Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness & the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain

by Anthony Browne, David Conway

Discusses political correctness and the freedom of debate.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

121 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Anthony Browne, a Hans Christian Andersen Medalist, is the author-illustrator of many acclaimed books for children, including Silly Billy and Little Beauty. He lives in Kent, England.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.

Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

I was away from London, at school, on July 7, 2005, the day when the city was subject to a series of suicide attacks. In the way of such things, such traumatic events, I can remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news, the precise context forever fixed in my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever been so traumatised, partially because I was away from home and partially because I could not make contact with some family and friends for hours after. I spent most of the day in tears.

That day fifty-two people died, killed by those who, on the face of it, were British, killed by their own fellow citizens. It’s one of the most awful news stories of my life, impacting in the way that it did. I expected it to run and run. But it didn’t. A few days after the police shot and killed John Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian living in England on a temporary visa, believing him to be a bomber, a tragic act of mistaken identity, though understandable in the heightened tensions of the time.

At once the news focus changed, away from the outrage perpetrated on London by a group of Islamic terrorists, towards an accidental police killing. I remember being angry at this at the time, failing to understand this total lack of proportion. I confess that I even began to resent the unfortunate Brazilian and his family. I now know why the focus switched: the terrorist attack did not fit the politically correct agenda, whereas the killing of a vulnerable immigrant by a powerful police force did.

The latter point I picked up from my reading of The Retreat of Reason: Political correctness and the corruption of public debate in modern Britain by Anthony Browne. Published by Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, this is not so much a book as a pamphlet in the best English radical tradition, a genre that I am particularly familiar with from my studies of the seventeenth century, when it was the favoured mode of political communication.

Retreat of Reason, at fewer than 120 pages, is brilliant little polemic, a sustained exposé of the practical and moral corruption behind contemporary notions of political correctness. The argument is not completely fresh and there is much here that people will be familiar with. But Browne still makes some trenchant points.

It seems obvious now that the Labour Government of 1997, which dominated our national life for thirteen years, was the first in history to come to power with an agenda based on political correctness, devoid, as it was, of any more meaningful philosophy. But it was only after reading Browne’s dissertation that the whole thing fell into place.

The author identifies what might be referred to as the pre-history of PC. Although Marxism failed in both political and economic terms it made significant advances in the cultural arena, through universities and opinion forming bodies, to the point where ordinary debate was contaminated by a new orthodoxy, one which amplified the perceived injustices done to minorities, even so far as silencing debate over uncomfortable issues.

The most pertinent example Browne gives here is the public health campaigns over the rise in recent years of HIV rates among heterosexuals, put down to promiscuity, when in fact it was caused by immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa. The dissimulation here benefited nobody, least of all the sufferers, while distorting resource allocation by a politically correct rather than a factually correct truth.

Those who question the PC position are almost never attacked in the context of fact, no; they are most often anathematised for disrupting the official consensus, promoted most assiduously in England by such papers as the Guardian and the Independent.

It’s impossible to read this book without a creeping sense of anger and frustration over the more ludicrous examples. The most ludicrous of all is surely an argument put forward by one Decca Aitkenhead. In an article headed Their homophobia is our fault, published in the sanctimonious Guardian in 2005, she said that homosexuals were hated by Jamaicans because of imperial sodomy!

Yes, it’s all our fault, the hand-winging lament of the PC liberal, fawning towards the ‘wretched of the earth’, vicious when their absurd nostrums are put to the test of fact. Paradoxically their arguments are also based on the worst forms of patronising condescension, a mirror image, if you like, of old forms of imperial and racial superiority they are so anxious to eschew. In rebutting Aitkenhead’s risible argument one black gay activist said that Jamaicans were not compelled by history or poverty to be homophobic.

Intolerance and sanctimonious moral superiority are among the defining features of the proponents of political correctness, people whose chief response to criticism is ad hominem attacks. Still, there are hopeful signs. Multi-culturalism, once beyond question, is now increasingly under attack for the damage that it has done to a sense of a common national identity, allowing people to embrace alien ideologies at total variance with a British way of life.

Retreat of Reason is a bold and important riposte to stupidity, hypocrisy, dissimulation, cant and moral cowardice, a tool for all, myself included, who follow the path of FC – factual correctness- and despise the distortions of PC. It is we who are now the partisans of Enlightenment, rather a delicious historical irony.

[Badger · Rating 5 out of 5]

For people who, like myself, detest political correctness and need to know something of its history and its baleful modern influence this is superb. An evening's read (for me, though doubtless Ana will gobble it up between load and last spin) that has served me well in discussion and debate.

In fact, I think I'll read it again.

I wish I had your air miles.

[VEL – The Contemporary Heretic · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Modern McCarthyism in our Midst
Civilization has progressed. We no longer burn heretics at the stake.

Today, according to Steven Goldberg:

“All one has to lose by unpopular arguments is contact with people one would not be terribly attracted to anyway” (Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences: p222).

Yet Goldberg underplays, not only the psychological impact of ostracism, but also other consequences of modern heresy.

Bomb and death threats were issued to Erin Pizzey and Suzanne Steinmetz for claiming that women commit as much violence against their husbands/boyfriends as the latter do against them—a now robust finding.

James Watson, Chris Brand, Helmuth Nyborg, Lawrence Sommers, Noah Carl and Bryan Pesta lost academic posts for researching, or discussing, controverial theories such as the possible social consequences of, or innate basis for, race differences and sex differences in intelligence.

In 2020, David Starkey was fired for some remarks about slavery. Yet the same month, Priyamvada Gopal, a non-white grievance studies pseudoscholar, tweeted “White lives don’t matter. As white lives” and the only action taken by Cambridge was to immediately promote her to a full professorship.

In a tweet of its own, Cambridge appealed to “the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial”.

But, though phrased in general terms, this freedom evidently only applies only to certain opinions—for Cambridge was, not only among the universities from which Starkey had had to resign that very same month, but also the same university that had, a year before, denied a visiting fellowship to Jordan Peterson, and, a year before that, dismissed sociologist Noah Carl, after a letter calling for his dismissal, signed by, among others, Gopal herself.

Others outside academia have also lost their jobs. Browne refers to the case of a teacher sacked for saying Asian pupils should be obliged to learn English (p50).

He also notes that police and prison officers in the UK are barred from membership of the BNP, a legal and constitutional political party, but not from membership of Sinn Fein, who recently supported terrorism, nor of Marxist groups that advocate violent revolution (p51-2).

Political correctness is often dismissed as a trivial issue. Free speech is never trivial. When people lose their jobs because of their politics, what we are witnessing is a modern form of McCarthyism

Yet, while columnists, academics, and filmmakers delight in condemning a form of McCarthyism that ran out of steam over half a century ago (i.e. anti-communism), few dare to incur the wrath of the contemporary inquisition by exposing a modern McCarthyism right here in our midst.

Update
The situation has only worsened since Browne wrote his book.

Thus, Browne champions New Media, such as blogs, for airing politically incorrect views excluded from mainstream media (p85).

Yet today internet platforms routinely deplatform content creators with un-PC views.

Even financial services (e.g. banking, payment processing, loans) have been denied to people because of their politics, making it all but impossible for them to remain financially viable.

Also, if the internet facilitated free speech, it has also facilitated persecution, not least in the form of ‘twittermobs’, bent on denying employment prospects to anyone caught saying something un-PC online.

Thus, today you can experience all the exhilaration of joining a witch hunt, pitchfork proudly in hand, without ever leaving the comfort of your computer screen.

Defining PC
For Browne, PC represents “the dictatorship of virtue” (p7) and replaces “reason with emotion” and subverts “objective truth to subjective virtue” (xiii).

“Political correctness is an assault on… reason… because the measuring stick of the acceptability of a belief is no longer its objective, empirically established truth, but how well it fits in with the received wisdom of political correctness” (p5).

Some views are not only false—not even false—but simply unsayable.

Browne defines political correctness as:

“An ideology which classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism and which makes believers feel that no dissent should be tolerated” (p4).

Thus, for an opinion to be politically incorrect, there must be:

1) A group to whom the opinion is ‘offensive’;
2) The group must be ‘oppressed’

Thus, it is acceptable to disparage ‘privileged’ groups (e.g. white males), but groups with ‘victim-status’ are sacrosanct.

Yet victim-status itself is quite arbitrarily bestowed.

Actual poverty has little to do with it. It is quite acceptable to denigrate the white underclass—hence the relative acceptability of epithets such as ‘redneck’ and ‘chav’—but millionaires who happen to be black, female or homosexual can perversely pose as oppressed.

Thus, the Left has largely abandoned its traditional constituency, the working class, in favor of ethnic minorities, homosexuals and feminists—and the ‘ordinary working man’, once the quintessential proletarian, has found himself recast in leftist demonology as a racist, homophobic, wife-beating bigot.

Likewise, men are widely denigrated in popular culture. But, as Browne observes:

“Men were overwhelmingly underachieving compared with women at all levels of the education system, and were twice as likely to be unemployed, three times as likely to commit suicide, three times as likely to be a victim of violent crime, four times as likely to be a drug addict, three times as likely to be alcoholic and nine times as likely to be homeless” (p49).

Thus, overt discrimination against men, such as the different ages at which men and women were eligible for state pensions in the UK (p25; p60; p75) and the higher levels of insurance premiums demanded of men (p73), was long accepted.

“The demand for equal treatment only goes as far as it advantages the [ostensibly] less privileged sex” (p77).

But victim status is also a relative concept.

The Scots have some victim-status vis à vis the English. Hence the anti-English rhetoric of Scottish nationalist politicians is widely tolerated. But as soon as Scottish nationalist sentiment is directed at arguably the real threat to Scottish identity today, namely mass immigration, it becomes anathema.

Similarly, women enjoy victim power over men—but, as soon as the men don dresses and identify as ‘transwomen’, suddenly the feminists find that the high heel stilettos are—both literally and metaphorically—very much on the other foot.

This creates what Browne calls “competitive victimhood” (p44).

“Few things are more powerful in public debate than… victim status, and the rewards… are so great that there is a large incentive for people to try to portray themselves as victims” (p13-4)

The result is perverse incentives.

“By encouraging people to strive for the bottom rather than the top, political correctness undermines one of the main driving forces in society, the individual pursuit of self-improvement” (p45)

This can perhaps be viewed as the ultimate culmination of what Nietzsche termed the ‘transvaluation of values’.

Euroscepticism
Despite his useful definition, Browne later applies the concept of PC more indiscriminately.

Thus, he describes Euroscepticism as a politically incorrect view (p60-62). But, here, there is no obvious ‘oppressed group’ in need of protection and Eurosceptic opinions, though derided as ignorant, are not deemed offensive and are regularly aired in the mainstream media.

Browne’s extension of the concept of political correctness in this way is typical of many critics of PC, who succumb to the temptation to dismiss as ‘politically correct’ any view with which they themselves happen to disagree.

The term PC therefore serves the same function for conservatives as that of ‘fascist’ does for the left—namely a useful catchall label applied to any views with which they themselves happen to disagree.

This allows opponents of PC to condemn PC without ever violating its taboos by discussing any genuinely politically incorrect topics.

Middle East
Browne also characterizes defences of the policies of Israel as politically incorrect.

Yet, here, the ad hominem and guilt-by-association methods of debate which Browne describes as characteristic of PC (p21-2) are more often employed by defenders of Israel than by critics—the charge of ‘antisemitism’ here replacing the familiar refrain of ‘racism’.

Thus, in the US, any suggestion that the Jewish lobby influences US policy in the Middle East in favor of Israel is widely dismissed as antisemitic.

Browne acknowledges, “The dual role of Jews as oppressors and oppressed causes complications for PC calculus”, but hastily concludes, “PC has now firmly transferred its allegiance from the Jews to Muslims” (p12).

Yet, in many ways, Jews retain victim-status despite their disproportionate wealth and power.

Indeed, perhaps the best evidence of this is the taboo on referring to this disproportionate wealth and power.

Thus, while the Left endlessly recycles statistics demonstrating the overrepresentation of white males in positions of power and privilege, to cite similar statistics demonstrating the even greater overrepresentation of Jews in these exact same positions of power and privilege is somehow beyond the pale.

The Pay Gap
One area where Browne claims that the “politically correct truth” conflicts with the “factually correct truth” is the causes of the gender pay-gap (p8; p59-60).

This is also included by Conway as one of six issues, raised by Browne in the main body of the text, for which Conway provides supportive evidence in an afterword entitled ‘Commentary: Evidence supporting Anthony Browne’s Table of Truths Suppressed by PC’.

In support of Browne's contention that “different work/life choices” and “career breaks” underlie the gender pay gap (p8), Conway cites the work of sociologist Catherine Hakim (p101-103).

Fuller expositions of the factors underlying the gender pay gap are provided by Warren Farrell (Why Men Earn More: reviewed here) and Kingsley Browne (Biology at Work: reviewed here).

Yet Browne neglects to mention that much of the money earned by men is actually spent by their wives, ex-wives, girlfriends and daughters, such that women are estimated to control about 80% of consumer spending.

Browne also debunks one area where the demand for equal pay has resulted in perversity—namely the demand for equal prizes for male and female athletes in sports.

“Logically, if the prize doesn’t discriminate between men and women, then the competition that leads to those prizes shouldn't either… Those who insist on equal prizes, because anything else is discrimination, should explain why it is not discrimination for men to be denied an equal right to compete for the women’s prize.” (p77)

What Browne didn’t predict is that, today, his hypothetical thought experiment has become a comical reality, with ‘transwomen’ now regularly competing in women’s sports.

Africa
Another topic addressed by Browne and Conway is the reason for African underdevelopment (p8).

The politically correct explanation, Browne claims, is that this results from inadequate international aid. However, Browne claims, “Development aid has a poor record of promoting economic development” (p48).

Instead, Browne claims that the real cause is “bad governance” (p8). But this only raises the question of why African nations are so prone to “bad governance”.

Actually, in my experience, the usual explanation given for African underdevelopment is not inadequate international aid, but rather the legacy of European colonialism.

But this explanation fares little better.

First, it merely raises the question of why Africa was colonized by Europeans rather than vice versa. The answer, of course, is that sub-Saharan Africa was ‘underdeveloped’ even before colonization.

Moreover, those African countries largely spared European colonization (e.g. Liberia and Ethiopia) perform no better then their neighbors, not least as they lack the infrastructure (e.g. railroads) which the much-maligned colonial overlords were responsible for bequeathing.

Also, other regions that were colonised far longer and gained independence around the same time as regions in Africa have been relative success stories (e.g. Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).

Yet regions outside Africa, but populated by people of predominantly sub-Saharan African ancestry (e.g. Haiti, Jamaica, Baltimore) are beset by many of the same social pathologies (e.g. poverty, crime).

This suggests that the explanation must be sought, not in geography, but in biology (see IQ and the Wealth of Nations and Understanding Human History).

But this is, one suspects, too politically incorrect a topic even for Browne.

Is Browne Himself a Victim of PC?
This suggests a overarching problem with Browne’s dissection of the PC—namely that Browne, though an opponent of PC, is neither immune to the infection nor ever able to effect a full recovery.

He observes:

“Political correctness succeeds, like the British Empire, through divide and rule… The politically incorrect often end up appeasing political correctness by condemning fellow travelers” (p37).

This is indeed a characteristic feature of witch hunts, from Salem to McCarthy, where victims were able to partially absolve themselves by outing others to be persecuted in their place.

Yet Browne himself ironically provides a neat illustration of just this phenomenon when, having deplored the treatment of BNP supporters, he issues the obligatory disclaimer, condemning the party as “odious” (p52).

Also, Browne fails to address any of the most incendiary issues, such as those that resulted in death threats to the likes of Jensen, Pizzey and Steinmetz.

Indeed, to discuss the really taboo topics would not only bring upon him even greater opprobrium than he already faced but also likely deny him a mainstream forum in which to express his views altogether.

Browne therefore provides his ultimate proof of the power of political correctness, not through the topics he addresses, but rather through those which, whether through prudence, cowardice or genuine ignorance due to the media blackout on their discussion, he studiously and conspicuously avoids.

Full (i.e. vastly overlong) review here

[Jeremy Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing and important treatise on the evils of political correctness

Concise, well constructed and insightful, this pamphlet presents powerful and reasoned arguments to rebut the close-minded and irrational attitudes being paraded by neo-Marxist supporters of race, gender, religious, sexual and other political rights. Rather than upholding a citizen's right to express values, thoughts, beliefs and ideas freely, Anthony Browne demonstrates how political correctness is shutting down debate and is vilifying anyone who opposes politically correct viewpoints.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear, concise and damning. A must-read for anyone interested in preserving free speech in Western culture.

[Simon Alford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good on the PC, discrimination and race.

"men under-achieve educationally, twice as likely as women to be unemployed, 3 times as likely to commit suicide, 3 times as likely to be a victim of violent crime, 4 times as likely to be a drug addict, 3 times as likely to be an alcoholic, and 9 times as likely to be homeless."

So why are we obsessed about the position of women ?..... because PC has us focus on those "without" power (as perceived), not those deemed to be "powerful"

Recall the Dec 19 UK GE, how Corbyn offered £58bn to the women "losing" pensions monies. When the truth is that the pensions discrimination against men had been signalled in legislation dated 1995. Time to adjust you might think ? I couldn't possibly comment !

(recall men retire later, 5 years ? and live shorter lives, 4 years ? and if men earn more that is mainly because they choose to work and many women choose to work part-time and raise children ... female choice NOT male oppression), Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21st Century
Book by Catherine Hakim (2000)

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pamphlet about PC by a man most famous for arguing that Britain’s AIDS came from African immigrants.

Tricky: the pamphlet is pumped up with outrage, and on the face of it his central claim is hallucinatory tabloid racism at its worst. On the other hand, he’s careful to list PC’s achievements, and official figures underlie some of his arguments. I wasn't skilled enough to judge when I read this.

Like everyone, he tries to claim the rational high ground over his enemies, but the connection between identity politics and postmodern irrationality is nowhere near the tight causation he claims. He seems to be genuinely hurt by the reaction to his argument.

Reality is fucked up; if we can’t even test any hypothesis which offends anyone, then we are doomed to delusion and early death.

[S.P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. Don't agree with all the arguments (see other books!), but do agree with the fundamentals. We are a nation of PC-Extremists.