Quotes of the week

There are numerous great quotes in the fascinating and much needed bestseller by Jonah Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism", but here are two good ones I just remembered to copy:

Fascists famously ruled by terror. Political correctness isn't literally terroristic, but it does govern through fear. No serious person can deny that the grievance politics of the American left keeps decent people in a constant state of fright--they are afraid to say the wrong word, utter the wrong thought, offend the wrong constituency.

But if there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Tolerancjonizm

A couple of weeks ago I heard a recorded lecture by a Polish feminist about the "new lines of tolerance and intolerance in Europe". She used the word "tolerancjonizm" ("tolerantionism" in English?), which I haven't heard before. She spoke of it with disdain - or at least that's how I understood her tone - as a term coined by the right wing in Poland in order to give a name to what it sees a the ideology of "tolerance for its own sake" emanating from the Western Europe.

It struck me as a very adequate term, probably better than its somewhat broader (and poorly translatable into Polish) alternative of "political correctness". Indeed, we seem to be living in the age of the "dictatorship of tolerance", which replaced the "dictatorship of proletariat" as the modus operandi of the Left. Like with the former, here too some are "more equal than others", more worthy of tolerance. Thus, having a statue of Virgin Mary on display, covered in elephant dung, should be tolerated as art, while there is no tolerance for a few cartoons ridiculing the moslem prophet Muhammad. (On the other hand, it's OK to show tolerance toward those, who demand death penalty for the cartoonists who "offend islam".) Displays of hatred towards the United States on American college campuses are to be tolerated. Not so much the patriotic (read "jingoistic") or conservative views on those same campuses. Signs of islamic oppression of women, such as hijab and forced marriages are perfectly tolerable facets of someone's culture (saying otherwise amounts to nothing more than "cultural imperialism"). On the other hand, telling a female colleague at work that she looks "sexy" is grounds for firing of the hapless male who would say such a vile thing. (Zero tolerance for sexual harassment!)

Of course, a lot of these double standards are driven by fear of the "moslem street", which has been known to fly into murderous rage at the slightest provocation. But most of it is driven by the nihilistic desire to dilute and undermine Western civilization, with no regard to what it will be replaced with. It is a consequence of the narcissism that permeates our culture: "apres moi, le deluge!" seems to be the attitude ot the XXth Century's Western Man. (Not XXIst century's - I hope the new generation is smarter and better than we, the self-absorbed baby-boomers. If not, we're in trouble.)

Quote of the week

The ideologies of "self-esteem" and "multiculturalism" are two sides of the same nihilistic coin. "Self-esteem" devalues achievement and responsibility, which are the sources of genuine self-respect. And "multiculturalism" it is merely a pose of opposition to one's own culture; it entails no real regard for different cultures. -- James Taranto

Selective sensitivity

Some Polish people are pretty upset about a relatively unfunny cartoon that recently appeared in The New Yorker: one boy says to another, "My parents named me Zbigniew because they were drunk." I'm guessing that what the author of this cartoon found funny was this hard to pronounce name - obviously, someone must have been off their rocker to give that name to a child. The trouble is, that's a fairly popular Polish name, so the Polish equivalent of this cartoon would (in translation) read something like, "My parents named me Sean, because they were drunk." Funny? You decide.

The thing wouldn't be worth two seconds of attention, if it weren't for the selective sensitivity adopted by the Western media of late. Do you think the editors of The New Yorker would have published the cartoon, if the name being made fun of was "Obama?" Or "Shlomo?" Or "Mohammed"? Or "Kfume"? I seriously doubt it. Especially, if the cartoon would even so little as hint at something that might be objectionable to the "perpetually offended", i.e. muslims.

It's not the joke itself, but the context of cowardice surrounding it, that is so offensive. This is what happens when you start sacrificing the right of free speech and free expression on the altar of "sensitivity" (read: "fear"). You can't say anything disparaging or funny about women, because it's "sexist". Racial minorities will accuse you of "racism", if you dare to make fun of them. Then come the various ethnic groups. Pretty soon you find that the only people you can make fun of are abstract white men with no religious or ethnic affilliation. That's the world we're already living in. Do you find that funny?

"Terrifying political correctness"

Here is Vaclav Klaus again, commenting on the responses to his interview:

I am getting a lot of reactions from the U.S. to my Friday interview in "Hospodářské noviny" where I talked about the global warming, among other things. Someone has distributed the interview to many internet servers and I have pleased many American non-Al-Gores by my statements because they feel as a minority that is under the pressure of a terrifying political correctness in the U.S. It is crucial to call things by the right name.

The phrase "terrifying political correctness" has struck a nerve with me, because it is terrifying indeed. How it emasculates people! In all my 27 years of living in the socialist Poland I did not see people as afraid to say what's on their minds as I am witnessing in the United States, a country that seems attached to the idea of "free speech" as no other country in the world. On the one hand, you can of course openly curse and vilify this country not only with impunity, but to the applause of many "progressive" Americans. On the other hand, stating that women may be less genetically predisposed for interest in science than men may spell the end of your career, even if you're a president of Harvard, unless you hurry and apologize profusely. Political correctness is worse than secret police, because it gets internalized, so you always carry it with you - the police at least leave you alone from time to time.