Jonathan Chait's recent cri de coeur on the resurgence of "political correctness" is a bit muddled about its subject, alternating between complaints that it's too extreme, that it's too identity-based, and that it's too repressive of others' free speech rights.  Needless to say, he's being pilloried from both the left and the right, the former for his treason and the latter for his hypocrisy (he's allegedly committed at least some of the crimes of which he accuses the "PC police"). 

And some of those criticisms are quite valid.  For example, complaining that "political correctness" is dangerous because it's too extreme, or otherwise wrong and terrible, is a red herring.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion regarding what is extreme or wrong or terrible, whether they are to Chait's left, to his right, or in perfect alignment with him.  I happen to agree with Chait that the ideas he's ridiculing are ridiculous, and when people who adhere to them decide to admonish me for ridiculing them, I typically laugh them off as fools, rather than warn darkly of the danger they pose.

In particular, racial, ethnic or gender essentialism--the idea that an argument's merit depends on those innate properties of the arguer--is certainly most worthy of criticism.  In many cases, it's tantamount to outright bigotry.  (See my comments on white privilege, for instance.)  But it's also pretty transparently stupid, and reasonable people shun such arguments, including Chait, myself and many others.  Lumping the purveyors of such crackpot ideas together as a dangerous movement seems a tad overwrought.

The point at which these ideas really do become dangerous, though, is the point at which they sneak their way into official or de facto policies applied by organizations with real power.  It's here that Chait's misunderstanding of the history of "political correctness" sends him badly off-course.  In Chait's telling, "political correctness" enjoyed a bit of a heyday during the 1990s on college campuses, then disappeared for a while, only to reappear lately both on campus and on Internet social fora.  In fact, the political correctness campaign of the 1990s was a coordinated effort by campus radicals and liberal college administrators to effectively purge or silence all political conservatives on most major college campuses.  The purge having largely succeeded, the campaign died down, only to heat up recently, with the same campus radicals (or their successors) attempting this time to ally with newer, more left-leaning college administrators to purge moderate or centrist liberals.  It's this new purge which has Chait, a fairly middle-of-the-road liberal despite his sometimes-incendiary rhetoric, so up-in-arms.

Some non-academic circles, particularly the journalism and entertainment industries, have also mirrored this same sequence of purges.  As Chait himself tells it, his colleagues are now loath to express opinions that might run afoul of his own circle's equivalent of campus radicals, for fear not only of rebuke, but of real loss of stature in the rather close-knit community of "mainstream" opinion journalism (overwhelmingly dominated, of course, by liberals).  And cases such as Brandon Eich's and Maria Conchita Alonso's show that enforcement of politically correct orthodoxy is not confined to college campuses alone.

The problem, therefore, is not actually "political correctness"--neither the opinions themselves nor their aggressive advocates--but rather the institutions that have been captured by those advocates and purged of opponents.  More precisely, it's that several important social institutions have repeatedly proven themselves vulnerable to such capture and subsequent purging.  Unsurprisingly, those institutions also enjoy a cartel-like non-competitive position that allows them to be co-opted without losing their social influence. 

The solution in each case, then, is not to attempt to counteract the influence of politically correct infiltrators--let alone to purge them--but rather to remove the institution's protected status, and subject it to the kind of competition that makes internal enforcement of a repressive political orthodoxy untenable.  When accredited universities and cable-carried news channels are no longer dominated by a single political outlook, and students and viewers are free to choose options they're comfortable with, then the iron grip of political correctness will inevitably fall away.  As for Chait's own field--well, perhaps he's working for the wrong type of magazine...

Two interesting developments in on-campus politics reinforce points I've made previously about bias in the modern university:

1.  A political science professor at Marquette University has been suspended for a blog posting criticizing a fellow instructor for allegedly restricting in-class debate on gay marriage.  An obvious parallel can be drawn with the Salaita affair, in which the University of Illinois administration vetoed a job offer to a Native American studies professor based on the virulently anti-Zionist content of his Twitter feed.  Yet a web search for pages containing the names of both professors turns up remarkably few hits, most of them explaining why the cases are actually completely different.  (One distinction offered is that criticizing a fellow professor is far more egregious a breach of civility than, say, preaching hate for all the citizens of an entire country.  I'll leave it to the reader to infer the implications of that argument.)

What this juxtaposition demonstrates is that although academics remain adamant about imposing their political preferences on academia to the greatest extent possible, they're equally adamant in refusing to admit that that is in fact what they intend to do.  Arguments about "civility", consistently mustered against only certain points of view in any political debate, are transparent pretexts for the imposition of political limits on that debate. 

And those limits would be eminently defensible--if only those imposing them were willing to fess up and concede their intentions.  Marquette University, for instance, is officially a private Jesuit institution, and could at one time have been understandably expected to impose a Catholic-friendly atmosphere on its students, even at the expense of stifling "debate" about, say, the empirical falsehood of this or that tenet of Catholic dogma.  If it is instead now a bastion of liberal dogma, then why shouldn't it proudly so declare itself, and impose its moral principles accordingly?

The question answers itself, of course:  if it did so, then many (though certainly not all, and maybe not even most) students would refuse to fork over its hefty tuition, being more interested in a rigorous education undistorted by those particular doctrinal restrictions.  So instead it lies, and pretends that it is a non-partisan champion of free and open intellectual inquiry, taking no position on where it may lead.  In this respect, Marquette is no different from virtually every other university in America--as William F. Buckley Jr. pointed out more than fifty years ago.

Unfortunately, this pretense not only criminally defrauds the students who pay enormous sums to receive what they imagine to be a non-partisan education; it's also responsible for both originating and exacerbating the problem it's designed to cover up.  A university with a clearly stated mission has at least the foundation of a defense against being co-opted by a faction with a conflicting agenda, but a university embracing empty neutrality is defenseless:  between a leadership hamstrung by its obligation to at least appear to make all its decisions impartially, and a group of partisans ready to advance their cause by any means at their disposal, there's simply no doubt which side will win every political or bureaucratic battle.  Indeed, that's no doubt how the erstwhile Jesuits of Marquette University came to be completely dominated by partisan leftists in the first place. 

2.  A recent research paper has taken the highly unusual step of arguing that (per its title), "Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science".  It claims that the uniformity of political opinion in the field of social psychology introduces biases into its research, and that the solution is to increase the diversity of political opinion among researchers in the field.

The obvious question to ask is why they stop at the political biases of social psychology researchers, omitting, say, the research assistants who collate survey results, the subjects on whom the research studies are performed, the employees of the printer companies whose products print the surveys used in the studies, and so on.  Mightn't their political biases affect research results as well?

Of course, if your research methodology allows the political bias of your RAs, subjects or printer manufacturing workers to bias your research results, then there's a serious problem with your research methodology, and the solution is to fix that problem, not attempt to root out imperfect balances in political opinion wherever they might conceivably interact with your research.  But couldn't the same thing be said of the researchers themselves?  If the quality of their research depends on their collective political balance, then how can they ever even conceivably do good research, given that they will inevitably be collectively biased in some direction or other (say, in the direction of increasing government grants for social psychology research, perhaps)?  And if the research is subject to political bias, then what other kinds of bias might also be seeping into research results?  Racial bias?  Gender bias?  Religious or cultural bias?

The problem of bias--political and otherwise--in experimental results is hardly a new one, and it's actually rather shocking that social psychologists are only now beginning to discuss grappling with it.  And the fact that introducing political diversity into the field is considered a plausible and reasonable approach to the problem is a demonstration of just how pitifully naïve and confused the social sciences are in dealing with it.  Generating unbiased experimental results--or even getting a reasonable handle on the possible biases in one's experimental results--is extraordinarily hard, and that's one reason why scientists (supposedly) undergo such extensive and rigorous training, and why their work is (supposedly) subjected to such intensive peer scrutiny before being published.

In practice, of course, those standards have long disappeared, and much published research--even in the hard sciences, as my co-blogger is fond of pointing out--is actually transparently shoddy.  So when a social psychologist advocates increasing political diversity in the field as a way of reducing experimental bias, he should be understood to be saying, not "here's a previously-undetected source of subtle bias in our research, and here's a clever way to reduce it", but rather, "we all know that our work is shot through with bias of all kinds, which we frankly can't be bothered to try to mitigate significantly, but this particular type of bias is likely to be both obvious and annoying to the non-scientists who pay our salaries, so perhaps we should at least make some pretense of trying to address it."

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, numerous conservative press critics are condemning the "cowardice" of media outlets that are censoring the Charlie Hebdo's controversial Islam-ridiculing cartoons.  These critics are giving journalists far too little credit for courage:  they routinely face mortal danger all over the world, yet continue to report on far-flung places where their comrades have only recently fallen.  Pursuing the story even in the face of violence is a core journalistic value.   

But while it's clearly not cowardice that's triggering the censorship, neither is it principled reluctance to offend religious groups, as the news outlets themselves typically claim.  There are in fact many examples of newsworthy images offensive to religions other than Islam that have been given wide, generally uncensored coverage in the media, from the famous artworks "Piss Christ" and "The Holy Virgin Mary" made of elephant dung, to this New York Daily News photo of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon, which includes a carefully censored caricature of a Muslim, and a completely uncensored anti-Semitic caricature of a Jew.

Rather, journalists selectively resist or appease threats of violence the same way academics do:  based on political sympathy.  No Western journalist (or academic) would ever dream of kowtowing to threats of violence from right-wing terrorists, but threats from more politically sympatico sources--say, Hamas or the Obama White House--receive considerably more cooperation.  And while Al Qaeda-trained French Islamist terrorists may not exactly be in perfect political harmony with most Western journalists, Muslims in general--even radical ones--are definitely considered part of the broad coalition of "the left", and their sometimes-overly-rambunctious-when-aroused sensibilities are therefore more often accommodated, to avoid accusations of "Islamophobia".

2014 was a year of understatement and overstatement for my annual predictions post, as you'll see.  Here's the recap:

• The US economy will strengthen moderately in 2014.  The stock market will decline slightly from its current heady heights, but interest rates and inflation will rise slightly (although not enough to divert the Fed from its current oh-so-accommodative course).  Oil  and other commodity prices will decline, but real estate will continue its recovery.  The EuroZone will recover as well, but far more sluggishly, with continuing unrest (but no major upheaval) over the severely distressed PIIGS economies.

Hit-and-miss--as usual, my stock market prediction was off, along with my call on interest rates and inflation.  I was right on GDP in the US and EU, though, as well as on oil and commodity prices.  My oil price prediction might be considered so understated as to be inaccurate, but since I've made the exact same prediction for several years running, only to be proven too early in my optimism, I figure I deserve full credit this time.

• Barack Obama's approval ratings will continue to decline, weighed down primarily by Obamacare, which will continue to accumulate angry "losers" (people whose health insurance has become narrower, more expensive or both).  Numerous other minor "scandals" will pop up over the course of the year, but none will gain significant traction with the press, and the November elections will see only small shifts in Congress, with the Republicans gaining a mere handful of House seats, and the Democrats (just barely) retaining control of the Senate.  Until then, the Republicans will content themselves by blocking various White House legislative initiatives, the administration will respond by doubling down on various expansions of executive power, and the Republicans will counter by initiating various legal actions (mostly unsuccessful) against them.

I missed badly on the final Senate tally, but I'm not too embarrassed about that--after all, so did most pollsters.  Otherwise, I think this one holds up pretty well.  The bit about Obama "doubling down on various expansions of executive power" seems like a bit of an understatement, though...

• At least one Supreme Court justice will resign or die, and Senate Democrats will abolish the filibuster completely to prevent Republican obstruction of the resulting nominee's confirmation.

I guess I overstated the current senior liberal justice's spirit of partisan self-sacrifice...

• The Israelis and Palestinians will sign a "framework agreement" modeled after the Iranian-American accord.  Like its predecessor, it will say absolutely nothing concrete and definitive, and will be interpreted by all sides as perfectly aligned with their own official position on every issue.  It will therefore accomplish absolutely nothing, apart from allowing both sides to maintain the status quo while asserting at the same time that they've made progress toward their strategic goals.  Meanwhile, redoubts of anti-Israel animus--academia, the press, Europe--will respond to the process by doubling down on their anti-Israel campaigns, including more American Studies Association-style boycotts.  However, violence will be confined to sporadic incidents, and Israel's economy and trade will continue their stellar trajectory.

This was probably my worst prediction--not only because it was wildly wrong, but because the actual turn of events (Hamas provoking a major violent flare-up in its ongoing war with Israel) seems quite predictable in retrospect.  The establishment of a staunchly anti-Hamas regime in Egypt, together with the preoccupation of Hamas' usual backers with the ongoing Sunni-Shia religious war taking place across the region, had left Hamas in perilous straits, requiring a major offensive on its own part in order to stay relevant and reclaim support both domestically and internationally. 

• Elsewhere in the Middle East, the civil war in Syria will drag on with no end in sight.  The related unrest in Lebanon will increase substantially, led by relatively new radical Sunni elements rebelling against Hezbollah's dominance.  Muslim Brotherhood violence in Egypt will continue at a low level, but the military will tighten its overall grip on power.  Sectarian violence in Iraq will escalate, and the Erdogan regime in Turkey will shed all pretense of democratic rule, formally instituting structural changes that will in effect establish an AKP dictatorship, with a bit of democratic window dressing.

A very solid prediction--but again, "sectarian violence in Iraq will escalate" seems like a bit of an understatement...

Legalization or quasi-legalization of marijuana will spread to additional states beyond Colorado and Washington, and the next big trend in snobbish consumption will be "gourmet weed".

The first part, at least, seems to have panned out...

And now for 2015's understatements overstatements predictions...

• The US economy will continue to be robust, leading towards a new recession in the 2016-2018 timeframe.  The fed will back off on its easing, keeping inflation in check, and interest rates will climb slightly in response.  Oil prices will bounce off their lows, but still remain well below their $100-ish average of the last few years.  The US market will rise modestly from its current already-frothy highs, setting the stage for a major correction post-2015, leading into the aforementioned next recession.  Real estate will also continue to climb moderately.
• The EU will face another year of turmoil, with massive bailouts to Greece and possibly Spain looking necessary to save the Euro.  Eventually the currency will break up--as Herb Stein famously said, "if something cannot go on indefinitely, it will eventually stop"--but it probably has a couple of more years of stagnation, bailouts and general economic misery left in it before it finally gives up the ghost.
• President Obama's recent modest approval ratings increase (near, though not above, 50 percent) will generally hold up through 2015 following the Republican takeover of the Senate, much as Bill Clinton's did once he became the sole bulwark against the GOP-dominated Congress in 1994.  This will enable him to continue implementing his executive amnesty for illegal immigrants, defend Obamacare against legislative attacks, and support local anti-police initiatives.  The effects of these policies will be as intended:  increased illegal immigration, rising crime, and erosion of affordable employer-provided health care.  Republicans in Congress will launch legislative measures to counteract all of these, as well as various tax reform and pro-business proposals, but they will all fail, some due to internal GOP squabbles and the rest after being vetoed by the president.
• By the end of the year, the frontrunners in the Democratic and Republican presidential candidate races will be Hillary Clinton and (out-of-the-box call, here) Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.
• The Israeli elections will produce an inconclusive result followed by weeks of complex political wrangling, out of which Bibi Netanyahu will once again emerge as the prime minister.  He will lead a center-right coalition little different from the current one, although possibly including more ultra-Orthodox representation.  Israel's policies will therefore remain largely unchanged.  Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority will continue its current strategy of war-by-legal/diplomatic-means, while quietly continuing its security cooperation with Israel.  The EU will similarly make a grand show of supporting this international campaign, while quietly undermining it at exactly the moments when it threatens to cause concrete harm to Israel (as in the case of the recent UN Security Council vote).  Hamas and its Gaza-based partners will continue to launch terrorist attacks on Israel, with public encouragement from the PA, but those will gradually decline in frequency and effectiveness as Israel's counterterrorist forces--assisted by the PA's internal security agencies, happy to betray their Hamas rivals--get a better handle on combatting them.
• The Islamic State will weaken considerably in the face of stiff resistance from the Kurds, the US, and internal elements tired of their incompetence, corruption and indiscriminate brutality (with emphasis on the "indiscriminate" part).  Its foreign supporters will respond by shifting their generosity towards new candidate Sunni radical forces in Syria and Iraq, who will be little better in their behavior but less enamored of the kind of grand international gestures that bring on Western countermeasures, and more willing to take on the Iranian proxy governments in Syria and Iraq directly.  The result will be continued slaughter in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
• Nuclear talks between the US and Iran will continue to be extended without resolution, as Iran continues to refuse to denuclearize.  US sanctions will remain mostly in place--they were enacted by legislation, not by executive choice--but their effect will be eroded by increasing international disregard for them.  Fortunately, the global fall in oil prices will have roughly the same economic effect, limiting Iran's economic resources--although not enough to block its continued heavy involvement in its proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, of course.
• Elsewhere, the decline in oil prices will weaken Vladimir Putin's Russia, forcing him to pare back his aggressive moves against European neighbors as he deals with his domestic economic crisis.  China, on the other hand, will get an economic shot in the arm from cheaper oil prices and more robust exports to the US.  
• The recent Sony-North Korea-"The Interview" incident will turn out to be the harbinger of a trend, with more hackers making "hacktivist"-style outrageous behavioral demands of their corporate victims, and more studios milking horrible films for quick pay-per-view profits by finding a way to link them to some major current-affairs controversy.
• This year, for the first time, someone reading this list will finally have the courage to post a prediction of their own in the comments. 

You saw that last one--why not give it a try?  You can hardly do worse than me...