The pernicious American twist on political correctness
by Greg Krehbiel on 20 July 2018
The other night I listened to a fascinating discussion between Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Haidt about a range of topics, but mostly centered on the crisis in the American university.
Peterson asked why political correctness in America (and, increasingly, in the Anglosphere) is so nasty and pernicious, while it’s not that way (yet?) in Europe. Haidt believes it’s because of an American twist on the concept, which is the idea that when you offend someone, you’re doing harm to that person, and, even worse, you’re committing violence. This idea of fragility, and the need to protect people from the “violence” of other viewpoints, is what makes it so bad.
If you have the time to listen (it is long), check it out. It’s not all about political correctness, and it’s a very interesting conversation.
2018-07-20 » Greg Krehbiel
20 July 2018 @ 1:36 pm
My take on Europe, at least in the countries where I have lived, is that they really believe in a traditional curriculum. They make room for the disciplines which become the platform for PC activity, disciplines such as women or gender studies, but they just don’t have that anti-intellectual impulse that is so robust among Americans to get a lot of crap going. At the same time they want to feel like they’re in touch with what is hot. So the existence of those disciplines in Europe is somewhat perfunctory.
20 July 2018 @ 1:45 pm
I should have been a little clearer in what I meant. I wasn’t referring to politically correct classes or curricula, but the “safe space” stuff. The “de-platforming.” Shouting down the opposition. Treating students as if they’re so fragile that any contrary idea might harm them.
20 July 2018 @ 2:00 pm
Stuff like that probably has to do with inviting inflammatory speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos. Events like that do not occur so often at European universities.
20 July 2018 @ 11:04 pm
I’m not entirely sure if this is correct. Many European countries don’t have the same concept of free speech that the United States does. For instance, it is actually illegal to deny the Holocaust in several European countries. Of course, denying the Holocaust is both factually wrong and morally odious. But because of the First Amendment, it’s not actually illegal in the United States, and many Americans bristle at the idea of making any kind of speech, irregardless of how wrong and offensive it is, outright illegal.
21 July 2018 @ 2:05 am
Germany and Austria have laws against Holocaust denial for obvious historical reasons. Such denial is regarded as Wiederbetätigung, i.e. as a revival of Nazi ideology. I could only the international outrage that would occur if there was a movement in those countries to eliminate those laws. They are in any case highly exceptional in Europe.
21 July 2018 @ 8:16 am
*I could only imagine the international outrage
The point is that Holocaust denial from their perspective is to be avoided because it would be an actual resurgence of the Nazi ideology, not merely that it offends.
21 July 2018 @ 11:38 pm
Robin,
France has these sorts of laws as well. French far-right wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted of denying the Holocaust before and has been fined pretty heavily for it. I understand the historian reasons for these laws. Still, I do think that they do speak to differences between the United States and Europe about free speech as a history of horrific racist oppression is hardly limited to Europe. For instance, someone in the United States who denied that slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK were bad wouldn’t face any legal sanction, although he or she would likely face considerable public condemnation. In other words, I think Americans, or at least many Americans, are absolutist about free speech in ways that Europeans aren’t, especially when it comes to laws regulating speech.
21 July 2018 @ 11:39 pm
It should read “the historical reasons”
22 July 2018 @ 1:24 am
France may have such laws, but one must bear in mind that there was in fact a robust pro-Nazi or at least anti-Semitic element in France during the German occupation. A lot of the French, like so many of the people in occupied countries, didn’t really mind killing Jews. Their problem with occupation was more about being dominated by Germans. So I think that laws in European countries generally are against a revival of Nazism, not merely against offending.
Moreover, they are the exception and not the rule. Most certainly there is not an overarching tendency in European countries to ban any speech that is offensive. By and large, they believe in free speech with very few and highly qualified exceptions.
I have heard that for some time after the Civil War confederate flags were illegal, at least in the South. It would make sense if it was.
22 July 2018 @ 9:12 pm
Robin,
I’m a French historian, so I’m pretty familiar with Vichy France’s anti-Semitism and its collaboration with the Nazis. I agree with you that in general, European laws that limited free speech have their origins in attempts to prevent a revival of Nazism or similar far-right movements. I furthermore agree with you that these laws aren’t about banning offensive speech, which is usually what political correctness is about.
Still, I do maintain that European countries don’t have as robust of concept of free speech, at least with respect to political matters, as in the United States. For instance, ion 2016, the French parliament passed a law banning pro-life websites, supposedly because they could pressure women not to have an abortion or give misleading information, at least from a pro-choice perspective of course.
As far as the Confederate flag, the state of Mississippi actually added the Confederate flag to their state flag in the 1890s. I can’t say for certain, but it is possible that federal forces occupying the South after the Civil War prohibiting the flying of the Confederate flag. However, clearly it didn’t last very long, particularly compared to the laws against denying the Holocaust or using Nazi flags and symbols in many Western European nations.
Again, I don’t many all of the above as an endorsement of Nazism, which I view as grotesquely immoral. The issue is free speech and the limits of free speech.