政治正确的精华与糟粕

好

从本质上讲，政治正确的意图是 怜悯和体贴. Both are very much needed in the world. Waving it off with excuses such as “suck it up” or “my grandfather succeeded in spite of adversity, so you should too”, is at best immature, and at worst deliberately malicious. Many people use such excuses to mask their tribal instincts or plain selfishness.

Every well-meaning, thinking person should be able to recognize how even little expressions of prejudice, when accumulated, can influence someone’s chances in life, and how hurtful they can be after a lifetime of hearing them and experiencing their consequences.

语言影响着我们的思想和文化，影响着我们的预期和认为正常的事物。语言表达着我们的文化习惯。如果这些词语以深思熟虑和明智的方式发生改变，那么其中的一些文化习惯也会受到影响。这也许不是朝着正确方向迈出的最重要的一步，但这是一步。

坏处

然而 每一个好的想法，一旦被发挥到极致，就会被扭曲、滥用，最终被用来对付自己. This happened with communism, it happened with most if not all religions, and it’s happening with political correctness. Communism transmogrified from “let’s share equally and take care of everybody” into “you mustn’t stand out in any way (except if you are 高下立判)”; various religions from “be a decent person” to “kill everyone of different faith”, and political correctness turned from “let’s show some compassion to the disadvantaged” into searching for bad intentions even where there are none, or, for example, verbal attacks against people who “presume someone’s gender”. One cannot but wonder how on earth can so many people tolerate or even support such obvious, extreme oversimplifications and exaggerations of the original ideas. Yet it keeps happening, all the time, all over the place.

There are better ways to encourage compassion than “word policing” and finger pointing. While guilt trips are a common (but unhealthy) way to influence children, most adult people will react with irritation and defensiveness especially if you blame them for small thoughtlessness taken out of context. I’ve seen people accused of insensitivity toward the intellectually disabled because they unthinkingly used the words “idiot” or “retard” as insults. I can understand why that can hurt some people, but, please, let’s learn the difference between deliberate malice and the unthinking use of very common expressions. And let’s 辩而不责.

Also, let’s focus on important things rather than irrelevant details. When the movie “Avatar” first came out, one feminist group apparently complained because the females on the planet “Pandora” in the movie were designed as smaller and more delicate than the males. I don’t know about you, but this seems fairly natural to me. The fact that this was pretty much the only gender stereotype you’d find in “Avatar” was ignored by this group. Such bitter focus on anything one might even remotely interpret as offensive must be coming from 悬而未决的童年情绪成年人应该认识到这一点，并在自己的内心加以解决，而不是到处投射。

假定意图不良 is my pet peeve, as I experienced a lot of that as a kid. Blaming and accusing anyone who dares to even slightly disagree – even if disagreement is based on rational arguments (such as gender differences), doesn’t convince anybody of anything except the accuser’s childishness, self-centeredness and irrationality. Yet presuming bad intentions seems the prevalent attitude in modern political discourse. I’ve seen books and articles bitterly criticised and accused of all kinds of bad intentions simply for not taking into the consideration every possible way an individual might differ from the average (which few articles have space to address, and some were not even focused on a related topic). While I can understand the pain of feeling excluded, criticised for being different, perhaps abnormal – I cannot so easily understand the seemingly willful denial of all rationality and complexity expressed more and more commonly in online discussions.

“Different” =/= “Differently worthy”

Speaking of gender differences, while everybody is different and unique, and should be judged as an individual rather than the group they belong to, the fact is that there are biological differences between men and women – in average. That makes each gender more 有可能 to have certain interests, needs and qualities. We cannot delete the fact that for almost all of the human existence, women spent a lot of time raising children, and men spent a lot of time hunting, fighting, and doing physical work. Both of those roles needed intelligence (not to mention that women often had to take on male roles, too, because men were more likely to be away or die in hunt, war or accidents). But they did – in average – shape us somewhat differently, even if differences are milder than some people like to claim, and even if there are plenty enough of people who might differ from the norm in various degrees and aspects.

The people who get angry when you mention the word “different” are usually the ones who read “different” as “not equally worthy”. In other words, people who cannot accept that – in average – men and women have some (mild) differences, are those who don’t really believe that the feminine is equally worthy as the masculine. If they truly believed that the feminine was equally worthy, they wouldn’t have problems with acknowledging differences. It’s only when we don’t really feel that traditionally feminine qualities are worth rewarding and cherishing, that we start insisting that the feminine must be the same as the masculine.

And I can empathize with that attitude somewhat. There are still plenty of people, especially online “meninist” subcultures, who praise physical strength above anything else, who believe that “might makes right”, and who argue that women are less worthy than men because they have less physical ability to do certain jobs, or because there are few significant female scientists and inventors mentioned in history (as if women through most of history weren’t mostly ignored, ridiculed, stolen from or outright abused or killed if they tried to be independent and educated). I’ve seen plenty enough of disgusting and hateful comments and videos targeting women as if they were some unthinking monolith. But trying to shut down such people by unrealistic denial of reality, or personal attacks, will only give them 更多弹药而不是更少。查看 这一重要证言 about how extremist groups use this to recruit children and teenagers – and some adults, too. And if you have time for a 20 min video, check out 这个.)

While women have certainly proven themselves far more capable than men used to think (and than some men still do) – and who knows how much more could women achieve if they were truly encouraged from childhood by their culture rather than discouraged in many subtle and less subtle ways – the key problem is not in proving abilities. 问题的关键在于文化上对女性的否定和贬低，无论女性做了什么。

生物学及其问题

社会学认识到这样一种模式，即一旦某种职业开始有越来越多的女性从事，该职业的地位和薪酬就会下降。例如，教师和医生曾经是备受推崇的高薪职业。但是，随着越来越多的女性加入这一行列，这些职业在公众心目中的地位就越低，薪酬也开始下降（至少在医学属于公共服务而非营利性行业的国家是这样）。

So why is that? It’s not that women proved themselves less able; the quality of a profession does not suffer as women join in. It’s not about ability, it’s about deep emotional disregard for the feminine in its core.

And where does that come from? Culture, of course, to some extent, but how did such culture become so widespread and so deeply ingrained? The answer is that we are as nature shaped us, and nature was never gentle or considerate. The two basic urges every living being has are to survive and to reproduce. For survival, they have to compete with others – and the more similar the others, the more competition. As humans couldn’t survive without some cooperation, we compete as tribes, not just as individuals. Hence tribal instincts – nationalism and racism, and, as more women compete for jobs, sexism.

Successful reproduction requires not only material means to feed and care for children, but the higher status, the more opportunity, hence greed – and subjugating and controlling women made it easier for men to ensure that the offspring they invested in was really theirs. To subjugate someone, you have to declare them less worthy. It’s not fair, it’s not ethical, it shouldn’t be. But nature is neither fair or ethical, and in my opinion, blood-sucking insects should not exist. Yet here we are.

Not all men, of course, were into this even in the past – but, obviously, those who were, prevailed. The fact that women, without contraception, couldn’t control when they would be pregnant made them undesirable for workforce, therefore it was undesirable to invest scarce resources into their education, therefore it was easier to assume, after experience with many uneducated women, that they were less capable. Perhaps physical dangers and insecurity made it more possible to justify such control. Even in modern days, wherever there is war and insecurity, sexism and calls for control over women increase, while women tend to make it a priority to survive and protect their children rather than fight for less immediate rights. And in the old days, gentleness and kindness used to be beaten out of most kids fairly early in life to “toughen them up” for life full of struggle. More people than I’d expect still seem to believe that’s the right way to raise a child. More women than I’d expect are still brainwashed into accepting and promoting misogyny, not only men.

我是在建议大家屈服，接受生物学上的不可避免吗？当然不是，世界各地的许多例子都表明，文化可以调节和引导我们更原始的本能。但是 文化不会因为指责、过度简化和假定最坏的意图而改变 只要稍有挑衅（甚至没有任何挑衅），他们就会大打出手。这些行为鼓励的是抵制和否定，而不是同情。

Usually, the more prosperous a culture, the less concern about how we spend our resources and therefore the less desire to control female sexuality and reproductive rights. So it’s good news that the world in general is becoming more prosperous – although pollution, erosion of arable land, climate change and probable future wars might plunge us back into chaos. We’ll see how wise we are (or aren’t).

过度简化

Why are these oversimplified, exaggerated reactions so common? Why is it so difficult to see a wider, more complex perspective and understand that tribalism and cultural bias are lurking in all of us? Why can’t people understand that there are wiser and more constructive approaches than personal attacks at smallest mistakes?

Oversimplification is one of the “curses” of human brain; there is simply too much information to comfortably process and so 有了简单的想法和原则，我们会感觉更轻松.还有 我们越感到威胁无论是个人还是群体，都更需要过度简化。大脑需要资源来做其他事情。

社会脱节加剧 可能是另一个方面。我们与其他人相处的时间越少，就越不了解他们的复杂性；我们就越不能认识到每个人都有好的一面和坏的一面，每个人有时都不善于思考、不了解情况、缺乏经验、被洗脑或过于害怕而无法拓宽自己的思维。

You could (rightfully) say that people weren’t so dissociated from one another through most of the history, but they still weren’t any wiser. True, but the number of people each individual was connected with was fairly small then, there was much more pressure for conformism (for fear of survival) and next to no complex knowledge about human nature (or much else). Now the knowledge is available, the perspective is available, but personal experience is missing.

A 优越感, fed by teaching children that they are “special”, as well as the focus on 自信胜于能力 and individual gain over social responsibility, seems to be particularly common in United States. (I’m not saying that USA is the only such culture, but it’s certainly the most prominent at this time.) The sense of specialness makes it easier to dismiss other people and deny their complexity. As this sense of specialness is fragile and often not based on healthy parental love, such people are more likely to feel threatened by disagreement. Extreme ideas and refusal to see any other perspective seems particularly powerful when entitlement meets trauma – when people taught to think of themselves as special experience injustice and trauma. Such people can feel that any who disagrees with them even slightly approves of the injustice made to them. That’s because, in their core, they don’t really have the healthy sense of self-esteem.我可以冒昧地把整个综合症称为文化诱发的自恋。

宗教清教主义 is another source (and a consequence) of oversimplified thinking, and it can pervade a culture even when the culture moves away from the religion. The “liberals” in United States tend to be less religious than the conservatives, yet they can be just as unforgiving to perceived mistakes. In other parts of the world, too, the more puritanism in religion, the less tolerance and compassion for anything outside the norm.

对权力的需求 is in all of us. It’s instinctive, and just like intelligence or empathy, an individual might have more or less innate potential for it. The need for power is in constant conflict with instincts of empathy and cooperation. It depends of the unique balance of all those traits within an individual how the need for power will manifest. If strong will for power meets strong tribal instincts, people regardless of gender and political views can become irrational rabid extremists.

正如我提到的 在别处我们都知道，真正的问题不在于任何特定的人群。 问题在于一种文化接受或鼓励剥削、权力斗争和自我中心。 The more openly a culture justifies, rewards or doesn’t sanction such behaviors, the more injustice and violence there will be.

结论

By all means, we should be considerate to others and focus on their individuality rather than the group they belong to. But we should also understand that verbal attacks, temper tantrums and nitpicking not only fuel the opposition, but often repel moderate people who might otherwise be on our side. So we should keep our emotions in check, resolve our childhood issues so we can communicate as adults, and focus on explanations and rational arguments rather than blame. When you want to point out to somebody that they are making a mistake, it’s better to tap their shoulder than to kick them in the face. So let’s show some understanding for human imperfections on all sides.

另外，请记住，当你们忙于争论政治正确性的时候，政客及其亲信们正在摩拳擦掌，酝酿新的策略，竭尽所能地剥削其他人，不分性别、种族或性取向。

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