Worldview

A single interpretive tool can save you from the work of understanding.

Easily repeatable narratives often become absolute truths.

When an easily repeatable narrative becomes a socially accepted truth, beware and be wary.

— Question it.

If someone claims to know your motives, be suspicious of his motives.

— What might he gain from your agreement?

‘Judy Berman is wrong about Jonathan Chait: missing the point about the language police’ | TwistedSpeech.com

“That’s the crazy thing about the entire rhetoric of political correctness: it assumes internal motives and values in those it shames. Political correctness offers a simplistic interpretative move: each time you do or say certain things, you are guilty of one or more motives found within a short, mass-produced book of unforgivable sins, tabbed for quick reference and edited for instant outrage.

“Or, to pervert the master interpreter of motives, for the language police, a cigar is never ever just a cigar.”

via Judy Berman is wrong about Jonathan Chait: missing the point about the language police | TwistedSpeech.com.via Judy Berman is wrong about Jonathan Chait: missing the point about the language police | TwistedSpeech.com.

Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say — NYMag

The p.c. style of politics has one serious, possibly fatal drawback: It is exhausting. Claims of victimhood that are useful within the left-wing subculture may alienate much of America. The movement’s dour puritanism can move people to outrage, but it may prove ill suited to the hopeful mood required of mass politics. Nor does it bode well for the movement’s longevity that many of its allies are worn out. “It seems to me now that the public face of social liberalism has ceased to seem positive, joyful, human, and freeing,” confessed the progressive writer Freddie deBoer. “There are so many ways to step on a land mine now, so many terms that have become forbidden, so many attitudes that will get you cast out if you even appear to hold them. I’m far from alone in feeling that it’s typically not worth it to engage, given the risks.” — Jonathan Chait in Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say — NYMag.via Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say — NYMag.

Religious liberty and thought crimes

When the mechanism for punishing conscience is established by law, any political power that takes control will use the mechanism to punish those with opposing ideas. The mechanism is neutral, and eventually, you’ll be on the opposite side of the controlling power. You could avoid this by not allowing the mechanisms for punishing conscience to be established by law. Has anyone ever changed another person’s conscience by coercion? Forced underground, conscience eventually re-emerges, angrier and stronger. Beware of well-intended mechanisms that can be turned against you when the center of power shifts. Beware of politically suppressing a group with which you disagree.

A protester wearing breathing gas mask. Photo by Mstyslav Chernov