The funny thing about “political correctness” is that those that would criticize it do so under the banner of political correctness. Morality is a bit like the Tar-Baby. The more we try to “neutralize” ourselves from it, the more we fall prey to our own ‘bad faith’. From Lorenzo’s argument, we can certainly see the hypocrisy of a double standard with regard to Christianity and Islam. However, how real is the double standard for progressives? Certainly, I have no doubt there are progressives that fall under Lorenzo’s snare but how much of that is a stereotype habitually repeated by the right and how much can empirically be proven true of a majority of progressives? I did not see any reputable polls in the essay but there may be some in his source material. I do not know if I would qualify as ‘progressive’ since I am left of liberal but the Lorenzo box would not apply to me as I acknowledge the logic of his argument and agree that it certainly demonstrates the ‘bad faith’ of morality. Surely, we can suggest that the set of all “moral mascots” is not equivalent to the set of all progressives as that would be the apodictic example of the fallacy of equivocation. So I suppose we must content ourselves with suggesting that some unknown amount of progressives certainly fall under his indictment.
However, I would also suggest that under the guise of this kind of progressive critique there is also another political correctness, -the political correctness of conservatism. After all, painting progressives with the broad brush of hypocrisy is in the implicit interest of conservatism. It would seem that the ‘elitist’ moralists on the left are not the first on the historical stage of moral hypocrisy or perhaps at least the most dominant player in the present drama. If we take a step back from such righteous pontifications we may have to concede that Christianity has certainly had a lead role in the moral passion play and its hypocritical production. A few things come immediately to mind such as the crusades, priests and altar boys, dark age executions for heresy and witchcraft, anti-abortion (‘pro-life’), Republican Christians support of just wars like Iraq and Afghanistan and capital punishment, etc. It seems that shifting the argument to revolve around the lesser case of progressives from the greater case of historical Christianity is a conservative tactic to expunge their own predominate role in the power play of morality. However, I am willing to admit that political disposition may certainly have much to do with the sense of proportionality and number that typically lies dormant in pontificating.
The sort of Tar-Baby circularity I am highlighting really calls for a deeper look at the quagmire. One argument that can be made, Nietzsche made it elegantly, is that morality is really about power. In his view individuals and more importantly religions, politics, cultures preserve and maintain domination on the basis of the moral imperative. All despicable forms of human behavior can be dressed up with the garb of truth, morality and universality. However, the naked truth of the emperor with no cloths is that morality is used to advance and justify the unabashed use of power and domination. While I am not entirely on board with this cynical perspective of morality I certainly cannot deny the legitimacy of such an argument. Historically, we have desperately tried to authenticate our anthromorphic, myopic narcissism on the basis of the ‘eternal’, the ‘true’ and the ‘good’. I believe Foucault provides a rich empirical study for this case. When it comes to morality everyone and every culture thinks their morality is the ‘true’ morality and the ‘others’ demonstrate ‘bad faith’ morality. The logic of this power mongering morality has been proven over and over again and the only escape from contradictory cynicism appears to be neutrality. However, before I get into that I would like to cite one other avenue with regard to the topic of morality.
One way that folks try to escape the quandary of morality is to be a-moral. If we have no morality but only self-interest we can try to justify that on the basis of the best interest of every self or the morality of a-morality but that comes off as mere pretense. Why would a true a-moralist care if others take their ideology as serving the interest of morality as that would be a contradiction of terms; sort of like an atheist needing to assume the existence of God in some fashion in order to disprove it. Perhaps Nietzsche was given a pass to some extent by the mere force of his insights but his tinny sounding disciples remind me of what Nietzsche said about Christianity; there was only one Christian and he died two thousand years ago. The post-Rand era, Darwinian capitalist drum pounding may be cute and dramatic but it has certainly become cliché and over done. I suppose you could admire the pure self-aggrandizing of a Hitler, a Stalin, a Gingus Kahn, etc. but that cannot help but set up the most despicable and ‘bad faith’ form of morality, the morality of might makes right, -the butt of Nietzsche’s problem with (and admiration of) Christianity. He decried Christianity as descendent and decadent but he also credited it with the ingenious invention of eternal Hell and the inferior parishioner’s fear of reprisals for not listening to priests admonitions of how to avoid it. While he may have romanticized the nobility of the Greeks and the warrior he himself lived in a moat by the castle (as Kierkegaard criticized Hegel). Sorry, but I find the chest beating neocon to be a caricature of himself.
On the surface arguments against neutrality could bring up the fascist science of Aryan Nazism or the scientific Stalinism of communism. Ah, but the retort would be that those political sciences were not ‘true’ science. This is reminiscent of the claim that the Crusaders were not ‘true’ Christians. At all costs we must preserve the possibility for truth even if it maintains the necessity for untruth to establish it. Perhaps true science can only maintain a kind of quietism on questions of politics and social science. We could also bring up the argument that for every science there is a scientist, a human with morals and biases. Even if neutrality does offer refuge it appears to not offer refuge for living humans that still must moralize and have personal judgments or biases. As the existentialists were fully aware we must act and make judgments, even scientists. We must intervene against the unjust exercise of totalitarian perceptions, of the morality of power, and yet we can lay no claim to the absolute impartiality of our own judgments. Neutrality at best can only stifle and ignore the need for action when we are not the ones on the adverse receiving ends of the morality of power. I believe the French call the neutral justification for inaction the bourgeoisie. I am afraid that the refuge of neutrality is really only an empty abstraction for those that can afford one, those ordained by the gifts of power and morality. By this I mean that neutrality does not place us above the fray of having to act and make decisions based on our own flawed judgments and moral inconsistencies. If neutrality is used to justify inaction when faced with the need to act it is really only a pretense for conserving one’s own moral ascendency when faced with our inability to establish morality on anything other than, more ‘true’ than, ourselves. The latest cliché for moral hypocrisy may be ‘political correctness’ but its reality was perfected long before progressives came on the scene.
One caveat to this discussion on neutrality is that I do not want to reduce all neutrality to ‘bad conscious’ or bourgeois morality. I do believe that emotions may equally taint and break down the need to act based on our own moral ambivalences; clear thinking is in no way excused from our existential dilemma. The point is that we are offered no refuge from which we can gain a ‘Gods-eye’ perspective and therefore escape bad morality. I propose that instead of the one-upmanship game of establishing our morality on higher divine grounds or morally excusing ourselves from our moral selves perhaps we should look at morality as the small and individual way in which we are, -as having to make judgments, act and have unfounded and inferior opinions.
As humans we have to the possibility of learning and changing as long as we live. We cannot deny that we have morality and that we can and do use it in bad faith but we also have the possibility to learn and grow, to change. We are not utterly and always reduced to the necessity for wrong actions and hypocrisy. We must be politically correct even if we are conservatives in our uniquely conservative fashion but we do not have to universalize and absolutely justify our moral certainties. We are allowed tentative judgments. We must also recognize our clay feet and ‘bad faith’ morality without making it a virtue or ignoring it. To some extent, we are responsible for the plight of others. Each of us has to make a judgment call about where that responsibility lies. Perhaps as Levinas would have it, the other continually faces us and reminds us of our abnegation to their call of our responsibility. We may as well fess up and do what we can in the face of our own hypocrisy. Neutrality never succeeds completely as permanent oblivion is not an option in the face of human tragedy; our indolence always comes back to us in one way or another. I suppose we can justify, rationalize, divine and demon but it also requires constant effort to keep form and chaos in their perspective corners. Perhaps the best we can do is accept the burden of our morality, forge ahead in the need to act and try to listen for the still, small voice that affords us the opportunity to learn.