Pages

Monday, 1 October 2018

Political correctness and the overreach of the radical left

Some battles get put aside in the face of a defeat, like the plans the Liberal Party has to privatise the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Too hard right now? Let’s try again down the track.

On the left, one battle has just been lost but will undoubtedly be revisited again in the future at a more opportune time. The crisis happened when The Saturday Paper decided to disqualify writers submitting essays for the Horne Prize, for which it organises the judging, where they were writing about issues important to minorities but where the writer was not a part of the minority in question. The conditions the outlet had put on the prize had made Anna Funder, an Australian author who had been asked to judge entries for the prize, retire from the judging panel. Then journalist David Marr, who was also a judge, retired as well. The paper then backflipped.

But the issue is not going away. The episode underscores an ugly tendency on the left to reward political correctness at the expense of true enquiry or scholarship. But it’s completely nonsensical. If it’s fine for people living, say, on the subcontinent to enjoy the benefits of science and democracy – both of which were innovations that emerged in Europe at specific moments in history for specific reasons at specific points in time – then it should be fine for an Anglo to celebrate the birth of Krishna in the southern spring alongside any other person who chooses this form of religion. What’s wrong with practicing yoga if you are from a Greek background? Who’s to say what you should or should not do if it hurts no-one and is good for you?

But the PC brigade are immune to reason, and only see what already agrees with their views. You cannot argue with them, especially not on social media, where the extreme views get all the attention, hollowing out the middle and making it impossible for reasonable ideas to flourish. And the overreach of the left is hurting its chances of convincing those with opposing views. The more solidly they back their jaded nags in the stale races they run online the more likely others, with different views, will be to take polar-opposite positions. A stalemate ensues.

The judging episode however points to a disturbing contemporary trend in the public sphere, where different groups of people try to quarantine issues against criticism, and only acknowledge the validity of opinions from people who they judge to be qualified to comment on them. In this kind of environment, competition between ideas is jettisoned as too confronting as people insist on a limited version of reality that belongs to them in a personal way. They resent any attempt by people outside the tent to make comments about select issues, and ignore what they say if it goes against cherished notions.

But this is the new normal, which is why it’s more important than ever to keep the ABC free for the user, and ad-free. The ABC at least functions as some sort of clearing house for the truth.

No comments:

Post a Comment