Liberals have, for decades, taken shots for being political correct, for being sensitive, and for trying to "understand" people who are different from them. It's been a long road since the 60s. I don't know how I feel about Affirmative Action, these days. I remember cringing (even in my nationalist days) when I heard people says blacks couldn't be racist. I remember cringing more when that dude in D.C. got fired for using "niggardly." There's a way of looking at all the places liberals have gone wrong, and seeing this (what, 40 year?) exercise in tolerance as bad acid trip. But there's another way of looking at the great tolerance experiment--practicing for the future.
It may well be true that Geraldine Ferraro was a token choice for the VP slot in 84. But I was eight years old when that happened, and understood that Mondale was doing something that had never been done before, and thus assuming a level of risk. I don't think it's so much the act of nominating Ferraro, as it is the act of having people around you who have some sense of what sexism in this country means. I don't think it's so much having Jesse Jackson run in 84 and 88, as it is having people in your camp who understand what his run means. And then after his run is over, putting his people in positions of power in your party.
It's about practicing Tolerance. It's about attempting to understand people who are radically different from you, and saying to them you want their voice in the process. Tolerance isn't just a value you hold, so much as it's something you
do repeatedly. It's uncomfortable. You fuck up. You go to parties where they play
music that you don't know how to dance to. You go to restaurants where
the food is difference. You go to neighborhoods, where no one speaks
English. The whole time people on the outside are laughing at you. The
people you're trying to understand get pissed at you, and call you
racist, homophobe, bigot, sexist etc.
But they ultimately respect you for trying. And you get better. You pick up bits of a second language. You learn to like the food, to enjoy the music. And then one day you look up, and lo and behold, it seems like the whole world is dancing to that same music, eating that same food.
I respect Andrew's point about gay marriage being a conservative argument--except that most of the people making that argument aren't conservative at all. They're people like me, people whose parents came out of the allegedly disastrous 1960s. People who taught their kids the importance of understanding and respecting people who aren't like you.
The conservative movement has never gotten "tolerance." They think tolerance is something you do as a favor for someone else, that it's a slogan, that it involves appointing a showman who employs ancient slang. They don't understand. Tolerance is about warfare--it makes your army bigger than the other guy's army. It gives you access to weaponry that your enemies have seemingly never heard of (like, the internet).
Liberal Tolerance is the long war, it's the long game. It's Barack Obama, at his core. Liberal
tolerance--not Jesse Helms--argued for interracial unions. Liberal tolerance is what
allowed Obama to neutralize Rev. Wright, and make his race speech.
Liberal tolerance is what allowed him to go to Notre Dame and talk with
empathy about abortion. Liberal tolerance bets on the future. It presages that world (the world of today) that the GOP has spent very little time preparing for.
Below is a video of Tom Tancredo claiming that La Raza is the Latino KKK. But Tom Tancredo knows very little about Latinos, La Raza or the KKK. He is the embodiment of conservative ignorance. He is the apex of Schiavo, "white hands," creationist museums, and, presently, the notion that the thrice-married should carry the banner for marriage.
I know that out in the world there are conservatives who are appalled by this. But they were not so outraged when times were swell. One reckoning that needs to come is the role that conservatives who knew better played, or rather didn't play, in the GOP's current predicament. Tom Tancredo is not a raving crazy--he's their invention. As a black dude who spent virtually his entire life on the bad end of conservative electoral strategy, I'm trying not to love this. But it is hard. I'll have to learn to be more tolerant.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Yeah. But I think it's important to try not to love it. Because, in the end, it's sad because a weak, petty, irrational, and borderline delusional opposition party is not good for anybody.
The one thing we should not struggle to tolerate is intolerance. Do not wory because you like seeing the intolerant lose. Their marginalization is the ultimate goal of tolerance. When conservatives quit tolerating the intolerant among them is when they will will deserve something more than ridicule.
On the contrary, one must make an effort tolerate the intolerant. One must seek to understand the basis for their intolerance, and make an effort to marginalize what motivates them towards intolerance. We must seek to make them less intolerant. Attempting to marginalize a people for a set of beliefs the basis of which we make no effort to understand is not going to make them less intolerant. It’ll make them more so.
The intolerant rarely become more tollerant. They modify their public behavior when it is no longer tolerated, and they are eliminated through cohort replacement.
Rationalizer.
A strong case can be made that changing your public behavior gets you about 90% of the way to what we mean by "tolerance".
Word. This seems to be the truth born out by looking at data about political attitudes. Very few people actually "change their hearts," while many may change their behavior once the social cost of old ways of being become to much. It is the young, people who's first value is the current value, who actually posses different attitudes.
Not to say that it isn’t difficult to win the hearts and minds of a people who’ve grown up, for whatever reason, clinging to an intolerant worldview, but there’s a wide chasm between that and saying, “Oh, we’ll never change their mind, so we might as well give up on them.” Or there should be. The former is a recognition of a challenge. The latter is a self-serving rationalization designed to avoid facing the challenge head on. While it’s probably true that as generations die out, so too, eventually, will these particular brands of intolerance become extinct. But that's a long time to wait, and it seems to me that our time could be better spent in ways that don't smack of so much laziness and self-righteousness.
If we think Obama should talk to Iran, I think we should be able to talk to Tim Tancredo, or whomever.
BreakerBaker -
We should try to engage them but we should not refrain from expressing our disapproval. A more accurate way of saying what I meant when I said we should not be tolerant of intolerance would be do say we should not approve of intolerance. But "Tolerance for everytning except intolerance." has a symetry to it that "Disapprove of intolerance." does not.
Larry,
I obviously think we can agree that no matter our approach, intolerance should not (as a concept) receive our endorsement. We needn’t put our stamp of approval on a belief to seek to better understand its nature or origins. And I think we need that understanding to make any progress. If you and I are mainly having a semantic debate, I’m fine with that. I like those. Everybody finds them pointless. Not me, though. I actually consider them quite helpful.
BreakerBaker -
I do believe we were having a semantic debate. I am glad that you do not find them tiresome. They are a great help to those of us who wish to make ourselves more clearly understood. I clearly have problems with expressing myself because I often find that after several rounds of clarification there is no disagreement where there had been a percieved one earlier in the discussion.
"On the contrary, one must make an effort tolerate the intolerant. One must seek to understand the basis for their intolerance, and make an effort to marginalize what motivates them towards intolerance. We must seek to make them less intolerant."
That's the ideal of political correctness. In practice it is far different. In practice political correctness is an expression of liberal cultural double standards. Most liberals do not seek to engage with conservatives in an effort to make them less intolerant, to marginalize that which motivates them toward intolerance. They seek to marginalize conservatives BECAUSE of their intolerance, period. Maybe conservatives deserve such an outcome. That's not for me to say.
When it comes to other, i.e. non-Western, cultures, however, it's a different story. Liberals do indeed strive to engage with members of those cultures. But instead of using that engagement to marginalize illiberal, intolerant cultural elements, liberals make concerted efforts to IGNORE the illiberal and intolerant, or make excuses for them. "They're minorities, so we musn't judge...", etc. It seems that to many liberals cultural imperatives trump the principles of, well, liberalism. This is particularly true when the cultural imperatives are perceived as being examples of group empowerment, even if it comes at the expense of the liberties of the individual members of that group. Doing this, of course, cheapens and undermines the liberties of everyone, not just the members of the group in question.
For the record, I think that Obama recognizes this, at least instinctively, and means to change it. It was one of the main reasons I voted for him. But there's a long way to go before PC walks the path that Obama is trying to blaze.
For the record I was advocating for the intolerance of all intoerance. We should treat all those who are intolerant, like the Muslims who rioted over cartoons, with disaproval. We should not limmit our disaproval to our bigots.
Yeah. What you said.
On a much smaller scale of this, I was listening to NPR (I think it was All Things Considered) the other day, and they were doing a story on how there are a lot of young people apparently taking internships for which they’re essentially becoming unpaid field hands on small, organic farms. In the long run, a lot of the farmers are finding the whole thing too much trouble because the dogmatic kids end up trying to tell the farmer why they’re doing it wrong. They told the story of a girl who tried to narc on her host farmer for giving antibiotics to a sick sheep because she didn’t understand the difference between raising an animal on antibiotics, and treating an animal with antibiotics to protect it and the herd.
The problem as you and TNC both allude is that Political Correctness is grand in the ideal, but in practice it has the habit of falling into its own brand of self-righteous intolerance. Political correctness is supposed to be about (say it loud) empathy, but since the last several weeks have revealed that most liberals and conservatives only have a general idea (mostly, one assumes, informed by the fact that it sounds so much like sympathy) of what that word means, it’s not at all surprising how regularly it has fallen far from its ideal.
But, you know, how often does this 'liberalism gone too far' stuff happen? I mean, yeah, there are people like the idiot interns, but compared to people going on fucking CNN and saying that a Puerto Rican woman is unqualified because-- well, they're not sure, but she's unqualified!
It's like saying "Sure, that house next door is on fire, but over here there's an ember jumping out of the fireplace." The sheer scale doesn't seem equivalent.
How often do young people make fools of themselves because they have the dangerous combination of rigid principles and a limited frame of reference? It probably happens thousands of times a day. We just ignore it, because we accept that they mean well. Hell, I think everybody who is on this forum arguing in favor of jettisoning the intolerant have the best of intentions in saying what they’re saying. But it’s the wrong tack. It’s also self-serving and lazy. It accepts as a given the idea that people cannot be reached and are therefore not worth dealing with. In the minds of so-called ‘tolerant,’ the problem originates in the minds of the intolerant, and this being the case, there’s no need to dig any deeper. They are intolerant because they are intolerant. Maybe we can shame them into acting as if they aren’t. But they are, and they always will be. At least we’ll have a better shot at their kids.
In the end, it never springs to the mind of the “tolerant” to make even the slightest attempt to identify with the intolerant. And with respect, this is why so many people on both the left and the right have no business lecturing anybody about the importance of empathy. Like Claudius, I have always considered the empathic approach, more than any other physical or political trait, to be what has always set this president apart from just about everybody else in public life.
"How often do young people make fools of themselves because they have the dangerous combination of rigid principles and a limited frame of reference? It probably happens thousands of times a day."
Age is no barrier to this error. Pundits are paid for their ability to make it again and again.
"Age is no barrier to this error. Pundits are paid for their ability to make it again and again."
Agreed. I made the mistake of conflating the question of Persia's first sentence with the referencing of the intern example I brought up in Persia's second sentence. Forgive my carelessness.
Another perspective on the GOP and tolerance, from an interview with Don King in the Financial Times last fall:
Clinton was the breakthrough. Bush certainly was better on this issue than those before or after. But Clinton was the one who changed things.
Bush was better than those Republicans (running for national office) before or after.
In what sense? Because of the African American fellow he appointed Commerce Secretary? To my knowledge, Bush was the first to appoint a black or a Latino to any of the big four spots in the cabinet: Treasury, Defense, Attorney General, State. Two black Secretaries of State and a Latino AG (not to mention appointing more minorities at lesser spots such as Commerce, Labor, etc.). I can't think of anything similarly breakthrough by Clinton, but feel free to refresh my memory.
From the top of my head Clinton had Colin Powell as Joint Chiefs, Ron Brown as Commerce Sec., Henry Cisneros as HUD Sec., Mike Epsy was Agriculture Sec., Bill Richardson was UN Ambass., Madeline Albright was Sec. of State, and Jocelyn Elders was Surgeon General. Probably missing a lot of deputy level appointments and the like.
Yesterday, Sullivan in his dissent of the day "tolerated" a writer who took Judge Sotomayor out of context to say Gingrich was correct. The problem for conservatives such as Sullivan is that he often falls into the so called "fair and balanced" trap when it comes to conservative hooey. The whole Pelosi flap on torture, which Marcy Wheeler has repeatedly pointed out is somewhat specious, which is filled with misogynist bs red herring bait and switch, he only half heartedly put down because he was happy to see perhaps a liberal also culpable on the issue of torture.
When the whole Bell Curve flap first came out, PBS had a crew of editorial columnists comment on it. All the columnists, save two, muddled along and muttered stuff like "well, if it's true, and the authors do provide evidence...blah, blah, blah." Cynthia Tucker, who was vastly more intelligent than the whold bunch was so shocked and, I believe, pissed that she could not respond. Old lefty, the late Irwin Noll was left then to put those other ignoramouses from the right in their place with knowlege.
Though this bs on Sotomayor is obviously stupid, and obviously playing on poor white America's fears that the Sandanistas are at the Rio Grande, free speech in America is protected by the Bill of Rights, so we have to tolerate the rights of Americans to betray their own hideousness. We don't have to respect those who make such statements however. And we have every right to call them out and dismantle them publically.
Agree regarding Sullivan's dissent of the day. I usually appreciate the dissents but was confused by the choice to provide that dissent a focus. Wrong-headed, full of specious argument and, as you say, out of context. In other words, nonsense.
Atypical for the Dish. Everyone screws up.
That was the reader who talked about "white America" being outraged over Sotomayor's comments, right? What a prick.
I must have missed the memo, I'm not outraged as of yet.
This:
Got me. Truer words and all. Excellent post.
I think what is most clear about a lot of conservatives is what you point out in this post. Being out of their comfort zone is not something they do or wish to do. Now that the pendulum has swung toward tolerance, they go where the crowd goes. But that's a broad brush.
Hmmm. It may be early morning thinking and typing but does that make these shrill screamers of ignorant intolerance, I dunno, mavericks?
"Political correctness" are, to me, the first words out of the mouth of someone who is trying to excuse themselves for being an asshole. I can't remember the last time I heard it used in a non-defensive fashion. Couldn't have been later than 1990.
I dig your main point here - in fact, puts into words a lot of who I think I am. But I cringe a little bit at the dip into "warfare" and making armies bigger. Is it really that? I just want to live my life and enjoy the intersection of that life with the lives of others. And I want as many people as possible to enjoy that, too. That's something, but it isn't "warfare."
"Political correctness" are, to me, the first words out of the mouth of someone who is trying to excuse themselves for being an asshole.
In what I think was his last book, "Last Watch of the Night," Paul Monette wrote, "Being politically correct is little more than not being an asshole."
An oversimplification, perhaps. But, there's also something to it.
Thank you, MB and MAJeff.
I needed that. I wrote a long screed, lost my point and just got tired. I am so glad this place exists, and it's because of people like Ta-Nehisi Coates and you.
Yay, life isn't so horrible for 10-15 minutes!
Sometimes it is necessary to give offense, though.
The reason that right-wing squealing about 'political correctness' is so disgusting is that they want to be offensive without facing consequences.
It is of a piece with a theology of salvation without conscience.
Amen. Many, if not most, conservative talking points during the immigration debate came from nativist and white supremacist groups or their offshoots. Conservative commentators knew or, if they had cared to, could have easily known about the provenance of these arguments. It was part of what Dave Neiwert called "mainstreaming" extremist rhetoric and positions.
Likewise. Lou Dobbs uses graphics provided by the re-branded White Citizens' Council, and they say nothing. He cites some kook and accuses Latinos of spreading leprosy and, again, nada.
The conservative movement played a cynical game and it's now time for the reckoning: the extremists have become the voice and face of the movement. que se jodan.
Great post.
I always thought that political correctness was a stupid label, it sounds like thought police, thought correction, politburo and correction programs. For me, it is about decency. What is described in the post (visiting neighbourhoods etc.) is already more than what I would expect. But you have to show respect. Check out what the National Council of La Raza is as you would check out what the American Enterprise Institute is before you compare them with murderers. It's a question of respect.
Another thing that always bothers me, is when some public figures claim that they are being attacked by the "PC-police" after they have offended people. It may have been inadvertently. But instead of apologizing ("I am sorry my comment offended people. It wasn't my intention. I hold on to my main point which was... But I should have chosen my words more blabla") they invoke the ghost of Coleman Silk and that Dude in D.C. and also George Orwell, Voltaire and various others who can no longer defend themselves. If you step on someone's foot you say sorry. You don't have to say that your best friend is a foot. I think it's enough to say sorry.
But that assumes actually being sorry, Sime.
Yeah. More often it's "I'm sorry you're so sensitive that your foot hurts when I step on it."
TNC is on a roll. Great work the last 2 days. I'm getting nothing done enjoying the reading of these words.
I realize this is probably more generosity that they deserve, but any chance that Steele is the Republicans version of going to a party where they play music that they don't know how to dance to? Do you think that something good can come of this uncomfortable fuck up?
I feel sort of silly for even asking...
No you're right, it may well be that. You have to be wrong--a lot, actually--before you get it right. The question is, will they keep trying?
I, for one, doubt it. They will blame Steele for every problem their party has had for the past twenty years, replace him with the whites-only country club guy, and go back to business as usual.
TNC -- this post is full of win and awesome-sauce. Thank you. That is all.
Criticism of political correctness is a crutch for intolerant people who are angry that open intolerance is no longer wholly embraced and approved of.
Steele is the Republican's version of going to a party with strange music, except in their case, they chose a tone deaf musician.
I'd say it's also about being humble, about being able to admit that there's a limit to your knowledge. Especially as a straight male whitey, you have to be willing to say to people unlike yourself, "I haven't lived your life. You know better than I what your problems are and how you feel about them." Then be willing to listen and learn, then grow in your actions and speech.
Humble doesn't get you on CNN, though.
I think a lot of moderate conservative sympathy with the right's denunciations of political correctness comes from a basic difficulty in separating ideas of tolerance from ideas of white guilt. Some outright equate the two. Politics and law have gone over the line at times, adding fuel to that fire.
Sad, because practicing some tolerance is exactly what would show them how far apart the two concepts actually are.
Not to be a contrarian, but I'm sure Mr Tancredo knows a whole helluva lot about the KKK.
I don't know about that, I've seen interviews with actual KKK members who don't appear to know anything about the KKK. These people aren't in it for the in-depth historical analysis.
I concede the point, but not the spirit of the point.
Heh. Understood. :)
By the way, well played, sir.
These people aren't in it for the in-depth historical analysis.
LOL --They aren't, they aren't.
There's always a movement to derail a real conversation about race by holding up an overzealous reactionary as if he represented the entirety of the conversation. This shuts things down, and puts the people who're making real criticisms on the defensive, having to differentiate between themselves and the overzealous person.
If there are conservatives in the world who're appalled by Tancredo, they're getting called PC by the core of the conservative movement, which is people like Tancredo and Limbaugh. The Michael Moores of the left don't actually make much policy, and J. Democratic Senator can say what he likes about Moore without having to perform obeisances in apology the way anyone involved in the conservative movement does when they criticize Limbaugh.
When you take "politically correct" out of the common left wing implications, and use it as just a neutral term, you'll find that the politic of the conservative movement has a much bigger, more thuggish, and powerful PC squad than the liberal movement.
On a personal note, I'm *proud* of my friends who realize when they cross a line and offend someone and then apologize an correct their behavior, and I'm proud to have a social circle that cares about oppression, and the dignity of people who're frequently hurt by mainstream society. I'm glad we police ourselves, even on the minutiae of day to day conversations.
Excellent point.
Is Rick Sanchez the best on cable news at "sonning fools". The Samuel Alito quote to hit Tom Tancredo was nice.
"Tolerance is about warfare--it makes your army bigger than the other guy's army."
THIS. Holy shit this!
I don't understand why more people don't understand the true power of tolerance, the ability to group more people of like mind together to accomplish truly massive and worthy goals. Making friends with your enemies destroys that enemy totally. Not only are they no longer a threat to you, they are now an ally, adding to the power of your group as you move forward.
Don't believe me? Take a look at the history of anti-trusts here in the U.S., the monopolies follow the exact same mold. Incorporate your competitors and get them working for you instead.
Even conservatives believe this, but they would go to their graves denying it.
I think there's something that needs to be written about tolerance as coalition-building, and the ways in which the Republicans and Democrats go about it. The Republicans were actually extremely good at building a coalition of various, very different, American voter blocks: conservative Christians and Jews, racist whites, militaristic nationalists, and the economic elite were all somehow united under the Republican banner, even though they had a lot of reasons to dislike each other. I think there's a lot to be said for the ability of an orthodox Jew, a KKK member, a rural working-class Pentecostal Christian, a Mexican-American Catholic Marine sergeant, and an old-money WASP/atheist hedge fund manager to all band together in support of a single political platform. In some ways, this is a much more impressive display of "tolerance" than the fairly rickety unity displayed by the various identity groups comprising the Democratic caucus.
But of course, I'm using "tolerance" in a very different sense than TNC. These Republican groups joined together out of political necessity, while continuing to more or less despise each other. This suggests a looser coupling among the various factions than we saw among the Democratic groups; there was less enforcement of purity norms, perhaps, and indeed one could make the case that the recent switch in these parties' fortunes may have resulted from the Republicans becoming more fixated on a set of rigid party norms that members were increasingly forced to adhere to. I submit that the term "tolerance", as used in the field of engineering (meaning the amount of play or deviation allowed between several different parts), is an apt term to use to describe the degree to which a coalition has looseness and play in its joints, allowing it to flex before it breaks, and in this sense I think the Republicans have over the last few decades displayed remarkable, if not exactly admirable, "tolerance".
Careful, Jonah Goldberg will come rolling in here and use your post as proof of liberal fascism. Our tolerance will DESTROY the intolerant!
I looked this guy up and find that he is the Honorary Chairman of Youth for Western Civilization. You know, kind of like La Raza, it's just like the KKK, but younger and in college. (Their mission? "This movement is focused on the support of Western history, identity, high culture, and pride and opposition to radical multiculturalism, political correctness, racial preferences, mass immigration, and socialism.") What burns me is when tolerance extends to giving guys like Tancredo a voice on national television, without any notification given to anyone watching that this is the kind of crazy ass he is. Rick Sanchez warmly says goodbye to him at the end of the segment as "his good friend."
Just on tolerance in general I thought this was a great piece, TNC. It made me reflect with gratitude once again on my hippie parents, who were annoying in many ways, but drilled tolerance and respect for everyone into our heads over and over.
Affirmative action, done right, is also warfare. AA makes our nation stronger. It is knowing that talent is not restricted to those born with opportunity, not assuming that those "others" will never be good enough. It is making the effort to find the best and brightest regardless of their circumstances.
I taught math in Oakland elementary schools in the early 80s and there were African American kids there as brilliant as any future Ivy Leaguer from the burbs. They were natural leaders. The fact that many of them ended up as gang leaders rather than corporate or political leaders makes us all weaker. Affirmative Action is action to find these people and give them the opportunity to succeed, enriching us all.
Hey! did you teach at McChesney? Were you my teacher?
Beautiful post. My favorite:
As for this:
Why not love it? Love and tolerance go hand in hand. I love that this is the end of Tancredo and his ilk. That electoral exhaustion (read: lessons learned), the current political mood & infrustructure, as well as cohort replacement & immigration has made this branch of ill-tempered ignorance seem archaic. A collection of relics that're still walking around talking, reminding everyone how important it is to move on. Their political time is past. And that, you have got to love.
good post, Coates
MR Coates
I agree with much of what you say. But I think that there is a difference between the "conservative movement" and individual conservatives and their beliefs. Just as someone such as myself can be a Christain ,and still not belong to a particular church.
I believe in a free market economy.I am no purist. I realise that there should be some government regulation.My point is that whether someone agrees with my economic theories or not, my beliefs have nothing to do with nutcases like Tancredo.
For free market conservatives like myself who grew up respecting Jack Kemp.these are very bad times.I actually voted for a democrat for president for the first time in my life.Because despite my disagreements with some of President Obama's beliefs, I felt that Mcain would have destroyed our economy.Cutting taxes while raising spending is not very conservative, despite what George Bush may have thought.
One thing that I find interesting is that many liberals can not figure out the Republican's strategy. They ask "why do the Republicans let Tom Tancredo speak for them".
The sad fact is that there is no Republican strategy.They have lost all control of their party.It is disintergrating before their eyes.
All political parties have nut cases.The strong parties can keep their nutcases under control.The Republicans can not.
People say that Cheney and Gingrich are now the leaders. Who's following them? There are no leaders in the republican party right now as far as I am concerned.I feel that we are witnessing a once in a lifetime event.A major American political party self destructing.
Even when the Democrats were in trouble in the past, they still had some leadership.
I always enjoy your posts Mr . Coates. But I hope that you realise that the crap that Rush Limbaugh is trying to push has nothing to do with the free market philosiphy. It is just simple, old fashioned demogagory.
Going back to first principles: I think it should be about respect. Or, like someone said upthread, empathy - not the code-word that means pantywaist relativist sissy, or whatever, but empathy - feeling for another, putting yourself in another's shoes, golden rule and all that. For example, you should avoid using language that other people really do find offensive or hurtful, even if you don't, out of respect. That's why it's not something that can be legislated, why it's not really a free-speech issue, why this point of view is compatible with an open free-speech society - it's simply good manners, which we are supposed to learn from our parents. PC-ness is just an awkward attempt at this, in its best incarnations and when it doesn't trip over itself or go too far or lose perspective. And respect is the yardstick or talisman I'd use to determine whether those lines are being crossed in any particular case where over-PC-ness is being charged.
Race- and culture-based PC-ness can sometimes go too far - the charge of PC-ness stoking over-sensitivity is not an empty one. we gotta strive to be that melting pot here in America even as we realize that this does not need to entail total Borg-like cultural assimilation. You internalize laudable small-l liberal values, practice good citizenship, work hard and strive to understand everyone around you, cultivate those universal human values that most all of us learn from our families, and then go home and speak your language and practice your religion and decide whether to in-marry or whatever myriad other stuff is part of where you're from. It's unlikely that any of it contradicts truly good citizenship or general neighborliness.
RESPECK!
Tolerance is one thing, but Political Correctness is just lying, more or less. "Shh! Don't say what you really think. You'll spare other people's feelings, but you still harbor your hate and/or ignorance, instead of getting a good lesson in just how little you know about respecting others."
Garbage.
I used to sort of agree with this, but I don't anymore. There's a real difference for people's welfare between saying something and not saying something. I'm a woman working in an often very anti-female environment. I know that some (many?) of the people I work with think I shouldn't be there, think they can discount pretty much any feelings I have as being "on the rag", think that my being in the lunchroom spoils everything. But there is a huge difference for me between a job where culturally it's okay to say "the only thing a woman's good for is sucking cock" to my face and one where it's not. I've worked in both. I know that some of the people I work with think I'm worthless. I don't need to hear it, and it makes my day manifestly worse to hear it.
It's about standards of social interaction. I know some people who I think are quite ugly. I don't say "Joe sure is ugly" to anyone, least of all Joe. There are people I work with who are stupid. I don't say "you sure are stupid" to them. Thinking they're stupid and saying it to their face are two completely different levels of disrespect.
Politically correctness is not the origin of the idea that there are some things you just don't say to people- that's basic social skills. Political correctness expands the list of people who are included in the social world to include women and people of color, and it's a very old idea. At what point in history was it okay to point and laugh and say "look at the cripple!" when you saw a person missing a leg? Everyone knows they're crippled. Pointing it out is rude, thoughtless, and socially unacceptable.
oh, and by the way: here are some pesky facts about La Raza (aka "The People", any Latino/as here please confirm/refute the link but this all seems correct to me) which Tancredo conveniently has no clue about. (Tancredo! normal Republicans must be plotting to kidnap and gag him until this is all over right now - with friends like these..)
Interesting...tolerance always felt like middle ground bull to me. "I tolerate you" instead of "I recognize your agency and allow you to practice it the way I do." I think that for all the good it has done, the as you say, "long game" of it, all its really done is make people be nice to one another, I don't think we are fundamentally reimagining how power operates in all facets of American life. Or more pointedly, I don't think it makes liberals less racist/sexist/homophobic than conservatives, I think it makes them think they are. Which I think leads to the oversensitiveness and the navel-gazing sense that political correctness is about changing behavior not the elements that lead to behavior.
But that's just me. Excellent post, homie.
Sometimes you have to walk over the middle ground to get from one side to another. I much prefer working with people who tolerate me over people who don't tolerate me. Sure, working with people who like and respect me would be even better, but that doesn't mean the distinction between being tolerated and not tolerated isn't meaningful. In fact, that distinction is often the one between having a job and not having a job. I can't make people change their thoughts. I sure appreciate it when they change their behavior.
Being nice to people, in the sense of actually being nice to them, is something that all decent people should be able to agree on. But we're discounting the other form of political correctness, one that is about making a lot of symbolic moves in order to demonstrate in-group membership and exclude others.
It's quite possible to be nominally liberal in an irritating, narrow, prickly way that has nothing to do with niceness or consideration and everything to do with saying "I'm better than you." That's not REALLY liberal in my mind, any more than right-wing radicalism is really conservative, but you do find these yahoos cluttering things up on the left.
I'm not talking about whether people have to tolerate the intolerant. I'm talking about people who set themselves up as the gatekeepers of what is acceptable or not, regardless of what the supposed beneficiaries of their actions might prefer. People who try to speak for others and get very mean when other people (perhaps including the ones they are trying to speak for) disagree with what they say.
My personal example is when other women come up with very strange ideas of what I, as a woman, am "supposed" to want, and then turn on me when I don't agree to let them run things and put their predetermined program into place. I don't think they are operating in good faith and trying to understand me in order to build a broader coalition. The fact that they turn on me when I talk back tells me all I need to know about that.
Sometimes I wonder if I grew up in some weird kind of bubble because my parents and many of the people around me definitely were not prone to Tancredo-style xenophobia even as they had more traditional conservative values and political leanings.
My parents opened their home to international students all over the world and all sorts of lost souls from all walks of life that my sister and I brought home, I grew up hearing heated political discussions that never veered into nastiness. My mom raised us to believe that everyone was equal in the sight of God regardless of who they were, and that has stuck with me. My dad dislikes being part of the Teamsters but enjoys his work (delivering to convenience stores in inner-city Cleveland) because of the places where he ends up and the people that he meets.
Maybe this is the exception rather than the rule. As someone said above, "humble doesn't get you on CNN." It was just assumed that WE were the ones who were a little bit weird (having been homeschooled a few of those years), and that it made sense that no one did things the same way so we shouldn't get upset over it.
Conversely, I am always stunned to hear the ignorant comments made by people who would otherwise consider themselves very liberal and openminded but always tended to stick with their own kind and have lots of disparaging comments to make about our students from the rougher parts of town, or the "foreign kids" who eat all that "weird food." (I work in academia and sometimes it seems that the ivory tower syndrome kicks in and it's easy to see statistics, structures, and theory instead of individuals).
So yeah, don't know what the point of all that was... guess I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness here.
I loved this column, but I would have liked it more if the term "politically correct" was replaced by "tolerant." Why conflate the two concepts? Why feed ammo to the purveyors of intolerance by using (what has become) a pejorative to infuse anti-bigotry Maoist connotations?
My personal view on "political correctness" is this: my parents (rest their souls) were very "politically correct." They also wouldn't rent to black people. I prefer speech in support of tolerance to the opposite, but talk is cheap. Tolerant is as tolerant does.
Correction to above: "to infuse anti-bigotry WITH Maoist connotations."
All of us fall prey to our egocentric ideas. I don't know if liberals are more susceptible to this than conservatives; although I am willing to acknowledge that I have thus erred, by and large that has not been my experience.
But here is the real crux of the matter; we owe it to others when we discuss matters to understand the assumptions we bring with us, and if we want to have a true discussion, do our best to avoid fallacy, which by definition short circuits discussion by reduction.
On the other hand, it is not accurate to say all opinions carry the same weight. We can see this most clearly where liberal/conservative identity politics rears its head on matters of scientific inquiry. Say what one might about one's religious beliefs, dna evidence, a finding derived from evolution science, can send a person to his or her death or bring about a life saving reprieve in a court of law. Religion, political affiliation are no excuses for perpetrating opinions that have no warrant as valid as those for which there is over a century of evidentiary backing.
I do not believe George Bush is a racist; in terms of the people he surrounded himself with, he seems equally at home among people of just about every background. But his reaction to Hurricane Katrina did display a tin ear to issues concerning the black community in New Orleans.
For me, the issue is more than "tolerance," which as a word sounds like watered down to blandness tobasco, but honesty and the willingness to listen if someone has something better, more substantial, more accurate to say. The willingness to acknowledge humanity and personal foible within oneself and stand corrected.
Well put.
TNC..
"Liberal tolerance is what allowed Obama to neutralize Rev. Wright, and make his race speech."
You've confused this with "Liberal intellectual dishonesty".
"Liberal Tolerance" means enforcing PC speech codes, criminalizing policy differences, and using unfounded accusations of racism to keep anyone who doesn't agree with them marginalized. All, of course with the appropriate caveats so those with the correct political leanings don't get caught in the net.
"And you get better. You pick up bits of a second language. You learn to like the food, to enjoy the music. And then one day you look up, and lo and behold, it seems like the whole world is dancing to that same music, eating that same food."
You read a speech where someone says a wise Latina can make a better decision. You aren't sure you know what she meant, but the first three ideas that occur to you all seem okay. You grin.
thanks for the article. as an israelite i am always wary of the word 'tolerance'. tigger500 was getting at this above.
tolerance can be revoked. as a dhimmi under islam, jews and xians were 'tolerated'. when tolerance was revoked at times, for whatever reason, houses and businesses were burned, women raped and people killed. then, a new era of tolerance, until the next revocation. at times even under a regime of 'tolerance', jews and others had to wear distinctive clothing, or couldn't ride a horse because that would put them higher than a muslim. black people, asian people, latinos have all lived similar experiences at different times in the US and latin america. read about the chinese in california 1850-1880s. about black immigrants in panama 1880-1940. etc. etc.
i didn't like the 'museum of tolerance' for the same reason. i know it was started by jews and others, i just think the angle is wrong. i'm a man goddamit. i don't want to be tolerated. accept me or see what happens if you don't.
finally, political correctness is only applicable inasmuch as the offended group has political power. there are still sports teams called 'redskins' etc. because native americans have little political clout.
Marx or Tocqueville: "America is a conservative country with no conservative ideology."
It might be said that American conservative ideology is a series of back-fillings and fabrications whose ideological roots trace back to efforts to justify slavery as a "positive good."
But it might also be noted that these roots were rotten from the core -- a clever ideology fabricated to conceal raw, corrupting self-interest.
Just want to say: some very nice writing in the original blog post. Esp. the little paragraph including "one day you look up," which gets quoted at least once in the comments and is definitely getting passed around.
This is very well written (the original post) and very well thought out, probably some causal relationship there... the point is that there is no free lunch. Tolerance has a price, people are human and make mistakes... but intolerance has a higher price, so the judgment call is clear.
As an example, I grew up in the projects and am white. Have been in many situations where the double standard over the n-word could be perceived as an issue. It sort of reflects the ongoing internal debate among, for example, black comedians... and I can see both sides of that one. On the one hand it has produced some brilliant comedy... your Prior, your Chapelle, your D. L. Hughley, your Chris Rock. On the other hand I totally get that some people would prefer never to hear it again, and that to some extent it can be generational, and that women are less comfortable with it than men.
But in the end I think it's an issue for black people to work out, and even if it gets left where it is... remaining controversial with a double standard based on pigmentation... I am comfortable with that, it's OK. Not a big deal to me to not say or type a word I have very little association with, essentially no investment in the need to abolish or rehabilitate if you will. Out of respect to the people who DO have that to deal with, I let them make the call, and however it comes out, if it even does, so it goes. Just so long as I can still watch the comedy... where, let's face it, it's not the word that's the crux, but the poetry, the perception, the delivery. Which despite the cultural difference, barriers, and even double standards, reaches out real clearly and effectively on a human level, which is the real point.
So nice job TNC.