Feb. 25, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
27:02
3214 What Pisses Me Off About Political Correctness
The cure for hypocrisy is exposure - and lo, there cometh particular times in human history when a hidden hypocrisy overreaches itself, and becomes at last so blindingly obvious that even idiots cannot stay blind to it – and then, it falls – or will, at least, if there are a few people with courage enough to push over its rotten and rotting structure.Here and now is where I step forward to do just that.Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/political-correctnessFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
And lo, there cometh particular times in human history when a hidden hypocrisy overreaches itself and becomes, at last, so blindingly obvious that even idiots cannot stay blind to it.
And then it falls.
Or will, at least, if there are a few people with courage enough to push over its rotten and rotting structure.
Here and now, it's where I step forward to do just that.
Now, over the past few months, the central, soul-destroying, civilization-rending hypocrisy of our age has at last emerged so far out of the shadows that its grotesque mask can be seen by everyone.
Here, I've got a good idea.
Let me show you so you can kick it in the teeth, do a dance, and sit on its rotting corpse.
Take some time to stretch, you know, warm up, get ready.
We're going to do some work.
Okay, so here we go.
Let's say, hypothetically, that you are a penis-enabled white male.
Likely Christian, possibly not.
And let's say that you express concerns about Islamic beliefs and Sharia law.
Well, you know what happens next, right?
You are immediately and loftily instructed to refrain from judging collectively, since not all Muslims are like that.
As a white male, frankly, this is an incomprehensible statement, almost like a joke, but too grim and pitiful to be actually funny.
You see, although 50% of American Muslims want Sharia law and 25% of them approve the use of violence against those who give offense to Islam, we are not supposed to judge Muslims in any collective sense whatsoever.
You see, that's...
Islamophobia.
Because, you know, adding phobia to any word is just such a wonderfully rational argument.
All who disagree with me are suffering from philosophobia.
Do you disagree with that argument?
Clearly you have phobia-phobia.
See how easy that is?
I don't need to actually argue a damn thing.
So, the theory is that it is bigoted and immoral to judge a group according to the admitted beliefs of a quarter to a half of its members.
Oh, sidebar, interesting question.
What if this group's ideology also advocates lying to outsiders about its true motives and intentions?
Could it be possible to reasonably extrapolate the prevalence of these beliefs?
Well, let's just say I'll leave you to ponder on that one.
So, do you see how this works?
We can't judge a group by the admitted beliefs of even half of its members, because not all members of the group are like that.
Got it!
So, in a recent survey, only a few percentage points of men admitted to using physical intimidation or coercion to get sex.
Of these, well over half were repeat offenders and the majority had already committed a wide variety of other violent crimes as well.
Very few of these men were strangers.
Most were in fact already dating their victims.
Now, While rape, of course, is a horrible crime no matter what, stranger rape is surely what women and men have the most to be afraid of.
Because, let's just say, if you have to date some tattooed thug with a criminal record in order to get raped, well, that's just a little bit easier to avoid than a guy who jumps out of the bushes on a lonely hiking trail.
It's hard to get exact statistics as you can imagine, but it's got to be less than half a percent of men who engage in stranger rape behavior.
Okay.
Now this half a percent is 100 times lower than the number of American Muslims who want Sharia law in America.
Yet we are repeatedly told that we live in a rape culture, that men are inherently dangerous and patriarchal and vicious and violent and just, well...
Rapey!
Also, blacks and Hispanics, as well as Muslim migrants in Europe, rape at far higher rates than white men, but it's only white culture that is called rapey.
I can actually see why minorities complain about being excluded and ignored.
So, you see, men can be judged collectively by the actions of 1 in 200 men, or a few percentage points of men, but Muslims cannot be judged collectively by the beliefs of half the population!
Okay, I got it, but I need to limber up a little bit.
You might want to do a little bit of this, because wait, there's actually more.
Okay, time machine swastika time.
When you think of Germany in the 1940s, what do you think of?
Why, Nazism, of course!
But did you know that only 12% of adult Germans were in the Nazi Party?
And that Hitler never actually received a majority vote throughout his entire political career?
Furthermore, I'm fairly sure that a lot of Germans kind of had to join the Nazi Party for social or business or just defensive reasons.
However, Germans...
are even now collectively blamed for Nazism, despite only a tiny minority actually being in the Nazi Party.
The percentage of Germans in the Nazi Party was less than half the percentage of American Muslims who want to use violence against those who insult Islam.
But you see, all Germans were Nazis, while not all Muslims are like that.
Now this collective blame is not only extrapolated from low percentages to pretty much everyone and their dog, but also stretched in time for decade after decade after decade, so that now if any modern German expresses a desire to protect his heritage, he is usually called a Nazi, even though he was probably not even born for decades after the Nazis were destroyed.
So, all German whites, particularly males, can be painted with the broad brush of Nazism despite the fact that the ideology was destroyed and repudiated over 70 years ago.
Now, when a modern German white patriot is labeled a Nazi, does anyone rebut such hysterical bigotry with the response that, oh, come on, only a minority of Germans were ever like that, and almost no Germans are like that now.
You have Nazi-phobia!
Hey, I've got an idea.
Since we are talking about collectivist racist judgments, let's talk about racism in general.
How does that concept work out for the white majority?
Well, this is kind of how it goes.
White founded societies are generally called racist societies, which really means that whites are in general racists.
If you are a white person, it doesn't matter what you actually say and do because the magic word institutional is used to call you a racist without the trouble of actually having to prove that you have said or done anything racist whatsoever.
Institutionalized racism and sexism is the modern version of the old doctrine of original sin in that you're guilty as a white person of the most base moral crimes just by existing and being thirsty for vitamin D. How many white racists are there?
Who knows?
But if we assume that the KKK has at least some issues with different races, well, the KKK has a grand total of about 3,000 members at the moment.
Let's compare that to the radical black organization, the Nation of Islam, which has been called black supremacist as well as anti-Semitic.
Now, the Nation of Islam has roughly 50,000 members, more than 16 times the number in the KKK. Normalized by population, that is the equivalent of over 500,000 members, or more than 166 times the number of whites in the KKK. In other words,
although blacks join supremacist organizations at 166 times the rate of whites, whites must be collectively judged as racists, while blacks are...
If you point this out, you are told that not all blacks are like that, and you cannot judge a group by the actions of a small radical cohort.
In other words, you see, all whites are racists, but when you point out The more common black racists, you are told that not all blacks are like that.
It's immoral to judge blacks collectively.
It is moral to judge whites collectively.
I feel like I'm in a room with O'Brien in a cage full of rats.
And this were the straight faces openly called anti-racism.
Look, no one is saying everyone has to be some kind of postgraduate expert in philosophy, but unraveling the illogic of this one is about as difficult as tying your shoes.
It's kind of like gun control.
You can't judge Islam by the beliefs of half its members, but you can judge gun owners by the actions of heavily medicated crazy one in a million gun wielders.
Alright, alright.
Enough about race.
What about, oh, I don't know, gender?
Any hypocritical collective judgments going on there?
Well, let me see.
I've been a public intellectual for a little over a decade now.
Let me search my memory.
You know, one thing does come to mind, actually.
I was going to give a speech in Detroit to a men's rights group.
When I was told that a series of bomb threats had been made against the venue because, you know, men are just so violent.
Did the media cover this at all?
Can you imagine the outcry if a feminist rally had been threatened with bombs?
By the way, of course, I gave the speech and it was great.
You can see it in the link below.
So this is how this one works.
Anytime you criticize any If you say that some women are gold diggers who use physical beauty and state power to strip resources from sex-blinded men, somehow you are misogynistic and against women as a whole.
If you point out that almost two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women, and the number one cause is not violence or infidelity, but dissatisfaction, and hold women, you know, a little bit more responsible for the destruction of Western families, you were told that not all women are like that.
You misogynistic pig, how dare you hold women responsible for their actions?
What are you trying to do?
Imply that women have moral agency?
I don't know, apparently holding women responsible for their bad choices is sexist.
So in general, you see, white males are singled out as embodying a privileged patriarchy which demeans, abuses, rapes, and exploits women.
Alright.
So how many men commit crimes against women?
Well, when it comes to domestic abuse, the violence is about 50-50 men and women, but the majority of domestic abuse situations are actually initiated by women.
Ah, what else?
Well, Women get the majority of alim-only, child support, divorce settlements of every kind.
They are convicted of fewer crimes than men, and even for the same crimes, women receive far lower sentences.
Women live far longer, suffer the far fewer workplace deaths and injuries.
Men are 93% Of workplace fatalities and women are homeless far less often than men.
Oh!
Also, men commit suicide at four times the rate of women.
Can you taste the white male privilege?
No, I can't.
So are men some sort of violently privileged elite in society?
It's not that hard to answer the question.
Just ask yourself this.
Do violent, privileged elites ever allow open criticisms of their power and privilege?
Just think of Joseph Stalin's Communist Party in Russia in the 1950s.
Any criticism of them was generally met with murder at midnight or shipping the critics off to a frozen gulag Ivan Denisovich style.
Just imagine criticizing the Khmer Rouge dictatorship in Cambodia, or the Nazi party in 1942, or the ruler of modern North Korea, and you can see that if you are allowed to openly criticize a group, that group is decidedly not in possession of limitless, privileged, and coercive power.
As the old saying goes, if you ever want to know who actually rules over you, just look for who you are not allowed to criticize.
And that is not white males, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Quite the reverse is true.
I mean, really, who gets in trouble for criticizing white males?
Whose side does the media take when white males are criticized or attacked by, say, black activists?
Who has the real power in society?
I mean, Lord, spare me from any more moral heroes railing against white men.
Ooh, how brave, how edgy, how courageous.
White people are racist.
Kittens are cute.
Neither statement is going to get you in much trouble, even though only one of them is true.
So, yeah.
A small minority of men commit crimes against women.
Mostly men the women are sleeping with, and mostly non-white men.
But when the concept of white male patriarchy is bandied about, who pushes back against this collectivist judgment by pointing out that not all white men are like that?
I'm listening!
Are you beginning to see the face of this monster yet?
Do you need just a little bit more light on this horrible comedy?
Okay, are you ready?
Here's another example.
Mmm!
Slavery!
Wait, did I just hear the sound of tens of millions of politically correct sphincters tightening as one?
I think I did.
When people think of slavery, who do they think of?
That's right!
White males for the win!
White males are still being criticized for slavery 150 years after it was formally ended, mostly by the death and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of white males.
However, Did you know that in America at the time only 1.4% of white males ever owned slaves in the United States?
It was 4.8% of southern whites.
The percentage of slave ownership was actually much higher for Jewish households, not that Hollywood would ever tell you that.
Did you know that only about 5% of modern white Americans are descended from slave owners?
Ooh!
I got a good one.
Did you know that compared to 1.4% of whites owning slaves, 28% of free blacks owned slaves.
Yes, 28%, quite a bit higher than 1.4%.
And no, they weren't just buying up their family members.
Did you know that the white slave trade would have been impossible if African blacks had not caught and delivered blacks to white slave ships?
Did you know that the Islamic slave trade is estimated to have murdered over 112 million blacks?
Or that of the 11 million blacks shipped westward across the Atlantic only 5% went to America?
Did you know that 80% of blacks shipped to the Islamic slave markets died on the way?
Most American slaves could marry and have families.
Most of the Islamic slaves were castrated and any children born to them were killed at birth.
Did you know that over a million white Christian Europeans were abducted and enslaved by Muslims?
That is more than the number of blacks enslaved by white American Christians.
And actually the fate of most of those enslaved by Muslims was infinitely worse than the fate of those enslaved by Christians.
Do you see a lot of brothers in the Middle East today?
Didn't think so.
Did you know that decade after decade after decade, whites fought and bribed and bought and threatened the entire world to put an end to the barbaric and evil practice of slavery which has existed as long as human beings have existed?
So, very few whites owned slaves, whites ended slavery around the world, but now only whites are criticized for slavery.
Tell me, Just curious, is there any movement in Africa to demand reparations for the 140 million blacks enslaved and the 110 million murdered by the Islamic slave trade?
Are black activists pounding tables and chanting, no justice, no peace, in the white-robed court of the Saudi king?
Of course not!
It's not even mentioned.
Because the focus must be on the group that practiced slavery the least, treated slaves the best, and ended slavery around the world.
Not on the group that castrated and killed most of its slaves and actually continues a somewhat robust slave trade even into the 21st century.
Call it what you want.
Just don't pretend to call these judgments fair or just or moral.
Do these facts make you want to just rush out and save mankind from its own darkest impulses?
I tell you, sometimes I have my doubts because it seems that no deed in history goes unpunished.
If you want more, you can get the full story in my presentation, The Truth About Slavery, also linked below.
When it comes to slavery and white people, does anyone say, very few whites were like that and no whites are like that now, and if whites had not fought to end slavery, we'd probably still have it today.
Of course not.
Collective judgments against whites, no matter how irrational, are made with the full force of blind, self-confident, moral indignation.
While any white judgments about other groups, no matter how rational or empirical, are forever repudiated and rejected as sheer bigotry.
My eyes, they roll like the lemons in a Vegas slot machine.
And the moral aftertaste is even more sour.
Okay, has your politically correct sphincter relaxed a little?
You know, just breathe in, breathe out.
You know, I get it.
The truth can sometimes feel like a full-on cactus colonoscopy, but it does do us all good.
So, let's look at the question of colonialism.
Whites are, yes, constantly blamed for the history of colonialism as if whites were the only race to ever invade and occupy other regions.
Now, Just speaking objectively, if you did have to be ruled by foreign overlords, and chances are you would be at some point in your history, you would always and forever want to choose 19th century Europeans as your benevolent overlords, since they had, at least as part of their mission of conquest, the goal of civilizing and improving the countries they ruled.
For more on this, you can check out my video, The Truth About Colonialism, Like the best predictor of current economic success for third world countries is a history of being ruled by the British.
And in general, infrastructure and population tended to improve and increase under European rule.
Compare and contrast this to past invasions and occupations by, oh I don't know, let's say the Islamic Ottomans, Genghis Khan, the Khmer Rouge, Communism, the Japanese in China, and so on.
I think you get the picture.
Also, when it comes to colonialism, how do people think the average European white male fared during the time of high colonial expansion?
Well, let's see.
Taxes were raised locally to pay for foreign conquests, and there was, of course, regular conscription to force white males to join the Royal Navy, in particular, where they faced death by disease, war, and most commonly, scurvy.
European sailors, like Broadway, suffers from an absence of fruits.
The average white European male suffered under colonialism, yet somehow white males are collectively to blame for colonialism.
White males were enslaved and conscripted for colonialism.
Blaming white males for colonialism is like blaming blacks for slavery.
It is always wrong to blame the victim, unless that victim is a white male, in which case we can blame him for everything.
It's doubtful that more than a half a percentage point of the European population took the direct mercantilist profits from colonialism, as is usually the case with government programs.
Like colonialism, the costs were socialized, but the profits were privatized.
In other words, 99.5% of white males suffered under colonialism over 100 years ago, but all white males must currently be blamed for colonialism.
How many people say, hmm, gotta push back on you that, very few white males were ever like that, and no white males are currently like that?
Only the crickets speak at this moment.
Alright, we'll just take one other final example.
Since whites are collectively damned for the actions of very few whites, either in the present or hundreds of years ago, what could we say about modern American blacks?
Oh, there are those fincters going off again.
Breathe through the truth.
If we can judge whites as slave owners, when only 1.4% of whites own slaves in America, then we can collectively judge any group where 1.4% or more of its members commit certain actions.
Here we go!
Logic 101.
So let's see.
25% of black American males earned their way into prison during their lifetimes.
Let me just see.
That is 1,785% higher than the number of whites who ever owned slaves.
So if whites are collectively responsible for historical slavery, then blacks are 1,785% more collectively responsible for current black criminality.
How does that sit with you?
Because if we say that white people are responsible for slavery hundreds of years ago, then we can say that black people are 1,785% more responsible for criminality right now, today, this minute.
Oh, does that bother you?
Does that equivalency bother you?
Well, welcome to white world.
My brothers and sisters, can you feel the privilege?
Ah.
But when you point out high black crime rates, white racism is always blamed.
In other words, when a tiny percentage of white people do wrong, all whites are to blame.
When a very high percentage of black men do wrong, all whites are to blame.
You know, it's almost, almost like there's some sort of pattern here.
It would actually be enraging if it was not so boring and hopelessly predictable.
Should I go on?
I'm guessing not.
Many, many more examples exist, but I'm pretty sure you get the point by now.
And if you haven't, more examples will probably only serve to confuse you.
In which case, I can only hope that you are very, very pretty.
Hey, stop watching this and go do some sit-ups.
It's abs not thinking for you, my friend.
So, white males cannot criticize or question 50% of a group that wishes to promote immoral and unjust laws.
But white males must be themselves endlessly and collectively judged and criticized for the actions of 1 in 100 or 1 in 200 white males in the present or even hundreds of years ago.
This rank hypocrisy is frankly repulsively racist.
If I say that whites are allowed to criticize blacks, but blacks are not allowed to criticize whites, that would be racist.
If I say that it is permissible to judge all blacks by the immoral actions of a minority of blacks, that would be racist.
If I say that blacks in the present must be judged by the immoral actions of a minority of blacks hundreds of years ago, I would be a racist.
I certainly can't speak for all white males.
That would be a collectivist conceit.
But I can certainly speak for myself.
And I think I've made some valid, accurate, empirical, and universal arguments.
And listen, this is how it is.
This is justice.
I treat people the very best that I can the first time I meet them.
After that, I treat them as they treat me.
So when I make collective judgments about groups, based upon the documented preferences of at least, say, half the group, and people tell me that not all members of that group are like that, I must ask them as I ask you.
When has that standard ever been applied to white males?
To me.
And perhaps to you.
Let me break it down for you.
If you have ever called white males or white society racist, sexist, homophobic, patriarchal, Islamophobic, misogynistic, you name it, then you have opened the door to collective judgments.
Now, you can choose to close that door if you want and deny the validity.
Of collective judgments of any and all groups, but then you owe white males one huge goddamned apology!
Now, if you're not willing to make that apology, then you need to shut the hell up when white people make collective judgments.
