Lincoln, Salem and Politically Correct Americanism

Political Correctness is simply shouting down the truth in support of error. Often the error is a highly cherished one, and sometimes essential to supporting a whole system of highly cherished and thus strongly held errors. Political power, jobs and livelihoods, social and personal identities, friendships, and social respectability may for some depend on maintaining a systematic error safely unchallenged. Society may as a whole suffer from lies, but there are always those that profit from them. There are many more who fear the consequences of challenging error, even outright lies. Political Correctness employs various forms of social, economic, academic, and legal pressures and propaganda in its arsenal of forcing compliance. The bottom line is that error must go unchallenged and be enthusiastically embraced or unpleasant consequences will follow. The more obvious the truth being denied, the greater the feeling of oppression by the politically incorrect dissenters, and the more relentlessly and brutally Political Correctness must be enforced.

The most common and effective device of Political Correctness is to threaten the politically incorrect dissenter's social respectability. This may in turn have more serious social, economic, academic, or even legal consequences. To be politically incorrect is to bear the banner of truth under threat of damaged respectability and its further social, economic, academic, and legal ramifications. The more extreme, Stalinist version of political correctness starts with character assassination and proceeds to more serious forms of social exclusion, including imprisonment and death. Political Correctness is not, however, an exclusive possession of the Left.

To be sure, Political Correctness is usually associated with the left-liberal views of our day, but by whatever name or term, it has been around a long time and by no means confined to the left-liberal side of intellectual depravity. It is in essence a non-ideological technique or system for supporting any and various false systems that are compelled to silence embarrassing, but evident, even self-evident truth in order to dominate and thrive. Whatever its specific ideological nature its end is to overcome truth, reason, and logic first by social force and if necessary more stringent means.

A famous non-leftist example of the awesome power of Political Correctness can be found in the history of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Many people saw the obvious absurdity of the accusations being made against innocent people by a handful of “afflicted” girls. Many saw that the examinations and trials of accused witches were an appalling travesty of justice and an insult to common sense. But voicing a protest or even skepticism so threatened the “afflicted,” and the enthralled magistrates responsible for the inane course of events that the protestor or open skeptic was very likely to be accused of witchcraft and hanged. Many honorable persons who would not belie themselves or compromise their integrity to save their lives by agreeing to the absurd and lying spirit of that time and place did in fact pay for their integrity and dedication to truth on the Salem Town gallows.

There are unfortunately still today too many good examples of absurd and viscous Political Correctness, not only on the Left, but also among people who claim to be conservatives. A model of such “conservative” Political Correctness appears in the October 14, 2002 issue of, of all places, the National Review, once putative bastion of American conservatism. In the form of a review of Thomas J. DiLorenzo's new book and conservative best seller, The Real Lincoln, the Claremont Institute's Ken Masugi makes a scathing, but hardly researched attack on DiLorenzo’s book and academic credibility. True to the politically correct tradition Masugi dismisses DiLorenzo as an academic leper with views and a train of facts that must not be taken seriously. He simply tries to shout DiLorenzo down while trying to intimidate potential readers of the book into thinking that taking its author seriously is socially unacceptable and just cause for a good, politically correct shunning. The usual adverse implications on character, intellect, academic credibility, and social respectability are made. His message is that reading DiLorenzo's book or looking into the train of factual evidence therein is not socially, intellectually, or academically respectable. Masugi's attack is considerably more rabid than factual. Masugi basically offers nothing but the oft-quoted mantras of the official and politically correct Lincoln idolatry as his positive thrust. Had he really read DiLorenzo's book, he would have seen many of them demolished by incontrovertible fact and reasoned analysis. Masugi's attack on DiLorenzo is an indirect attack on academic freedom. Potential readers of the book should not be intimidated by such tactics. Let them read it, check the research, and decide for themselves.

Richard Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell, once made an appalling statement. He said in a public forum surrounded by press microphones, “Watch what we do, not what we say.” This was an astonishing admission of a deceitful style of politics. The Claremont Institute's Masugi, however, is apparently oblivious to the fact that John Mitchell's words are the philosophy of many politicians, and as DiLorenzo shows, especially Abraham Lincoln. Masugi's politically correct mantras are based on a few well-known paragraphs of elegant, but perhaps deceptive Lincoln rhetoric. If we give Lincoln anything, we must give him credit for being the master of political rhetoric. But was it sincere or deceptive? That is the question. It is a question that cannot be answered by repeating politically correct mantras and trying to intimidate dissent or scholarly analysis. It must be answered by studying the whole of Lincoln, all the words and all the deeds. The full study of Lincoln's political, economic, and social philosophy is what Dr. DiLorenzo has attempted. He makes his points with page after page of well-organized evidence. His book is not easy or pleasant reading for those who have long believed the lie and fear the truth. His book is filled with truths unpalatable to those who want airbrushed demigods and airbrushed history to bolster their political beliefs and their vision of politically correct Americanism.

Like the “afflicted” young girls of Salem, Masugi hysterically “cries out against” any threat to his politically correct, official version of Lincoln. Let the accused and those who sympathize, indeed all those who value truth, beware less they be named witches, too.

November 25, 2002