Doug Casey on the Political Correctness Movement
by Doug Casey, Casey Research:
As you may know, Conversations with Casey was a regular interview series between International Speculator editor Louis James and Casey Research founder Doug Casey. It’s a favorite among our longtime readers.
If you’ve never read Conversations with Casey, you’re in for a treat.
You see, Doug isn’t just a world-class speculator. He’s also a rare, independent thinker and a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. Best of all, Doug isn’t afraid to speak his mind…
So, I recently sat down with Doug to discuss something on a lot of people’s minds: political correctness. As you can imagine, Doug had a lot to say about this hot topic.
I hope you enjoy this brand-new interview as much as I did.
Justin Spittler: I want to ask you about political correctness (PC). Obviously, PC culture’s nothing new, but it kind of seems like it’s spreading like cancer these days.
For example, I recently read that the University of Minnesota is dropping the names “Homecoming King and Queen” in favor of “Royals.” They’re doing this in the name of “gender inclusivity.”
Is PC culture getting totally out of hand, or am I going crazy?
Doug Casey: Parts of the culture are borderline insane. There’ve been news items regarding this on scores of different colleges and universities across the US. What you mention at the University of Minnesota, is just part of a greater movement. Although I’ve got to say that I find the use of “Royals” objectionable. I dislike the idea of a hereditary aristocracy—kings and queens and royals. They’re basically just successful, silk-clad gangsters. Why the royal family in Britain is looked up to is a mystery to me. They, like all royals in the world, historically are just descendants of successful thugs.
But that’s not the point that the PC people are making. They don’t want to see people identified by their birth sex. They would rather that people “identify” as whatever gender—and I understand there are supposed to be about 40—you feel you belong to. You can say you are whoever you think you are. And oddly enough, I’m somewhat sympathetic to that. I think you should be able to call yourself what you want, do what you want, say what you want, this is all fine. And let people judge you by how you identify yourself. Say that you’re a hermaphrodite dinosaur who was born on Mars, if you want. I don’t care; it’s your problem. But these PC types want to legislate that people have to treat the psychologically aberrated as if they were normal. They want laws and punishments governing what you can and can’t do and say and even feel. They want to force you to respect, and pay for, the fantasies of a minority. And change, overturn, actually, the whole social culture of the country. It’s a very disturbing trend. It’s likely to end in violence.
I believe I first heard the term “political correctness” used on a Saturday Night Live show back in about 1980. And I thought it was just a joke—like most of the things on SNL. But it turned out to be a real thing, and it’s been building momentum, for at least the last two generations. Where is it going to end? I’m not sure, but it’s just one more termite eating away at the foundations of Western civilization itself. People that go along with this stuff aren’t just crazy. They’re actually evil. They’re the same types who rallied around Robespierre during the French revolution, Lenin during the Russian Revolution, Hitler in ‘30s Germany, and Mao in China. It’s a certain personality type.
The fact that the average American still puts up with this kind of nonsense and treats it with respect is a bad sign. PC values are continually inculcated into kids that go off to college—which, incidentally, is another idiotic mistake that most people make for both economic and philosophical reasons. It’s a real cause for pessimism.
Justin: I agree 100%, Doug. But here’s something our average reader might not realize.
The PC “movement” is actually happening across the world.
For example, Cardiff Metropolitan University in the U.K. recently banned words like “mankind,” “homosexual,” “housewife,” “manmade,” and “sportsmanship” in an effort to “promote fairness and equality through raising awareness about potentially discriminatory vocabulary.”
Here are some of the University’s approved alternatives…
Instead of “manpower,” students and faculty should say “human resources.”
Instead of “mankind,” “humanity.”
Instead of “sportsmanship,” “fairness.”
Instead of “polio victim,” “polio survivor.”
So, here we have another university trying to legislate what people can and cannot say in the name of fairness and equality.
But I really don’t see how this accomplishes anything. Would you agree?
Doug: Completely. The words you use control the way you think. These people don’t have good intentions, they have bad intentions. Destructive intentions. They’re opposed to all the things that, starting with Ancient Greece, made Western Civilization unique, and better than any other on Earth. They’re opposed to the concepts of individualism, personal freedom, capitalism, economic liberty, free thought, and the like. And it starts with controlling the words you use. George Orwell pointed that out in 1984 where he created “Newspeak,” which was a new version of the English language that used all kinds of different new words in order to change the way people think. And to make it impossible for them to think clearly, because the words were purposely misdefined, often to the opposite of the meanings that they actually have. So, sure, this is part of the continuing corruption of Western civilization itself.
And you’re right, it’s not just in American universities. It’s in universities everywhere, because the culture of universities everywhere has been controlled by this whole class of progressives, social justice warriors, cultural Marxists, socialists—they go under a number of names. I don’t know what’s going to be done about it, quite frankly, because the average person doesn’t have A) the backbone and B) the philosophical knowledge to counter these people. So there’s great cause for pessimism, watching this happen and accelerate. It’s not slowing down, it’s accelerating everywhere.
For instance, some years ago I sat on the Board of Trustees of two different universities. The other trustees weren’t academics, but normal, successful middle class people. And they were completely snowed by these crazy trends. They were of good will, but they’d been brainwashed by their own educations, and the culture around them, into thinking that although perhaps the SJWs and such were going “too far,” they didn’t actively oppose them. I’m afraid the intellectual/psychological battle has been lost.
