• Rightists Are Not Culturally Significant

    From Rudy Canoza@21:1/5 to All on Wed May 6 21:32:14 2020
    XPost: uk.politics.misc, talk.politics.misc

    Rightwing Culture Does Not Exist

    Lately, there has been a great deal of debate amongst liberals
    on the sudden return of political correctness to academia. The
    Atlantic has published multiple pieces — such as “The Coddling
    of the American Mind,” and “That’s Not Funny” — discussing what
    seems to be a kind of infantilization of millennials in
    college. Some students are even having trouble reading literary
    classics, as described in this Columbia Spectator piece (don’t
    even try to assign “Naked Lunch”), and laughing at jokes
    (warning, George Carlin and Richard Pryor are full of
    triggers).

    The comedy world has been very critical of political
    correctness, and it sometimes seems as though certain
    hyper-sensitive liberals (a small but loud minority, I would
    say) simply cannot deal with anything that they may deem
    offensive. Although it was rather comical to hear Jerry
    Seinfeld call out political correctness, as possibly one of the
    most politically correct comedians in history, comics like
    Chris Rock, who has called colleges “too conservative,” Bill
    Maher, who has criticized for his comments about Islam, and
    many others, have been equally critical.

    When debate and speech is stifled because a certain few deem
    that speech offensive or hurtful, especially within the walls
    of academia, that can be a real problem. When an evangelical
    Christian takes a class in evolutionary biology, for example,
    the idea that human beings evolved from an ape-like species
    could certainly seem offensive and upset them; and if they
    cannot handle it, they should probably drop out of the class —
    not try to censor it. (Unless, of course, the class is
    promoting some kind of hate agenda. But this is not what PC is
    really about.)

    That being said, as a millennial myself, just a few years out
    of college, the current political correctness scare does seem
    to be exaggerated. From my own, yes, anecdotal experience, most
    young people can take jokes and read controversial novels
    without causing a scene.

    What does seem curious, however, is how “political
    correctness,” which more or less means censorship, is sold as
    an entirely liberal problem. Maybe this is because those on the
    left are held to a higher standard — but the idea that liberals
    are all out to censor speech seems to be a wonderful piece of
    ammunition for right wing demagogues like Donald Trump. When
    asked about calling women names like “fat pigs” and “dogs” at
    the first GOP debate, Trump responded with the clever dodge
    that he doesn’t have time “for total political correctness.”
    The crowd roared excitedly, sick of all those liberals trying
    to shut them up.

    But what about those roaring conservatives? Historically,
    censorship is not a problem on the left, but the right. It was
    not right wingers but socialists and communists who were barred
    from speaking freely throughout the 20th century, starting with
    the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it illegal to “willfully
    utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane,
    scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the
    Government of the United States,” and landed certain leading
    socialists and anti-war activists, such as Eugene V. Debs, in
    prison. It was not some P.C. liberal, but Ted Cruz’s spiritual
    ancestor Joe McCarthy, who attacked countless individuals for
    Soviet treason — some of whom were maybe slightly to the left
    of Dwight Eisenhower — without a shred of evidence.

    Today, censorship and whitewashing in public schools is a major
    problem on the right. In various states, including Tennessee,
    Louisiana and Texas — all red states — public school teachers
    are allowed to teach pseudo-science “alternatives” like
    creationism over evolution. In other red states like Arizona,
    Ohio, Indiana and Florida, taxpayer dollars go to private
    schools that teach creationism, falsely promoting it as
    scientific. And what about the new history textbooks in Texas,
    which downplay issues like slavery and Jim Crow? History
    teacher Samantha Manchac told NPR that it is “an attempt in
    many instances to whitewash our history, as opposed to exposing
    students to the reality of things and letting them make
    decisions for themselves.” This “conservative correctness”
    seems to take infantilization to a whole new level — afraid
    that their children will grow up to be atheists if they learn
    science, or become critical of America if they learn of the
    dark history of Jim Crow.

    As for censorship of things deemed “offensive,” the real threat
    to free speech comes from conservative organizations like the
    Parents Television Council, which last year went after the
    TV-MA rated show “Sons of Anarchy” for its sexual content
    (although they never seem to be concerned about graphic
    violence). America is, of course, notorious for its prudery,
    and religious conservatives have always attempted to censor the
    apparent offensiveness of two people having intercourse. Any
    kind of speech or expression that they find offensive in their
    prudish minds, whether it be porn or high art delving into the
    darker reality of human existence, is attacked as if it were
    witchcraft in 17th-century Salem.

    But when it comes to censoring language and speech, Rick
    Scott’s ban of the term “climate change” in state agencies
    earlier this year takes the cake. And how about manufactured
    terms and euphemisms like “The War on Christianity,” “death
    tax,” and “welfare queen,” just to name a few? Scientific
    phenomena are barred from one’s vocabulary, while terms
    manufactured to rile up emotions and shut down debate are
    promoted ad nauseam on programs like “The O’Reilly Factor.”

    Right-wing Internet trolls seem to believe that American
    conservatism has long guarded free speech from liberals, but
    the opposite is true. Conservatives have always been the ones
    attempting to censor speech and expression, whether it was
    criticizing the U.S. government and capitalism, writing a novel
    with graphic sexuality, or attempting to teach objective
    science. This is not to say that “political correctness” on the
    left does not exist and was wholly created by the right. It
    obviously does exist. However, political correctness is greatly
    exaggerated by conservatives, because it allows them to make
    the claim that they are protectors of speech.

    But history, no matter how sugarcoated it may be, reveals that
    conservatives are anything but protectors of speech.

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