How about the language of that thug Keynes. Doesn't seem too humble to me. Seems like he thought of himself as an authority and rather superior to most people. The language and conduct of bourgeois liberals and consevatives doesn't seem less thugish than Stalin to me.
And the irony is the hypocrisy of the half-know nothings. Half the time they are questioning and uncertain. Half the time, THEY act like authorities. I mean how could they know that someone else is wrong if they don't have some certainty about what they say. But besides that they write articles and books and make speeches that they expect others to read and respect. If someone doesn't think they know something valid, why should I pay attention to them. And if one thinks one knows something valid, don't come to me with that false humility.
This "uncertain" cover also seems a way to avoid direct critique. "How can you criticize me ? I don't really HAVE a definite position on anything". Yea , right.
"PC" as a sarcastic pejorative encapsulates this knownothing hypocrisy very well. The image problem of "correct" is manufactured by the hypocrites who hide their iron fist authoritative attitude in the velvet glove of "uncertainty posturing" and "false modesty" , and eternal question asking.
I mean people who write books are authors, and the substance of their statement is authoritative, whether they use modest and questioning language or not. I have never seen a book that was just all questions.
Anyway, Plato demonstrated how question asking can be veiled authority
This critique of the notion of "correct" is also a method of robbing agency from people.
Anarchist questioning authority is only the first step. All that questioning is a waste if you never take authority. And it is hypocrisy, if one doesn't acknowledge the ways one does take authority.
My question asking was in my youth. Now is the time for action, and one can't act based on a shifting , questioning mentality. " I think maybe we need a revolution in my humble opinion" doesn't quite get one going. I don't think the Abolitionists would have succeeded in their cause if if they were asking questions of their answer that slavery must go. I don't think the suffragettes would have got the vote for women , if they had been iffy about what they knew on the subject. Or maybe you have an example where people asking questions of their answers changed the world.
Humility is an overrated (Christian rooted) virtue, critical to making people into a flock of sheep, speaking of authoritarianism.
Charles Brown
>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 09/17/99 10:20AM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>I agree with the proposal to retire "ip" and "pc" from leftist
>discourse. However, I think we should bring back referring to a
>political position or action we agree with as "correct". In other
>words, what we need to get rid of is "pc" as a sarcastic pejorative
>term and replace it with "correct" as a genuine endorsement, its
>plain meaning.
>
>So, for example, Yoshie is correct in what she says below.
Charles, that use of "correct" also has an image problem: it sounds too much like some Stalinist thug passing judgment on ideas, the same way Uncle Joe passed judgment on people. You know, the "for some people, four walls are three too many" kind of thinking. A little more skepticism, a little more modesty, a little more of the Driscollian figuring "what questions to ask my answers," please.
Doug