Forbidden ideas

The English writer, actor and stand-up comedian, Alexei Sayle, was born into a seriously left-wing family (they were communists), and he still adheres to what he sees as Marxist principles. This background shaped his life but did not entirely destroy his sense of humor. He published an account of his early years under the title, Stalin Ate My Homework.

Sayle once talked about the peculiarities of left-wing audiences. He noted that, when he did a stand-up routine at party conferences or other left-wing gatherings, there was always a brief but discernible pause between the punch line and the laughter, just time enough for audience members to pass the joke through a mental political-acceptability filter.

Censorship can be understood as operating in various ways: top-down (via the policies and actions of governments and/or media companies); or bottom-up (via self-censorship driven by social pressure or cultural taboos). I have no “in principle” argument against censorship. Sometimes it is justified, even the top-down kind.

The only trouble is that, for many of us, the wrong people are in positions of power and are censoring all the wrong things. Even if the “right” people were in power, however, one could never be sure for how long. So the still popular (in some circles) ‘no censorship’ position is a kind of pragmatic compromise – and at first glance a sensible one. In the real world, however, censorship of one kind or another always exists to a greater or lesser extent.

If I was going to give a serious treatment of this topic, the focus would be on the impact of digital technologies. There is a lot to say. History is being rewritten and not in a good way. Certain views are being expunged from the record. Even some science journals are reportedly deleting previously published papers which have retrospectively been deemed harmful or offensive. But I will save all this for another time or – better – leave others to lay out the depressing facts. Here I just want to make a few remarks about the scope for personal frankness and openness.

Professional comedians inherited the privileges of the clown or of the king’s jester or fool who traditionally had a license to go beyond what would normally be considered acceptable speech and behavior. But how far beyond? What should today’s comedians be allowed to get away with? Should there be limits on whom or what they are allowed to make fun of? In most contexts today, as in previous times, strict limitations apply even if they are rarely spelled out, and there are adverse consequences for comics who overstep the mark or take what is perceived to be an unacceptable political or ideological line.

Theatrical productions were banned in England in the 1640s in a bid to rein in “lascivious Mirth and Levity.” The actors and theatrical companies strenuously objected, of course. But it can be safely assumed that mirth (lascivious and otherwise) and a degree of levity persisted within the general population even during these troubled times.

There is always a tension between laughter and authority. Generally speaking, laughter punctures pretentiousness, and in this respect is a powerful force for good. There is no more devastating response to a claim to authority or power than laughter, especially the spontaneous laughter of a crowd.

Ideally, we would all feel free – within the limits of politeness – to say publicly how we actually feel and what we actually think. But this isn’t the reality and never will be. The simple truth is that such freedom doesn’t exist; except, of course, for those with anodyne or boringly conventional views.

What’s more, the range of publicly acceptable views has narrowed alarmingly of late. This is sad. But I console myself that such a state of affairs has been the norm for most of human history. I just happened to have grown up in a time and place of unusually great freedom and need now to wind back expectations.

For a younger me (and my young contemporaries) the Soviet system seemed like an outlier, an anomaly that would soon pass away. It did. Now, however, we find ourselves heading into a totalitarian system of a not dissimilar kind.

Lately many old Soviet jokes seem to have taken on a new lease of life because they now apply – mutatis mutandis – to us, to the Western world. This one, for example…

A man goes to the KGB, explaining that his talking parrot has disappeared, presumably stolen.

“This is not the kind of case we handle, comrade,” he is told. “Go to the regular police.”

“Excuse me, of course I know that I must go to them,” he replies nervously. “But I just want to make it clear, to put it on record, that I disagree with the parrot.”

[This is an abridged and revised version of a piece which originally appeared at The Electric Agora.]

Orwell again

Referencing George Orwell's 1984, Gerald Warner comments on cultural changes in the United Kingdom which mirror similar changes in other Western countries. I agree with the gist of what he is saying but I think it is best said without using the terms 'Marxism' and 'cultural Marxism' in the way that he does – too loosely. As he uses the terms, they are almost semantically empty.

"Political correctness – the euphemism for cultural Marxism – has colonized almost every corner of life in Britain. The social assumptions and public discourse, as well as the legal framework, have become Marxist. Genuine free speech is now an historical memory.

"One can only marvel at the prescient accuracy of George Orwell’s dystopian warnings in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Thought crime is today called “hate crime”; Newspeak is the constipated, hideous neologisms of PC language. People have begun to police their own speech; formerly articulate individuals now have a hesitant delivery as they negotiate the pitfalls of an ever-expanding minefield of taboos."

(From his article, "Marx is winning", Reaction, May 15, 2018.)

Conservative reticence

Out of politeness, we don't say what we really think. Politeness, being grown up, being civilized, is to a great extent about keeping our thoughts to ourselves – unlike children, who can wound and often do, but are forgiven.

There is a story in my family of one of my mother's cousins – as a small child – sitting on the knee of his doting but rather vain grandfather, staring up at him and saying slowly and with great earnestness: "Oh, Grandfather, you do have a face like a dog!"

I said that we (adults) don't say what we really think. Perhaps I should say we usen't to say what we think. Times change, manners change. And digital communications give us many more opportunities to frankly speak our minds – using pseudonyms or not – than we ever had before.

But, strangely, there are still strong taboos in certain areas.

Whereas the old taboos were mainly about form rather than substance (and therefore not really intellectually restrictive), today's taboos are politically or ideologically driven. Today it's not so much how you say something that gets you into trouble (swearing or whatever) but how what you say may reveal unacceptable beliefs about, for example, the significance and interpretation of cultural or ethnic traditions, or about the role of inherited factors in explaining individual differences, or about the appropriate role of markets or the scope and responsibilities of government, or the basis of political authority, or environmental issues.

There are strong social pressures, especially in culturally elite circles (academia, media, government, etc.) not to take certain lines in these contentious areas – whether one expresses them in a restrained and measured way or not – and breaching these increasingly stringent protocols can be fatal for one's career.

It's no wonder, then, that generally the only people who go against these taboos are either not part of that elite (and with no hope of joining it) or those at the other end of the continuum who are rich enough or famous enough to be able not to care how the self-appointed guardians of morality and propriety may judge them. (I have a few names in the latter category in mind, but to list them might imply a blanket endorsement – and would only serve to attract opprobrium without any compensating notoriety.)

It seems to me that the left has largely given up on previous attempts to develop a comprehensive and theoretically coherent worldview, and has become an emotionally-driven amalgam of groups and individuals defined above all else by a strident moralism, featuring what they see as anti-racism as a (the?) prominent element. Leftist thinkers have a strong – and curiously patronizing – tendency to favor the non-white, non-European side in virtually any dispute. Also, of course, to favor women over men, and 'the oppressed' over 'the oppressor'. Because truth, of course, is a social construct...

The upshot of all this is that today's natural conservatives feel more marginalized than at any time in living memory from the political and cultural mainstream and, consequently, are – at least in many instances – finding themselves pushed in radical directions (e.g. towards right-libertarianism, or, alternatively, towards more authoritarian or even neo-fascist options).

They see the traditional modes of being conservative as becoming unviable, as what some decades ago might have been perceived as left-wing or progressive notions have been aggressively promulgated through legislation and broader cultural channels.

These days conservative reticence is more likely to mask a simmering anger and discontent than a Stoic sense of the inevitability of imperfection or a bemused recognition of human foibles.

Don't go there!

Razib Khan (writing as David Hume at Secular Right) deals sensibly – but gingerly – with a controversy regarding a Harvard PhD dissertation on IQ, race and immigration. He is "not keen to get deeply involved", because, he says, so much has been said already about the affair in question. But I suspect his reluctance may have other causes as well, for there are clear disincentives in play for right-leaning moderates to discuss certain sensitive issues.

Razib also made a more general point about academic manners and assumptions which I strongly endorse.

"As a non-liberal with some affiliation with academia," he writes, "I’m in a peculiar position. I get to observe people blithely confusing their normative presuppositions with the basic background assumptions of the average person."

This leads them to suspect anyone whose opinions are out of line with theirs on certain litmus issues to be an extremist.

Which leads me to another topic entirely, but one which serves to illustrate the above points: the recent suicide of Dominique Venner in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

As it happens, I have some knowledge of the French far right (including a couple of Venner's former associates), but I hesitate to write on the topic because even a balanced and quite dispassionate account would likely be interpreted in academic circles as some kind of endorsement of fascism.

The way one is supposed to deal with this sort of topic – if one deals with it at all – is to do it in the way David Sessions did it, writing at The Daily Beast. Sessions's analysis carries useful information but is heavily loaded with moral outrage and left-wing signaling to protect the author against any suggestion that he feels anything other than the greatest possible repugnance for the man in question and his ideas, and indeed for anyone associated with the French right.

Sessions talks, for example, of the Algerian conflict of the 1950s and early 60s having "further radicalized the already hysterically right-wing pieds-noirs, the French settlers in Algeria who, at the end of the bloody war, uprooted themselves from generations of history and moved en masse to metropolitan France. Though they successfully assimilated into French culture, they often supported the country’s emerging far-right party, the Front National…" Do we really need the "hysterically right-wing"? (And that was before they were further radicalized.)

What leftists and politically-correct journalists don't seem to understand is that the hidden constraints on speech which have arisen over recent decades create pressures which are felt not just by educated moderates (like me) but also by less well-educated people of conservative disposition who are liable to react to such perceived constraints – spurred on, perhaps, by dramatic events like Venner's suicide – in unpredictable and possibly violent ways.

Gingerbread people

I recently noticed some gingerbread men for sale in the local supermarket labelled as 'gingerbread people'. It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Sometimes it is appropriate, however, to change ways of speaking or product names to avoid giving offense. In the realm of children's treats, this brand of liquorice must surely take the prize for insensitivity. (They subsequently changed the brand name to 'Lucky Boy'.)

But engineered changes to the way we speak and write have gone too far, reflecting, I think, various radical agendas.

'People-first' language by some twisted logic sees it as unacceptable to use ordinary adjectival phrases when speaking about people and mandates unnatural-sounding, pretentious (and ultimately patronizing) locutions such as 'person (or people) of color'.

This insidious practice has been promoted by advocacy groups, especially in relation to health-related areas. So remember, you are supposed to say 'people with disabilities' not 'disabled people'.

Other absurdities, like the use of 'differently-abled' or the use of the word 'challenged' were generally seen as such and made fun of.

Since the word 'retarded' just means held back or delayed, it's interesting that it has become unacceptable whereas the use of the terms 'delayed development' or 'developmental delays' is perfectly okay. The problem with 'retarded' derives mainly from the unfortunate slang nominalization 'retard'.

Actually the terms 'disabled' and 'disability' are not too bad. At least they aren't patronizing like some of the terms they replaced (e.g. 'handicapped') and they don't have the offensive ring of many older popular terms.



More sinister than the politically-correct linguistic lobbying of advocates for disabled groups, women and minorities is the term 'social marketing' - and the assumptions and practices which go with it.

Social marketing involves using all the resources of social psychology and commercial marketing techniques to alter behaviors to conform to (usually) a government view of what are considered to be desirable (or healthy or 'sustainable') behaviors.

Never has the term 'soft totalitarianism' been so appropriate. Propaganda ministries in the old 20th-century totalitarian states were engaged in something very like what is now called social marketing. Only they weren't afraid to call it by an honest name.

Inciting hatred?

This witty little piece is worth pondering for the light it throws on changes that have occurred in the social, cultural and legal environment over recent decades. The song (as the text on the video notes) ruffled a few feathers when it was released more than 30 years ago.

But would such a song have been written today? And, if it had, would it have been given a mainstream release? I doubt it.

Individual ethics and manners once bore a far greater load and played a more central role in the functioning of society. But now, as Western governments seek to modify behavior through 'education programs' and a progressive legislative agenda, the role of private judgement in morality, manners and professional life has been downgraded.

Legal systems, once perceived as staid but respected, have become pro-active players in an intra-societal struggle, as an ever-expanding inventory of groups and sub-groups and categories of individual seek to benefit from their minority or 'oppressed' status.

I have the strong sense that Western societies were not only considerably freer, but also considerably saner in previous decades.