We live in a world of obvious lies. Magna est veritas, et praevalebit, goes the old saying — “the truth is mighty, and will prevail” — but “will prevail”, as should be apparent to all at this moment in our history, is clearly not the same thing as “does prevail”.
I’m fond of quoting Theodore Dalrymple on this topic, and I’ve often posted this paragraph of his:
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
In a recent essay called Lying To Ourselves (which you can read here), Dalrymple cites the following passage from G. K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy (my emphasis):
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered … it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.
Dalrymple continues:
Pity and compassion, formerly Christian virtues are the virtues that run wild in the modern social liberal’s mind. Indeed, one might almost say that he has become addicted to them, for they are what give meaning and purpose to his life. He is ever on the lookout for new worlds not to conquer, but to pity. In his mind, pity and compassion require that he adopts without demur the point of view of the person he pities, for otherwise, he might upset him; he must not criticise, therefore. In short, if need be, he must lie, and he frequently ends up deceiving himself as well as others. And if he has power, he will turn lies into policy.
With all this in mind, we have the story of anthropologist Kathleen Lowrey’s excommunication from her academic community for maintaining, correctly, that orangutans, like ourselves, have two distinct sexes. Her article is witty, elegantly written, and terribly sad.
Read it here.