Martin Sewell writes: '"Lind is the major authority on the history of
political correctness." Note that Lind's article is the number one Google
hit for "history of political correctness":' What an extraordinary test of
expertise! As the writer of two of the top three Google hits on "welfare
state", and number three on "social policy", when the higher references aren't to individual sources, can I now consider myself, in Martin's eyes, the major authority on those subjects? (I'm also number eight on
"liberty, equality, fraternity", about which, as I remember it, Martin was
rather dismissive.) It might be more appropriate to look at some other
tests. According to the Web of Science database, the number of references in indexed
refereed journals in social science, science and arts to Lind on political
correctness is ... zero.
Perhaps more important, however, is to engage with the arguments. The problem with Lind is not that he's insufficiently cited; it's that he's talking codswallop. In a world where people have for centuries been
incarcerated, tortured and executed for saying or doing the wrong things, the idea that
the thought police have sprung from the malign influence of the Frankfurt
School is staggeringly absurd. Martin's fond of Wikipedia: try the entries
on Bogomilism, Catharism, and of course the Spanish Inquisition. And the
most dangerous manifestations of this kind of oppression in the current
world are still not about linguistic sensitivity, but about theocracy. It's
hard, I know, to apply common sense and a sense of proportion in a world
where girls are still being murdered for kissing boyfriends and barbers are
murdered for shaving people, but by comparison the debate about whether
"minority ethnic group" or "ethnic minority group" is the better expression
doesn't mount up to a hill of beans.
Paul Spicker
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