Dan Moller has accepted my invitation to respond to my analysis of Governing Least. I’m splitting his response into two parts: political correctness today, immigration tomorrow. Here’s Dan:
Thanks to Bryan Caplan for taking the time to read my book and giving me the chance to respond. Although we agree about a great deal, let me say something about two areas where we may disagree, political correctness and immigration.
Political Correctness
My view of political correctness is one of those in-between positions that everyone ends up hating: the left is wrong in ignoring PC run amok, the right is wrong in thinking PC is always and everywhere crazy.
PC is a kind of tax on certain forms of discourse, just like other “taxes” coming from other directions. For instance, there’s a mild taboo against certain forms of unpatriotic speech and conduct, like spitting on the flag or saying you hate America. You can say these things, but you may pay a price, if only not being invited to someone’s party. This can take a pathological form as when antiwar criticisms are delegitimized by being branded unpatriotic, but there’s nothing wrong with the tax itself, in my view. Encouraging mild patriotism is okay.
The idea behind PC is to make it harder to say stuff that threatens the status of groups that have often had their public standing imperiled in the past. This can take pathological forms, as when it shuts down important debates over college admissions or the like. (And it’s worth noting that in the book and article [http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/papers/dilemmas-of-political-correctness/] I describe and criticize PC run amok at length, with concrete examples–I don’t take the pathological forms lightly.) But the mere existence of mild social sanctions for mocking gay or handicapped people at work, say, doesn’t seem so bad to me.
Here’s a concrete example: in the bad old days, a female colleague might leave the room and be subjected to demeaning sexist commentary by a group of men remaining. Obviously this still happens, but in my particular work-environment and in many others, this would now likely be seen as a norm violation even in the room itself. (There would be that sense of, “Wait, what??”) I disagree that this is merely politeness–it’s a mild form of benign PC, and it makes it easier for talented people to contribute, which is good for all of us. We can accept this and still criticize PC run amok, which is, alas, a serious problem, especially on campus. And again, I’m clear on this in the book; e.g., I describe how PC can threaten airline safety!
READER COMMENTS
Mark Z
May 13 2019 at 1:24pm
I think what separates mere etiquette from ‘PC’ may be the asymmetry of it. If, say, a man leaves a room and the group of women in it proceed to make sexist comments about him, why should that not go untolerated just the same? Why not just apply the same standards of respect across the board?
The argument often made for why it’s only wrong when committed against certain groups (or is considered more wrong) is that those groups are disproportionately victims of this offense, but to me this is a non sequitur: to the extent that a group is disproportionately a victim of some offense, they will automatically disproportionately benefit from a broad rule applied equally across all groups. There seems to me no good reason for double or triple standards to me.
nobody.really
May 14 2019 at 2:01am
Yay for symmetry. But … is the situation symmetrical?
For whatever reason, there has been a perceived dichotomy: sexually desirable women were not deemed virtuous/competent; virtuous/competent women were not deemed sexually desirable. If you are unacquainted with this concept, look up “Madonna-Whore dichotomy.”
Next, look up the male equivalent, which is … what, exactly?
I know of no male equivalent. To the contrary, competence is considered a sexually desirable attribute all by itself.
That said, I don’t see any particular harm in establishing norms against sexually objectifying people of any gender in the workplace–and I expect many workplaces already have such norms. So that would provide symmetry in form. But don’t kid yourself about symmetry in fact.
Mark Z
May 14 2019 at 7:38am
Um, there are plenty of analogs for men. Men are more likely to be perceived as threatening and less likely objects of empathy; they get lower tips in the service sector; violence against them is seen as more acceptable than against women; self-preservation is commonly seen as socially acceptable in women but as cowardice in men. There are absolutely plenty of asymmetries that put men at a disadvantage. The ignorance of them from the ‘politically correct’ standpoint (e.g. indifference to gender discrimination against men in the criminal justice system, even though data suggests it’s significantly greater than race as a factor) seems rooted in little more than the broad and often arbitrary classification of people as either victims or perpetrators based on demographic characteristics. That such inconvenient asymmetries are such glaring blind spots only illustrates a major flaw in ‘political correctness’ as a convention.
Fred_in_PA
May 14 2019 at 10:44am
(Were I wiser, I’d find something more useful to do than moseying this minefield, but . . . .)
Isn’t the clash here between the individual’s goals & needs and the organization’s? A very high — perhaps paramount — goal/need for the individual is reproduction. But for the organization to survive it needs competent execution by its members. Any member — male or female — who prioritizes reproduction above competent performance threatens the group. I’m not sure we want people at work who prioritize being sexually desirable.
(And. “Next . . .the male equivalent.” Ever heard of nice guys finish last?)
Fred_in_PA
May 14 2019 at 11:58am
P.S. And when did “virtuous” and “competent” become synonyms? I think history replete with performance sublime from persons whose character hardly aligned (some recent Presidents come to mind).
Phil H
May 15 2019 at 10:20pm
Hi, Mark. I think there’s a straightforward answer to your question.
“Why not just apply the same standards of respect across the board?”
The answer is that that was tried and failed. The rule against “demeaning sexist commentary” existed in academia in the 1980s. But it was not observed. Clearly, if the desired ends were to be obtained, something in the means had to change. One of the ways in which we changed the means was to make the rules more specific. The old dodge was, “What? I was just saying her blouse looked nice! There’s nothing sexist about that!” So a more elaborated rule was introduced. But each new elaborated rule is expensive in terms of time and effort, so it is only worth doing so to prevent a notable harm.
So it’s a combination of (failure of a general rule) + (cost considerations of new rules) that produce the asymmetries you note.
Mark Z
May 17 2019 at 1:45pm
Since when is making up new rules a reliable remedy to the failure of people to follow old rules? I disagree that making new ‘special’ rules is either necessary or even productive. It trains people to think of people as different. Many people now (rationally) are far more guarded in their interactions with female co-workers, there’s less fraternization, mentorship, etc., because they know that there are jokes or remarks considered that a man wouldn’t mind, and a rational man or woman wouldn’t care about, but if an irrational woman complains about it, could lose them their job.
I know the argument is usually, “sexual harassment is just so ubiquitous, it’s better to hang the innocent than let the guilty go free.” I frankly just don’t believe it’s as ubiquitous as it’s supposed to be, or that it’s over-punishment or punishment of people for doing nothing wrong can be dismissed as negligible collateral damage. I also see no reason why preserving the social acceptability of saying bigoted things about men is so important to the comfort of women.
Weir
May 13 2019 at 7:02pm
Doing away with the right to an attorney is in a different category to politeness. Getting rid of due process and demonstrating good manners are completely different things.
The angry mobs at Harvard don’t see any difference: “Our rage is self-defense.”
But anger doesn’t cancel out due process. Anger doesn’t come into it.
You have the feelings of the aggrieved mob over here, and you have jurisprudence over there, and the two don’t overlap.
If the people in charge at Harvard feel triggered by trials and hearings, if they think criminal law is demeaning and humiliating, or if they’re insulted by the right to adequate representation, then they’re going to have to be offended, because liberalism doesn’t care about how upset it makes them feel. It’s no excuse to say that the rights of the accused are really offensive and not polite. Politeness has nothing to do with it.
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