I’ve gotten all kinds of responses to my recent series on political correctness, but one kind stands out for its seeming attempt to exemplify irony.
I’m on the record as saying that, unlike some, I think that language policing and political correctness do exist, and occasionally, they are unfair and unhelpful to the left-wing cause. Very very occasionally, the pressure they bring to bear can approach censorship, or perhaps just a kind of social silencing. Much more to my point, I think these behaviors can actually backfire and end up making left-wing progress harder. I wrote all that. You know what else constitutes using social pressure to silence speech you don’t like? Calls for civility. I know, because they’ve been part of what’s been filling my inbox. I’m getting a lot of emails complaining at me about some of the harsh language I used to describe Jon Chait. These emails often include the implied threat of worrying for my career– you’ll never get a job in media/academics if people think you’re uncivil! They probably don’t think of these as threats themselves, which is funny; it’s the way the mob talks about paying “protection” money. “Nice career you have here… wouldn’t want you to ruin it!” Warnings about the dark consequences of speaking out are themselves the means through which real language policing actually occurs.
Hard to believe the irony. A bunch of people rallying to the banner of free speech shared my post out of the conviction that it helped to defend the principle of free exchange. Some of them take time as they do so to mutter darkly about the potential consequences for my expression. And they do so in a way that acts as if I’m not capable of using my adult self-control to know who and what I’m targeting in a political debate. “People will think you’ll be that harsh in your teaching!” Like I can’t sort out a teenager who I have the express duty to teach and help grow from an established, successful, adult political writer whose job it is to argue about politics. You might say that these people are just criticizing me, not trying to police my language. And you might say the exact same thing about critics of Jon Chait’s.
Civility, in the real world, has one function: to defend the powerful and connected against criticism. I believe in kindness. I believe in empathy. When they are warranted and appropriate, as they are with strangers or those who lack influence and power. But I have never seen civility endorsed, in the way it constantly is against me, in a way that doesn’t seek to preserve the delicate feelings of the already-influential. Yes, I believe that political correctness has some negative consequences, yes. We have to be able to say so when it does. But political correctness is a sometimes-unhelpful way to defend the weak. Civility, at least as it exists in real practice, is an always-unhelpful way to defend the powerful. It’s political correctness in the defense of the connected. And unlike most people who call for political correctness, those who call for civility tend to have teeth. They actually can achieve some of the nefarious personal consequences that are routinely associated with political correctness, precisely because the people who call for civility are the ones with the power.
So: will all the many, many free speech warriors who praised and shared my post rally to my flag now? I can expect all the people who endorsed what I had to say in defense of freer expression to defend my right to use harsh language in my political expression, right?
Right?