> Tito's Yugoslavia was widely regarded as the best country in the
> Communist
> bloc. With a standard of living sufficient for it to be included in
> Organization of
> Economically Developed Countries, an infrastructure adequate for it to
> host
> Olympic Games, universal high-quality healthcare and education, world-
> quality
> science and engineering, religious tolerance, and nowhere near the
> level of
> abuses committed in Soviet Union or its satellites, Yugoslavia had
> some of
> the best accomplishments and quality of life of all Communist
> countries. The
> events of 1990s came as a shock to many people, who thought that
> Yugoslavia,
> as the most civilized of all Communist countries, was in the best
> shape to enter
> the 21st century prosperous and intact. To people who tried to make
> sense of
> what happened, many conflicting explanations were offered.
>
> One was offered, to me personally, by Bush Sr.'s Secretary of State
> Larry
> Eagleberger, who came as a guest speaker to a political science class
> at
> University of Virginia and responded to a question I asked him about
> Bosnian
> war. He stated among other things that he had held negotiations with
> Yugoslavian people; that they were (in his words) "the nastiest people
> [he]'d
> ever known;" and that he knew there was going to be a war in
> Yugoslavia. I
> am not sure with which people he had negotiated, or in what manner;
> but the
> Yugoslavian people whom I have known personally and in my work as a
> tutor
> were among the most genuine, most ethical, most intelligent, most
> responsible
> people I've known in my life. And it was from one of these people that
> I have
> finally gained a more insightful explanation of the events.
>
> The Tito government preached national identity as a Communist country
> under an
> ideology of brotherly love. However what people actually thought and
> felt and
> talked about privately was entirely to the contrary of that ideology.
> And when the
> Communist party line was no more, the country exploded in ethnic
> hatred, which
> was what people had been thinking and feeling for decades - and to
> which they
> could not admit in public and therefore not be able to work through
> and find
> meaningful ways to resolve or move beyond. I can see correlations
> between the
> situation in Yugoslavia in 1990s and the situation in America today.
>
> The politically correct ideology has been telling people for over a
> decade what they
> could think, what they could say, what they could feel, what
> personality they could
> have, and how they could relate to each other, while maliciously
> exterminating all
> thoughts, feelings and choices that were inconsistent with their party
> line. The
> supposed tolerance preached by the politically correct was in no way
> matched by
> their behavior, and their extreme intolerance of everything that was
> not of their
> party line brought them to not only effectively destroy free speech in
> America but
> likewise free thought and any form of genuine feeling or genuine
> interaction. This
> resulted in a climate of extreme and suffocating hypocrisy - a climate
> destructive to
> development of either intelligence or sincerity, and particularly to
> sincere intelligence.
> But there were even deadlier problems with this arrangement, and we
> have seen
> them play out in recent events.
>
> Political correctness, like Tito's party line, created a climate in
> which people could say
> only the party line, which was of course inconsistent with their real
> feelings and
> thoughts. This created a schizophrenic separation between what people
> could say
> publicly and what they actually felt and thought. People's feelings in
> such climates
> are suffocated and made small, twisted and hideous; and when they come
> out, they
> do so with an explosive and murderous rage. Eminem had a huge
> following, because
> he articulated sentiments that had been suppressed but that were felt
> by many people.
> Religious, cultural and national hatreds, that had likewise been
> brewing under the
> surface, exploded similarly in this decade with a murderous force. The
> people had not
> been allowed to articulate these things, but they were feeling and
> thinking them anyway.
> And when the Bush-style demagogues and Eminem-style misogynists came
> along to
> articulate or pander to these sentiments while taking them into a
> thoroughly destructive
> and ugly direction, they were seen as sincere and genuine people and a
> break from the
> coldness and insincerity of the previous decade.
>
> Of course, in cases of Eminem and Bush, the rightful question to ask
> is "sincere and
> genuine - as what?"As Martin Luther King stated, nothing is more
> dangerous than
> genuine ignorance and sincere stupidity. That, has been the historic
> lesson of Bush
> as much as it has been that of Eminem. But there are other historical
> issues here,
> with even more significant implications for education, public debate
> and political policy.
>
> The experience of both Tito's Yugoslavia and politically correct
> America have shown
> that is not wise, nor is it viable, to force down people's throats a
> line while suffocating
> what they actually hold inside them. The prudence comes in embracing
> what people
> are feeling and thinking and guiding it toward a place that is
> intelligent and constructive
> rather than one that is destructive and dumb. American Constitution
> postulates freedom
> of speech, for a very good reason. It's not just a personal right; it
> is an absolute necessity
> for a self-governing nation that hopes to be a democracy in any
> meaningful sense. Free
> speech - and that means meaningful free speech, whether or not it is
> part of a party line -
> makes it possible for people to express what they think, give
> perspectives that are not
> anticipated by others, tell crucial information that may be missed by
> any other group or
> any decision-makers, and reveal reality as it is faced by a person or
> by a group. And then
> it becomes possible for people to actually understand the conditions
> enough to create
> meaningful, informed, insightful and proactive solutions - both for
> their own situations and
> for the political entities that they represent.
>
> So that when a party line takes away from people the right to free
> speech, not only do
> the people never develop their actual thoughts and feelings enough to
> find workable
> ways to affectuate them, but the policy makers are likewise clueless.
> Sincerity goes away
> from the public discourse and finds a way to exist in most destructive
> and most ugly possible
> ways. And then the logical result is events in Yugoslavia of 1990s, or
> in America today.
>
> It is for this reason that the purpose of real education is
> development of both intellect
> and emotion, not suppression of the same. With these developed into
> genuine and
> mature fruition, people have better chance to become intelligent,
> sincere, genuine,
> healthy and wholesome individuals - with intelligence based in
> sincerity and
> the core of sincerity developed likewise into an intelligent and
> viable form. And what
> political correctness has done instead, is turn centers of education
> into centers of
> indoctrination, where minds and personhoods are not nurtured but
> broken, and neither
> intelligence nor sincerity are allowed to develop in any kind of a
> wholesome way. This
> has created a population of people fragmented, hypocritical, and
> intrinsically insincere,
> and has inflicted such population upon America as its supposed
> educated class.
> Meanwhile the people with less education have claimed to possess
> integrity - integrity to
> ignorance and stupidity, which by masquerading as ethics or guts or
> manliness or
> common touch or integrity has allowed ignorance and stupidity to take
> over the country
> and take it to a completely disastrous place.
>
> In similarly wiping out sincerity from public discourse, political
> correctness has likewise
> helped along the same stance. With no sincerity allowed in
> intelligence, it has been
> found in ignorance and stupidity. Which ignorance is now controlling
> American
> government and trying to turn it away from science, constitutional
> rights and freedoms,
> and even democracy itself.
>
> That's not what makes great countries, nor is that what makes great
> citizens. Nor is this
> what liberalism, of which political correctness is a degenerate
> perversion, is about in
> any meaningful sense. The flaws associated with Democratic candidates
> - the wishy-
> washiness and irresoluteness of Kerry, the impersonality of Gore, the
> slipperiness of
> Clinton, the out-of-touch weakness of 1980s candidates - are all a
> function of
> disconnection made between intelligence and sincerity in American
> character. And the
> only way for people. societies and public policies to work in a
> meaningful manner, is to
> find ways to become sincere and intelligent at once.
>
> This has been seen in the actions of Bill Maher, then Howard Dean,
> then more mainline
> Democrats, seeking to break through political correct doubletalk,
> pinpoint matters squarely
> and sincerely, and based on that create solutions reflecting sincere
> intelligence, sincere
> understanding, and sincere will to affectuate solutions reflecting the
> preceding. Which
> means to be able to understand cultural matters enough to address them
> honestly and
> without distortion. This, we have seen done by Barack Obama, in
> telling black fathers to
> take care of their children and other black people to stop using
> victimhood as an excuse
> for everything, took up the less educated white people on their
> scapegoating hate-
> everyone-who-is-not-like-us ways, and addressed the ruinous anti-
> intellectualism of
> youth in all races that keeps them away from educational knowledge and
> leads them to
> create aggressively ignorant cultures that claim integrity - to
> ignorance and dumbness.
>
> The things that politically correct would not talk about, found the
> way to express
> themselves in reality. As always in such conditions, they did so in
> the ugliest possible ways.
> And now, it becomes possible to actually see those things clearly
> enough to address them
> rightfully and intelligently. Sincerity found a way to exist - as
> sincere destructive ignorance
> and sincere disastrous stupidity. Now it becomes possible, ...
>
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