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PC: Not “dopeyness,” but our civic religion
While the title of Walter Williams’s column about the random, “no-profiling” searches of airline passengers, “The Idiots Rule,” makes the article sound like the usual unserious treatment of political correctness as mere “dopeyness” or “nuttiness,” Williams in fact is getting at the truth. As he points out, such seemingly illogical occurrences as the frisking of former Vice President Gore before he boarded a flight to Milwaukee are not, as many people imagine, the result of a Transportation Department gone haywire, but the expression of a comprehensive belief system endorsed by the entire political establishment. Thus, when asked by Human Events about the Gore incident, several U.S. Senators replied that the screeners were doing exactly what they should be doing. “I’ve been searched 20 times,” said one. That’s the way it should be. We shouldn’t be exempt from that.” Ann Coulter, quoted by Williams, touches on the heart of the issue: “Searching Al Gore is a purely religious act. It’s a purposeless, fetishistic performance of rituals in accordance with the civic religion of liberalism.” Williams concludes: “This religion of liberalism that’s a part of the Bush administration has the potential to produce great death and destruction in our nation.” [Italics added.]
Finally some conservatives are beginning to recognize that political correctness is not an excess, but an intrinsic aspect of the modern liberal order.
Comments
Williams goes so far as to say “This religion of liberalism that’s a part of the Bush administration.” Still, I wonder how systematically he or any other widely published conservative thinks about the issue? The compulsion to treat America as indefectably good and PC as an oddity (if it’s a religion it’s a weird religion) is so very strong. Posted by: Jim Kalb on July 10, 2002 7:41 PMIt’s true that when Coulter and Williams use the expression “religion of liberalism” there’s the suggestion that they are perhaps thinking “this nutty cult of liberalism” rather than “this liberalism that is America’s actual belief system.” Still, I was trying to see the glass as half-full for once! Posted by: Lawrence Auster on July 10, 2002 8:16 PM |