The Great Debate

This is a great debate. 

Worth a listen in its entirety. 

The motion was “what you call political correctness, I call progress”. 

It did not remain narrowly focused on that topic, since, in reality, the topic itself is not narrowly defined, due to its conflation with free speech vs social justice vs other. 

I cannot say that either team ‘won’, except to say that the related topic of identity politics was the most frequented side topic. 

It goes something like this: 

Individuals are lumped into groups by those in power, for the primary purpose of denying them their rights on a stereotypical basis. 

Individuals whose rights are denied band together into groups to secure their rights. 

The narrative for members within groups then becomes one of struggle between groups, along the lines of oppressed and oppressor. 

This dynamic causes a reaction in kind by those in power, which further entrenches group identification and leads to polarization and the populist movements we see today, if you buy Jordan Peterson’s argument.

In this mode, the oppressed become intolerant, and even though they maintain a legitimate complaint of social injustice, they start to exhibit oppressive traits as well.  

This intolerance leads to political correctness, and though one can argue that much of what political correctness is meant to suppress should legitimately be suppressed (derogatory terms, inflammatory ideas, etc), it can also lead to a suppression of ideas and dialogue, for fear of being politically incorrect.

The notion that controlling what people say will change how they think is ridiculous, and only foments a kind of quiet anger in those  that feel they are being censored. 

Enter Trump. 

He unapologetically says what he thinks, even if it is not politically correct, and his popularity rises with each episode. 

Why? 

Because he says what a lot of people feel. 

My contention is that he could say what almost everyone feels on the higher end of the moral spectrum by appealing to our better, common traits, i.e. be the ‘uniter in chief’ vs the ‘divider in chief’. That being said, Trump is tapping into a current that was already there, right or wrong, which has been exacerbated by identity politics. 

I don’t think that identity politics and political correctness are really working for us, do you?

https://youtu.be/GxYimeaoea0