Communal correctness

Jonathan Chait recently burned up the internet with a column against “political correctness.”

 

It is true that in many settings now - not just universities - people avoid any possible offense to women and minorities. But one thing Chait gets wrong is that this dynamic is not limited to any particular political view: it happens in any community. A community is a group of people who share a common sense of what’s right. When someone deviates from that, it’s a threat to trust and good feeling; so everyone joins in disapproval and, at the extreme, bullying and expulsion. This happens in right-wing groups – try saying something nice about Obama – as well as left-wing.

The problem is that this “communal correctness,” whatever its source, shuts down dialogue and learning. In a period of increasing interaction across cultures and beliefs, it is particularly corrosive and must be challenged.

Yesterday, in a Masters’ class, I led a discussion on the problems women lawyers face in balancing work and family. A male student wondered whether women shouldn’t have to decide on one or the other. He started out strong – you really can’t both raise a family and do a top-level lawyer job well – and then, as he realized this was taking him into controversial waters, he hesitated and stumbled and looked around. “I mean, I really don’t want to offend anyone,” he said. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, and the discussion went on as if he hadn’t spoken. I did not intervene.

What should I have done?

Ideally, I should have said, “That’s a very important question,” and then explored the costs as well as the benefits of families with two working parents. I should have put into question the unspoken consensus that it is wrong to limit women’s aspirations in any way. That’s what a university is for, after all – to look for truth by investigating all aspects of a problem, even at the cost of offending people.

I didn’t do that, because in the moment I was worried about putting this young man on the spot. He was clearly worried about the reaction of his peers. I didn’t feel I had the right to drag him farther than he wanted to go.

But I do believe in dialogue and understanding. I will find another way to bring this up. I will talk to the student offline and affirm his right to speak his views, as long as he follows the basic norm of seeking understanding rather than being hostile or mean. I will say something to the class as a whole on the norms of discussion, how to disagree without being disagreeable. In future discussions I will challenge the communal consensus myself when necessary, voicing the unpopular and uncomfortable perspective in debates.

There is still a danger that I may encourage some individuals to go “too far,” to get themselves in trouble with their peers. At that point, however, I would say it's just part of the learning process. We need to know how to get into trouble when we want to, and to get out of it again, in order to enlarge the boundaries of community and mutual understanding.Learning involves stretching, which always has an element of danger. We can't protect ourselves and others from it all the time. Political correctness, our communal correctness in general, is among other things an excess of timidity.