"Systemic Self-Destruction"
by Jeff Thomas
"During the Obama administration, comedian Bill Maher attempted to take advantage of the ever-expanding trend of political correctness by referring derisively to the possibility of taking the view of "some white guy." Of course, as a proclaimed liberal, his aim was to say to other liberals, "Liberals are slamming those who are Caucasian, and I want you to know that I’m a good liberal, and I’m on your side."
In the years following the event, he continued in this fashion, but as political correctness caught fire, he found that, far from helping his career, his attempt to placate the PC audience resulted in them turning on him. He is a comedian, after all, and comedians deal in abstraction in order to tickle the funnybone. Those who are politically correct found him an easy target to pick apart, describing some of his jokes as racist and demanding that he confess to racism and submit to public shaming. The more he tried to avoid an apology, the more he was castigated. To his credit, he eventually retaliated, calling political correctness a "cancer on progressivism."
However, when we attempt to pander to groups of people whose raison d'être is to fanatically promote irrational standards, we step onto a slippery slope. Today nowhere is this truer than in the education system. Educational institutions tend to be havens for adult instructors who do not deal well with the dollars and cents world. Academics have the freedom to imagine utopian concepts without ever having to implement them and thereby determine whether they can actually work. More to the point, they’re in the position to then teach those concepts to youthful minds, which are open to "new" ideas.
Unfortunately, teachers are paid regardless of how unworkable their concepts are. As Thomas Sowell has rightly stated, "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." But what happens when a concept such as political correctness begins to take hold? Does it soon fall out of favor, like a bad joke?
No, quite the opposite. It tends to spread like a skin rash. After all, it provides those who have not excelled in life with an opportunity for immediate one-upmanship. Accusations of sexism, fascism, and - most popularly - racism are easy to conjure up in any situation, and again, nowhere is this truer than in institutions of higher learning.
Unsurprisingly, so-called woke concepts are welcomed and encouraged by school faculty members. And whilst these concepts may not be welcomed by the school’s administration, they are tolerated, and student eccentricities are pandered to in order to maintain enrollment and revenue.
And so we now see the creation of safe spaces, where no one may say anything that may upset another. Crying closets are now provided for those who find it hard to cope with normal discourse. Play-Doh therapy is implemented. It is becoming difficult to distinguish colleges from daycare centers.
Unfortunately, as part of the bargain, naming and shaming - a modern-day version of the Salem witch trials - has also become a part of the educational firmament. The more the school attempts to placate the mobs, the more it finds itself in a similar fix to Mister Maher. The seemingly advantageous position of pandering to political correctness backfires. Placating the students serves only to cause them to repeatedly increase their demands. This is a condition of the tail wagging the dog and has now reached calamitous proportions across much of the former free world.
Not surprisingly, school faculties join in on the side of the students. Having once inoculated the students with politically correct concepts, they often take on the role of student leaders against the very administration that pays their salaries. At one school in America, over one hundred faculty have organized to accuse the school of the foremost pet issue of today - systemic racism.
They have submitted eight pages of demands to the school’s administration, including an assortment of "equality" demands, such as forced anti-bias training for all staff, forced public "anti-racism statements" from all staff, new courses on "black liberation," and the elimination of courses in which minority students have lower scores than whites.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the administration were to grit their teeth and submit to some of these demands to demonstrate their opposition to racism. However, there are many other demands, such as the hiring of dozens of new staff, including psychologists who specialize in minority psychological issues, a black student complaints officer, and twelve full-time diversity officers. These measures would not only be costly; there would be no way to recoup the costs except to raise the tuition once more.
Unfortunately, the demands get worse. There are demands to pay back student debt and, worse, re-route half of all donations to New York City public schools. Such demands would force the school into bankruptcy. Don’t these people understand that such measures would collapse the school, forcing its closure?
Well, yes, of course, they do. The object is not to achieve the stated ends of the demands but to increase the demands until the institution cracks and is brought to its knees. The intention of political correctness is not to correct the iniquities of life but to tear down what exists in a bid for self-aggrandizement and power. This is not an appeal for "fairness"; it is a campaign for domination by those who have no real sense of identity or accomplishment.
For those who seek to placate the PC crowd, there is no backing out once you begin. This is understood by those who are being pressured to comply with illogical PC demands; however small, it becomes apparent that political correctness has no limit. It becomes a systemic cry for self-destruction. Historically, when a nation reaches the final stages of decline, the inmates often take over control of the asylum. We are witnessing the rebirth of that eventuality in the present era."
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