Source: Global Times
[Global Times reporter Chen Zishuai, Zhang Mengxu, Wang Shuo] Editor's note: "Political correctness" in American society originated from the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but if we understand "political correctness" as "American hypocrisy" and "double standards" of "one word and one behind" have a long history. For example, the Civil War, which was originally a dispute between interests and models, was shaped by later American historians as a "politically correct" battle to abolish slavery. Today, American "political correctness" that attempts to whitewash language and behavior still tear apart the values of the American people, and accelerates the formation of "two United States": on the one hand, the tone of "political correctness" involving ethnic minorities, women's rights, American democracy and human rights remains high; on the other hand, the US government's indulgence of racial discrimination and aggravated social injustice and deviated from humanitarianism to create an immigration crisis is also popular. At the same time, the relevant foreign policies formulated by the American elite group, which claims to be "political correct" in the fields of ideological , also reflect the United States' own hypocrisy, high irresponsibility and external destructiveness. " Global Times " has successively launched "deep cognition" articles starting today, explaining the hypocrisy and destructiveness of American "political correctness" from multiple dimensions. The vivid contrast between serious double standards and hypocritical democracy not only makes the international community realize that the United States is increasingly "chaotic, confusing and dysfunctional", but also reflects the decline of the United States' hegemony.
Civil War did not achieve ethnic equality morally
In the early history of the founding of the United States, there were too many "double standards" past events. On the one hand, the colonists killed their fertile land under the guise of "according to law"; on the other hand, the Americans claimed to "defend the freedom of the people" and sent heavy troops to siege and seize large tracts of land. The American Civil War, often called the Civil War, is a cruel war wrapped in "political correctness".
In early winter of 2020, the movie "The Burning of Atlanta" with the theme of Civil War was released in the United States. When describing the Northern Army General Sherman burning the southern important town of Atlanta , there was a scene in which the citizens asked: "You have occupied this city, why do you still burn it? You must know that we have lived here for 30 years!" The background of the story is: In order to achieve a decisive victory in the hard battle, in the spring of 1864, the Northern Army, under the command of General Grant , took a new action plan - in which a large army led by General Sherman was ordered to fight to the enemy's inside line and do everything possible to carry out destruction. The brutal sweep operation began in Atlanta. After conquering Atlanta in September that year, Sherman ordered the city to set fire. Thousands of elderly, weak and weak women and children knelt on the ground, begging their compatriots in the north not to destroy their homes, but were all kicked away. Fires churned everywhere in Atlanta, the night sky was like daylight, and the fire could be seen dozens of kilometers away. In mid-November, Sherman led more than 60,000 soldiers to abandon all their supplies and march south. Within more than a month, the northern army robbed all the livestock and grain along the way, burned all the passing towns, villages, and factories, and killed all the resisters and the livestock that could not be taken away. This "Three Lights" action was deliberate and completely ignored the moral bottom line on the battlefield. This bottomless approach made the Confederate city broken, the wealth was exhausted, the people were poor, and the cold were scared, and they were unable to continue fighting. The heartless Sherman said: "War is hell!" In the eyes of the southern rulers, Sherman is " Attila of the American continent ( Hun King of the ancient Roman period)".
In the main battlefield of the Civil War Virginia , Maryland , Pennsylvania and other places, there are ruins and cemeteries left by the war. In the movie " Lengshan ", which tells the American Civil War, there are also many scenes that reproduce the cruelty of the war. On the issue of unification and division, the Americans gave historical answers with such a cruel war, and were written by historians as "fighting to maintain national unity, which later evolved into a revolutionary war to eliminate slavery."In the view of Li Haidong, professor of , the Institute of International Relations of the School of Diplomacy, : "The American 'political correctness' shaped by Western historians conceals the deep economic division and political greed hidden behind the history of the civil war." On the surface, the American Civil War is a question of ensuring the integrity of federal system , but in fact it is a duel between the two major interest groups. The purpose is to allow the northern industrial and commercial groups to unify the entire domestic market in the capitalist way. In addition, the Northern Federation finds it difficult to accept the emergence of a political entity in the North American continent that is comparable to its strength. This is also a typical "political correctness" in today's American diplomacy, that is, it cannot accept the existence of a country on par with it.
"The goal of the American Civil War is to compete for political and capital interests, create greater development space for northern industrial and commercial capital, rather than morally realizing ethnic equality." Diao Daming, a researcher at the National Development and Strategy Institute of Renmin University of China and deputy director of the of the Center for American Studies, believes that the overthrow of slavery is only a by-product of the war in the United States. Even after slavery was overthrown, African-American and other minorities still did not receive the so-called equal treatment. It can even be said that nowadays, the Civil War in the United States only nominally overthrew slavery, and the African-American group changed from slaves of white slave owners to slaves of the entire white society, which also led to racial discrimination in American society for a long time. The "political correctness" of the United States, shaped by historians, is just a saying that embellishes the authenticity of history.
This may be an American-style "shaming for the respectful one"
American writer William Faulkner Many novels describe the rise and fall of southern society over a century before and after the Civil War. He sighed like this: "History will not die, nor will it even end." American writer Mark Herzgard asked in his book "The Shadow of the Eagle - Why America is both fascinating and hated": "Why our country has never faced the crimes committed when it was founded. A large number of Indians were brutally massacred and their land was plundered..." He also wrote that even in the 1960s, the United States made great progress in civil rights, it was still difficult for the media to fully and truly reflect the sufferings suffered by black Americans during slavery.
is indeed the case. In the United States, the topic of black and white race has always been very sensitive. For example, the first US president, George Washington, , was a slave owner, but in the vast sea of records about Washington, , this point is still intentionally or unintentionally downplayed. This may be the American-style "sheltering shame for the respected person" or "political correctness". Wen Xian, a senior reporter from the People's Daily who has worked in the United States for many years, talked about his experience of visiting the Wulund Plantation related to the Washington family in his new book "The Tearing America - In-depth Observation of a Permanent American Reporter". According to Ms. Herman, who specializes in studying the history of the Wulund Plantation, even though the estate is located in the north - Vernon Hill , which is only about 20 kilometers away from the US capital, it also owned hundreds of slaves from West African before the Civil War broke out. After the war broke out, in order to prevent the forces supporting the South from sabotaging the plantation, local volunteer troops were organized, including the armed local blacks. Hermann said that in American history, the past of black slaves is often intentionally "drown" in official history, and research on the American Civil War is mostly focused on battlefields, generals and white people. Few people are interested in the stories of black people. Many museums in the United States do not preserve the remains related to slaves because their owners are unwilling to display too much of this history related to racial discrimination.
In the view of some researchers, "political correctness" began during the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. At first, it was referring to the four major groups of minorities, women, homosexuals and dissidents, including Africans, who must not negatively evaluate negatively in public places. In promoting the protection of the rights of minorities in the United States, the self-discipline of "political correctness" has indeed made certain progress in American society, such as promoting the promulgation of the Civil Rights Act and the Electoral Rights Act in the 1960s.After the 1980s, "political correctness" gradually moved closer to identity politics, becoming a "performance" for some elite figures to express their political propositions and cultural demands. While protecting the rights and interests of minorities, it also caused many controversial phenomena or events. For example, famous schools "prioritize care for certain minorities" and other ethnic groups feel "reverse discrimination". Some college teachers were forced to resign because of their words and deeds being accused of being "not politically correct enough". Many Americans complain that they have been exhausted by these so-called "political correctness" or can only remain silent. They don't want to see the "political correctness" that is exploited by political parties and attacked each other, and they are also tired of the superficial "political correctness" like in Hollywood movies or commercials.
Hong Yuan, a researcher at the American Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that Americans emphasize "political correctness" in order to relieve social inequality and discrimination on the surface, but in terms of improving the economic foundation and fighting for political rights, it cannot help the vast majority of American people break through the long-standing " glass ceiling ", which is the mystery of American social life. When many people talk about the "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement, the first thing they think is that black people were kidnapped into the United States by white people as slaves. White slave owners have natural genes of original sin, and the black resistance movement has profound historical factors and justice. But this understanding is essentially a misunderstanding of the just appeal of the second US equal rights and equal rights movement. This movement is a struggle against political and legal inequality under economic inequality. Not only blacks and minorities, but also many whites joined in and became a social struggle against political and economic inequality among various groups that emerged in order to strive for ethnic equality.
America will become fragmented, or even "tribalized"
People who have lived in the United States for a long time can feel completely different "two Americas": one is the glamorous white consortium and the white middle-class "America on the countryside lakeside and the seashore" of minorities, and the other is the "America on the black neighborhood" of minorities such as black people who have been abandoned and ignored and fend for themselves. Hong Yuan, who once worked as a visiting scholar in the United States, believes that the two actually operate independently, and there are huge differences in many aspects such as education, medical care, public security, environment, residence, law, lifestyle, and political rights. This huge inequality contrast under the cover of hypocritical canopy such as "freedom, democracy, equality, and human rights" will further tear the American society, which has a history of black slavery, and become an incurable social chronic disease.
The so-called "political correctness" coupled with changes in the US population structure further aggravates white people's concerns and further polarizes American politics. As some critics joked, “ The Republican Party of the United States is becoming a white party, and the Democratic Party is becoming a minority party.” Some experts also concluded that "identity will slowly replace the economy and ideology and become the core difference in American politics." This psychology has promoted the white supremacy and xenophobic thoughts in the United States, and promoted the current division of values in the United States in areas such as racism, refugee immigration policies, and the gap between the rich and the poor.
In Diao Daming's view, it is expected that by the mid-1940s, the proportion of white people in the U.S. population will fall below 50%, and Hispanics will account for about 25%. By then, the United States will become a country with no major ethnic demographic structure, which will aggravate the concerns of the white group about its status and is also the reason why the so-called "big substitution" argument has emerged and the continuous soaring of extreme violence against minorities in recent years. By then, every ethnic group will use all its powers to defend their rights and interests and emphasize their respective "political correctness", which will inevitably lead to the complete tearing and fragmentation of the United States' national identity and social identity, and even become a "tribalization". Although the changes in the US population structure are irreversible, "political correctness" itself constrains the possibility of the United States effectively responding to population changes through appropriate policy adjustments, and at the same time exacerbates the dilemma and social division that the United States continues to face. Therefore, blind pursuit of "political correctness" and blindly pursuing others will lead to the continuous tearing of American society and a series of violent behaviors.
Li Haidong also believes that for the development of the United States and the "health" of social development and political "health", hypocritical "political correctness" will bring adverse consequences to it. The "political correctness" in the United States is a set of socially consensus concepts, rules or behavioral patterns arising from the struggle and collision of different interest groups in American society. The main crux of the existing "political correctness" in the United States is that it cannot solve major problems in the United States, including ethnic conflicts, and it is difficult to promote cross-ethnic integration and strengthen social cohesion. Instead, it aggravates the current dilemma of the United States, leading to political polarization and social division, showing strong hypocrisy. It can be clear that if the proliferation of populism in the United States forms momentum and its political dominance gradually becomes stronger, the United States will create a new connotation of "political correctness", but this will inevitably aggravate the dissatisfaction of minorities and thus create new contradictions.
The main content of the next issue of this series
The midterm election is imminent, and various chaos and struggles are making the American people's confidence in their own democratic system continue to decline. In dealing with many issues such as ethnic minorities, immigration, gender, religion, homosexuality, educational equality, climate change, etc., "political correctness" has become a shot in the fight between the two parties. Such " American hypocrisy" is emptiing the political rights of the American people.
