With the recent election advancing Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, many were left in shock and confusion. According to most polls leading up to Election Day, Trump had almost no chance of winning, allowing people to believe a Clinton victory was anything but tenuous. In contrast, some Trump supporters were not so surprised, as they had already pointed out potential flaws with the polls and the media’s possible favor toward the Clinton campaign.
This has caused some news outlets to become more introspective as they reflect on the rejection of the mainstream media and status quo politics. It naturally posed the question of whether or not a significant portion of society has become blind to their bias against those with differing views – bias against opinions that may not be considered “politically correct” by today’s standards. Could it be the enforcement of politically correct ideas has created a unique form of privilege? If so, has it backfired in the form of president-elect Trump?
The Concept of Privilege
Privilege exists where a person experiences a benefit because they belong to a particular group. Each person is also not limited to one group. Because of intersectionality (the theory that multiple individualized characteristics factor into a person’s encounter with power and oppression), the concept of privilege and discrimination becomes much more complex. A person can experience multiple benefits and oppressions simultaneously in various contexts – racial privilege, economic privilege, ableist privilege, gender privilege, and even privilege relating to being politically correct.
Another complexity is that privilege and discrimination, in theory, work on a scale. Where one privilege exists, the potential for the opposite privilege also exists. The ideas of philosopher Frederic Bastiat allude to this concept. In order to guarantee some rights, other rights must be sacrificed. Ideally, successful and civilized societies are able to balance this tension of positive and negative rights fairly. However, if the balance tips dramatically to one side or the other, excessive rights are granted at the expense of another’s rights. For example: to guarantee an individual’s right to food, you have to take away the farmer’s right to property.
Privilege and Conformity
The bias of the media seems to suggest it is possible to receive some type of benefit for being on the perceived “correct” side of particular issues. When it’s more in vogue or acceptable to believe certain ideas while other ideas earn negative attention and the people who hold them are alienated, it creates a privilege of political correctness.
Multiple stories have emerged of people, even some liberals, who chose to vote for Trump, yet experienced harsh criticism or were afraid of the reactions of others. Admitting to a conservative vote would have led to a barrage of insults, no matter the justification. Instead of conforming to that external pressure, some of these individuals voted silently.
Erich Fromm, a theorist of humanistic psychoanalysis whose ideas were influenced by Karl Marx, believed conformity is used as an escape from the freedom granted by capitalism, because freedom leads to fear and isolation. Conformity and political correctness often go hand-in-hand. Free thinking does not inherently conflict with political correctness; however, certain ideas determined by current society do. It says, for example, “Feminism is good because it supports equality. Therefore, anyone who does not subscribe to the beliefs of feminism, and their ideas, must be rejected.” It becomes polarizing in its pull toward everyone thinking the same way.
Fromm also believed people use destruction and authoritarianism to escape freedom. Each of these three elements can be interconnected. Authoritarianism is intended to provide a sense of stability, establishing a force more powerful than oneself to keep control of the world and the people within it; typically, a form of government. Conformity works to bring everyone under this authority. Destruction is a means of achieving it, by eliminating anything contradictory. Collectively, this parallels with the principle of political correctness.
Many news outlets tout political correctness, appealing to fear, in the way they report current events. Some of those who voted for Trump are habitually portrayed as narrow-minded, undesirable, and intolerant, while failing to accurately articulate the beliefs and convictions held by the majority of these groups. They’re presented through the lens of political correctness, invoking a call to conformity and a destruction of conflicting ideas – or revealing the need for insurgency.
The Consequence of Alienation
Karl Marx believed society is in constant tension between those with economic privilege and those without, causing the oppressed to revolt and pursue precise equality. Although the desirability of his economic stance is debatable, Fromm translates Marx’s ideas in an intriguing sociological context. When people are treated unequally, a revolt to pursue equality is a universal response. However, not all forms of equality are the same. Some people pursue equality through conformity, desiring that everyone adopt similar beliefs and actions which collective society has deemed “good.” Others pursue equality through freedom, desiring everyone be allowed to exercise their individual beliefs with minimal hindrance from other groups. (It’s important to note that freedom is not synonymous with anarchy. Bastiat’s ideas suggest that true freedom limits rights by another’s rights – i.e. protecting liberty until liberty may harm someone else. This creates maximum freedom for each individual person without tipping the scales of privilege and discrimination.) Most political movements are a vague combination of the two, but significantly lean to one side or the other.
That being said, when the media creates hyperbolic headlines targeted against conservatives, it becomes a self-destructive means toward the end goal of political correctness. Although it’s an expression of the desired destruction of those who oppose conformity, it only highlights inequality by shaming those who express other perspectives. It entices those who are being misrepresented to pursue reform. It also drives those who desire conformity further into fear.
Pursuing reform to accomplish a specific cause is a natural tendency. It can be an effective means to gain a balance of rights and reject perceived invalid authority. Nevertheless, revolt can take on positive or poor methods for achievement. The selection of method is largely influenced by circumstances and the means obtainable. When individuals feel silenced within a democracy, they can elect new leaders. However, when individuals turn against a dictatorship, violence may be the only tool within reach.
In this election, Trump was the readily available vehicle for conservatives to speak out against the strain of failed policies and the weight of continually being portrayed negatively for their ideas, despite whether or not they agreed with Trump’s every stance or his character in general. This is why individuals often support the candidate of their political party, even if they feel significant hesitation toward them. They are the only car on the road with enough gas to arrive at the desired location. Did conservatives sell their souls in voting for an unfavorable candidate, who represented less than half of Republicans who voted in the primary election? Could the same be said of Democrats for backing their own unfavorable candidate? We cannot declare one side totally clean while the other is not. Rather, each political party provided an inherently flawed vehicle – one appealing more to conformity, the other to freedom – bringing to the table a culmination of baggage, causes, and differing personal motivations.
In conclusion, the extent of political correctness and its effect on a nation’s stability and pull for power is mostly not discussed today. Yet, it carries significant influence for all groups of people in society. There may not be an easy solution to achieve an equal balance of rights. But perhaps a more open dialogue and presentation of ideas, a rebalancing of political correctness and individuality, could lessen the potential for both negative and self-destructive impacts in the future.