Michael Knowles - The Problem With Political Correctness | Modern Wisdom Podcast 331

None of these radical, woke, politically correct people seem all that happy to me. I don't, I don't know about you. I've never seen not one of them, a radical feminist, a radical leftist, or ra- any, you know, any of the constituent parts, I've never seen one of them that seems happy. Well, you know, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Uh, perhaps that's because that premise is wrong. Maybe the truth actually will set you free and maybe lies actually will delude you and make your life worse. (whooshing sound)

What's the problem with politically correct speech?

The problem with politically correct speech is that it attempts to transform reality by redefining words. So, I, I think we can all agree at the most basic level, that's what PC does. It, it redefines all of our terms and in so doing, it hopes to redefine reality itself. The problem for conservatives though is that it lays a trap whereby basically any way you react to PC strengthens PC. And I use the term PC, you could also use the term wokism or cancel culture, but you know, part of, part of the issue is they change all the words, so it, we're talking about the same broad phenomenon. Obviously the one way conservatives can react to help PC along is just by giving in, right? You just, you use the new terms, you call Bruce Jenner "she", you, whatever, you obliterate women's sports, you use all the kind of new jargon. Obviously that gives them what they want. But then there's another group of conservatives who say, "No way, I'm not going along with these new standards. You can't make me do it. I'm a free speech absolutist," right? And I think a lot of us have, have maybe used that kind of language in the past at various times, but the problem here is that the whole point of political correctness is to destroy the old standards, right? So if you, if you go along with that, then you're helping them to do that. You're destroying the old standards. But if you throw your hands in the air and you say, "You know what? I'm a free speech absolutist. Say whatever you want, do whatever you want. I don't care. I'm a purist," right? You are also destroying the old standards because now no one's... So either way, PC gets what it's after. And this is why, you know, the phenomenon has, has been in our public consciousness probably about 30 year- a little over 30 years or so now. It's been building for, for more like 100 years, and it's why in that whole period of time there is no sh- shortage of conservatives who said, "Oh, we're fighting back against PC. We, PC has gone too crazy." Donald Trump basically staked his 2016 campaign on this issue of political correctness, but we keep losing. I mean, this is the, the first day of pride month where now first graders in the United Sta- I don't know about the UK, it's probably the same there too though, in the United States first graders are being taught transgender ideology and Kellogg's Cereal is telling them to pick their own pronouns. So obviously we haven't done a great job pushing back against PC, and I think the reason is no one is willing to stand up and offer a substantive vision to defend the old standards.