A lack of “courage” is not the problem

In an article today (June 4, 2007) in Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer articulates one particular wrinkle of his misapprehension of the full scope of the problem of PC. This particular wrinkle to which I refer is Spencer’s seeming obliviousness to the sociologico-psychological penetration of PC.

Spencer writes, in the context of calling for perfectly reasonable (albeit rather restrained) measures with regard to the Muslim community in America (including the monitoring of American mosques and the rather vague “calling to account” of Muslims):

But before these and other necessary actions can be taken, some mainstream media figures will have to have the courage to pierce the fog of political correctness that envelops us and call for such measures. Those who are looking for an opportunity to demonstrate their courage and patriotism have a superb chance to do so now.

Spencer implies here that there exist individuals out there in the field of the Media (and, elsewhere, in Politics) who want to do the right thing—and more importantly, who know what the right thing is—, and all they need is “courage” to “pierce the fog of political correctness that envelops us”. But the problem is not a lack of courage. Most people in American Media are good, decent and relatively courageous (as most Americans in general are)—and I think it would be strangely cynical to assume that most people in American Media or Politics, if they knew a horrible evil was afoot, would not roll up their shirtsleeves to try to help deal with it.

No, what Robert Spencer’s peripheral myopia seems to screen out is the fact that prior to the courage he is calling for (and prior to the “guts” or “brains” or “will” that others in the Jihad Watch orbit have called for), there must be the “debriefing” (so to speak) or the “deprogramming” of the person being challenged to step up to the plate. What would this “debriefing” or “deprogramming” be in relation to? To the PC Multiculturalist paradigm, of course, which has, over the past 50-odd years through a complex process of a sociopolitical sea change, become dominant and mainstream in profound depth and breadth throughout the societies of the West, embracing and engulfing millions of ordinary folk as much as the “Elites” of Politics, Media, the Arts and Academe. Now, my terms “debriefing” and “deprogramming” are not entirely felicitous: they connote a far too simplistic and delimited notion of the problem. So far I have not been able to come up with a more suitable term for the psycho-sociological process of waking up from the PC Multiculturalist paradigm, so I suppose they will have to do for now.

At any rate, the point is, calling for “courage” as Spencer does is woefully perpendicular to the problem of PC. Most Americans—in high places and low—already have courage. What is needed now is for the psycho-sociological paradigm that currently filters, channels and guides our courage to be dismantled. When Spencer calls for “courage” in this context—of a few lone individuals in the Media going profoundly against the grain of the prevailing atmosphere and ocean currents of Political Correctness—he is, in the absence of calling for a reorientation of that prevailing culture that pervades our socieities, really calling rather for an astoundingly unusual and recklessly brave career suicide.

I amplified this issue in a recent editorial addition to an earlier essay here on this blog, which bears repeating:

The Media axiomatically and unremarkably reflects the dominant and mainstream PC paradigm. And, since that paradigm enjoys a cachet or aura of a wisely anti-Establishment and pro-underog posture—i.e., a posture that is (among other politically correct values it reflects) pro-Third World and pro-“the People” (particularly, of course, non-white, non-Western “People”) in terms of human rights disenfranchisement and oppression by the rightish-tinged white Westerners who hold power geopolitically built upon the legacy of an evil Colonialist past—there are within the box of that paradigm strong inhibiting factors against any Woodwards and Bernsteins coming forth to investigate and report on the problem of Islam. Such independent-minded reporters who would buck the trend—the prevailing System—and go against the grain are virtually non-existent: going against the grain of the PC paradigm is perceived by untold numbers of otherwise intelligent and sincerely ethical reporters, journalists, editors and publishers as favoring (if not supporting) the worldview of the “ultra-Right”, privileged whites, reactionary Westerners, “bigots”, “racists”, “Islamophobes” and even of those tending to slide (either unwittingly or willingly) down the slippery slope to “genocide”.