The dark side of political correctness
Posted by jonjayray at 12:59 AM Thursday, March 12, 2020
“The PC movement is mad and dangerous,” says popular author and Australian Catholic University Fellow Kevin Donnelly.
“Instead of being able to discuss issues in a rational and impartial way, debate is shut down and reduced to ad hominem attacks based on emotion and politically correct groupthink.”
It’s a message he makes clear in his new book ‘A Politically Correct Dictionary and Guide.’
Though the book has a satirical nature and is accompanied with tongue-in-cheek cartoons by Johannes Leak, Donnelly highlights the underlying danger is kowtowing to political correctness.
“This is becoming a problem because it’s enforcing what I call ‘cultural left groupthink’, and cultural left language,” says Donnelly. “If you argue, for example, that multiculturalism isn’t the right thing, you’re attacked as xenophobic or racist.
“If you say a boy should be a boy, a girl should be a girl, if you’re against the whole LGBTQI transitioning movement, you’re attacked as homophobic or transphobic.
“There is a real problem I’d argue now in Australia in terms of the cultural left taking over institutions like schools and universities and enforcing this very strong ideological view of language and groupthink.”
A frequent writer for the Catholic Weekly’s comment pages, Kevin Donnelly has established a reputation as one of Australia’s leading conservative commentators and authors fighting against the cultural-left ideology and group think which many believe is poisoning society and stifling free and open debate.
Sky News commentator, journalist and former Chief of Staff to Tony Abbot, Peta Credlin describes Donnelly as “a rare and forthright warrior for common sense in a world where it’s more desperately needed than ever.”
“With his third book-length polemic against political correctness in just over a year, Dr Kevin Donnelly is on a veritable crusade against what he thinks is poisoning our teaching institutions, weakening our economy, and even sapping our ability to think clearly,” says Credlin.
“[His] latest work is full of telling examples of the cultural self-doubt that we need to recognise and resist.”
Donnelly remains optimistic, but is very aware of the potential dangers that can stem from political correctness. As he likes to quote from George Orwell’s 1984; “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“It used to be I think, therefore I am,” says Donnelly. “Now it’s I feel, therefore I’m right. They’re not coming from a rational, critical aware point of view, it’s just emotion.
“And that’s the danger, once arguments are reduced to emotion, you’re on the short road to totalitarianism.”
SOURCE
Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .
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