Maverick Philosopher – Page 406 – Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

More on Political Correctness

Jacques comments and I respond in blue:

A few ideas about your recent post on defining political correctness. First, there's a questionable suppressed premise in the argument below:

"To be politically correct, then, is to support the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda. It follows that a conservative cannot be politically correct. P.C. comes from the C.P. The P. C. mentality is a successor form of the Communist mentality. To be politically correct is to toe the party line. It is to support leftist positions and tactics, including the suppression of the free speech rights of opponents."

That PC involves supporting leftism implies that conservatives cannot be politically correct only if conservatives cannot support leftism. But if conservatives are those people who are nowadays usually called 'conservatives', the suppressed premise is probably false. Conservatives (in that sense) often support at least some of the same general principles and policies and institutions as leftists. Mainstream conservatives today support general principles of non-discrimination and equality, for example, which naturally lead to key elements of 'the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda'. I will bet you anything that in just a few years mainstream Republicans will tend to agree that it's wrong for men and women to have separate bathrooms. Just as many of them now think that gay marriage is fine, or that, at any rate, it would be pointless to argue against it. Just as they now accept views on sex and race and immigration that were considered far left just a few decades ago. So as a matter of fact these people just do seem to support the leftist worldview and agenda up to a point and in some respects, and they seem generally to move ever more to the left and never more to the right. They do toe the party line, much of the time, and they tend to police those who reject leftism at a more fundamental level; consider what happened to John Derbyshire at NR, for example. Alternatively we might say that no true conservative can be politically correct, and also say that most of those called 'conservatives' are not true conservatives. Or we might say that PC involves toeing the leftist party line to some very high *degree* at a given time, such that conservatives toe the line and support leftism to some degree but not to that very high degree.

BV: We need to distinguish among true conservatives, conservatives-in-name-only (CINOs, my coinage, to be pronounced chee-nos), and members of the Republican Party. Most Republicans are CINOs. Lindsey Graham, for example, attacked Donald Trump as a 'xenophobe' for proposing a moratorium on Muslim immigration. Of course, Trump's reasonable proposal and his call for a wall on the southern border do not make him a xenophobe. Graham's attack was no different in content from what a leftist like Elizabeth Warren would say. As you rightly guessed, when I said that conservatives cannot be politically correct, I was referring to true conservatives. We agree on this.

What exactly a true conservative is and whether such an animal can take on board any idea of the classical liberals is a further question, and one on which I fear we will disagree. You will recall that we clashed over the role of toleration in our political life.

For my four or so John Derbyshire entries, see here. As for the NR boys, I refer to them as the 'bow-tie brigade.' High-level talk, erudite discussion, but no action. They are establishment types, urbane, gentlemanly, who want to be liked and respected, which is why they distance themselves from the likes of Derbyshire, Buchanan, and Trump. They desperately fear being called racists, xenophobes, nativists, sexists, isolationists, bigots, etc. though they of course will be called some of those names by leftists.

Second quibble: Do leftists really practice a double standard when they insist on their own free speech while denying the free speech rights of others? I'm not sure that the real hardcore leftists believe in free speech rights in the first place. Some of them are even pretty open about it. They think the 'oppressed' and 'marginal' should be free to speak, but they don't think that everyone has that right. (Or they think that everyone will have it only when some impossible scenario of total equality and non-oppression has been achieved.) I suspect the double standard is present only in the slightly less extreme liberal-leftism of institutions and ordinary people who do have some semi-conscious belief in the right to free speech.

BV: Are you saying that hard-core leftists do not insist on free speech rights for themselves? That's news to me. Any references? Most leftists are not 'oppressed' and 'marginal' — I approve of your sneer quotes by the way – they are in fact highly privileged and yet they surely will insist on their right to speak what they think is true, while working to suppress the free speech of their opponents. So there is a double standard at work here.

Cultural Appropriation

Let's make a deal.

We'll stop appropriating your food when you stop appropriating our mathematics, science, technology, and high culture generally including our superior political arrangements, not to mention our superior methods of cooking food.

Do we have a deal? If not then STFU.

The Differences Between Me and You

I'm sensitive, you're touchy. I'm firm, you are pigheaded. Frugality in me is cheapness in you. I am open-minded, you are empty-headed. I am careful, you are obsessive. I am courageous while you are as reckless as a Kennedy. I am polite but you are obsequious. My speech is soothing, yours is unctuous. I am earthy and brimming with vitality while you are crude and bestial. I'm alive to necessary distinctions; you are a bloody hairsplitter. I'm conservative, you're reactionary. I know the human heart, but you are a misanthrope. I love and honor my wife while you are uxorious. I am focused; you are monomaniacal.

In me there is commitment, in you fanaticism. I'm a peacemaker, you're an appeaser. I'm spontaneous, you're just undisciplined. I'm neat and clean; you are fastidious. In me there is wit and style, in you mere preciosity. I know the value of a dollar while you are just a miser. I cross the Rubicons of life with resoluteness while you are a fool who burns his bridges behind him. I do not hide my masculinity, but you flaunt yours. I save, you hoard. I am reserved, you are shy. I invest, you gamble. I am a lover of solitude, you are a recluse.

I have a hearty appetite; you are a glutton. A civilized man, I enjoy an occasional drink; you, however, must teetotal to avoid becoming a drunkard. I'm witty and urbane, you are precious. I am bucolic, you are rustic. I'm original, you are idiosyncratic. I am principled, you are doctrinaire. I am precise, you are pedantic.

And those are just some of the differences between me and you.

Socratic Equality

We are not all equally ignorant, but we are all equal in being ignorant, though unequal in our appreciation of the fact.

Righteous Indignation

Is your righteous indignation perhaps only envy in disguise?

Righteous Anger

That there is more anger than righteousness in our righteous anger is no argument against it.

A Mistaken Definition of ‘Political Correctness’ and a ‘Correct’ Definition

One often reads the following definition of political correctness. "Someone who is politically correct believes that language and actions that could be offensive to others, especially those relating to sex and race, should be avoided." Here. Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia, and other sources offer similar definitions.

This is not at all what 'political correctness' means when used by people in the know. The above definition conflates being politically correct with being polite, civil, and respectful of others and it conflates being politically incorrect with being rude, offensive, and disrespectful of others. For example, Donald Trump was not being politically incorrect when he made his vile comments about Megan Kelly and Carly Fiorina. He was being rude and offensive in a politically foolish display of misogyny.

It is worth noting that in some cases rude and offensive speech is justified as a response to same. Justified or not, the politically incorrect and the rude/offensive/disrespectful are separate categories. A Venn diagram may help where the A region below contains politically incorrect statements and behaviors, the B region contains rude/offensive/disrespectful statements and behaviors, and the intersection of the two classes contains statements and behaviors that are both. For example, suppose someone says, 'Broads do not belong in the Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers.' This statement is both rude/offensive/disrespectful and politically incorrect while 'Women do not belong in Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers' is politically incorrect but not (objectively) offensive. Of course, one might take inappropriate offense at the second statement, but that is his or her problem. People, cry bullies and liberals especially, take offense at the damndest things!

One way to define a term is extensionally by giving a list of the items to which it applies. These are the items that fall within the extension of the term. I will now provide a list of some politically incorrect statements and then ask what they have in common. This will allow us to pin down the intension of the term 'politically incorrect,' and from there the intension of 'politically correct.' Here then are some politically incorrect statements:

Blacks are incarcerated in proportionally greater numbers than whites because they commit proportionally more crimes.
Not only do black lives matter; all lives matter including the lives of law enforcement agents and the lives of the unborn.
While Muslims qua Muslims ought not be barred from political office, Sharia-supporting Muslims ought to be.
The killing of innocent human beings is a grave moral evil, and this includes the killing of pre-natal human beings.
At the present time, the majority of terrorists in the world derive their ideological support from one religion, Islam.
The Crusades were defensive wars.
The purpose of taxation is to raise monies to cover the costs of governance, not to redistribute wealth.
Free market economies under the rule of law are more likely to lead to human flourishing than socialist economies.
There was no moral equivalence between the USA and the USSR.
Women are 'underrepresented' in philosophy, not because of 'sexism' or a male conspiracy to exclude them, but because of the following factors: women as a group are not as interested in philosophy as men are; the feminine nature is averse to the argumentative and occasionally 'blood sport' aspect of philosophy; women as a group are just not as good at philosophy as men, where exceptions such as Elizabeth Anscombe prove the rule.
Apart from the STEM disciplines, the universities of the land have become leftist seminaries, hotbeds of leftist indoctrination. They have lost touch with their noble ideals and traditions.
Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of equality of outcome, and it is fallacious to argue from inequality of outcome to sexism or racism as the cause.
Political correctness is a major threat to the values of the West including the West's commitment to open debate, toleration, and free inquiry.

So there you have a baker's dozen of politically incorrect statements. There are plenty more where those came from. I would say that each is true, though I will grant that some are rationally debatable. But whether true or false, rationally defensible or indefensible, they are all clear examples of politically incorrect statements.

Now what do they have in common in virtue of which they are all instances of political incorrectness? The most important common feature is that each opposes the contemporary liberal or leftist or 'progressive' worldview. To be politically correct, then, is to support the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda. It follows that a conservative cannot be politically correct. P.C. comes from the C.P. The P. C. mentality is a successor form of the Communist mentality. To be politically correct is to toe the party line. It is to support leftist positions and tactics, including the suppression of the free speech rights of opponents. Essential to leftism is the double standard. So while the politically correct insist on their own free speech rights, they deny them to their opponents, which is why they routinely shout them down.

The Narrative: The Origins of Political Correctness

Denying that There is Political Correctness . . .

Indexicality and an Argument against Omniscience

Patrick Grim gives something like the following argument. What I know when I know that

1. I am making a mess

is an indexical fact that no one else can know. At most, what someone else can know is that

2. BV is making a mess

or perhaps, pointing to BV, that

3. He is making a mess.

Just as no one except BV can refer to BV by tokening the first-person singular pronoun, no one except BV has access to the indexical fact that, as BV would put it to himself, I am BV. Only BV is privy to this fact; only BV knows himself in the first-person way. Now an omniscient being knows everything that can be known. But although I am not omniscient, there is at least one proposition that I know — namely (1) — that is not known by any other knower, including an omniscient knower. So an omnisicent being is impossible: by its very definition it must know every fact that can be known, but there are indexical facts that it cannot know. God can know that BV is making a mess but he cannot know what I know when I know that I am making a mess. For any subject S distinct from God, the first-person facts appertinent to S are inaccessible to every mind distinct from S, including God's mind. That is what I take to be Grim's argument.

I suppose one could counter the argument by denying that there are indexical facts. But since I hold that there are both indexical propositions and indexical facts, that response route is not available to me. Let me see if I can respond by making a distinction between two senses of 'omniscience.'

A. X is omniscient₁=_df X knows every fact knowable by some subject or other.

B. X is omniscient[2] =df X knows every fact knowable by some one subject.

What indexical facts show is that no being is or can be omniscient in the first sense. No being knows every indexical and non-indexical fact. But a failure to know what cannot be known does not count against a being's being omniscient in a defensible sense of this term any more than a failure to do what cannot be done counts against a being's being omnipotent. A defensible sense of 'omniscience' is supplied by (B). In this second sense, God is omniscient: he knows every fact that one subject can know, namely, every non-indexical fact, plus all facts pertaining to the divine subjectivity. What more could one want?

Since no being could possibly satisfy (A), (A) is not the appropriate sense of 'omniscience.' Compare omnipotence. An omnipotent being cannot be one who can do just anything, since there are both logical and non-logical limits on what any agent can do. So from the fact that it is impossible for God to know what is impossible for any one being to know, it does not follow that God is not omniscient.

To sum up. There are irreducible first-personal facts that show that no being can be omniscient in the (A)-sense: Patrick Grim's argument is sound. But the existence of irreducible first-personal facts is consistent with the truth of standard theism since the latter is committed only to a being omniscient in the (B)-sense of 'omniscience.'

Resilience

The sufficiently resilient and adaptable can turn most of life's unanticipated slings and arrows to their advantage.

Bill de Blasio Goes After Chick-Fil-A

There was a dust-up back in 2012 over Chick-Fil-A. But now the company is back in the news because of an attack by the leftist mayor of NYC, Bozo de Blasio. Story here.

You can do your bit in countering these totalitarian bastards by observing my maxim, 'No day without political incorrectness.' Each day you must engage in one or more politically incorrect acts. Some suggestions:

Smoke a cigar
Use standard English
Practice with a firearm
Read the Bible
Enunciate uncomfortable truths inconsistent with the liberal Weltanschauung
Read Maverick Philosopher
Think for yourself
Use the Left's Alinskyite tactics against them
Patronize Chick-Fil-A
If your alma mater coddles cry bullies, refuse to lend financial support
Give your baby baby formula
Get your kids out of the public schools
Read the Constitution
Cancel your subscription to The New York Times
Use the mens' room if you were born with the primary male characteristic
Find more examples of politically incorrect things to do

Could it be Morally Wrong to Philosophize?

A Czech reader sent me some materials in which he raises the title question. One of them is a YouTube video. I will unpack the question in my own way and then pronounce my verdict.

Suppose what ought to be evident, namely, that we are morally responsible for our actions. Among actions are those that could be labeled 'theoretical.' Among theoretical actions are those we engage in when we do philosophy. (And please note that philosophy is indeed something we do: it is an activity even if it culminates in contemplation.) Philosophical actions include raising questions, expounding them, entering into dialog with others, consulting and comparing authorities, drawing inferences, generalizing, hunting for counterexamples, testing arguments for validity, deciding which issues are salient, and so on.

Given our moral responsibility for our actions, including our philosophical actions, there is the admittedly farfetched possibility that we do wrong when we philosophize. Given this 'possibility' are we not being intolerably dogmatic when we just 'cut loose and philosophize' without a preliminary examination of the question of the moral justifiability of philosophical actions?

Suppose someone were to issue this pronunciamento: It is wrong, always and everywhere, to do anything whatsoever without first having established the moral acceptability of the proposed action!

Or as my correspondent puts it: No action can [may] be performed before its ethical legitimation! He calls this the "methodical rule of the ethical skeptic."

My Verdict

The draconian demand under consideration is obviously self-referential and in consequence self-vitiating. If it is wrong to act until I have shown that my action is morally permissible, then it is wrong to engage in all the 'internal' or theoretical actions necessary to determine whether my proposed action (whether theoretical or practical) is morally permissible until I have shown that the theoretical actions are morally permissible. It follows that the ethical demand cannot be met. (A vicious infinite regress is involved.)

Now an ethical demand that cannot be met is no ethical demand at all. For 'ought' implies 'can.' If I ought to do such-and-such, then it must be possible for me to do it, and not just in a merely logical sense of 'possible.' But it is not possible for me to show the moral permissibility of all of my actions.

I conclude that one is not being censurably dogmatic when one just 'cuts loose and philosophizes,' and that we have been given no good reason to think that philosophizing is morally wrong.

An Exception to the Rule that University Admins are Cowards

Roger Kimball, Safe from "Safe Spaces":

This is where things got interesting, and President Michael Drake came into his own. He sent osu Senior Vice President Jay Kasey as his ambassador to the protestors. Speaking in calm, measured tones (the video clip is widely available on the internet), Kasey explained that he was not there to negotiate. “Dr. Drake will never receive a list of demands and he will not negotiate with you.” Er, what? Yes, they heard right. They were in violation of the Student Code of Conduct, Kasey informed them, and if they did not vacate the building by a certain time, police officers would be called to clear the room. The administration was pleased, he added, to “give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs.”

This wasn’t part of the script the students had signed on for. “What do you mean by ‘clear the room?’ ” one student asked. “Our police officers will physically pick you up,” Kasey patiently explained, “and take you to a paddy wagon and take you to be arrested. You will be discharged from school also.” Hmm. What do you mean “discharged?” someone asked. Probably, Kasey clarified, you will be expelled.

Gratifying as that exhibition of vertebracular stiffness was, what was most instructive was the rationale Kasey enunciated for insisting on the students’ removal: they were violating a “safe space.” The people who worked in the building, he explained, felt intimated by their presence. But how are we intimidating? whined one student, possibly one who had on another occasion claimed that reading Huckleberry Finn or dressing as an American Indian on Halloween constituted a micro-aggression that violated his safe space. It was a brilliant move and, judging from the response of the osu Police, was a coordinated effort. One Tweet from the university police advised the world that “Ohio State respects everyone’s 1st Amendment rights. @osupolice on hand to enhance safety and allow #Reclaimosu to voice peaceful concerns.” Who could be against “enhancing safety”?

In a single stroke, the osu administration, led by Michael Drake, had turned the table on the college crybullies who have been weaponizing their resentment and putative status as victims to wallow in an infantilizing bath of moralizing intolerance. We commend osu not only for its bracing exhibition of principle but also for its canny strategic gambit: seizing on the students’ own rhetoric to justify its disciplinary action, the university not only forestalled any effective response, it also . . . we were going to say, it also made the students look like fools, but no, the students accomplished that all on their own.

Obama as Precursor of Trump

Trump perpetuates the post-modern politics perfected by Obama and inaugurated by the first PoMo Prez, Bill Clinton, who was also the first black president. You know you're in PoMo Land when a honkie from Hope, Arkansas gets to be black. Well, why not? Race is just a social construct, isn't it? And what can be constructed can be deconstructed.

Fred Siegel in Andrew Sullivan's Blind Spot:

What Sullivan misses is that Trump wasn’t possible without Obama. You didn’t have to be a white, male, working-class voter to be stunned by Obama’s unprecedented assertion of executive power. Obama’s argument time and again was that he had to bypass Congress because he was in a hurry. When he claimed that things needed to be done quickly, he promised to govern with his telephone and a pen. He not only refused to enforce America’s border laws; he also claimed the right to legalize undocumented workers by executive action. He forged an international agreement with the Iranian mullahs by winning approval for the deal with the U.N.—bypassing constitutionally required support from the Senate. Obama unilaterally revised Obamacare’s rules without any pretense of seeking legislative approval.

It was Obama who showed that ignorance was no obstacle, and sheer demagoguery worked. When Obama spoke of the Austrians speaking Austrian, talked of 57 states, and referred to a naval translator as a “corpsemen,” it produced barely a murmur. When he met at the White House with the “activists” who incited those who laid waste to a section of Ferguson, Missouri, he instructed them “to stay the course.” That produced but a faint rustling.

Our postmodern president, a good friend of mine points out, has proved that facts don’t matter. The weakest economic recovery in post-World War II history has been sold as a rousing success. We increased our troop levels in Iraq, but miraculously we still don’t have any “boots on the ground.” The man who told his supporters, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” was sold to America by the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the networks as a post-partisan—one who somehow found a way to blame Republicans for all the country’s ills. Obama also showed that bullying the Supreme Court—calling them out for their Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address—could pay dividends down the road. An intimidated Chief Justice John Roberts used pretzel-like logic to redefine the Obamacare mandate as a tax, though the administration had insisted that it was nothing of the kind.

Most of the maladies Sullivan attributes to Trump were incorporated into American politics by the man he deeply admires, the man whose face alone, Sullivan suggested, proved his worth—Barack Obama. Sullivan rightly sees the danger of “democracy willingly, even impetuously,” repealing itself. That repeal began under the man sitting in the Oval Office today.

A Fallen Being

A natural but not inevitable concomitant of being a fallen being is being oblivious to the fact.

Twelfth Anniversary Pledge

This weblog commenced operations on 4 May 2004. I thank you for reading.

My pledge: You will never see advertising on this site. You will never see anything that jumps around in your visual field. You will not be assaulted with unwanted sounds. I will not beg for money with a 'tip jar.' This is a labor of love and I prize my independence.

I also pledge to continue the fight, day by day, month by month, year by year, against the hate-America, race-baiting, religion-bashing, liberty-destroying, Constitution-trashing, gun-grabbing, lying fascists of the Left. As long as health and eyesight hold out.

I will not pander to anyone, least of all the politically correct.

And I won't back down. Are you with me? Then show a little civil courage.