Stephen Gottlieb: Political Correctness

I want to address one of the issues coming out of recent events on college campuses, not to mention the rhetoric of Mr. Trump.

Frankly, I’m fed up with the attack on what the right wing calls political correctness. Apparently some think the condemnation of racism in our social interactions is merely political correctness. It should be open season on everyone. Of course that’s a two-way street. I can think of all sorts of epithets and insulting language to hurl at people who would protect nothing but their own right to trash everyone they dislike. That of course describes Congress – the wraps are off all forms of battle. There are no rules in a knife fight as a legal scholar once titled an article. Apparently civility is the enemy.

I think of politeness as normal and proper behavior in a democratic or any society. People were civil to me in Iran regardless of their reactions to my nationality or religion. But some denounce the very idea of civility, of being polite. Civility and politeness are essential to democracy because we have to live together. They are essential to democracy because we have to work across disagreements to get even the things we all agree on done. They are essential to democracy because if we make each other the enemy we are headed toward the breakdown of all democratic institutions, starting, as the Rehnquist Court made clear, with vote counting. Polite behavior toward each other is essential because without it we are headed toward violence.

I did not grow up with prejudice against Blacks but I did grow up with plenty of other instinctive prejudices that I did not investigate because they seemed so ordinary. Nevertheless I did not go around hurling epithets at people. I eventually learned to bury those prejudices, at least those of which I am aware, and to fight against the mistreatment of those selfsame people by our government and society. But being polite was always a different issue. It was about the respect that we are bound to show all people in a democratic society.

As you all know, I teach law. And I have often taught practice skills, interviewing, litigation, trial practice. I do not teach people to walk up to the jury box and ask a juror why we should want an ethnic, racial, or religious so-and-so like you to sit in the jury box. I do teach my students that talking with people or interviewing witnesses or clients requires respectful listening and showing some understanding of what they are trying to tell you regardless of what you may think of them. That’s necessary to get the job done.

When the people become the issue instead of their behavior, politics becomes particularly dangerous. When politics is no longer about issues but about people, it’s not just whether they lose a political debate; it’s that people stand to lose everything, to lose the protection of the laws. And by the same token the oppressors become the proper subject of the laws.

From the behavior of the right, or wrong, wing, I question whether they believe in democracy, and therefore whether, by their defense of political incorrectness they, the wrong wing, are entitled to respect. Makes me want to solve our political problems by just giving Texas back to Mexico.

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