Many people, especially but not only conservatives, complain that political correctness prevents them from saying
what they want to say. Is that true? Often it is. Do liberals also feel pressured
to withhold controversial opinions? Of course. And why should it matter?
The First Amendment to the United States
Constitution protects our freedom of the press, speech, and religion from
government encroachment. Neither my state nor federal government can tell me
what to say or not to say, what to believe or what not to believe. However, as
John Stuart Mill pointed out in his 1859 masterpiece, On Liberty, the majority can use social pressures to oppress the
minority. Mill explains it like this:
“Protection, therefore, against the tyranny
of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the
tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society
to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as
rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development,
and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony
with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model
of its own.”
In other words, Mill said that authoritarian
governments often try to suppress opinions that they do not like. Once constitutional
government restricted government and protected freedom of speech, however,
popular opinion could still stifle people who wanted to say unpopular things.
Donald Trump complained about this exact issue when he
gave his speech accepting the 2016 Republican nomination to be president: “I
will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be politically
correct any more.” What he meant is that liberals prevented the nation from
talking about such issues as racial superiority, the threats from immigrants,
and the dangers that refugees posed. He recognized, quite truly, that these
issues troubled many conservatives and that they felt that political
correctness, that is, the ethics of America’s majority, made it unacceptable to
talk about such things. Liberals, of course, were offended that he would try to
divide us on racial or religious lines.
Do liberals sometimes suffer from the same kind
of restrictions? Certainly. I, for example, belong to a mainstream social gospel
church that has a centuries-long tradition of defending the rights of people
who are downtrodden, abused, or oppressed. When I joined the church, I repeated
a vow to oppose oppression: “To accept the freedom and power God gives me to
resist evil, injustice, and oppression.” My church’s non-binding teachings
include strong support for the rights of immigrants and religious and ethnic minorities.
At the same time, my denomination includes
and welcomes many conservative members and values diverse political opinions. I
suspect that conservatives are the majority of my local congregation. Do I
always feel comfortable in my own church when I affirm the rights of immigrants
and minorities? No, I don’t (although I have done so anyway), for I fear that contrary opinions sometimes enrage
conservatives and I would like to get along with them.
On the one hand, what conservatives call “political
correctness” sounds much like good manners. A society that disintegrates
into vicious personal attacks, as the United States is threatening to do, will get nothing done. I think that the civil
rights era suppressed much hostile speech, and that is probably good. For example,
I see no value at all in Mr. Trump’s bigoted and inaccurate attacks on Islam. On
the other hand, do we not need to get our problems and disagreements out into
the open? Yes, we probably do. Is it wrong for people to attack others just because their religion or ethnicity
differs from ours? Yes, it is wrong. Such speech divides us for no good reason.
Is it wrong for me to pass judgment on people with whom I disagree? Yes, it
probably is, for the same reason. How do we strike the balance? For toleration and
mutual love do not require us to accept evil. What if one group abuses its freedom of speech to oppress another group? Their liberty of speech gives them no right to take liberty from other people. I often fear that Mr. Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-refugee speeches are doing just that.
If we know right from wrong, we will oppose
evil and encourage ethical speech and behavior. We certainly have a right, and
often an obligation, to tell people when they are wrong and to give evidence
that our own views are better, at the same that we are willing to hear evidence
that we ourselves might sometimes be wrong.
If we side with Mill and the philosophy of
liberty, we learn to tolerate other people’s opinions and to welcome free
speech. If we side with Miss Manners, we express our views respectfully, showing
the same courtesies to others that we expect them to show to us. From dialogue comes
truth.
Image: By John Stuart Mill (author), John W.
Parker and Son (publisher) - Archive.org, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45342982
No comments:
Post a Comment