagined the ideal Greek city-state, with communal living among the ruling class, perhaps based on the model of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta.
When the English statesman Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote his book “Utopia,” it is said he had Plato’s Republic in mind.
Having read Plato’s Republic, I would say it was inhabited, or would have to be inhabited by plastic people, not real people, with the women very much like Stepford Wives.
As to Plato, democracy for him was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat.
Looking at that sentence, one readily determines that it is an accurate description of where we are in the United States of America today where deference to any sort of authority is withering and tolerance of any kind of perceived inequality, no matter how ridiculous the perception, which is based on someone’s feelings with no rational basis for the perception, would come under intense threat, such as the case of the immigrant who can’t speak English.
In Plato’s Republic, there is a passage therein where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another, and therein, Socrates stated that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy,” and that is a description as well for where our “democracy” is now heading.
With respect to the creeping fascism and incipient tyranny we are seeing in this country today in the guise of Democrat party progressivism in America, in Federalist 10, Virginian James Madison, a classically educated person known as the “Father of the Constitution” who would have been familiar with Plato’s Republic, gave us this warning that we have failed to heed with respect to democracies:
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
“Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”
end quotes
What we are observing in America today with what has been elucidated above is that “reducing process” in action.
With respect to the statement “The utopia of the progressives today has been marinating in the ideology of political correctness,” I think we see a dose of that in the TIME article “John Kelly Praised Robert E. Lee and Said ‘Lack of Compromise’ Led to the Civil War” by Jennifer Calfas on 31 October 2017, where we were in formed as follows:
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly lauded Confederate general Robert E. Lee and said the Civil War began as a result of “lack of compromise,” inserting himself into a debate over the value of Confederate statues and monuments around the country.
end quotes
The part of that article that caught my interest was as follows:
The former Marine general’s comments were met with criticism on social media, where some said there is no “compromise” with slavery and others compared his remarks with those made by the president in the past.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, a prominent writer and MacArthur Genius grant recipient, posted a thread on Twitter analyzing the different “compromises made on enslavement from America’s founding,” including, among others, the Three-Fifths Compromise.
“Shocking that someone charged with defending their country, in some profound way, does not comprehend the country they claim to defend,” Coates wrote.
“Notion that we are putting today’s standards on the past is, in itself, racist—implies only white, slave-holding, opinions matter.”
Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote that what Kelly said was “irresponsible & dangerous.”
end quote
Irresponsible and dangerous?
Get real here, Bernice, and grow up.
What Kelly said was:
“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly said.
“He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country.”
“It was always loyalty to state first back in those days.”
“Now it’s different today.”
“But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”
end quotes
That is hardly irresponsible and dangerous, but then, Bernice would point to the fact that since I happened to be born with white skin, instead of black skin, that I now am infected with implicit bias, so of course I would side with Kelly, which is total hog crap.
History is history no matter your skin color, and with respect to history and slavery, I would refer Bernice to WIKIPEDIA, under the heading “African participation in the slave trade,” where she would find as follows:
African states played a key role in the slave trade.
Slavery was a common practice among Africans.
Chieftains would barter their slaves to European buyers for rum, spices, cloth or other goods.
Selling captives or prisoners was common practice among Africans and Arabs during that era.
In the 1840s, King Gezo of Dahomey said:
The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people.
It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…
end quotes
Suck it up, Bernice, if the black folks in Africa had not made slaves of other black folks in Africa, there would have been no black slaves in this country, nor would there then have been a three-fifths compromise, and a civil war fought over the question of state’s rights.
For another view of what Kelly said about history can be gleaned from the CBS NEWS article “Congressional Black Caucus chair: ‘John Kelly needs a history lesson'” by Emily Tillett on 1 November 2017, as follows:
Kelly made the comment in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham after she asked his opinion on pulling down monuments immortalizing the Confederacy.
Kelly responded, “Well, history’s history,” and said there’s a “lack of appreciation of history and what history is.”
“There are certain things in history that were not so good and other things that were very, very good.”
end quotes
History is history and those who fail to learn from it, like these progressive Democrats who are going to “equalize” us, no matter what amount of coercive effort is required, are doomed to repeat it.
As to this Ta-Nehisi Coates, a prominent writer and MacArthur Genius grant recipient, who posted a thread on Twitter analyzing the different “compromises made on enslavement from America’s founding,” including, among others, the Three-Fifths Compromise, I would say he is firmly lost in a history which no longer exists, and has not existed since long before any of us were born, and his statement that it is “Shocking that someone charged with defending their country, in some profound way, does not comprehend the country they claim to defend” is patently ridiculous, as is his statement “Notion that we are putting today’s standards on the past is, in itself, racist—implies only white, slave-holding, opinions matter,” which is gibberish.
So, okay, Ta-Nehisi, yes, there was indeed a three-fifths compromise which came out of a proposal for apportionment for the determination of each state’s number of seats in the House of Representatives, which had become an issue when the Constitution was being drafted in 1787.
What of it, dude?
What relevance does that have to anything that is happening in America today, and how is it “racist” to look at the three-fifths compromise from our point of view today, where there are no “white, slave-holding opinions” to matter?
For those unfamiliar with the term, the website constitution.laws.com tells us as follows:
However, it is no surprise that this agreement is known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, for the Constitution itself was born out of compromise between the Framers of the Constitution.
However, the Three-Fifths Compromise is arguably the most controversial topic, for it delegates that all slaves of a particular state are to be counted as three-fifths of a white person.
The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes.
The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
However, the Three-Fifth Compromise has its roots further back in history, dating back to the Continental Congress in 1783.
The Compromise was a result of the apportionment of taxes being related to land values.
Initially, taxes were levied not in accordance to the population numbers, but the actual value of the land.
Many states began to depreciate the value of the land in order to provide for relief from their taxes.
A committee was held that would rectify the situation by implementing the apportionment of taxes in relation to the state’s population.
However, this idea was met with the dispute over how to consider slaves in the apportionment process and the actual ratio of slaves to free people at that time.
For the most part, those who opposed slavery only wanted to consider the free people of a population, while those in favor wanted to include slaves in the population count.
This would provide for slave holders to have many more seats in the House of Representatives and more representation in the Electoral College.
Many ratios were considered, such as three-fourths, one-half, and one-quarter.
After much debate, it would be James Madison that would suggest the Three-Fifths Compromise.
However, the Three-Fifths Compromise would not be adopted until the Constitutional Convention because the Compromise was not approved by all of the states and the Articles of Federation required a unanimous vote.
The implementation of the Three-Fifths Compromise would greatly increase the representation and political power of slave-owning states.
The Southern states, if represented equally, would have accounted for 33 of the seats in the House of Representatives.
However, because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Southern states accounted for 47 seats in the House of Representatives of the first United States Congress of 1790.
This would allow for the South to garner enough power at the political level, giving them control in Presidential elections.
However, as time moved forward, the Three-Fifths Compromise would not provide the advantage for which the Southern states and slave-owners had hoped.
The Northern states grew more rapidly in terms of population than the South.
Even though Southern states had essentially dominated all political platforms prior to the Civil War, afterward that control would be relinquished slowly but surely.
It would not be until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was be enacted in 1865 that the Three-Fifths Compromise would be rendered obsolete.
end quotes
BANG, the three fifths compromise is dead.
So why, Ta-Nehisi, are you making such a big HOO-HAH about it today, as if it were still in full force and effect?
History has moved on, Ta-Nehisi, so why are you mired in a past which no longer exists?
The candid world would like to know.
Paul Plante says
tkenny., dude, on behalf of a grateful nation, let me personally step up to the plate here and welcome you to the discussion with your insightful wit and wisdom and razer-sharp intellect that has the common people I associate with up here to the north of you thinking you have to be a full professor of Aristotelian Logic at some prestigious university like Georgetown in Washington. D.C., so keen is your insight into matters of importance to us all. even those of us, tkenny, are over 70 years of age and are capable to detecting and sniffing out nuance, such as “wouldn’t it be nice t0 teach our kids Christopher Columbus was one of the founders of North American and he wasn’t really a nice man?”
By what objective standards, tkenny?
And what does it mean to our kids that “he wasn’t really a nice man?”
Who are they going to compare him to, then?
“Nice,” as you must assuredly know, tkenny, with your razer-sharp intellect, can mean “pleasing; agreeable; delightful” as in “a nice visit,” so are you saying Christopher Columbus was not pleasing and agreeable and delightful?
Wouldn’t one of those kids come back and say to you, “tkenny, people who are nice do not do what Christopher Columbus did, whether measured as good or bad, they stay home and let others do the exploring for them.”
And how would you answer that, I wonder, tkenny.
“Nice” also means “amiably pleasant; kind,” so the same argument prevails here that if Christopher Columbus had been “amiably pleasant and kind,” nobody would know who the dude was today, because he wouldn’t have accomplished anything that would have made him memorable.
And lastly, tkenny, “nice” can mean “characterized by, showing, or requiring great accuracy, precision, skill, tact, care, or delicacy,” as in “nice workmanship; a nice shot; or a nice handling of a crisis.”
Taking that definition for “nice,” those schoolchildren would turn around and tell you by those standards, Christopher Columbus was most certainly nice, and they would wonder why you, an adult supposedly far superior to them in terms of intellectual horsepower is unable to see something as simple as that.
As to North American resources ( cod, timber) being blundered for Europeans, tkenny, that is a point that is raised in elementary school education.
And what happened to all the Indian tribes on Delmarva?
You say they were “wiped out,” and they say you are dead wrong on the Assateague People of Delmarva website, as follows:
http://www.assateaguepeopleofdelmarva.org/
Welcome to the Assateague People of Delmarva’s website.
We are a tribal group comprised mainly of local people with Native American Indian blood in our heritage.
Many believe that there are no longer Native Indians on the Eastern Shore, this is far from the truth.
end quotes
You see what they are saying there, tkenny?
Your trumpeting of their earthly demise as a people is quite premature.
Getting back to their website:
Granted, our Ancestors’ numbers were decimated by a combination of diseases that were unknown to them and by being forced from their homeland by the ever growing number of European settlers in search of land for themselves.
Although many perished in the hundreds of years following the settlers’ arrival, some were able to survive by hiding along the swamps, marshes, bay and ocean of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
Historically we were known as the Kickotanks (because of the location of the Kegotank Bay), or the Great Assateagues (Assateague means “swiftly running water” or “place across the water”).
After we realized the atrocities brought by the settlers and started fighting back to reclaim our lands and protect our people, we gained the reputation of being the most warlike of the Shore Indians.
Unfortunately, it was too late to be able to have a major impact.
end quote
The Indians were not wiped out, tkenny, for which I personally am happy, so why would you try to tell us they were, especially those of us in here who are over 65, and thus, can tell bull**** when it is flying our way, as it is here with your specious claim that all the Indians are gone?
As to your statement “Maybe if there was a little political correctness back then instead of conquest this would have been a different world?,” again, by what measure?
And how do you know, tkenny, that there was not political correctness back then?
I think that if you were to do as I have done, and spend some years studying history, which is the story of people, tkenny, you would find a lot of political correctness back then, perhaps far more than exists now.
Ask Galileo about that, if you don’t believe me, or the victims of the Spanish Inquisition.
And lastly, with respect to your comment, “So how did Landis lead us astray,” where you then say in response to 1. “Christian LaGarde, President of the International Monetary Fund, was dis-invited from giving the commencement address at Smith because of her connection to global capitalists,” Nope, nada not really close, So, did you know Smith College is a woman’s college, The students signed a petition to revoke the invite because “The IMF has been a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries,” the petition said.
“This has led directly to the strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.”
Sort of changes the spin in the above article doesn’t it?
end quotes
NO, it doesn’t tkenny.
Both are saying the same exact thing, just using different phraseology to make the same point – her connection to global capitalists through the IMF, which she heads, and which has been a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries, is a direct connection to the imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.
Why can’t you see that, tkenny, the children are wondering.
As is the candid world, as well.
tkenny says
Paul, you try to spin what I said any way you want but at the end of it all there is no dispute as to what I said or the meaning.
“different phraseology” is that like alternative facts? The specific reason they revoked the invitation was omitted and as a man of history that you so claim to be, you should know about Christopher Columbus or doesn’t Wikipedia cover that aspect?
Also, since your knowledge of the Delmarva peninsula consist of one trip up route 13 in the 1980’s, maybe you really shouldn’t comment on that topic
One last thing Paul, don’t hijack this topic like you do all the others.
Paul Plante says
Whoa, tkenny, dude, long time no see, and now here you are, twice in a row, as acerbic as ever, and as usual, dead wrong, but since we are a compassionate people in here, tkenny, in the name of political correctness, we can accept that and, forgive you your foibles in that regard.
As to thread hijacking, tkenny, which you wrongly accuse me of in a vain effort to steer attention away from yourself and how wrong you are about the Indians of Delmarva, Urban Dictionary tells us a “thread hijacking” occurs when one or more individuals commenting on the original posting go off-topic, creating a separate conversation, just as you are doing here by going off-topic to attack me and accuse me of thread hi-jacking, which you yourself have just masterfully accomplished above here with your accusation, which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the topic, which I see summed up in these three statements from the original posting, to wit:
* The utopia of the progressives today has been marinating in the ideology of political correctness.
* The first use of the term dystopia was by John Stuart Mill in an address to Parliament in 1868 to mean the opposite of utopia wherein freedoms are abridged in the name of ideals that lead to authoritarian or totalitarian governance. Literary examples of dystopias are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
* Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness, are the portent of new progressive dystopia.
In taking this thread off-topic, tkenny, which is to say, to begin your hi-jacking of the thread, instead of responding to any of those three statements, your response was as follows:
Charles, I’m assuming your over 65.
There is nothing wrong with being over 65.
It just seems that people are now coming out of the woodwork either left or right, black or white.
end quotes
Pray tell, tkenny, what does the age of Charles Landis have to do with anything in here?
Are you intimating in your subtle way that because of his age, he has to be senile, because you harbor a belief that old people are all senile?
How is that not changing the topic of this thread by yourself, tkenny?
But enough about you.
You then asked “What happened to the gray areas, the middle ground, what’s wrong with a little political correctness?”
So, let us look at that, then, which is on-topic:
The online dictionary gives us as follows with respect to PC: the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.
end quotes
Instead of you asking us what is wrong with PC, which should be obvious from the definition, you should be lecturing us on what is right with political correctness, which is always based on nothing more than someone’s perceptions, never on objective reality.
It relies on value judgements, tkenny, which are not objective.
What does it mean to be “socially disadvantaged?”
And who is it that is discriminated against?
Who enforces those judgments on the rest of us?
And what about our liberty of conscience and right of non-association in this country, tkenny?
Where does this coercive PC crowd get the right to impose its views on anyone?
As to political correctness, Wikipedia tells us “the contemporary usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late Twentieth Century.”
“The phrase was widely used in the debate about Allan Bloom’s 1987 book ‘The Closing of the American Mind,’ and gained further currency in response to Roger Kimball’s ‘Tenured Radicals’ (1990), and conservative author Dinesh D’Souza’s 1991 book ‘Illiberal Education,’ in which he condemned what he saw as liberal efforts to advance self-victimization and multiculturalism through language, affirmative action, and changes to the content of school and university curricula.”
“The term was also the subject of articles in The New York Times and other media throughout the 1990s.”
“Commentators on the left contend that conservatives use the concept of political correctness to downplay and divert attention from substantively discriminatory behavior against disadvantaged groups.”
“They also argue that the right enforces its own forms of political correctness to suppress criticism of its favored constituencies and ideologies.”
“The term has played a major role in the United States culture war between liberals and conservatives.”
end quotes
“CULTURE WARS,” tkenny.
So what is right or good about “political correctness,” then, tkenny?
Give us a rational, objective basis for it.
Why should we all have to think or be required to think the way you, Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter want us to think?
As to Christopher Columbus, who is actually nothing to me, tkenny, what I know of him is “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” and now, as a result, we have some of the best shopping opportunities of anywhere in the world because we are special and exceptional, and the world’s last great hope, for something, anyway.
That is pretty much what I know of the dude.
And I think it is bull**** that he discovered America.
And I also think that you yourself really know nothing about Columbus, other than what you have been told to think.
You think he is a “bad” man, and so be it, tkenny – indulge yourself.
As for me, I am not a part of that discussion.
As to the Indians, since they still exist, despite your wish or hope otherwise, I will let them speak for themselves, as they can do so quite eloquently as I have found in my associations with them.
And to close, tkenny, you have yourself a real nice day.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Ahh, Tkenny……..dropping the ol’ alternative facts line to show you are a good little lefty soldier marching in lockstep…….dare I say goosestepping……..
My fondest wish for you, Tkenny, is that when you are arrested, your lawyer eschews the long standing legal term of art……..”Alternative facts” and simply stipulates that any and all charges against you are true and valid.
See, AF are what are used to rebut a prosecutors contentions. But democrats is smert!!!
ANd yes, TK Princeton students came up with it, and now the ADMISTRATION at RU have codified it. See, I live next to the U and can attest to that FACT personally.
Kind of ruins your screed, doncha know.
Oh, and BTW? NYMAGAzine disagrees with you about the disinvite.
“OFFENSE: Representing an organization that runs “directly against Smith’s values to stand in unity with equality for all women, regardless of race, ethnicity or class.” At least, that’s what the petition said.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/disinvited-graduation-speakers-alleged-offenses.html
tkenny says
Mike, Alternative Facts are nothing more than lies. Are you one of those corrupt Jersey lawyers??
I assume RU is Rutgers University? That’s nice but the article is still incorrect. The above article insinuates that “Princeton established a micro-aggression reporting service” when in fact they didn’t.
And finally, did you not read the upper portion of the link you provided?
“This week she cancelled her planned commencement address at Smith College after a petition took her to task for the “strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” At least she’s in good company. Here’s a rundown of the commencement speakers who have backed out or had their invitations revoked this year due to student and faculty complaints.”
Mike my whole point was if you are going to write something and provide examples to support your point, you better make sure they are accurate.
and Mike the Giants REALLY suck this year.
Note: But the NY J-E-T-S, who were accused of having the worst roster of the last 20 years, have been very tough.
Paul Plante says
tkenny, dude, you seem to attach an inordinate amount of weight to and attach great significance to this disinvitation of Christine LaGarde to speak at some college somewhere for reasons that remain murky, and always shall, unless we could depose all of the girls involved under oath, which isn’t going to happen, so forget about it; while for me, that is a non-event.
So what?
Who cares if they did?
Why are you making such a big deal out of it, other than because of your comment above here, “So how did Landis lead us astray?”
So that you won’t look silly, tkenny, you have a great need, a crying need as they say out in the country, a dire need to have people believe Charles Landis did lead us astray, when in fact, he did anything but, and so you have no other recourse available to you but to continue to hang your hat on that college thing, when nobody cares why she was disinvited, just that she was.
If people were curious, they could simply GOOGLE the question of why Christine LaGarde was disinvited, as Mike did, and they would find the whole story told for them from every perspective available.
No, tkenny, what people are interested in are what the thread is really about, which is eloquently expressed in these three following statements:
* The utopia of the progressives today has been marinating in the ideology of political correctness.
* The first use of the term dystopia was by John Stuart Mill in an address to Parliament in 1868 to mean the opposite of utopia wherein freedoms are abridged in the name of ideals that lead to authoritarian or totalitarian governance.
Literary examples of dystopias are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
* Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness, are the portent of new progressive dystopia.
end quotes
So, has it, tkenny?
Has the utopia of the progressives today been marinating in the ideology of political correctness?
Is that true or false, tkenny, in your opinion?
And was the first use of the term dystopia really by John Stuart Mill in an address to Parliament in 1868 to mean the opposite of utopia wherein freedoms are abridged in the name of ideals that lead to authoritarian or totalitarian governance?
You are considered a scholar in here, tkenny, so perhaps you could give us some scholarly discourse on that subject.
And what about this, tkenny: Are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World literary examples of dystopias, or are they something else?
The candid world, who really don’t give a damn for Christine LaGarde, to be truthful, would like to see you weigh in on that question.
And perhaps most importantly, are Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness the portent of new progressive dystopia?
There is where the attention of not only the American people, but the candid world as well is riveted, tkenny, not on Christine LaGarde, so if you want to be taken seriously in here, it is to those questions that you should now turn your massive intellect.
Paul Plante says
And with respect to the existential question of are Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness the portent of new progressive dystopia, TIME magazine had an interesting and informative article on the subject entitled “Caving on Commencement Speakers Is Censorship, Not Scholarship” by Greg Lukianoff on May 14, 2014, which article started as follows:
It’s the time of year when efforts heat up by students and faculty to get speakers they dislike disinvited from campus.
Every spring, the campus “disinvitation” movement seems to get more intense, and this year its participants have claimed some high-profile scalps.
On Tuesday, former University of California Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced he would withdraw from his address at Haverford College in the face of student protests.
Dr. Birgeneau, who seemed to most like a safe choice, was apparently unwelcome because of his alleged mishandling of Occupy Wall Street protests on his campus.
One day earlier, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, withdrew from Smith College’s commencement after an online petition by students blamed Lagarde as being “a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries.”
The highest profile “success” of a campus disinvitation movement this spring was when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew from Rutgers University’s commencement after months of intense protest by faculty and students.
The faculty objected primarily to Rice’s role in the Iraq war and the execution of the War on Terror.
While Birgeneau, Rice and Lagarde reportedly “withdrew,” it strikes me as unlikely this took place without some encouragement by administrators who got cold feet in the face of angry students and faculty.
If the speakers had refused to withdraw, they might have suffered the fate of Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis University earlier this year.
Hirsi Ali, an atheist, activist and fierce critic of the treatment of women in Islamic countries, was set to be honored with an honorary degree from the Massachusetts university.
When students rallied against her, she refused to bow out.
So Brandeis made the decision for her by officially disinviting her in April.
end quotes
So, the question arises of whether this is dystopia, the opposite of utopia, wherein freedoms are abridged in the name of ideals that lead to authoritarian or totalitarian governance, or whether it is simply a case of college students too ignorant and close-minded to hear anything that may cause them to have to re-consider their self-imposed preconceptions, a process known as critical thinking, which was defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking in 1987 in a statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul, presented at the 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987, as follows:
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.
In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
end quotes
In other words, it requires having and open and questing mind, not a closed mind like these college students doing the disinviting.
Getting back to the definition:
It (critical thinking) entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference.
Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.
It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills (“as an exercise”) without acceptance of their results.
end quote
Here we can see that the disinvitations would be the opposite of critical thinking, or a negation of the concept of critical thinking in exchange for the safety of “group think” or “group mind.”
And here we come to a critical factor in this discussion:
Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it.
When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one’s groups’, vested interest.
As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be.
end quotes
That is what we are seeing with these college disinvitations – the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one’s groups’ vested interest, which is the essence of demagoguery, and as such it is intellectually flawed.
The definition of critical thinking continues as follows:
When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of “idealism” by those habituated to its selfish use.
end quote
And that is what we are not seeing in these college disinvitations – neither fairmindedness nor intellectual integrity, just small-mindedness and close-mindedness, instead.
With respect to small;-mindedness and close-mindedness, the TIME article states as follows:
Students and faculty have the right to protest speakers and to criticize their colleges for choosing speakers they dislike.
Yet to function as a true “marketplace of ideas,” the university community must be open to hearing from people from different walks of life, professions, experiences and philosophical and political points of view.
When students (or faculty, who should definitely know better) work to exclude a speaker from campus, they are thinking like censors, not scholars.
A scholarly community should approach speakers with even radically different points of view as opportunities to be engaged, not as a political loss that must be avoided at all costs.
Exercising a little intellectual humility might lead students and faculty away from asking “what can I do to get rid of the speaker?” and towards “what might I learn if I hear this person out?”
After all, if you’re only willing to hear from people with whom you agree, it’s far less likely you will learn new things.
end quotes
Can anyone rationally argue with that last statement?
Getting back to TIME:
Universities have only themselves to blame for this mess—not just for caving to pressure, but for teaching students the wrong lessons about the value of free and robust discourse.
end quotes
Yes.
And on that note, I will rest.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Forgive my fat fingers, Tkenny but no, it is PU that codified the speech codes, fact.
Alleged means something, and LaGarde was yet another victim of liberal butthurt.
Alternative facts are a term of art used in the legal field to differentiate positions. You claim you were going 55, the cop says you were going 65. Your attorney presents ALTERNATIVE FACTS……erp. Sorry you are unaware of that.
And finally, does a Redskins area fan wanna go there? Really?
But hey, let’s see. The proof is in the pudding and now both y’all and I have totally D legislatures and Governors. Let’s see what they bring us.
In the meantime, I’ll be at my accountants deferring taxable income, and sheltering other assets so as to minimize my tax bite. Legally. Legally depriving the progressive vermin of my wealth, just like the rest of the 1%’ers will be doing.
And admiring the many SuperBowl Rings my team owns, while you can ride over to Maryland(if you can afford to go over the bridge, pay the tolls and stadium entrance fee) and watch the Skins……well, lose…… again and again and again and again……….
Enjoy your tax increase, middle class!!!!!!!!!
Paul Plante says
And getting back to the existential question of are Orwell’s 1984 and Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, together with Newspeak and political correctness the portent of new progressive dystopia, and the TIME magazine article on the subject of ignorant and indoctrinated college students being produced at a high cost in America today as opposed to educated college students, entitled “Caving on Commencement Speakers Is Censorship, Not Scholarship” by Greg Lukianoff on May 14, 2014, the author, who President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the author of “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the end of American Debate,” continued as follows with respect to intentional censorship on college campuses in America today in a concerted effort to produce nothing but ignorant indoctrinated and thus, politically pliable and malleable college graduates:
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), of which I am the president, has found speech codes—policies that heavily restrict speech that is protected under the First Amendment—at 59% of the more than 400 colleges we survey, and deals every day with campus censorship of often even mildly offensive speech.
Colleges have taught a generation of students that they have a “right not to be offended.”
This belief has inevitably morphed into an expectation among students that they will be confirmed in their beliefs, not challenged.
It’s no wonder, then, that they apply increasingly strict purity tests to potential campus speakers.
end quotes
There is tkenny’s political correctness run amuck, and it answers the question tkenny raised about “what is wrong with a little political correctness,” and the answer is that it produces a lot of ignorant, shallow people without discernment skills and thus, without the ability to form rational judgments.
Getting back to the TIME article:
Colleges could stem the tide of disinvitation season by encouraging intellectual curiosity, humility, the reservation of judgment, recognition that one does not know everything and the simple act of granting the benefit of the doubt.
end quotes
The only conclusion which can be drawn here is that these so-called “colleges” are more interested in discouraging intellectual curiosity, humility, the reservation of judgment, recognition that one does not know everything and the simple act of granting the benefit of the doubt than they are in encouraging those traits. especially intellectual curiosity, which is a term used to describe one’s desire to invest time and energy into learning more about a person, place, thing or concept, a point the author himself makes in the TIME article, as follows:
Not coincidentally, these are precisely the lessons universities should be teaching students.
Their failure to instill these habits has led to campuses that have become depressingly intolerant.
If this trend is not reversed, disinvitation season will only end when campuses give up on inviting speakers who have anything to say.
end quotes
And that depressing intolerance, people, is a characteristic of the dystopia we now find ourselves immersed in here in the United States of America, where finally, 1984 has arrived.