Political Correctness: How The Few Try To Rule Over The Many

The recent history of the term 'political correctness' and its association with the contemporary left and the tedious culture wars obscures its true character and ubiquity. Political correctness is real, significant, and arguably the dominant mode of politics since before humans could even talk. It is the few trying to rule over the many by persuading the many that they are in the minority.

The goal of this form of politics is the manufacturing and maintaining of 'pluralistic ignorance' where members of a group mistakenly believe that most other members disagree with them. As a result, a well-organised minority is able to dominate the group as a whole by convincing them of a fictitious shared consensus supporting their rule or values. Taken separately, many individuals may recognise that they don't agree with what is being done in their name. But at the same time they believe they are one of a very few who think this, and so they go along with the thing they disagree with.

How is this rule of the few established and maintained? It is essential that the majority never realise that their views are in the majority, or they will withdraw the grudging acquiescence on which the minority's precarious rule relies. Therefore on certain issues, silence must fall. By one means or another, members of the majority must be dissuaded from speaking truthfully about what they believe in places where others might hear them, believe them, and say 'Yes - #metoo!' For such a cascade of personal disclosures would quickly unravel the delicate fabric of the fictional consensus.

Israel's Crimes Do Not Deserve This Much Attention

Israel is a state founded on a principle of ethnic supremacy and a practise of ethnic cleansing at exactly the point in history where these became universally condemned as morally unacceptable. So it is not surprising that Israel gets a lot of criticism, at the United Nations and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the sheer amount of global diplomatic, NGO, and news media criticism directed at Israel is astonishing. (In many years the UN passes more resolutions critical of Israel than of every other country in the world put together - link.) Such disproportionate attention to Israel's crimes is excessive. It allows morally worse crimes to escape global notice and also directs global attention away from where it could achieve more good.

Americans Are Not As Poor As They Think They Are

One of the peculiar side-effects of America's hegemonic dominance of global news, social media, and entertainment media is that the rest of the world is over-exposed to what Americans think of themselves. That includes their strange - and actually disturbingly narcissistic - belief that they invented slavery and racism. But also other silly ideas, such as that most Americans these days are poor, and literally cannot survive on what they earn.