Today I would like to explore the modern Left and its relationship with so-called “political correctness”. This topic is by no means unexplored; whole books have been written about it, and there are even hypotheses at loose in the wild that claim that Donald Trump won the U.S. Presidency in part as a reaction to left-wing political correctness. But the focus of this article is on the assumptions behind the Left’s embrace of what I’ll call “hard PC” – the notion that there is only one possible correct point of view, and that must not be questioned in any way. To do so is a form of sacrilege, which may be excused once in a great while as due to naivete, but can never be considered honestly, let alone accepted. Desist, or you shall receive the Left’s ire forever .

Most of us are already well aware of the dogmas that make up “hard PC”. I’ll list a few of the better known of them here:

• Biological factors should have no say in how society is shaped; e.g. gender is a life choice, and there are no acceptable differences between how society treats women and men
• Markets cannot be trusted to allocate resources properly or treat people fairly; they will always result in ripping off the consumer in some way
• Capitalist society is fundamentally racist
• Global warming is an imminent catastrophe requiring a complete rethink of society
• Delivery of medical services should never result in profits
• Islam is an enlightened, primarily peaceful religion
• Christianity is a warlike religion, almost beneath contempt
• Israel is an apartheid state that has no right to exist
• Freedom of speech cannot be permitted when that speech does not validate the Left’s worldview

An honest person will admit that the above list is not the only way to look at life. But, trip over one of these hot-button issues with an advocate of “hard PC” and you’ll likely find yourself the recipient of much anger and much virtue signalling. I’m sure this will not be a surprise to most readers, and even to most leftists. But let’s consider why this is, and what the psychological underpinnings are of this phenomenon.

First, let’s understand a couple of things about people. Most primates have a sense of social hierarchy, in that they view themselves as superior to some of their fellows, and inferior to other of their fellows, and people are primates. It’s therefore very attractive to set up a hierarchy based on “pureness of spirit,” or faithfulness to a certain ideology, because this permits someone who previously was undistinguished to rise high in the social hierarchy by simply professing the “right” views. Once such a hierarchy is established, the squabbling over where each person fits in it is never-ending, and opportunities to eject competitors from the hierarchy are taken with relief and happiness. This is the secret behind the world’s religions as well; they are dominance hierarchies centered around faith to a given ideology. Religions, and other ideological organizations, are some of the most potent social structures that exist in the human world today.

Second, there is no requirement in any of this that an ideological organization need to be rigorous or factual or even reality-based. An ideological hierarchy simply has to have professed believers who compete in the purity hierarchy. Indeed, with modern social media, it’s entirely possible to get away with belonging to multiple hierarchies whose ideologies are in fundamental conflict; it’s how the game is played, rather than how the world is viewed, that determines success. Some are better at this game than others. The best ones don’t necessarily believe any more fervently, but they understand the ideological rules better.

Viewed in this way, the Left’s “political correctness” obsession becomes much clearer. It’s simply the Left’s way of organizing itself into a social hierarchy. And this meshes well with the Left’s other (explicit) hierarchy, the grievance hierarchy. The amazing thing is how well developed this all is; it’s akin to the various historical religions that we’re familiar with, which each have thousands of years of theology behind them.

Finally, let’s consider science. The purpose of science was to expressly discount religious or social hierarchical ambitions, and try to understand the world as it actually is, through hypothesis and experimentation. Even when not practiced perfectly, it’s been enormously successful. But there are continuous pressures to turn even science into yet another kind of ideological hierarchy, and given this analysis, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Left is every bit as active in this endeavor as the traditional religious bodies. Perhaps this can be resisted, but given that we are talking about human beings, who knows?

• About the Author

About Karl Wright

I am a long-time software engineer, with wide-ranging interests including music, the sciences, politics, economics, and medicine. I've been active for a decade in the open-source community and I work for a major mapping company.