The Canadian debate series The Munk Debates had an event in Toronto Friday May 18, on the thesis “Be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress.” The debate was speaker Michael Eric Dyson and New York Times journalist Michelle Goldberg on the side of political correctness with the opposition represented by British celebrity Stephen Fry and University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxYimeaoea0
Fry of course was awesome. Goldberg came off very well, and for the most part, so did Dyson, though calling Peterson a “mean white man” was a low blow that did not do him any favors. I also think he didn’t realize how badly that would play with Peterson’s hometown crowd.
Peterson nevertheless was the weakest part of the event. He first gained the attention of people like myself when he was interviewed by an opinionated person from Britain’s Channel 4, and came off as the reasonable person against somebody trying to push an agenda. This time he was the one who was irritated that no one was stressing his agenda, which includes among other premises the idea that the root of political correctness is an attempt to foist Marxist concepts onto Western culture in order to undermine it. And when insulted by Dyson, he actually would have been more effective if he’d made a brief rebuttal and then let it go, but the situation clearly unbalanced him.
Problem is, the issue isn’t quite as simple as saying that political correctness is all bad. Neither is it all good. Fry describes himself as a liberal, but took the “anti” position. Goldberg is pro-political correctness on the whole, but in her opening statement said there were some aspects of the movement that she wasn’t on board with, though she didn’t specify what they were. Fry had mentioned in his opening statement, “I believe that one of the greatest human failings is to prefer to be right rather than to be effective.” I have mentioned that on balance, I think that a lot of the “politically correct” movements, like #metoo, are vehicles for progress and the people in charge are dealing with the current moment in a reasonable manner. But there are examples of excess.
The main example that comes to my mind was the takedown of Minnesota’s Democratic Senator, Al Franken. Last year, former model and USO supporter Leann Tweeden described a USO tour with Franken in 2006 (when he was still a comic coming off his career at Saturday Night Live) and alleged that he French-kissed her without consent during rehearsal of a skit, and was also photographed pretending to reach for her breasts while she slept. After this accusation was made public, several other women came forward with similar stories that they said took place during Franken’s political career in Minnesota. This sort of thing would normally have gone through the Senate Ethics Committee for internal review, a process that Franken agreed to submit to. But several Democratic politicians, namely Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D – New York) called for his immediate resignation. But we know what was really going on. Liberals could see that the real problem was Trump being a misogynist thug, but they can’t do anything about that, so in order to “do something” they decided to single out a problematic person who could be leveraged, and thus removed one of their own most popular and effective advocates from politics.
And this is why I don’t trust the Left to stop gun violence. Or to stop Trump. Or to do… well, anything. I mean, the Left are like a coyote that chewed off three paws but is still caught in the bear trap.
But on reflection, what strikes me is that the “pro-PC” side was represented by Americans with their Constitution and free speech tradition, while the anti-PC side were two citizens of the Commonwealth. It might be because, from their perspective, they can see where we’re headed. In particular, Stephen Fry, being a gay atheist and socialist whose positions were historically not always popular, is very much aware that one’s right to a position should not be dependent on its political popularity.