The Problem with Political Correctness
RALPH HANAN : CHALLENGING ORTHODOXY
In the history of the New Zealand National Party “The First Fifty Years”, Barry Gustafson describes Ralph Hanan as -
“ … a conservative on economic matters
… a source of many liberal ideas on social matters”.
Forty years ago, Ralph Hanan was the face of National party liberalism. The National Party has always been a broad church of an urban liberal perspective coupled with pragmatic conservatism. The enduring nature of the National Party as a successful mainstream party has depended on these two strands of New Zealand conservatism.
Josiah Ralph Hanan represented Invercargill from 1946 until his death in 1969. He was Minister of Health and Immigration from 1954 to 1957. However, it is in the portfolios of Justice, the Attorney General and Maori Affairs in the Holyoake administration in the sixties that he is best remembered. This was an era which most successfully captured the modernising spirit of New Zealand conservative governments.
Ralph Hanan was a formidable reformer. He established the Office of Ombudsman, reformed matrimonial property law, initiated race relations and human rights legislation and introduced modern penal policy, particularly concerning the rehabilitation of prisoners.
His reforming zeal was not confined to the law. As Minister of Maori Affairs, he sought to capture the energy of the Maori leaders who came out of World War II. He established the Maori Education Foundation to enable a new generation of Maori leaders to break the cycle of educational failure. It was during this period that many of the current generation of Maori leaders went to university. The 1963 Maori Affairs Act modernised Maori land law so that Maori land could be more effectively developed. It was one of his goals that Maori ought to have the skills and economic capacity to fully participate in New Zealand society.
Ralph Hanan’s reforms expressed the liberal tradition of expanding the rights of the individual against the power of the state. This is the kernel of freedom.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS : THE MODERN ORTHODOXY
Today we confront a problem which is the antithesis of the liberal tradition, and that is political correctness. Where liberalism encourages competing political ideas, political correctness, by law, language or conduct, seeks to suppress the expression of ideas. The essence of democracy is the choice of ideas and opinions, and the freedom to express these ideas. But democracy is not just about choice, it is also about majorities. The ideas and values of the majority are able to prevail over other choices. The politically correct ignore the democratic ideal both in terms of choice and majoritarism. It is their goal to capture the institutions of the state and mould them to reflect their views. The fact that their views may not reflect majority views, or indeed are specifically opposed to majority views, is immaterial. It is the imposition of these views that matters. That is the fundamental problem with political correctness.
Political correctness has three features. First, political correctness is a set of attitudes and beliefs that are divorced from mainstream values. Second, the politically correct person has a prescriptive view on how people should think and what they are permitted to discuss. Third, and most importantly, political correctness is embedded in public institutions, which have a legislative base, and which have coercive powers. It is this third aspect that gives political correctness its authority. Without this capture of power the views of the politically correct would simply be another view in the marketplace of ideas. A person, an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority, and become focussed on the cares and concerns of minority sector groups.
The minority capture of public institutions by the politically correct is a basic cause of people losing faith in the institutions of government. There is a profound belief that the current government is not concerned with nurturing the fundamental values and beliefs of our society. There is also concern that the government does not take much notice of the views and aspirations of the majority of New Zealanders. The Herald Digipoll (30 May) rated moral issues as the fifth greatest concern for the community. This poll is a clear reflection that the government has lost touch with New Zealanders and is concerned with promoting a minority agenda. This viewpoint is reinforced by the Prime Minister’s personal style which is derived from the feminist and socialist activism of the 1970s, and which adds to this sense of alienation of people from their government.
The attitudes and values of the politically correct may well have had their origins in the civil rights and equality campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s, but political correctness is not about protecting the fundamental rights that lie at the heart of these campaigns. It is about limiting or suppressing the way people are able to think and express their views. Political correctness runs counter to the basic freedoms of society, precisely because it is intended to limit the debate on issues of rights and freedoms.
The majority of the public come to describe an officially mandated view, which is disconnected from their reality, as politically correct. In contrast, the politically correct have their existence within an official power base and attempt to impose their views on the majority. While each of us has our own view on what is or is not politically correct (I am aware that even global warming has been described as politically correct), there are some things which are universally viewed as politically correct.
Anything that substantially deviates from the idea of equality is viewed as suspect, and driven by a politically correct agenda. That is why the issue of racial prejudice features prominently in any discussion on political correctness. In New Zealand this issue turns on the question of preferences built into the law. Such preferences amount to privilege and a separation of “us and them”, and run counter to the notion of equality.
That is why Dr Brash’s speech on Nationhood in Orewa in January 2004 struck a chord of resonance with New Zealanders. The phenomena of the Orewa speech does not lie in the actual policy prescriptions – these had been spelt out before. Instead, its impact came from the fact that the central idea of equality reflected the deeply held view of the majority. This idea came into sharp collision with the officially prescribed views of the elite who control the public sector institutions concerned with equality.
The questions posed by Dr Brash ran counter to the views of this elite. They are simple enough propositions; “What sort of nation do we want to build?” A modern democratic society, embodying the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state? Or is it a racially divided nation, with two sets of laws and two standards of citizenship?
The attitudes of this self-appointed elite about the need for special Treaty preferences in legislation are now deeply embedded within the public sector. Thus, the role of Deputy Auditor General requires a knowledge of the “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”, as if they had any relevance to good accounting practice. Virtually every public sector appointment requires Treaty knowledge, no matter how peripheral to the real needs of the job. Labour remains committed to the “principles of the Treaty”, having voted against a Bill to remove them from the law.
The problem is there can be no agreement as to what the principles are. The attempt to build an enduring consensus from “the principles of the Treaty”, divorced from the terms of the Treaty, has proven to be a task beyond the capability of either the courts or the bureaucracy. The reason is simple. The principles of the Treaty have been disconnected from the terms of the Treaty. The principles have proven to be a fertile ground for the politically correct, but to the disadvantage of the Treaty itself.
Public sector bureaucrats now feel they must thrust Maori culture into every conceivable public event, heedless of whether it will actually promote or enhance the culture. The commencement of a motorway project should not require a 40 minute powhiri within a 50 minute event. That approach is more likely to lead to private frustration and disregard for other cultures.
Similarly, the hate speech proposals have their source in the bastions of the politically correct. They have stirred up a counter-reaction precisely because the proposals are intended to limit debate on contentious issues. People fear that government appointees to the Human Rights Commission who hold liberal views will use their coercive power to prevent free speech. The attempt to censor a conservative Christian video which condemned homosexuality perfectly illustrates the fear. There are New Zealanders who want to be able to express their views on homosexuality, not just privately, but through the public media. The attempt to ban the video was an attempt to prevent people expressing their views, on the basis that it was hate speech. It is not an issue about the validity of these views, it is a question of free speech, and this frequently means going against current orthodoxy.
The effect of the hate speech proposal is that only politically correct speech is permissible. Under the guise of protecting minorities, we lose one of the most important values in a free society; the right to freely express one’s opinion. The whole point of freedom of speech is that it protects opinions that one sector of society might be deeply opposed to.
The origin of political correctness does cause confusion. This is because political correctness has its origins in campaigns for equality, particularly the campaign for racial equality, which have often been driven by the liberal side of politics. The contemporary result is that the more vociferous opponents of political correctness fall into the trap of implying, for example, that racism is okay, simply because it is not politically correct. Doing the opposite to the politically correct is not the basis to oppose political correctness. This trap, however, indicates why it is so important to analyse the problems arising from political correctness.
At one end of the spectrum, political correctness consists of examples of foolish government conduct, such as Te Papa refusing to exhibit live geckos for fear of offending Maori, or failure of police to inform a mother for a whole day that her daughter had been murdered because an iwi care officer could not be found, or proposals for a fast food Fat Tax, or the funding of community education programmes on “Twilight Golf” and “Party Guitar”.
These kinds of examples certainly annoy or irritate people, but they seldom affect people’s lives in a tangible way. The fact they are obvious examples of foolish bureaucratic behaviour outside the mainstream makes it easy to label them as politically correct. Such examples of the absurd do not convey a systemic reason why political correctness is harmful.
The more serious forms of political correctness are the behaviours and attitudes that are now deeply embedded in some of our public institutions and which form the basis of official pronouncements to govern the way we think and act. Not every public institution is susceptible to takeover by the politically correct. The risk lies primarily with those institutions that have as their primary mandate dealing with discrimination.
The last three decades have seen an enormous growth of human rights laws and institutions which are intended to protect people from unfavourable discrimination. The most important human right in this category of rights is the right to be free from racial discrimination. The history of racial discrimination has been so grave that specific legislation has been widely adopted in western countries. The precedent of specific laws prohibiting racial discrimination has been seized upon to develop general laws protecting against a broad range of discrimination, including sex, sexual orientation, gender, age, religion, and political beliefs.
Providing a legal right of protection from serious discrimination is an essential component of a liberal democracy. The problem largely lies with the institutions that have been built up around the actual rights being protected. Traditional Bills of Rights depend on people who are discriminated against taking action in the courts for their rights to be protected. There is a rigorous process of legal argument and counter-argument, with decisions based on a comprehensive and considered analysis of the law.
The modern approach has been to establish special Commissions and Tribunals, with politically appointed Commissioners. Their powers are not just limited to the enforcement of legal rights. They also have an advocacy role. This involves publications setting out the Commissions’ approved view of appropriate language or behaviour. The advocacy role also includes making public pronouncements on the correctness of other people’s views. The overall objective of such Commissions and Tribunals is to promote their views on the right of way of thinking about discrimination.
This is the very trap of political correctness. What started off as a well-intentioned project to prevent discrimination ends up as a prescribed way of thinking. Joris de Bres’ comments on Dr Brash’s Orewa I speech is a case in point. He used his Office to try and stop people thinking about the issues raised in the speech. It was a classic case of political correctness. Since he disagreed with Dr Brash’s speech, it therefore was forbidden to think of the issues in the way that had been set out by Dr Brash.
WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS?
What, then, can be done to deal with the problems of political correctness? The obvious answer is to remove the advocacy role of such Commissions. They ought to be concerned with the adjudication of rights, not propagating the ideologies of the politically correct. Their advocacy role stems from their legislative mandate. It is time to remove this mandate which does little more than sanction propaganda.
Enforcement of the law against discrimination remains an essential part of our modern democracy. Racial and other serious discrimination should not be tolerated. It is not just a question of such discrimination being undesirable. The scourge of serious racial discrimination is such a deep affront to the notions of a just society, that it is in a society’s interests for it to be proscribed.
It is noteworthy that in the United States, enforcement action is undertaken by the Department of Justice. The equivalent institution in New Zealand would be the Crown Law Office, with either civil or criminal prosecutions depending on the nature of the breach. Crown Law, with its highly developed prosecution system, would ensure that fundamental legal rights are properly protected. But this has the advantage of avoiding the risk of capture of institutions by ideologues.
In contrast, the Human Rights Commission sees advocacy as its primary goal. It is the most cherished institution of the politically correct, precisely because its mandate is the agenda of the politically correct. The question can be asked – has the expansion of the advocacy role of the Human Rights Commission done anything to enhance human rights, or rather does it cause distrust of institutions that ought to be respected?
The Waitangi Tribunal also exhibits the same flaws, with its mix of advocacy and quasi-judicial roles. Its role would be enhanced if it was confined to performing its quasi-judicial function, which is hearing the claims and making recommendations on historic grievances. The involvement of the Tribunal in contemporary issues inevitably brings it into political debate, as occurred in the foreshore and seabed issue. The Tribunal derives its credibility from the fact that it carefully evaluates the historical record, and places a judicial microscope over claims. If the Tribunal is used as a political weapon in the debate on contemporary issues, its authority is immediately undermined. Judges are respected because they do not involve themselves in political discourse. As soon as they do, their role as independent arbiters is impaired.
Resolving historic claims over the next five years will be a considerable challenge. The Waitangi Tribunal cannot be sidetracked into the political contest if it is going to successfully assist in the task of resolving claims. The only way to maintain integrity in the Tribunal is to limit its jurisdiction to making recommendations on historic claims.
LABOUR’S ROLE IN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
The Labour Government has consciously and conspicuously promoted the agenda of the politically correct. It does so through its appointments, and by its policies and legislative programmes. The reason is that the agenda of the politically correct reflects the views and values of the senior members of the government. John Tamihere’s sin was not just the attack on his own colleagues. He revealed that senior government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, are the politically correct brigade. His ripping off of the mask revealed the true nature of this Labour Government. It does not reflect the values of most New Zealanders.
The Government has spent a great deal of its energy and time promoting minority and alternative causes; the promotion of brothels, the establishment of civil unions, the opposition to parents being informed that their child under 16 is having an abortion, the funding and promotion of the Maori spiritual world view. It does so because these issues represent the agenda of the politically correct.
For an irreligious government, the promotion of Maori spiritual values is particularly strange. Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation now includes recitation of Maori myths and legend. Why would a government whose Prime Minister is, at the very least, agnostic, allow legislation that promotes the Maori spiritual viewpoint? Is it because white guilt is so deeply ingrained in the Labour Government that they feel they have to give the Maori spirit world special preference and legislative acknowledgement? Many New Zealand State occasions now routinely include Maori protocol, with all its religious manifestations. In contrast, a simple grace is forbidden by Prime Ministerial edict at State luncheons.
The contradiction has arisen because of the fundamental confusion on the part of the Labour Government. The whole point of the secular state is that it does not prefer any one religion or belief. To do so discriminates against all other beliefs. Since political correctness is rooted in preferring particular viewpoints, it is hardly surprising the Maori spiritual perspective has been given legislative mandate, albeit within a climate of aggressive secularism. The inclusion of Maori myth and legend in the law is to commit a classic sin of political correctness. National will not make the error of including Maori myth and legend in law.
The minority, therefore, has come to dominate the majority, which is an inherent feature of political correctness. This is not done with the intention of protecting minority rights, which is a legitimate aspect of any democracy. Instead, the intent is to ensure that minority world views take precedence over the reasonably held views of the majority.
Political correctness is a real challenge for National and other moderate centre-right parties. There is a natural abhorrence of the agenda of the politically correct, it being so rooted in leftist liberalism. Simply railing against political correctness will not do. There needs to be a clear political programme to reverse it; to remove the viewpoints and language of the politically correct from the institutions of government. Unless there is such a programme, the public who are intensely irritated about political correctness, are unlikely to believe anything will materially change, other than the most obvious examples of government silliness. There needs to be a commonsense strategy that deals with the central issue; what to do about those state institutions that foster the ideas of political correctness.
Political correctness is grounded in the capture of state institutions, with official spokespeople, legislative powers and ultimately sanctions for breach. Without these features, the attitudes and beliefs of the politically correct would be just another viewpoint in society, able to be debated and discussed in the same manner as any other set of ideas. Political correctness requires capture of state institutions by a minority so that the public institutions that deal with discrimination have now been taken over by people who are outside mainstream values.
Removing the power of the politically correct means removing their institutional and legislative base. This does not mean there will be no place in society where the ideas of political correctness are likely to continue to have some currency. The universities, for instance, will always be a place for a wide variety of viewpoints. That is part of their basic function in a democratic free society. Universities exist, to debate and discuss the values and beliefs of society.
However, the institutions of our government, which have coercive powers, should be focussed on enforcing the law, not exercising an advocacy role, which is divisive in our society.
New Zealanders are fair people. We do not accept fundamentally unfair discrimination. We should expect that our public institutions will be a fair reflection of the values that underpin our country. This has not happened under a Labour Government. National’s challenge is to undo the actions of the Labour Government, which have caused such a crisis in the trust placed in our public institutions.
Ralph Hanan was a crusader in the New Zealand liberal tradition. He expanded the rights of citizens against coercive state power. His ideals have been perverted by the growth of state institutions with coercive powers to limit reasonable freedom of expression and thought. This is the evil of political correctness. It will be our task to restore freedom to our citizens and restore the true intent of the liberal tradition.