by Jonah Lee (2007) 19.11.2010
Jeremiah 4:22, For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
PRESENT REALITY
In Asian culture being truthful was often treated as being rude especially when talking to your seniors. To tell them their fault is outright disrespectful. We are taught to keep our peace because saving face is important in this culture and to violate it is inconceivable. More often it will go into quarrel or even a fight and who can predict what will happen next. If you speak rudely to an elder member in your family you may be punished. Whereas in the Western culture on the contrary they are encouraged to express their feeling sometimes even to the extent of being rude. Freedom of speech is uphold as individual’s right and is guaranteed by their Constitution. Anybody can speak their mind, regardless to whom and even to the president of their nation. They are truly free and sophisticated for many Asians to admire.
Yet in the process of such democracy and freedom another culture was coerced by some to reverse the existing culture and this was called the culture of “Political-Correctness”.
What is Political Correctness?
According to Philip Atkinson, Political Correctness is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behavior, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished. It started with a few voices but grew in popularity until it became unwritten and written law within the community. With those who were publicly declared as being not politically correct becoming the object of persecution by the mob, if not prosecution by the state. The declared rational of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behavior that may upset homosexuals, women, non-whites, the crippled, the stupid, the fat or the ugly. This reveals not only its absurdity but its inspiration. The set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (those who fought the Second World War), which is why the terms niggers, coons, dagos, wogs, poofs, spastics and sheilas, have become heresy, for, in an act of infantile rebellion, their subject have become revered by the new generation.
The origin of this culture was recognized as community declines when the majority of its citizens become selfish, and under this influence it slowly dismantles all the restraints upon self-indulgence established by manners, customs, beliefs and law: tradition. As each subsequent generation of selfish citizens inherits control of the community, it takes its opportunity to abandon more of the irksome restraints that genius and wisdom had installed. The proponents of this social demolition achieve their irrational purpose by publicly embracing absurdity through slogans while vilifying any who do not support their stance. The purpose of the slogan is to enshrine irrational fears, or fancies, as truth through the use of presumptuous words, so public pronouncement:
• Dissembles the real nature of the claim• Identifies any dissenters as enemies of the truth
• Acts as an excuse for any crimes committed in its name
All of which is an attack upon truth, clear thinking and plain speaking. Naturally as the restraints shrink the rebellion grows ever more extreme in nature. Now, in the late 1990s, the results of being bourgeois (retaining traditional notions), is being labeled racist, sexist etc. and risk losing your job, your reputation, being jostled in the street, being subject to judicial penalty and death threats. And it is this very extremity of reaction that has won media attention and the name Political Correctness, though the reaction will become even more unpleasant with the next generation. The inevitable scapegoat for people impatient of restraint must always be parents, because these are society's agents for teaching private restraint. So the cherished notions of the parents are always subject to attack by their maturing offspring. This resentment of tradition was observed in his own civilization by Polybius (c. 200-118 BC), the Greek historian, who said:
"For every democracy which has enjoyed prosperity for a considerable period first develops through its nature an attitude of discontent towards the existing order,.."
By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone; that everyone must become such a fool! All must accept the notions of the Politically Correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that inspired the Inquisition and forced Galileo to recant; the same mentality that inspired the Nazis and obtained the Holocaust. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. Life, in private and public, becomes a meaningless charade where delusion thrives and terror rules.
A few years back, America has tried to enact a new law called the Hate Crime Law. This bill was tabled for sanction in the senate which many felt has circumlocutory purpose. Although this bill covers all religious sectors, the Christians felt it was designed to completely curb the voice of truth that found in the Bible. According to the chairman of Traditional Values which is a watchman ministry on the US government; this bill must be opposed because it begins to lay the legal foundation and framework to investigate, prosecute and persecute pastors and other Christians, whose actions are based upon and reflect the truths found in the Bible. For example, if someone is speaking against homosexual lifestyle and offended somebody regardless whether he or she a clergy (no provision for protection for the clergy) they will subject to prosecution if the “offend” file a legal suit against the offender. This law has empowered them to do so. It sounds so obscene, isn’t it? Especially for a Christian Nation that carries the slogan of “In God We Trust”.
Inadvertently, as the East looks to the West for direction for setting, thus, Asian will follow suit with the changes. They inadvertently adopt a philosophy that belongs to the Cultural Marxist which the West was so blindly embraced. Hence, in this case we could say that not all that glitters is gold.
What others say about Political Correctness
In this article, John MacArthur says, "Let's be brutally honest: most of Jesus' teaching is completely out of sync with the mores that dominate our culture. I'm talking, of course, about the Jesus we encounter in Scripture, not the always-gentle, never-stern, über-lenient coloring-book character who exists only in the popular imagination. The real Jesus was no domesticated clergyman with a starched collar and genteel manners; he was a bold, uncompromising Prophet who regularly challenged the canons of political correctness."
In, THE CULTURAL CHURCH, p.#77 LaGard Smith, says, "'Political correctness' is nothing more than a benign catch phrase for 'the liberal agenda.' In other words, you and I have to toe the liberal line on issues like abortion, gay rights, and radical feminism, or else be reported to the sensitivity police for being intolerant."
In Political Correctness vs. Faith, Dr. Michael Youssef says, "If you take the concept of political correctness at face value, it is a good thing. If being politically correct means that we treat people of different backgrounds with respect and do not stereotype them based on their race or gender, then it is in fact, very biblical. But this is not the real intention of our modern, politically correct movement. In truth, this movement is designed to intimidate people into using language that has been pre-approved. Political correctness tends to be completely focused on human sensitivity and self-esteem. When you focus on human sensitivity and self, you eliminate God from your life."
Jeremiah 4:22, For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
PRESENT REALITY
In Asian culture being truthful was often treated as being rude especially when talking to your seniors. To tell them their fault is outright disrespectful. We are taught to keep our peace because saving face is important in this culture and to violate it is inconceivable. More often it will go into quarrel or even a fight and who can predict what will happen next. If you speak rudely to an elder member in your family you may be punished. Whereas in the Western culture on the contrary they are encouraged to express their feeling sometimes even to the extent of being rude. Freedom of speech is uphold as individual’s right and is guaranteed by their Constitution. Anybody can speak their mind, regardless to whom and even to the president of their nation. They are truly free and sophisticated for many Asians to admire.
Yet in the process of such democracy and freedom another culture was coerced by some to reverse the existing culture and this was called the culture of “Political-Correctness”.
What is Political Correctness?
According to Philip Atkinson, Political Correctness is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behavior, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished. It started with a few voices but grew in popularity until it became unwritten and written law within the community. With those who were publicly declared as being not politically correct becoming the object of persecution by the mob, if not prosecution by the state. The declared rational of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behavior that may upset homosexuals, women, non-whites, the crippled, the stupid, the fat or the ugly. This reveals not only its absurdity but its inspiration. The set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (those who fought the Second World War), which is why the terms niggers, coons, dagos, wogs, poofs, spastics and sheilas, have become heresy, for, in an act of infantile rebellion, their subject have become revered by the new generation.
The origin of this culture was recognized as community declines when the majority of its citizens become selfish, and under this influence it slowly dismantles all the restraints upon self-indulgence established by manners, customs, beliefs and law: tradition. As each subsequent generation of selfish citizens inherits control of the community, it takes its opportunity to abandon more of the irksome restraints that genius and wisdom had installed. The proponents of this social demolition achieve their irrational purpose by publicly embracing absurdity through slogans while vilifying any who do not support their stance. The purpose of the slogan is to enshrine irrational fears, or fancies, as truth through the use of presumptuous words, so public pronouncement:
• Dissembles the real nature of the claim• Identifies any dissenters as enemies of the truth
• Acts as an excuse for any crimes committed in its name
All of which is an attack upon truth, clear thinking and plain speaking. Naturally as the restraints shrink the rebellion grows ever more extreme in nature. Now, in the late 1990s, the results of being bourgeois (retaining traditional notions), is being labeled racist, sexist etc. and risk losing your job, your reputation, being jostled in the street, being subject to judicial penalty and death threats. And it is this very extremity of reaction that has won media attention and the name Political Correctness, though the reaction will become even more unpleasant with the next generation. The inevitable scapegoat for people impatient of restraint must always be parents, because these are society's agents for teaching private restraint. So the cherished notions of the parents are always subject to attack by their maturing offspring. This resentment of tradition was observed in his own civilization by Polybius (c. 200-118 BC), the Greek historian, who said:
"For every democracy which has enjoyed prosperity for a considerable period first develops through its nature an attitude of discontent towards the existing order,.."
By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone; that everyone must become such a fool! All must accept the notions of the Politically Correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that inspired the Inquisition and forced Galileo to recant; the same mentality that inspired the Nazis and obtained the Holocaust. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. Life, in private and public, becomes a meaningless charade where delusion thrives and terror rules.
A few years back, America has tried to enact a new law called the Hate Crime Law. This bill was tabled for sanction in the senate which many felt has circumlocutory purpose. Although this bill covers all religious sectors, the Christians felt it was designed to completely curb the voice of truth that found in the Bible. According to the chairman of Traditional Values which is a watchman ministry on the US government; this bill must be opposed because it begins to lay the legal foundation and framework to investigate, prosecute and persecute pastors and other Christians, whose actions are based upon and reflect the truths found in the Bible. For example, if someone is speaking against homosexual lifestyle and offended somebody regardless whether he or she a clergy (no provision for protection for the clergy) they will subject to prosecution if the “offend” file a legal suit against the offender. This law has empowered them to do so. It sounds so obscene, isn’t it? Especially for a Christian Nation that carries the slogan of “In God We Trust”.
Inadvertently, as the East looks to the West for direction for setting, thus, Asian will follow suit with the changes. They inadvertently adopt a philosophy that belongs to the Cultural Marxist which the West was so blindly embraced. Hence, in this case we could say that not all that glitters is gold.
What others say about Political Correctness
In this article, John MacArthur says, "Let's be brutally honest: most of Jesus' teaching is completely out of sync with the mores that dominate our culture. I'm talking, of course, about the Jesus we encounter in Scripture, not the always-gentle, never-stern, über-lenient coloring-book character who exists only in the popular imagination. The real Jesus was no domesticated clergyman with a starched collar and genteel manners; he was a bold, uncompromising Prophet who regularly challenged the canons of political correctness."
In, THE CULTURAL CHURCH, p.#77 LaGard Smith, says, "'Political correctness' is nothing more than a benign catch phrase for 'the liberal agenda.' In other words, you and I have to toe the liberal line on issues like abortion, gay rights, and radical feminism, or else be reported to the sensitivity police for being intolerant."
In Political Correctness vs. Faith, Dr. Michael Youssef says, "If you take the concept of political correctness at face value, it is a good thing. If being politically correct means that we treat people of different backgrounds with respect and do not stereotype them based on their race or gender, then it is in fact, very biblical. But this is not the real intention of our modern, politically correct movement. In truth, this movement is designed to intimidate people into using language that has been pre-approved. Political correctness tends to be completely focused on human sensitivity and self-esteem. When you focus on human sensitivity and self, you eliminate God from your life."
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