The two stages of political correctness

As seen in China

In the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” part of the dystopian government that George Orwell imagined was its use of the language of “Newspeak,” a simplification of the English language to serve the needs of the state. Newspeak altered thoughts, so that people were rendered incapable of thinking outside Party lines.

We now see this same principle at play in political correctness, in which concepts behind words are being altered to fit political narratives, and people are censoring their thoughts to not violate the artificial morals of the state.

The effects of political correctness can be found most clearly where the concept originates: under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as Mao Zedong created the concept in 1967 to control public dissent at the start of the Cultural Revolution. The idea was simple: support the regime’s policies and you are politically correct. Oppose them, and you can be targeted and destroyed.

In its details, the CCP’s use of political correctness is different from the way it’s used in the United States and Europe, yet underneath it has the same purpose. Under the Chinese regime, it’s used as an artificial moral system to guard the policies of the CCP. In the United States, it’s used as an artificial moral system to guard socialist policies.

Under the CCP’s film censorship laws, for example, the standards are made intentionally vague so that filmmakers attempt to over-censor, in order to please authorities. Using this system, people need to consider what the regime would consider immoral, and attempt to pre-censor themselves to appease its politically correct censors.

Variety recently reported as an example the Chinese film “Last Sunrise,” about which CCP censors said it “showed too much of the darkness of humanity.” To appease the regime, the filmmakers went overboard. The director, Ren Wen, said: “The problem is they’re not specific, so we just had to cut whatever we thought they might find too dark or violent.”

Of course, while making a film less dark and violent could be a good thing, in the context of communist political correctness, this has other purposes.

Soviet defector and former propagandist Yuri Bezmenov explained in his book, “Love Letter to America,” that when a communist regime is trying to subvert a country, it attacks all of the nation’s moral and cultural foundations. These attacks take various forms, but include promotions of drug use, grassroots movements, and all forms of vices.

Yet, when the regimes take power, they will move to forbid the systems of destabilization. Bezmenov wrote that when a socialist regime is formed, it then needs to establish stability and create a “new morality.” At that point, Bezmenov explained, there will be “No more ‘grass roots’ movements. No more criticism of the State. The Press will obediently censor itself.”

In other words, during the stages of destroying morals and destabilizing society, political correctness is used to guard the systems of cultural decay. When the regime takes full power, however, it will use political correctness to guard its hold on power.

In the context of the CCP, its stage of wanting people to sense the “darkness of humanity,” has come to a close—at least when it’s related to the Chinese people. Instead, it wants people to feel happy with 12-hours a day, 6-day work weeks, and the environment of mass censorship and surveillance. They’re living the dystopian reality that Orwell envisioned, but with a shiny polish that they’re told to feel happy about. Thoughts that drift into thinking that life may be better with another political system would be dangerous to the state, and so the regime forbids imagery that could invoke such thoughts.

Meanwhile, the CCP has no problem portraying the “darkness of humanity” when it serves its interests—such as portraying life before the communist regime took power. As Chinese people began to have a fascination with China’s 5,000 years of history, the CCP took things a step further and banned portrayals of China before the CCP took power.

When the show “Yanxi Palace,” about life in imperial China, became the country’s most-watched drama, the communist regime saw public interest in the culture it destroyed as a threat to its power. In January, state media declared that the show, and other imperial dramas, were having “negative impacts,” and they were banned soon after.

The CCP has portrayed traditional Chinese history—which was heavily based in values of filial piety, propriety, and reverence for the divine—as being something dark and evil. Any portrayal of the true values and culture is seen as a threat to the state.

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Sikh-American becomes first Air Force member allowed to wear turban and beard on active duty

I am  pleased about this.  I have a soft spot for the Sikhs.  They are good people -- JR

The United States Air Force has for the first time allowed a Sikh airman to serve with a beard, turban and unshorn hair as part of a given religious accommodation.

Airman Harpreetinder Singh Bajwa is the first active duty airman allowed to wear his articles of faith, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF) said in a statement.

“Today, I feel that my country has embraced my Sikh heritage, and I will be forever grateful for this opportunity,” Mr Bajwa, who joined the Air Force in 2017, said.

Heather Lynn Weaver, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an advocacy organisation that represented Mr Bajwa, said on Twitter that she was “thrilled”.

“We are working to ensure that every branch of the military provides similar religious accommodations,” she said.

In the UK last year, a Sikh Coldstream Guards soldier became the first to wear a turban during the Trooping the Colour parade, during which more than 1,000 soldiers took part in a ceremony to mark the Queen’s official 92nd birthday.

Guardsman Charanpreet Singh Lall said he hoped it would seen as “a new change in history”.

"I hope that more people like me, not just Sikhs but from other religions and different backgrounds, that they will be encouraged to join the Army," the 22-year-old from Leicester, who joined the British Army in 2016, said before the parade last June.

The turban he wore during Trooping the Colour was black and featured the ceremonial cap star to match the bearskin hats worn by the other soldiers.

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Will political correctness kill classic movies?

The rise of political correctness can be seen across movie screens this weekend.

“The Hustle,” a gender-swap remake of 1988's “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” rails against the patriarchy between sight gags. “Avengers: Endgame” shoehorns a minor gay character into the story as a super-virtue-signal. “Long Shot” shows Seth Rogen apologizing for the United States bombing Japan to help end World War II.

Even older films, and the stars who made them great, are now seen through the PC prism. Just ask the estate of John Wayne. The legendary star got pummeled a few months ago, decades after his passing, for a racially insensitive Playboy interview in 1971. Some critics demanded that his name be stripped from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif.

Singer Kate Smith’s film career is dwarfed by her radio, TV and stage accomplishments. Yet Smith’s recording of two 1930s songs deemed racist convinced two professional sports teams — the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers — to strip her iconic rendition of “God Bless America” from their programming.

It’s easy to imagine the culture attempting to do something similar to films that don’t mirror today's cultural mores. Molly Ringwald, who brought some of John Hughes’s best films to life, turned on her collaborator last year, saying that his films weren’t "woke" enough in our "Me Too" era.

Those films primarily hit theaters in the 1980s. So what about older films? Would any modern studio greenlight 1974’s “Blazing Saddles,” the Mel Brooks farce teeming with racial and sexual humor?

What about James Bond's early adventures, in which 007 treated female characters in a sexist fashion? Even a comedy classic such as 1959's "Some Like It Hot," featuring two men dressed in drag, could be insensitive given modern mores.

Could problematic films eventually be pulled from home video and streaming services?

Sound hysterical? It's currently in vogue to tear down statues that don’t align with current groupthink. So why would pop culture artifacts be spared?

In fact, it’s already been done.

Two years ago, a Memphis theater nixed a screening of the 1939 classic “Gone with the Wind” because of its “insensitive” content.

Disney’s Oscar-winning “Song of the South” won’t be seen on the company’s forthcoming streaming platform. The 1946 film’s antiquated, and some say racist, portrayal of black life turned the movie into cultural poison. It’s never made it to home video, and that’s unlikely to change in the near future.

The effort to wipe clean questionable content is happening elsewhere, too. The work itself doesn’t have to be “problematic” if the performer in front of the camera is. Bounce TV yanked reruns of “The Cosby Show” following star Bill Cosby’s conviction on rape charges.

When comedian Louis C.K. admitted to pleasuring himself in front of a series of women without their consent, he lost more than his FX series “Louie.” HBO announced it had expunged all C.K.-related programming from its service, including stand-up specials and his series “Lucky Louie.”

His 2017 film “I Love You, Daddy” never hit theaters as intended following his revelation. More than a year later, the film can’t be found on home video or streaming outlets, despite rave reviews from its festival run. The film’s star, Chloe Grace Moretz, even argued against the film’s release. “I think it should just kind of go away, honestly,” the millennial actress told the press.

Her age matters because her peers represent a potent part of the PC movement. Just ask any conservative speaker chased off campus by students frightened by unfamiliar viewpoints.

Woody Allen’s historic film career may be over, and not because of his age or any health woes. Allegations of child abuse against his daughter Dylan Farrow, while never proven, finally caught up with the “Annie Hall” superstar. Amazon refused to release Allen’s latest work, “A Rainy Day in New York,” citing Allen’s Me Too statement in court.

One highly controversial film, and its collective shunning, predates the current PC mania. The 1915 drama “Birth of a Nation” glorified the KKK and dehumanized black slaves, among other revolting elements. Cultural critics marvel at some of its artistic achievements, given the technical constraints of the era, but its content makes any public display cultural dynamite.

Is that the best way to deal with art? Wouldn’t a screening of the film, followed by an informed dialogue on its place in culture and how the real KKK used it as a recruiting tool, be more illuminating?

Audiences could process the material on their own terms along with the vital context.

That’s the key word missing from PC-themed conversations — “context.” Without it, PC scolds too often win the day.

Hughes couldn’t have imagined his plucky teen comedy would one day be shamed by its star. And there’s a chance movies like “Long Shot,” “The Hustle” and “Avengers: Endgame” may one day be seen as “problematic,” too, in ways we can’t imagine now. Who knows how we’ll handle art that doesn’t fit the current zeitgeist by then?

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Bursting CSR virtue-signallers’ bubble

Many pundits have been forced to explain why middle Australia not only rejected Bill Shorten’s class war rhetoric [in the recent federal election] but also spurned Labor’s enthusiastic embrace of identity politics and progressive ideology agendas.

To be fair, if you live in the insider bubble, it was easy to miss this story. All our key culture-shaping institutions — schools, universities, the bureaucracy, the media — have embraced identity politics and progressive ideology.

This also includes corporations; Australia’s big public companies, which have done so under the rubric of so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The long march of the left is increasingly making our key business institutions inhospitable places for those with conservative and traditional views and values.

Understandably, many people stay silent and consent to progressive ‘social responsibility’ agendas to avoid the social and professional consequences that dissenters from the politically correct consensus can face in these increasingly intolerant and polarised times.

No wonder, therefore, that people working in big corporations prefer to stay quiet, especially given what is at stake: careers, mortgages, school fees, and superannuation.

What is missing is the sound and sensible cultural leadership that can convince people to not remain quiet and confidently speak up for traditional values that are genuinely under threat and at stake in the many-fronted culture war.

In Corporate Virtue Signalling: How To Stop Big Business from Meddling in Politics, I outline the apparent take-over of big business by politically correct lefties.

The book also warns companies that by endorsing progressive agendas, they risk politicising their reputations, and alienating from their brands the millions of conservative members of the community who do not subscribe to such agendas.

The problem is that many corporate leaders may not realise how divisive their CSR politicking is, because they live, work, and socialise with like-minded elites deep inside their inner city ‘bubble’.

Hopefully, the election result will burst this bubble and make corporate elites aware where the true centre of mainstream opinion lies in Australia. Surely, the only ones who won’t get it now are the truly tin-eared.

So now is perhaps an opportune time to introduce a new principle — the Community Pluralism Principle — into the management of companies.

This would hold directors and CEOs accountable for making sure CSR activities don’t stray into meddling in contentious political issues, and instead properly respect the pluralism — the different views and values — of the diverse Australian community.

If this principle was supported at shareholder meetings by the ‘mum and dad’ investors fed up with companies indulging in political activism, the Quiet Australians would send a powerful message to penetrate the dense bubbles of corporate boardrooms: business should halt the corporate virtue signalling — and stick to business.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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