Frank's Musings

Does a liberal have a right to his job despite his view that does not conform to the liberal convention of his employer?  That is one of the questions raised by the writers of the infamous letter to Harper’s that will be published in October, 2020.  In a capitalist society an employer has the right to hire those who help his company or institution achieve its goals.   However, there are many rules governing discrimination that derive from the liberal democratic nature of American society.  Therefore, the employer is prohibited from refusing a job to an applicant and for firing him solely on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, disability, and other factors. 

On the other hand, it has recently become common for employing organizations to pressure employees to resign or to fire them when their political views differ from the prevailing ideology in that organization.  Particularly when the organization earns its income or prestige based on a specific point of view, such discrimination may be defensible.  An aberrant view may be held by a valuable employee who merits the effort by the employer to dissuade him or to change his or the organization’s own conflicting view.  If such an outcome is not possible, however, the employer may be legally justified in letting go the non-conforming employee or contractor. 

In a capitalist system, no one has the right to be paid and/or published solely because of his competence.  The remedy for tyrannical enforcement of political correctness is competition.  Again, when it comes to a publisher of political opinions, the non-conformist has the option to join another publisher or to form his own, unless the state has co-opted that function. 

In a socialist or communist system, a citizen may be promised the right to a job.  But to exercise that right, the citizen has to relinquish other personal freedoms.  Some of those freedoms may be abhorrent to liberal philosophy; it is up to the citizens of a liberal democracy to restrain those freedoms in order to achieve social equity.  However, one who has or can raise the capital and has the entrepreneurship to succeed by espousing a restrictive, non-violent, non-discriminatory point of view, is entitled to build an organization that reflects his ideology. 

The signers of the Open letter that will appear in the October 2020 Harper’s Magazine would probably object to the characterization of their opinion piece as being politically correct.  In fact, it is exactly the opposite.  And yet, I would expect the usual foes of similar liberal views also to disagree with  the letter writers’ denunciation of the tyranny of institutional style-setters.  (How political is the celebrated tome written by Strunk and White?)

Broadly accepted standards of belief and behavior always set boundaries on an individual’s freedom to act independently.  The LGBTQ community certainly knows that.  Even those in the medical culture protect their careers by accepting more trauma from dealing with extreme health emergencies like COVID-19 thanmay be good for their physical and mental well-being.  (cf. the story of the suicide of Dr. Breen in the 7/12;2020 NYT.)  Both of these examples refer to only one level of the constraints that certain communities place on our individuality.   Indeed, another more general point of the Open Letter is that we adhere to political correctness not only at the expense of our careers, but more importantly at the expense of our democratic values.

  

The rebuttal of that letter reminded me of Kayleigh McEnany’s defenses of President Trump’s lies or misstatements.  Like her, the rebutters assume that their readers will easily be convinced of the unreliability of an opposing view by countering with the statement of irrelevant facts.  The illustrations used in the Open Letter of sanctions on nonconforming views were surely not meant to argue those cases; they were only meant to show how frequently not toeing the common line is met with punishment because ie discomfits the consensus rather than because it really harms anyone or the violates the principles of the institution.

The accepted norms of a liberal democratic society should aim to uphold order while allowing as much individual distinction and excellence as does not jeopardize its existence. The overriding standard of conduct in that society must uphold the common welfare=.   That means maximizing each person’s welfare to the extent that it doesn’t reduce the common welfare.  A narcissist would have trouble adhering to this standard—maybe that’s the point of the Open Letter.

The AfD party and its affiliated faction in Germany’s military KSK unit are only few in number; but given the country’s history, they have raised concern in the country’s press and civic groups (cf. New York Times 7/4/2020).  It is easy to dismiss that worry as alarmist. However, in light of President Trump’s Mt. Rushmore speech, it may signal a dangerous global trend.

Or is it another example of the stupid vulnerability of the Donald to being taken advantage of by nefarious schemers who know a wealthy blowhard when they see one.  How many times has he gone bankrupt by undertaking casino or real estate projects that made someone else rich while harming his own creditworthiness?  It is thankfully  becoming more likely that the only political beneficiaries of his chaotic White House tenure will be xenophobic hate-mongers and racists when he fails to win reelection. 

Trump is not personally a racist or xenophobe—the people closest to him are foreign-born and Jewish.  However, his solipsism blinds him to his unearned advantage over most other folks.  He behaves as if all inequities are just a matter of fate, only to be played as they are given, like a poker deal. 

Trump doesn’t believe it necessary to change anything.  How could

ld he make anything better for himself?  If it’s good for him, why should anyone want a change?  With no empathy for he plight of others, Trump cannot understand their desire to alter their circumstances.  Like the nationalists in Germany, Trump sees a threat to his self-satisfaction in any realignment of the society in which he lives—no addition of foreign-born population, no rebalancing of the distribution of wealth.

That literally makes Trump a conservative.  He is a natural ally of rightist Republicahs.  But he has wrongly interpreted their risistance to improvement of social conditions as allegiance to irrational prejudice.  Defending and egging on the fringe elements who espouse nativism and racial hatred has begun to alienate the natural conservative political base that brought him to power in 2016.  Moreover, it has started to energize the more liberal segments of the public to realize that they have a  lot to lose by being inactive at the polls in November.

It appears that the installment of Donald Trump at the top of the American political heap is not an isolated event.  Singleminded right-wing leaders have arisen in other modern countries, including Jair Bolsonaro, Mohammed bin Salman, and Tayyip Erdogan, to name a few.  They are all would-be buddies of the Donald along with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un.  Some of the eastern European leaders in the EU also espouse radical rightist policies; and there has been no weakening of the statist policies of China, India, or Iran either.

Forgive me for believing there is too much sense in America’s voting public to allow a Trump’s awkward appeal to a coalition of politically bored electorate and reactionary minority of the public to continue.  A rejection of Trump’s clumsy and harmful presumption of the presidency seems likely to happen in November.  Hopefully it will also weaken the grip on power of other more competent autocrats overseas.

It’s hard to believe that there is still 35% of the voting public that plans to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.  Why are there so many people who disagree with all the commentators (and presumably the managements) of the media to which I and others like me listen.  They also disagree with most overseas country leaders who are not beholden to presidentially-controlled assistance from the U.S. 

Sure, I’m dependent on that same media for reporting on the sentiment of those leaders and populations.  But even the editorial staffs of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News have recently shown deep doubts about the competence of the Trump presidency.  Like the rest of the thinking public, they have grown impatient with the total disregard, if not ignorance, with which Trump has addressed some of the dearest values and interests of America

The President’s speech at Mt. Rushmore on July 3, 2020, was a clear signal that his administration could transform itself into a dictatorship.  The president’s words turned many criticisms of his rule on their head. Yet, the audience below the memorial lapped it up.  Those lemming-like Trump-acolytes were also enthused by the words of the song that hailed the Chief to the podium—"God Bless the U.S.A.”  The theme of that narcissistic hymn was never clearer than at that celebration.  It applauds freedom to do what pleases the singer at the expense of any other claims on society, including equality, equity and justice. 

God save them from the disorder and chaos that their society will suffer from that outcome.  God save us all from the continuation of the nightmarish Trump presidency.