theatlantic | For Chait, though, what’s at stake in all this norm-happy rhetoric is American liberalism itself. Political correctness, he writes,
“is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of
left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of
liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism.”
Here’s a more optimistic—and I also think more realistic—view: We might also think of “p.c. culture” as “empathy culture.” The
culture Chait describes, to the extent it can be called a culture at
all, doesn’t impede progress. To the contrary, it helps progress along.
It is a way of adjusting—fitfully, awkwardly—to an environment,
political and otherwise, that gives so many of us newfound exposure to
each other.
Some of the mechanics of this adjustment may be overcorrections:
We—and the whole point is that there is a "we" at stake here—can care
too much, it’s true, about identity as a function of authority. We can
be too quick to dismiss otherwise valid arguments as coming from places
of privilege. We can be too sensitive. We can be too reliant on
categories—white, black, cis, trans—that focus on what we are rather than who. Categories in general can be terrible, brutish things.
But categories, expressed as language, can also be, in their way,
expressions of empathy. They are proxies for curiosity, which is itself a
proxy for sympathy. Identifying oneself as “cis” rather than
“straight,” or offering a trigger warning on a Facebook post, or
stepping aside so that someone with a more relevant experience can
speak: These are cultural shibboleths. They are awkward, maybe, but they are made in good faith—and that is not a small thing. They say, basically, “we’re trying”—to see things from each other’s viewpoint. And to understand, if not agree with, each other.
