Greg Burch wrote:
>
> From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever@sprynet.com>
> >
> > Maybe PC is simply a knee-jerk response used to dismiss people with
> certain
> > differing political views. But what does it really mean? Without
> > specifics, I don't think it's very useful.
>
> Actually, I think the term "PC" has a fairly specific meaning, but isn't
> used rigorously by a lot of people who employ the term. It's also had very
> real impact on Western culture and I'm among those who feel that impact has
> been almost entirely negative.
>
> As I use the term, "PC" applies to a set of ideas, values and goals
> characterized by:
>
> <> post-modernist subjectivism
> <> extreme cultural relativism
> <> crypto-marxist condemnation of capitalism
> <> antipathy to:
> <> "patriarchy"
> <> Anglic culture
> <> exercise of American political and military power in the world outside
> the US
>
> (Am I missing anything?)
yeah, under antipathy to:
<> technology based progress and science in general
<> the individual right of self defense (of course ;))
<> the freedom of expression of anything that conflicts with PC values.
>
> Now, the problem in the contemporary cultural scene is that this
> constellation of cultural values and vectors is:
>
> <> almost wholly identified with "the left" (i.e. U.S. left-Democrats and
> Social Democrats everywhere else)
> <> at least in the U.S., became the dominant cultural foundation in academia
> and, to a great extent in influential parts of the media
> <> had a head-start as a fairly self-conscious ideology vis-a-vis the
> reactive "cultural conservative" constellation that developed in response to
> it.
>
> All of these factors came together -- again in the U.S., certainly -- to
> create a mentality of "siege" in the last two decades among many people who
> perceive "PC" to be a bad thing. People who came of age in American
> academia in the 1970s and 1980s, especially -- and did not buy into the PC
> cultural paradigm -- correctly perceived that a major element of U.S.
> culture had been essentially "hijacked" by a group of people whose values
> and goals were very different from those who had created the institutions
> that were being overtaken by policies and ideas shaped by "the PC paradigm".
But the basis of the PC movement has its roots in the 1930's to the
1950's in such people as Keynes and Kuhn (part of the academic
foundation), and found root in the aftermath of the Great Depression
where an overwhelming percent of the population blindly accepted the
notion that the free market was a failure and government could fix all
ills.
>
> Cultural phenomena often tend to operate "out of synch" with each other.
> This seems to be the case with attitudes toward the PC paradigm.
> Significant centers of cultural power have now coalesced around values
> distinct from the PC paradigm, but many participants in those other cultural
> streams still feel isolated and overwhelmed by the PC paradigm.
> Unfortunately, almost all of those new cultural streams are reactive: "The
> Moral Majority," the nasty white power groups and the like.
GOing by the Nolan chart, the political paradigm of the 20th century
dominates along the conservative/liberal axis rather than the
libertarian/authoritarian axis, which is a 90 degree rotation from the
enlightenment period which saw a greater orientation between the
libertarianism of fledgling democracies and the authoritarianism of
feudal systems.
I think that it is at present beginning to rotate another 90 degrees in
both directions (or else a dovetailing of both poles), with the more
factional 'liberal' economic authoritarian left shifting further toward
authoritarianism with the more inclusive types shifting toward
libertarianism, and the conservative movement diverging as well between
the right libertarians and the social authoritarians.
This is why I've forseen the 21st century political milieu to
predominantly be an Techno-liberal versus Primitivist conflict, with
luddite reactionary revolutions peaking between 2010 and 2020, an end to
the mercantilist paradigm by 2030, and a world polarized through much of
the 21st century between neoliberal/libertarian societies that are
technologically progressive, versus fundamentalist societies that have
made a religion of environmentalism, seeking to reestablish agrarian
tyrannies.
>
> One phenomenon that I believe can be attributed in part to a reaction
> against the inroads made by the PC paradigm into U.S. cultural institutions
> is the renaissance of classical liberalism -- with its modern American label
> of "libertarianism" -- in groups like the Cato Institute, publications like
> Reason magazine, and renewed interest in both the origins of and the modern
> expression of libertarian theory. This trend is largely an attempt to
> salvage the liberal foundation of Western culture in a way that is not
> reactionary.
>
> Relative newcomers to the list should be aware that extropianism is, in a
> very general sense, part of this latter cultural phenomena. Although the
> general cultural impetus that gave rise to the renaissance in liberal
> thought (in the original sense of the word) at the end of the 20th and
> beginning of the 21st centuries may have been reactive (to the seizure by
> the proponents of post-modernism and the PC paradigm of the "commanding
> heights" of cultural institutions), extropianism is NOT a "reactionary"
> philosophy. Unfortunately, too many people who are steeped in the
> vocabulary of the contemporary polarization of political and cultural life
> into "left" and "right" get confused about this.
>
> The other day I joined in condemnation of material that had come from an
> essentially reactionary web site, pointing out that we have to see the
> context in which something is offered to really understand the CULTURAL
> SIGNIFICANCE of that material. ASSESSING THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
> SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT FROM DETERMINING ITS TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD. This is a
> fundamentally important distinction that is being missed in almost all the
> discussions about public policy and ethics here lately, from posts about IQ
> tests, to discussion of financing and control of education, to the
> reparations discussion, to the talk about what people mean when they use the
> word "Mexican". Interestingly, I think we're seeing a real example of the
> different styles of thought and discourse among "the two cultures": In the
> sciences, there's really no merit to talking about the cultural significance
> of a proposition; it's either true or false, testable or not, fruitful or
> not. In the humanities and politics, truth, testability and fruitfulness
> are important, but they aren't the whole story.
Yes, however I think that everyone is 'scientist' enough to understand
that when you impunge the cultural significance of something, you place
a value of 'good' or 'bad' on the factuality of that something. People
who function from 'feeling' (typical of humanities and political types)
are more likely to deny the factuality of something said by a person or
group they dislike intensely than something said by the average person,
even if both are saying the same thing. When a person who they do not
dislike intensely says something that is also said by those they
dislike, the reaction is to automatically label that person as a member
of the disliked group. Its a labeling, a categorization, and a
discrimination that is not based on the rational evaluation of that
which is being said.
Those who categorize and demonize say,"Well, I must judge people by
their associates because I cannot waste my time examining and contesting
everything they say, I do not have enough hours in the day to deal with
all the people I dislike and disagree with." This is a cop out. The
proper, rational, and truly LIBERAL way to deal with such a situation is
to refuse to label, categorize, or contest anything or anyone unless you
do examine the facts of the issues thoroughly. You know, the old "If you
have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."
It is to be expected that both sides practice this to some extent, some
more than others. The fact is that this is a war of ideas, and there can
be only one winner. Not everyone can go home at the end of the day with
a prize. The fact that so few can accept this is an indication of how
deeply subjectivist memes have penetrated society.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:18 MDT