Saturday, November 21, 2009

Political correctness: the mechanism.

I have recently considered the uses of political correctness; the philosophy behind it; the basis for 'a new moral system'.
Today shows how to make it work in practice if you are a practising member of the liberal elite.

1) Pick a minority - any minority (preferably one that has not been used before.)
2) Conduct an investigation into the said minority.
3) Immediately shelve all positives which emerge and bury!
4) Find any situation where the group has a worse profile than the majority of the population.
5) Announce very loudly that "This is an absolute scandal and is completely the fault of our society - we should all be ashamed."
6) Refuse categorically to accept that some of the negatives are just the 'swings and roundabouts' of living in a modern world.
7) Refuse to accept that any of the problems have been self inflicted by the group's attitudes and refusals to conform or integrate.
8) Insist that all jokes against that group - irrespective of whether offensive or not - must be the subject of tirades of indignant anger and abuse directed at all who dare to be jocular. Sackings may well be necessary.
9) Recruit liberal-minded lecturers to produce 'in depth research' (according to your precise instructions on outcome) to highlight 'the horrors being inflicted on this group'.
10) Accuse all critics who argue rationally against your policy of being 'dyed-in-the-wool-bigots' - or worse, 'Daily Mail readers'.
11) Insist that tame TV producers make documentaries to highlight the tragic results of the 'inequalities being suffered'. Naturally, again, all positives must be shelved.
12) Give interviews to prompt the rest of the media to take up cudgels on behalf of this 'important cause'.
13) Put large amounts of public monies aside so that the 'problem can be tackled'.
14) Use the alleged situation as a rallying call for all the adherents of liberal left politics and political correctness.
15) Imply that 'there is no other possible way of viewing the situation' - and make remarks to suggest that anybody who questions this is 'two sandwiches short of a picnic'.
16) Go back to the TV and suggest on the quiet that makers of comedies, soaps and dramas should now include members of the 'afflicted' groups. Of course, the portrayals must be 100% positive and they must be seen as being slightly more than 100% valuable citizens. (They may never be criminals or ne'er-do-wells'.)
17) Blame the Christian Church for the predicament - an off the cuff remark by a bishop in the 8th century, which has in any case been taken out of context, should do the trick nicely.
18) Grant your minority full victim status.
19) Commence the special treatment and call it either 'fairness' or 'equality of outcome' when many other people are discriminated against in the workplace and who lose promoted posts to make way for this exciting new influx.
20) Always ensure that there is a grain of truth in your 'cause' as this may fool a number of people who are naturally fairminded; a small, but nonetheless genuine, grievance should be highlighted if one such can be discovered.
21) Make cash available for 'study groups' but in truly marxist fashion, you must ensure that all the members of the group are fully paid up, card-carrying Guardian or Independent readers but if you can add a single, Bercow-style tory, then so much the better.
22) Insist that the law should be especially harsh in the case where one of the minority is target of a crime - irrespective of whether or not it was 'a hate crime'.
23) Put government funding into 'a chair' at a leading university to create a new subject to consider the cultural superiority of the group concerned to anything British or Christian.
24) Push the group firmly into the 'multicultural mix' so that we can all worship at this vital, new shrine.
25) Indicate that those who dare to suggest that the group should actually integrate are in effect, closet Nazis.
26) Make vague claims to suggest that the courts are particularly harsh on your group; state that current circumstances mean that they have only trivial representation in higher education; point out how few members of this happy band are in positions of elected power.
27) Insist that 'these lamentable inequalities can only be eradicated from the national psyche through education' and allow political influence to dig its claws ever deeper into what is presented to young minds.
28) Suggest to friends in the liberal church that they too should 'espouse the cause'.
29) Make it clear that the minority is 'officially cuddly' and
30) As with all other minorities, ensure that your friends at the Beeb move rapidly towards 'over-representation' of the group in question in their employment policies.
32) Pour bile at the BNP who have criticised your group and at the same time, at UKIP who haven't!
33) Have Gordon Brown and The Archbishop of Canterbury apologise profusely for an incident in 1287 when several members of the group were 'traumatised' after being 'wrongly blamed' for a bar room brawl in St Neots - although how we have sufficient detail to know as a fact that they weren't to blame in the first place is simply beyond all logic.
34) Ensure that members of your minority can never be legitimately sacked from work even if they sexually abuse dolphins during work hours.

Remember at all times that "The true object of propaganda (and what else is this?) is not - to convince or persuade, but rather to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance." Leonard Schapiro

Perception?