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. 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-
wa****ness 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 a lie.
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, with the
politically correct
distortion that had kept sincerity and intelligence apart quite
convincingly broken, to wed
sincerity and intelligence and make sincere intelligence and sincere
knowledge the
basis of a better American character and a better American future.
Copyright Ilya Shambat.
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