John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare (2016)
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Make no mistake, American society is to a large extent Machiavellian in nature, especially the urbanite population and even more so the technocratic elite. Political Correctness is merely a tool of oppression and cynical exploitation at this point (just look at the Gillette ads if you still are unconvinced).
Decrying political correctness and then complaining Gilette ran an ad with a message you didn't like, to the point of calling it oppression, is just... amazing. Is this satire?
When I say I don't like something, it's free speech; when you say you don't like something it's cancel culture.
The threshold should be different in comedy versus, say, the boardroom. It's not surprising Cleese, as a comedian, is focused on that aspect of things, but you can get equally Orwellian with fervent opposition to vaguely defined "PC" stuff too. People who lose their shit over "Happy Holidays", as an example.
I mostly try to stay out of the discussion because I think it's pretty much all ridiculous and a giant waste of time. Don't we he have more important things to be getting on with?
If somebody wished me Happy Hannukah, I would say "Thank You", even though I'm not Jewish. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch over something like that.
Since I mostly fall into the WASP category (non-practicing I guess), perhaps I'm not qualified to talk about it since I've never actually been in the shoes of the minority, but I do have what I believe is evidence that I can bear careless words without "losing my shit":
My oldest daughter was born with Spina Bifida. Her legs are different, and not very strong. She can walk, but normally she uses crutches or a wheelchair. She is prone to falling without the crutches, and also with them. She's a great kid. It might happen sometimes that a person who has never been in our particular situation will compare her to "normal" kids. While I notice these things, I generally just let it slide. I know the intent is not malicious.
Even if someone says something like "Has she always been crippled?" (Yes it happens), I might politely mention that we don't really think of it that way, but I will certainly maintain composure, and I don't think I would lose a friend over it. Again, the person who says this most likely doesn't hate me, or despise her - they just don't relate to the particular issues that we are dealing with, and I can recognize this and accept it.
As you say, politeness and manners seem like a reasonable solution to most social problems from my perspective, but I guess a lot of folks disagree.
(Odd trivia: John Cleese is into Gurdjieff, or was.)
Look, I'm a left-leaning SJW type, but I'll stand by the idea that when "PC" goes beyond common courtesy and starts becoming an OOC mob-power thing, that's bad.
There's a point to be made about historical context: women weren't allowed to wear pants until about twenty minutes ago; Black folks in America have had a bit of a rough time, and many still do; everybody everywhere reverts to savage form when pushed outside their comfort zone.
Things are a bit rough here. Let's all keep calm and be nice to each other, we're all in this together.
In re: PC in comedy, specifically, I have what I call the "Lenny Bruce test". When you feel the urge to tell an off-color joke to a mixed audience stop and ask yourself first, "Am I Lenny Bruce?" Check carefully and be sure. If you're Lenny Bruce, go ahead with the joke, it will probably land, and if it doesn't, who cares? You're Lenny Bruce. However, if you check and find that you're not Lenny Bruce, carefully put the joke down and back away. It's probably not worth it.
(In case it's not clear, that was [an attempt at] a joke. Comedians should say wtf they want. Only the worst sort of person kicks a Fool.)
you're saying it's ok to vote with your wallet, but not good to try and get other people to do the same?
The difference, and the reason I think people are in a panic about the more recent left version, is the difference in enforcement. It feels like we're starting watching the Left take their turn at McCarthyism, but largely using technology instead of government.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/john-cleese-is-cancel...
If 'who said it' and 'what views do they hold' is more important than what they're actually saying, then we've become post-rational, and well on our way back to less open and enlightened culture.
But arguing that previous miss-steps invalidate current arguments is irrational.
Would you mind clarifying the difference between the two for me? It sounds an awful lot like we're talking about thought crimes.
"What they technically said" are the words that were actually used. "What they actually said" are the likely intended meaning, since (as I'm sure you would agree) any given moderately-complex sentence could have a number of interpretations, especially in different contexts.
"We must protect our people" is a sentence of five simple words, but has a radically different meaning when spoken by: * A warlord invading another country * A fighter resisting an invasion * A doctor speaking about medical treatment
In this case, the OP is probably making the (reasonable) point that a speaker who has previously made overblown claims about the racial composition of a country, and has demonstrated xenophobia, can be reasonably assumed to also be on sketchy evidential grounds in his claims about political correctness
Those subtleties of messaging can certainly indicate affiliation.
But that's exactly what I'm saying. If that's become more important than the actual arguments, were headed down.
It generally indicates that you don't have a rational refute to the argument.
Of course he has a point. We should absolutely resist creating thought crimes and police states, but we should also prohibit hateful action.
We can do both, sensibly. Shouting about every slippery slope on the way doesn't help anyone.
When considering something John Cleese said, one can consider where John Cleese has gone in the 3 years since he said it.
In Cleese's case, our understanding of his idea of "political correctness" is informed by his subsequent exiting of the UK because he feels London is "no longer English."
Please engage with ideas on their merits rather than by reading through the author's tweets until you eventually find something unfashionable and unrelated.
Engaging ideas on their merits isn't the same as engaging them in a vacuum.
What is inaccurate about the claims. The English are an ethnic minority in London. That is a fact. You can say oh Englishness isn't the same as the Ethnic English, but to do that you are stripping English people of their ethnic identity and their culture.
> nobody says he shouldn't have the right to make such claims
Yes, please do believe that. Lots of them. It may shock you but in much of the world there isn't free speech. Imagine that. Do you think in China you can go around criticizing the government?
> people have less tolerance for such inaccurate and unfunny claims and will call him to task for such nonsense is a bit silly
No, they are claiming the speech itself is unsafe and trying to cancel people. There is a huge difference which you don't seem to get. And it's not silly. It's primarily about intimidation and fear that if you say the wrong thing you will lose your job, get cancelled, ect. Tolerance to intolerance is not tolerance.
I sometimes wonder, do people who think like you actually know how many people died in the so called "cultural revolutions" around the world (such as in China and Russia) which happened during just the last century. It's in the tens of millions. Intellectuals and dissidents rounded up to be killed or put in gulags. People forced to pledge loyalty to causes and leaders and to be re-educated.
The cultural revolution leaders in our country have already started to get rid of any kind of meritocracy (racist tests they claim). UC schools functionally banned the tests just recently. My brother was telling me that UCSF med school removed standardized testing from its admissions and in one year the Asian population went from 60% to 20%. Across academia now your ability to get in will be based on your ability to show how you contribute to the goal of diversity (via skin pigmentation of course).
But I guess to some it's all silly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London
63% of London was born in the UK. You mean white English, I presume? Even there, they're a plurality.
That’s pretty clearly not true, though the boundaries of that ethnicity will be perceived differently by different people.
“The English people are a nation and an ethnic group native to England who speak the English language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Angelcynn ('family of the Angles').”
Notice the reasoning that person gives for calling Murray a racist. Among other things, because he refuses to call some other bloke called Robinson a racist.
That's a weird, centuries-late complaint about the natural consequence of world-spanning empire.
You can't just colonize half the world without getting anyone else’s culture in your capital.
[1] meaning "rich white male people like me"
Prophetic
Black people should not have to "control their own emotions" when a non-Black person uses the N-word to get a cheap laugh, like, etc. at their expense.
Muslims should not have to "control their own emotions" when bullies taunt someone with the name Osama.
Women should not have to "control their own emotions" when they see evenly qualified, hard-working, and valuable (and often less qualified, hard-working, and valuable) male colleagues getting most of the kudos, visibility, raises, and promotions within their organizations and industries.
(Disclosure: I am a non-Black Muslim male who does not have the name Osama)
Emotions are things you feel deep down, and when those emotions are justified, they matter more to me than an inconsiderate asshole's ability to open their trap with no filter, or behave badly with no fear of consequences. I'm not saying offensive words/behavior should land people in jail, but I have no problem with corporations, journalists, social media, and private individuals imposing their own consequences.
This is funny in a dark way, maybe, and it's true that most criticisms of PCE seem to consist in making fun of its trendiness or vapidity.
This reviewer's own opinion is that prescriptive PCE is not just silly but ideologically confused and harmful to its own cause.
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Forget Stalinization or Logic 101-level equivocations, though. There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact---in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself---of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were.
Were I, for instance,a political conservative who opposed using taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PC progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as "low-income" or "economically disadvantaged" or "pre-prosperous" rather than constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates.
(Not to mention that strict codes of egalitarian euphemism serve to burke the sorts of painful,unpretty, and sometimes offensive discourse that in a pluralistic democracy lead to actual political change rather than symbolic political change. In other words, PCE acts as a form of censorship, and censorship always serves the status quo.)
"Authority and American Usage", 1999
Cultivating a Democratic Spirit is very hard to do, and harder still 20 years on since he wrote it.
I think he would say "has landed us in" today.
If anything, I think we're in a Huxleyan dystopia, not an Orwellian one; so much distraction, there's no way for an average person to gain enough footing to expend energy with practical utility.
Watching the current state of the western world, apparently only very few people have the ability to reflect on themself enough to realize this. Hopefully this is only a loud minorty.
I maybe the wrong person to judge, but imho, we need to resolutely oppose the PC- and cancel culture.
> If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behaviour.
Yes, this statement is exactly true - but not in the way that John, and you, seem to think.
One interpretation - yours, if I may be forgiven for assuming - is "PC-culture only exists because people do not have a thick-enough skin to simply regulate their own emotional well-being. If they would only toughen up, then there would be no need for all this nonsense - we could finally express ourselves freely once again".
The alternative interpretation - and one that I really hope you can find your way to understanding - is "some people are subjected to so much pain, aggression, discrimination, and hatred - or, some other people witness so much of that pain in others - that, no matter how hard they try, they simply cannot suppress their responses to it - nor should they. Rather, they speak up about the injustices they see, and try to change them."
The classic anti-PC attitude of "toughen up and stop complaining" is so monumentally selfish and short-sighted that it feels like parody. If someone is stepping on your foot, the appropriate response is not to "control your response" - it's to ask them to stop stepping on your foot. If their response is "I'm not" - then you either need to educate them that they are, in fact, doing so (and you would know better than them), or take the initiative to physically prevent them from continuing to do so.
The pressures to living in that new ecosystem are enormous.