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Marx was the Wordsworth of the proletariat.
Its Freud is yet to come.
Bertrand RussellIts Freud is yet to come.
When Marx was promulgating his theories, he from time to time was
confronted by the annoying fact that reality did not behave as theory dictated
it should. To prove deteriorating industrial
conditions, Marx drew knowingly on out-of-date material. He was forced to do so. To concede that industrial conditions, though
still very bad, were improving – the dreadful possibility that capitalism might
make everybody richer (despite
continued inequalities) – would have confounded his central theory.
Another problem for Marx was that awkward phenomenon,
the benign employer. This species was a
Marxist contradiction in terms, since every employer should, by definition,
have been a rapacious capitalist.
Nevertheless, the species existed: to upset the process of industrial alienation. Benign employers were thus the prime targets
for future extermination. On the other
hand, since the historical process outlined by Marx was inevitable, how could
it be blocked, or even hindered?
Marx confidently predicted that when war came, class
would fight against class. With World War I, nation fought against nation.
These unresolved problems within the parent were given
in inheritance to its child: Political Correctness.
Although Political Correctness emerged in the United States Frankfurt School
were forced to flee with the rise of Hitler, most of those not liquidated
escaped to America.
The Frankfurt
School
For this to work,
all in the oppressing class had to be oppressors, all in the victim class had
to be legitimate victims. You could not
allow the sort of distinction made by the Victorians between the deserving
and the undeserving poor: whereby someone afflicted by illness deserved
sympathy and help, while someone afflicted by laziness did not.
There is thus an inherent tension within PC: all the dominant class must be malign and all the victim class
must be virtuous. But prejudice means
pre-judging an individual on the basis of a generalized perception: something
that in other circumstances we rightly condemn.
Political Correctness, while committed to the laudable aim of attacking
prejudice in society, is itself prejudiced, of necessity, by its assumptions.
The case of gangsta
rappers is an example of the complications that occur. Gangsta rappers call women bitches, and
worse. Are said rappers oppressors because
they are male, or victims because they are black?
Gangsta-rap lyrics
also call for killing homosexuals. But
how can one oppressed group oppress
another oppressed group? One ingenious PC
explanation is that male black slaves were raped by plantation owners: a
scarring ancestral memory that enables blame to be laid on the oppressor
class. I don’t believe it. That is to say, there is every justification
for mental scarring from the memory of slavery, but I simply do not believe
that every plantation owner was a homosexual rapist. (A conventional rapist, maybe; but even then I
would not wish to be guilty of generalization without proof). A much simpler explanation is that a macho
ethic is contemptuous of those it believes to fall short in this regard.
Another way round
this problem is to argue that because criminals are victims, black gangsta
rappers are victims twice over. But
black homosexuals are then victims twice over, too, so that takes us no further
forward.
It is because
criminals are victims by definition, in this particular phase of our society,
that home owners who injure a burglar are in danger of prosecution if they
exceed that contentious concept reasonable force. Being interpreted: it’s your fault for owning
stuff. If you didn’t own it, they
couldn’t steal it.[i] But even here, the situation is not without
its difficulties. Suppose two hoodie intruders
smash up an eighty-seven year old female householder. Because she has more money than they have
(possibly), that makes her their oppressor.
On the other hand, they are stronger than she is, which is why they have
been able to beat her up. If those who
are strong are the oppressors, and you apply the criterion in this case to physical strength, then they become the oppressors, and she becomes the victim. This is a difficult one, and only the brains
that invented Political Correctness in the first place can be capable of
working out the solution. (For the general
public, seeing the battered face on television, the only problem is catching
those responsible).
While we are on the
subject of gangsta rappers, there is also the problem of defining racism
itself. Because racism is to do with
oppression, racism by PC definition is what the majority (white) does to the
minority. But what about Indonesia
Another problem is paedophilia. Paedophiles are the most
hated section of society – more despised, even, than a banker, or a politician –
but those whom society hates are, by definition,
victims. Paedophiles are, also, a
minority: something that might be welcomed but for the fact that minorities
are, by definition, victims. The
solution to this conundrum is to turn them into a majority. Thus every adult, unless proved otherwise by
vetting, is an undiscovered paedophile.
Besides, most paedophiles are white males. Problem solved: they
automatically become oppressors twice over.
Political Correctness is a Western phenomenon: a self-loathing
brought on by too much security and too much money. For both these afflictions, help is at
hand.
Islamic terrorism
has already made the West feel less safe than it was pre 9/11, and a couple
more successful atrocities will probably complete the process.
The other solution –
apart from the collapse of western confidence in the banking system – is the rise
of China
If that happens, the West will be able to stop
its process of self-flagellation, and focus anew on the task – from which other
nations have never been diverted – of making its way in a competitive and
dangerous world.
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