Do Liberals Feed the Right?

 

Liberal Fallacies

 

 

 

Democracy is imperiled. It saddens me to say it, but liberals are complicit in digging its grave. Too often they are as contemptuous of freedom as the hard right. Some examples:

 

·      The Easthampton school board rescinded its superintendency offer to Vito Perrone because he used the term “ladies” in an email. A woman on the board charged him with a “microaggression,” though how she could infer that from an email is mysterious. (Do I smell sour grapes over the original 4-3 vote?)  Fox News lampooned this and for once its judgment was fair and balanced.

 

·      Jeff Jacoby, a Boston Globe columnist who infuriates me more than he enlightens, recently argued that working-class voters have left the Democratic Party because it long ago left them. As a labor historian, I’d say there is considerable evidence to that charge.

 

·      College presidents have been attacked for uttering “All lives matter.” One might think that would be a given but in twisted reasoning, only “black lives matter” is politically correct. Red-meat neo-cons counter that such a restrictive position insults the 86 percent that are not black.

 

·      Higher ed is embroiled in disputes over pronouns and (sigh!) microaggressions. Matters have gotten so heated that they are easy pickings for those who coined the term “snowflake.”

           

·      Cancel culture advocates topple monuments and question why they should have to study anything or anybody they find irredeemable. Congratulations! You’ve just ceded the high ground to those who would return us to Thomas Carlyle’s Great Man Theory of history.

 

Democracy and free speech are inextricably linked. As Noam Chomsky noted, unless you affirm the right of someone to say things that you find abhorrent, you do not support free speech. Utterances can be unsettling, but there’s not an iota of difference between banning words and banning books. It is certainly not free speech to declare microaggressions when someone says something that upsets you.

 

I appreciate the fatigue involved for those tasked with constantly explaining their viewpoints, but liberals need to think about framing. Motives they think are pure and clear often sound like special privileges to those carrying their own burdens. When, for example, wage earners feel imperiled and ignored, they listen when the right screams, “special interest groups!” And you can bet they won’t care about anyone’s pronouns. Unless you welcome a war of all against all, messages and policies must be shaped as if all lives–black, brown, red, white, yellow–matter. You’re not “woke” if you don’t get that.

 

Cancel culture is good at anger, but sucks at analysis. In most* cases the rational course is to use controversial ideas, events, people, and things to educate. If that doesn’t persuade, learn from recent history.** Why would anyone assume that weaponized left-leaning ideals will prevail? Prep the soil for the return of Trump or a Trump Lite and you can wave a surrender flag. 

 

There is a world of difference between content and context. Perrone’s intention was politeness. Language evolves so fast that few can keep up. A friend recently pointed out that the term “grooming” is now problematic. I was grateful, as I had no idea; it’s printed on the side of my beard trimmer!

 

It's a good idea to clean your own house before castigating others. I never use certain words, but I have to say that mostly I hear the B-or S-words applied to women from the lips of other women. Black hip hop artists routinely used the N-word. Some claim such words are okay as in-group lingo. Really? I always thought one was supposed to model behavior you’d like others to emulate.

 

Finally, can we learn to distinguish bad actors from those who are mistake-prone and imperfect? (Read: All of humankind.) There’s a recall campaign in Easthampton. I hope it succeeds. A board member that lacks the wisdom to distinguish intention from a benign word, tried to drag another into the debate without her permission, and introduced new complaints after she was called out, has no business making decisions for our oh-so-imperfect commodity: young people.

 

* Reason must prevail. For instance, no person of color should have to pass a monument to a KKK advocate when voting.

 

**Ask Mainers what happened to a Frances Perkins mural under Paul LePage, or someone from Richmond who recalls when an Abraham Lincoln statue was routinely defaced.