What Planet Are You From?

This editorial by David Asman involves a case where some of the villains behind the TV show Friends are being sued by a former secretary who considered their comedy brain-storming sessions sexual harrassment. Okay, fine. Maybe. I’d have to know the facts of the case–which aren’t given in any detail in the editorial–to know whether the woman was subject to sexual harrassment.

But Asman seems to think something unusual is going on with the woman’s case. He refers to Hollywood getting a taste of its own PC medicine, concluding:

Hollywood, so long a bastion of political correctness is now being stung by a new level of political correctness. As First Amendment lawyer Harvey Silvergate puts it: “Here, we glimpse the next plateau — punishing bad thoughts.”

I’d like to know what planet Asman and Silvergate have been living on. Political correctness has always been about punishing more than bad behaviors. It has always been an attempt to punish bad thoughts. The way those thoughts are manifested in behavior is simply the entrypoint for trying to squelch the thoughts themselves.

That is the whole point, for example, behind PC “hate crime” legislation. We already have laws on the books prescribing punishment for people who harm others in various ways–for example, by assault and battery. But to create special “hate crime” legislation that seeks to punish people in a special way because of the possible sociological content of their motive in committing assault and battery is all about punishing particular thoughts. Since hate is something that exists in the realm of thought, “hate crime” legislation is what George Orwell might have called “thought crime” legislation, with “hate” (however that gets construed under a particular person’s social agenda) being classified as a thoughtcrime.

The same applies across the PC social agenda. The PC agenda seeks to deal with problematic thoughts (e.g., racist ones, sexist ones) not by reason and persuasion, or even by voluntary social ostracization of malefactors, but by imposing new laws and policies which will result in punishment if violations are committed. It’s all about prohibiting certain forms of thought via the construction of particular laws and policies designed to punish those who harbor and express those thoughts.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

One thought on “What Planet Are You From?”

Comments are closed.