The Crux of the Matter: The Foundations of Political Correctness

A thought came to me as I was reading Lee Strobel's Case for a Creator.  At the time he was declaring that science was locked into a philosophical strait-jacket called naturalistic materialism (which causes a defense of the evolutionary theory even against evidence to the contrary), I was hearing in the background a news brief about some matter of censorship based on political correctness.  This was a moment of revelation for me for all the changes of view and opinion that I had observed in the last two decades.  The phenomenon of political correctness had started out as a recognized whim of liberal-minded individuals to allow a greater range of thought to enter the circles of society.

In the atmosphere of highly-charged tolerance for almost anything short of absolutism in morals and ethics, it occurred to me that the criterion of political correctness had a grounding in multicultural thought, naturalistic materialism, and moral relativism.  Any notion that is out of sync with any of these three aphorisms is at onset an unacceptable tenet in neo-American public.

Multiculturalism has a basic truth in the fact that America is derived from many ethnic backgrounds, a world influx of immigration.  But the concept of melting pot has been given over to the ideal of a mosaic, a work that is constructed of many different tiles and colors.  Perhaps apt, but it loses in essence an understanding of a core American culture, a typical "what every American must know" to truly understand the American condition.  Thus no grounding in the earliest history of the American Revolution with its founding fathers and documents.  Promote a course in basic history of America and intense study of Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and there will be complains that no time is given to African-American issues, Islamic cultural studies, or affirmation of women's rights.

Naturalistic materialism narrows the range of human knowledge as to only what science can affirm, if it is able to affirm anything.  Giving no account of God, it cannot delegate a moral code that is applicable to all ranks.  Moral confusion as to what we can determine beyond the dictates of the scientifically proposed elite class of social autocrats is in the offering. A neutral state of anyone deters the moral code for self is the best resolution, but it would need to be enforced by tolerance police.

It can be defended that political correctness once was established by moral absolutes and a Biblical worldview.  It wasn't called political correctness at the time, but it makes for a reasonable request.  If it is possible, if a positon that we must allow as PC is derived from these two counter-philosophies, how can it best be advanced?  The present climate would not allow for such, even though a code of tolerance is advocated by political correctness.  This is the ultimate weakness of PC; it cannot present what it proposes, but must expurgate concepts in opposition to it, though in a PC society such should be impossible.

The ability to disagree diplomatically would sooner be lost than one tenet of political correctness be abandoned.  It could well be that the new revolution that would reshape society would be a PiC (political incorrectness) movement, a revolt against a hypocritical political philosophy that cannot accept criticism.  Such rebuffs could well be vulgar, brutal, and perhaps violent.  We need not divide into PC and PiC factions, but if it ever came to such -- I shutter to think of the consequences.  We are uncivil enough as is.