One of my favourite essayist bloggers will be a guest on the Charles Adler show today, scheduled for about 12:30 Saskatchewan time. (You can listen live at the link.) If you’re unfamiliar with Bill’s work, head over to Eject! Eject! Eject! for a taste of his writing.
There’s no pretentiousness about Bill’s prose, no self-indulgent vocabulary revving. He simply walks the reader down a path, pointing things out in the language of the average man, as he delivers solid whacks upside the head employing a giant paddle some might call “common sense”.
To be Politically Correct these days, you must accept the collectivist belief that words are like weapons, endowed with their own internal, innate power, and this power, like that of a chambered bullet, cannot be trusted to be used responsibly and so must be outlawed and banished from the community.
PC advocates have strict rules for what they call Hate Speech, and using such speech essentially makes you a criminal.
So much for the First Amendment. But the Bill of Rights never meant much to these people; indeed, they see it as an impediment to human progress.
Implicit in this belief is that I have the power to harm you by my use of language. Notice that all the responsibility falls on the speaker; the listener, the subject, is completely powerless, and has achieved the highest status with the group: victim. Note also that this worshipping of the victim, is in essence, the elevation of the most powerless and the least responsible to divine status. It is a very basic sleight of hand, that allows the controlling elites to maintain that they are only trying to help the poor and downtrodden, when in reality their actions are clearly nothing more than a naked grab for power that would shame the most ruthless corporate CEO.
Who decides what is hate speech? The group decides. If one person in the group seriously finds something offensive, then that term or phrase or entire concept is added to the list or proscribed terms, and this is how we get to office memo’s being critical of the term “brainstorming” as being offensive to epileptic co-workers.
If we buy into this idea of Political Correctness, we do several things, all ruinous: we give other people the power to demean us, we remove any chance at reasoned debate on any issue, and most importantly, in a group of 300 million professionally offended people, we come to a vocabulary of perhaps twenty or thirty words that have been so bleached of potential offensiveness and meaning that language itself becomes worthless.
[…]
How much better, how much stronger and healthier are we, when we dare anyone to use whatever terms they choose, and rather than sitting as powerless victims, rise in angry and righteous indignation to fight the human filth that use words like nigger, spick, gook, mick, kike, dago, and all the rest? How much more secure, how much more inoculated, are we when we can hear these words knowing that those who use them are discredited and terrified infants so out of ideas and argument that they must resort to such childish tactics to reassure themselves? What words can hurt us when we refuse to be hurt by words? What simple and powerful wisdom is bound up in Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me?
It’s an uncommon gift
(h/t to reader Martin B. whose suggestion was noted in the comments. SDA gets results!)
Bill Whittle is an incredible human being. Read his essays and I think you’ll find (as I have) that you will be better equipped in those arguments where you know you are right – but you have a hard time explaining why.
Better yet, buy his book. The essays are the same as those shown online. But, he deserves the support.
With reference to speech, note that it is a ‘natural right’ to our species. By that is meant a right that is prior to any legislation. It is fundamental. Why?
Because we, alone of all species, have the capacity for symbolism. We communicate by ‘words’ which are symbols-of-our-thought. This is a natural attribute. Speech is also a requirement, for our knowledge base, ie, how we know how to live, is not genetic. It’s learned. That means it must be EXPRESSED, it must be SPOKEN, it must be written. Speech in both oral and written form is a basic requirement of our species. Otherwise, we lack the capacity to think, to develop knowledge.
Again, speech is a natural right. It is fundamental. No legislature has the right to deny us this basic human right.
The tribunal which ‘sentenced’ Rev Boissoin to silence, to forbade him to, ever again, express in speech or writing, by any means, any ‘derogatory comments’ about homosexuals – is a direct violation of his Human Rights.
Imagine that. A Human Rights ‘judge’ denied Rev. Boissoin his Human Rights. His natural rights, his fundamental rights – which are outside of any legislated powers. In Canada.
Also in this culture of victimology, notice the unbalanced attention paid to the victim of so-called “Hate Speech,” but in the realm of REAL CRIME, the attention is given to the CRIMINAL and his/her rights. Screw the victim in that case!
Welcome to Bizarro World.
It will also be interesting to see how Whittle tolerates a (potential) blowhard like Adler.
It would of course be great if Adler chose to be strictly professional and forgo the blowhard persona for just once. No doubt Whittle will be the consummate professional.
I agree, Doug. Has anyone else noticed that there’s an uncanny resemblence between Charles Adler and Garth Turner? Both in looks and blowhard personality. Perhaps twins separated at birth?
But I digress…..here’s hoping Adler shuts his pie hole and doesn’t start talking over his guest like he always does. This usually happens when a guest gets on a roll or says something provacative (like speaking the truth) that might upset the P.C. crowd. It’s usually here when Adlers ‘accent of unknown origin’ morphs into something more akin to Foghorn Leghorn than a serious interviewer and he waxes poetic about unrelated topics like Tim Hortons, hockey, something that happened to Adler when he was a child and other such giberish. Probably why I rarely tune into his show anymore.
Eskimo: ROFLMAO!
Seems like Bill thinks he’s the incarnate of Hank Reardon.
Careful Bill, don’t fly that bird too close to the sun…your wings might melt.
SDA does get results! Thank you Kate, I’m tuning in!
In reading Whittle’s comments, it occurs to me that part of the origin of current thought police/speech police may be in the anti-bullying school movements that arose in the 90’s. It became then an important public issue how children could use words to hurt, even drive some children to suicide.
In thinking about this just now, and recognizing that I was a victim of bullying in school, and how I supported the anti-bullying programs as they arose as an adult, what is the way forward for those who would do that? Can one be against free speech in schools but for free speech in public? Is there a difference between verbal abuse and free speech? Where does that line get drawn?
My preliminary idea is that there is a difference between choosing to subject oneself to verbal attacks by virtue of acting in the public. Children do not voluntarily expose themselves to ridicule in the same way as, say, a person writing a letter to the editor, or a couple at a comedy club heckling the comedian. But even saying this, I see holes in that line of reasoning. Thoughts?
“a couple at a comedy club heckling the comedian.”
A comedian at a comedy club heckling a couple?
It’s now Not A Joke.
See Ezra.
Shane, I think you need to go back much further than the 1990’s. How about as far back as Hegel and Marx? Part of the problem is that we are so ahistorical that anything goes.
It’s the best “Obama’s an IDIOT” I’ve heard broadcast anywhere! Cudos to Charles Adler for exposing Canada to Whittle wisdom. Charles now knows how despised the term “progressive” is by freedom loving non-socialists.
With oil futures having topped $140/bbl today and Obama’s anti-tar sands development rhetoric, Bill Whittle’s “shocking” prediction of a McCain landslide could actually end up close to the mark. Once Americans see a few McCain vs Obama debates, Mr. U-Turn’s White House quest will look like a farmer getting stuck on Saskatoon’s old 8th street traffic circle.
I look forward to hearing more from Mr. Whittle on the Adler Nation in the future. Good job Kate and thank you Bill!
I thought both Bill and Chuck did a good job.
I missed the show and I’d like to give Adler the benifit of the doubt, so I’ll load up the interiew from the archives.
Hopefully Diddler had the decency to give this man some courtesy, more than he ever gives any callers that might give the phoney accented blowhard a run, and hopefully Bill will take the little mind of Adler off Julies hooters and Brenda Martins daily routines for a while. Thank goodness I can listen to Hannity for a few months, this liberal apoligist is not worth wasting the electricity on.
Shane writes: “Can one be against free speech in schools but for free speech in public? … Where does that line get drawn?”
There is an important difference between the two cases. Schools should (and should be able to) sanction speech that is anti-educational. Thus, students (and teachers) who resort to ad hominem arguments, obvious falsehoods, irrelevancies, misrepresentation, etc. are violating principles of educational discourse, and it is the duty of the school to promote such discourse. There is no such requirement imposed (nor should one be imposed) in the wider society on newspapers, politicians, dyspeptic imams, Quebec Creditistes, or roving bands of youth.