New at Reason

David Weigel | May 8, 2006

Jesse Walker wonders how conservative activists suddenly got so concerned with political correctness.

Comments

|5.8.06 @ 1:51PM|#

Good job, Jesse.

VikingMoose|5.8.06 @ 1:58PM|#

agreed!

Good Job!

|5.8.06 @ 1:59PM|#

Yes, good job. (Loved the Cheers reference, too.)

|5.8.06 @ 2:10PM|#

Jesse,

Why do you hate conservatives?

|5.8.06 @ 2:25PM|#

"Diversity" has been wrung dry of any useful meaning- now on to "pluralism."

---------
I was going to insert a "what did the pluralist say to the bartender" joke here, but I couldn't come up with anything as funny as: "a Community Pluralism Committee reporting to the President, an integral part of our original Pluralism Initiative Structure that never solidified."

|5.8.06 @ 2:36PM|#

"People living in the great middle are perfectly happy to be slightly overweight, a little underpaid, and dressed in fashions that cause comment when we interact with our betters... We respect formal learning, but we value practicality over more esoteric fields of knowledge, and treasure self-sufficiency above all... Most Red Americans can't deconstruct post-modern literature, give proper orders to a nanny, pick out a cabernet with aftertones of licorice, or quote prices from the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog."

You make some good points in your article Jessee, but that quote is just funny. There are few things more fun in life than calling liberals elitists. It makes them so mad, the run their Volvos off the road. I refuse to stop doing it, I don't care if it does make me a victim monger.

|5.8.06 @ 3:30PM|#

You nailed it Jesse.

I don't why it's no good making fun of conservatives, it just has zero comic value. Maybe because everybody already assumes they're all assholes?

Warren|5.8.06 @ 3:50PM|#

I'm just hoping the conservative/liberal tautology becomes conventional wisdom soon. I'm just disgusted at the number of pundits, bloggers, etc. that continue to pretend conservatives stand for something else.

|5.8.06 @ 4:00PM|#

"...treats identity politics not just as an ideology but as a trump card, that maintains a rigid orthodoxy while regarding itself as subversive, that uses a series of contrived outrages to feed a bureaucratic machine."

Um, when in the last thirty years has the christian right not done this?

|5.8.06 @ 8:05PM|#

"People living in the great middle are perfectly happy to be slightly overweight, a little underpaid, ... we value practicality ... and treasure self-sufficiency above all..."

Ah, yes, the bogus self-perception of the contemporary right. Do any of these creatures still exist?? The last middle American I knew that fit this description was my grandmother who died in '92.

The Great Red Middle I see is different. They spend beyond their means at Wal-Mart on "practical" stuff (like singing plastic bass) from China and then complain about how their overpaying jobs are moving overseas or taken by immigrants who don't share their inflated notion of a "living wage."

They are also the ones who are hostile to the privatization of social security implying that the government is more knowledgeable and trustworthy than themselves.

While they are OK with being "slightly" overweight (or obese) now, it will be interesting to see if they "treasure self-sufficiency above all" when the time comes to settle their medical and elder care bills. My suspicion is tax-subsidized healthcare (aka my money) will leap ahead of self-sufficiency on their list of treasures.

Great article, Jesse. This has been on the way for more than a decade as far as I can tell. Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America highlighted this trend in the mid-90's. Your observation about the bureaucracy and structure involved closed the loop for me.

deadhippie|5.9.06 @ 1:34AM|#

Jesse:

Top notch piece.

Why am I not surprised?

So long as baby boomers dominate both major parties, we can expect more victim-based rhetoric and big government solutions...

|5.9.06 @ 10:42AM|#

because the professional Red Staters had mau maued[sic] the Post into enlisting him.
IOW, they hired him to increase circulation.

When Fox blowhard Bill O'Reilly declares that "it is politically incorrect to mention that immigration laws must be enforced and the borders effectively monitored," he obviously isn't describing what's risky to say on the channel that employs him, where calls to enforce our immigration laws are about as rare as ads for Hannity & Colmes.
Turns out that blowhard Bill O'Reilly is correct and blowhard Jesse Walker is incorrect (hence the need to redefine PC):

politically correct
adj. Abbr. PC
Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.
Being or perceived as being overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters.

political correctness n.
n : avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude or marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

Words and terms and such have, you know, meanings.

Jesse Walker|5.9.06 @ 11:12AM|#

I don't know from what dictionary or oriface you plucked those definitions, Lemur, but P.C. actually has maybe a dozen meanings, some of them mutually exclusive. (I sorted through a bunch of them in an article for Liberty about a decade ago; I'd link to it, but it isn't online.) The connotations have also evolved over the years -- the people who complained about "political correctness" in the mid-'80s, for example, tended to be leftists mocking other leftists.

That said, most of the definitions boil down to one of two things: the behavior-pattern I outlined in my article, or a vague smear-term for anything multicultural, feminist, or left of center. Evidently you prefer the second usage.

|5.9.06 @ 11:14AM|#

because the professional Red Staters had mau maued[sic]

Care to explain what error you are correcting with your [sic]?

I believe Jesse Walker was using this word.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mau_mau

"From the Kikuyu terrorists

Transitive verb
to mau-mau

To menace through intimidating tactics; to intimidate, harass; to terrorize."

Are you complaining that he created a past tense, perhaps?