Political Correctness: Hammer of the Godless... and Mindless

One huge advantage our cultural and intellectual betters have over us is the ability to control or stifle debate merely by registering disdain and contempt for the targeted person or policy. This serves as a sort of shorthand that functions to replace thought, so that the actual idea need never be addressed.

Furthermore, through the magic of political correctness, an abject idiot can elevate himself above you, both intellectually and morally, and imagine that he is a superior person while exercising no effort at all. It’s almost like a secular mirror image of the fundamentalist who thinks he’s better than you merely because he accepts this or that literal dogma.

A fine case in point is the “controversy” over Dr. Dobson’s recent editorial in Time Magazine, in which he expressed the opinion that children do best if they are raised by a mother and father. What is so amazing about political correctness is that it can take something so self-evidently true as this, and make it seem as if Dobson is the extremist -- as if Dobson isn’t merely relating something that all people with common sense understand.

Now, Dobson is not my style, neither theologically nor in terms of presentation. However, I wouldn’t want to take on his or Dr. Laura’s job of being a hated figure merely for dispensing common sense to the masses. In the article, Dobson says that he has been asked to comment on the pregnancy of Mary Cheney, the Vice President’s lesbian daughter. He says that his concern “has nothing to do with politics. It is about what kind of family environment is best for the health and development of children, and, by extension, the nation at large.” Exactly. Are we not even allowed to ask this question?

Of course not! We are to ridicule and sneer at people who ask such questions. They are a priori haters and bigots whose opinions are outside the realm of decency. Because of this intellectual bullying, most people stop right there and won’t try to cross the heavily fortified boundary drawn by the left to prevent thought from encroaching. The penalty is just too harsh.

This is why we need people like Dobson, who are “inner directed” and are not intimidated by the pseudo-intellectual bullies of political correctness. Again, Dobson doesn’t say a thing in the article that isn’t a reflection of mere common sense -- things you cannot not know unless you are highly educated. He writes,

“With all due respect to Cheney and her partner... the majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father. That is not to say Cheney and Poe will not love their child. But love alone is not enough to guarantee healthy growth and development. The two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy -- any more than the two most loving men can be complete role models for a little girl.”

Exactly. It is not a knock on my wife to say that she could never give my son what I am giving him. Nor is it androphobic for me to point out the truism that she provides him with things that are utterly beyond my capabilities. This is controversial? That a woman can make a boy, but not a man? That a boy, in order to become a man, requires “male mothering” -- that is, mentoring from a virtuous and noble man whom he can emulate?

The most controversial part of Dobson’s piece is where he ironically uses the research of a couple of politically correct academics to support his views -- which only proves that these people are not really academics, much less serious intellectuals, but merely politically correct. Dobson writes,

“The fact remains that gender matters -- perhaps nowhere more than in regard to child rearing. The unique value of fathers has been explained by Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School.... Pruett says dads are critically important simply because ‘fathers do not mother.’ Psychology Today explained in 1996 that ‘fatherhood turns out to be a complex and unique phenomenon with huge consequences for the emotional and intellectual growth of children.’ A father, as a male parent, makes unique contributions to the task of parenting that a mother cannot emulate, and vice versa.”

And feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan’s research has found that “mothers tend to stress sympathy, grace and care to their children, while fathers accent justice, fairness and duty. Moms give a child a sense of hopefulness; dads provide a sense of right and wrong and its consequences. Other researchers have determined that boys are not born with an understanding of ‘maleness.’ They have to learn it, ideally from their fathers.”

Who needs “research” to know these banalities? They are self-evidently true -- that is, unless they are said by a conservative! Hilariously, Drs. Gilligan and Pruett have both fired off angry letters to Dr. Dobson, demanding that he never again use their research. Instinctively playing the victim card (one immediately wonders if he had a manly father), Pruett says he was “startled and disappointed to see my work referenced in the current Time Magazine piece in which you opined that social science, such as mine, supports your convictions opposing lesbian and gay parenthood. I write now to insist that you not quote from my research in your media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.”

Nothing like an open mind! Again, this proves that these people are not serious thinkers, merely politically correct activists who will subordinate truth to their agenda, just like the people at Harvard who got Larry Summers fired for suggesting that men and women just might -- might! -- have some intrinsic genetic differences. Can you imagine if the reverse ever happened, say, some religious nut who wrote angry letters to leftists, telling them that they were not permitted to use his research in the context of saying the world was more than 6,000 years old?

These so called academics are fools. Pruett fulminates that “ it is love that binds relationships, not sex." In other words, irrespective of what common sense, research, our conscience, or thousands of years of wisdom tell us, all you need is love. I’d love to have a little chat with him if he ever has a son, in order to see if reality has any impact at all on his thinking.

The histrionic Gilligan was mortified -- mortified! -- to learn that she had been quoted in Dobson’s article. How will she ever be able to show her face again in the faculty lounge? “I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future.” After the legalistic language, she even disingenuously alludes to scripture, saying that Dobson’s reference to her work “is not in the best interest of scientific inquiry, nor does bearing false witness serve your purpose of furthering morality and strengthening the family.”

Ha! Here again, you see the naked power that underlies political correctness. There is no appeal to truth, much less debate. Just hysteria, victimization, and petulant demands.

You can see the identical mechanism at work in this denunciation of my post from last Saturday, “The Unthinkable Goodness of America,” at dailykos. Like the hysterical Gilligan and pouting Pruett, it is just mindless condemnation for believing something so offensive -- that America is a fundamentally good and decent nation. The author makes reference to my observation that,

“One of the biggest problems we face in the war on Islamo-fascism is that even the worst of us has such rudimentary decency that we cannot imagine how evil our enemies are, while our enemies -- and most of our friends -- literally cannot imagine how good the United States is.”

Pretty obvious, right? The dailykos writer sarcaustically responds that “Even David Brooks at his most outré might hesitate before offering up that pearl. This whole piece is such a gem of ruthlessly gentle eliminationism, that it deserves study. It is not often one has the chance to examine an alternate world-view of such intensity.”

Excellent. I don’t know what “eliminationism” means, but I glad to know that my piece deserves serious study. Let’s hear it!

But it was not to be. Like Gilligan and Pruett, just vacuous and content-free denunciation from the pulpit of political correctness. It turns out that no analysis is required, for my piece is a priori wrong, even delusional:

“This one is so perfect, I don't think I could stand to dilute the experience of reading it. A little alternate reality goes a long way. I'd like to believe this is a parody, but there's a little too much sincerity in the piece. Read it for yourself, and marvel at the spectacle of a human mind attempting to wrestle the world into conformity with this stark vision.”

Yes, by all means do marvel at the spectacle of a human mind attempting to wrestle the world into conformity with its dark vision. Marvel at the spectacle of how the Left replaces thought with disdain in order to allow the mediocre mind to effortlessly imagine that it is morally and intellectually superior.

I hereby demand that dailykos continue quoting from my blog and misusing my ideas in the future! I need the material.

*****

It's not a knock on Mrs. G., but who else but a father will teach him the proper way to play heir guitar?: