The PC Bible
Larry Brown, Ph. D.
Park East Press
Copyright © 2012, Larry Brown
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Larry
The PC Bible/Larry Brown
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010936847
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-935764-33-5
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Foreword
For some time I’ve longed to lay bare the basic assumptions of PC (political correctness) and hold them up for scrutiny. It’s been my hope that by doing so they may be seen for what they too often are—bigoted, hypocritical, and sometimes downright absurd. These are the very same assumptions that often determine which facts we may (and may not) look at when we attack social problems; indeed, they may even determine which problems we’re permitted to look at to begin with. It is my belief that, if major social problems are to be solved, we must look at all the facts, including those that are ugly, even painfully ugly.
As a member of the psychology faculty of a large state university during the pivotal ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, I had a ringside seat to the birth and growth of the new ideology, or doctrine, during its critical formative years. During the subsequent two decades I’ve participated in a large number of civic, political, and religious activities that have helped in formulating my observations.
Many students have commented on the evolution of PC; an especially scholarly and comprehensive review of the topic may be found in a collection of essays titled Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics of Political Correctness (Partisan Review Press, 1994). Two of the principal ancestors of the ideology are surely Judeo-Christian morality and the sense of justice represented by various forms of socialism.
It’s been my experience that many of the most devoted of PC’s disciples are those who left the church or synagogue—“organized religion”—behind, but who in fact still carry the commandments and other emotional legacy of their religious heritage. Emotional responses rarely remain free-floating, and PC would seem to have many of the qualifications for a very suitable object. And socialism in one form or another has surfaced throughout recent history, especially when obvious in-equalities of wealth and privilege have generated feelings of compassion and a desire for fairness.
Irrespective of PC’s origins, those who subscribe to it often do so with religious fervor, and woe to him or her who refuses to bow before the faith. While discussing a play about life in a penitentiary, I once told a very PC group that prison inmates have an IQ that averages below that found outside the walls—which is true. The protest was immediate and loud; the subject was dropped. On another occasion I dared to question the common PC assumption linking all crime to poverty by noting the case of West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the U.S. but also one with a low crime rate. This time the reaction was one of cold silence.
Various writers and speakers have characterized PC as “Left-wing McCarthyism,” “Calvinism in Liberal Clothing,” and “Perverted Christianity.” The devout are certainly not to be confused with traditional liberals, who are (were) open to and tolerant of opposing points of view and strongly believe (believed) in qualification and promotion by merit rather than race, ethnicity, sex, or whatever.
Three topics, namely, environmentalism and gay and animal rights, are not addressed. Despite their history of more or less arbitrary attachment to PC by critics often intent on belittling them, all three tend to have adherents representing a broad ideological spectrum.
Table of Contents
Of Innocence and Evil
Of Control, Greed, and Poverty
Of Multiculturalism
Of Crime and Terrorism
Of Delinquent Juveniles
Of Discrimination
Of Discrimination and Affirmative Action
Of Discrimination and Media Coverage
Of Spirituality
Of Schooling
Of Good Grammar
Of Intelligence and IQ
Of Western Culture
Of the Third World
Of Asian-Americans
Of Israel
Of Texas
Of Biology
Of Motherhood and Marital Bondage
Of Sex