How far is too far? Will “political corretness” the engine of human rights, propel us to a utopia where we all love and respect each other or will this take us ten steps back, far back…and as if we pressed the rewind button we travel past our not too distant brutal, barbaric and bloody history. Yes…we pass our capitalist—colonial—manifest destiny— era, before any black, brown, yellow…subordinated wo(man) could brazenly utter a word on “rights.”
Yes….political correctness—a term more poignant than someone smeared with feces; putrid yet stimulating to all those who fight for those once marginalized. They say “stand not for something and fall for anything” but what happens when you stand for everything do you not fall too because of the contradictions that you will face in joining things that seem all too similar to be disconnected when observed through a myopic lens?
Is my argument nothing but a slippery slope? To me there’s no slope it’s just slippery. Slippery because it marks how fleeting academia has become, how subjective, how unquestioning and accepting. Like a sociopath, or the black widow lures her prey who flies too close to her intricately designed snare. We continue to fly too high to the spider’s web in our aim to utopia we call social inclusion.
Humanity is still in that dark cave where there is very little light—the enslaved cavemen have only heard from those enlightened that there is an illuminating light outside, the tale they are told that what they see is not all that exists, but something greater lies outside. And as if they are having a lucid dream, these cavemen believe that the illusions that their deceitful eyes tell them is reality, fact, truth but instead they are nothing but skewed impressions of faulty perception on the cave’s walls.
And they continue to travel. Past the Magna Carta, the Declaration of a corrupt independence, past any constitution that spoke of inalienable rights that made all men equal. Past the establishment of Trinidadian Government when “discipline, tolerance and production” became something like the Indo-Afro Trinidadian mantra. How ironic! These words were meant to solidify independence from a colonial past, yet they speak of continued enslavement.
The “good” indentured labourer and slave was disciplined and the iron fist kept him moral. This labourer needed to be subordinate and do what was said by his master in order to be productive, productive for a common good that in retrospect seems like…the greater good (the good of the master that is). The only difference now was the attempt to penetrate racial lines that was necessary to rape the minds of these “ex slaves.”
Like a virgin who was about to consummate her marriage they forced in the word tolerance in the midst of these two functions and factors of slavery to make these two distinct groups shake hands, meet, function as a unit…again for their benefit. Tolerance and political correctness are one in the same. Tolerance: the act to allow deviation from a standard, to become less responsive. Tolerance is preached daily to mean something noble, something necessary, but taken for what it is, it can only lead to the “ dummifying” and death of the person.
The most tolerant societies today still have a citizenry who proudly wave their anti semitic and anti black flags in the front of their residences while greeting you with a smile be you black man or Jew. The truth is, no matter how socially active a sect of the population or how much this doctrine of tolerance is preached there is still hate in the hearts of man. Hate for different, hate for extraordinary hate for the “other”, hate for “them” and tolerance will never produce love.
The abyss is near and soon this subtly fascist world will crumble with all its corrupt ideologies that bear the so called “superstructure.” However, before this happens, human rights will not take the enslaved cave man to a place of freedom. The process has indeed been an incremental one but soon the stage will come when our eyes must be closed, our mouths shut up and like soldiers in a medieval army our hands stiffly to our sides and because our senses will have no use anymore we will all fall into a pit that was prepared for us. You see, before the physical came the mental “dummifying” so at the end there really would be no hope for mankind.
What then dare I say is right and wrong? Is truth objective or should the enlightened shape a world where the common good is truly the purpose of all life and are they then to determine the rights that should govern and establish society? Even Plato, the great philosopher that he was, recognized how complex and intricate answering this question was and though he believed in objectivity of truth and beauty there was some subjectivity in his utopian society.
I am no advocate of fascism or horrible acts like genocide and eugenicide but I do believe that we are taking many steps backward believing that anything goes without carefully dissecting all popular opinion and beliefs. The truth is just as we are not all the same, we are not all different and no matter how close our histories, they are all distinct. Forcing the connection between all groups and sects should not be our goal because in doing so our fall is inevitable because of the ample contradictions we will encounter in that quest.
Isn’t it futile for an enslaved man who only knows candlelight as his source to build his life around the beliefs of his enslaved brother whose reality is just as dark and limited as his own? There is no easy solution to transforming hateful hearts to loving ones just as it is hard for a busy New Yorker to find balance in the hustle and bustle of city life.
However, the way to a better place for all of humanity is that we interrogate all thoughts, beliefs, notions before we accept it. Interrogate by reading, writing and opening one’s mind to the opposing view and above all “mind your own business.” Plato never meant that we must be narcissistic and selfish, but instead he reminds us of the power of looking within for the answers. Furthermore, in doing so, doing yourself some good means indirectly doing all humanity some good. He may not have been an advocate for questioning in his mentally enslaving Republic but I do believe that the journey towards finding “self” and understanding one’s place in the midst of this beautiful mosaic we live each day will lead to love and happiness for one and all.
Speak your truth and I’ll interrogate your truth in love.
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