Deconstructing pseudo-liberalism

Citation

Rankin, A. (2000), "Deconstructing pseudo-liberalism", European Business Review, Vol. 12 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2000.05412fab.002

Deconstructing pseudo-liberalism

Deconstructing pseudo-liberalism

Aidan Rankin

Keywords Politics, Discrimination

In 1950, Theodor Adorno and his colleagues of the post-Marxist Frankfurt School produced The Authoritarian Personality, a two-volume study of the "prejudiced person" and the psycho-political origins of the radical right. It is a subtle work and, although very much a product of its time, remains a seminal study of authoritarian impulses. For a critical distinction is drawn between the genuine conservative, who is a traditionalist, a patriot and an individualist, and the pseudo-conservative, whose attitudes are reactionary, collectivist and ethnocentric[1].

Pseudo-conservatism was defined by the authors as a pathological undercurrent of politics, a mutation from conservatism, influenced by collectivist, authoritarian modes of thought of left as well as right-wing origins. Fascism, for example, grew as much out of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition as conservative nationalist thought, whilst the "socialism" in National Socialism was taken seriously by a significant wing of the Nazi party. Both fascism and Nazism are identified as pseudo-conservative political movements, brought from the fringe to the centre of power by the breakdown of shared values, extreme economic instability and the trauma of the First World War. These pathological forms of politics will triumph when economic and social conditions themselves become pathological. They are akin to collective hysteria in times of spiritual crisis, or to the disturbed behaviour of children when their family lives are disrupted.

Now, 50 years on, we may draw upon Adorno's analysis of the right and adapt it to liberal political thought. This is not because the right-wing bogeyman has disappeared. Rather, it is because the left-wing bogeyperson has arrived and manages at once to threaten individual liberty and undermine liberalism as a credible political ideal. To rescue liberalism, we must therefore draw a distinction between "true liberals" and "pseudo-liberals". The true liberal believes in individual freedom under the rule of law, the removal of obstacles to individual success and a society which aims to be tolerant and fair-minded. The pseudo-liberal, by contrast, demands a socially engineered "equality", places the group before the individual and supports restrictions on freedom of speech or association where these freedoms conflict with "politically correct" goals.

"Political correctness" has become the popular tag for pseudo-liberalism. The term reflects, in ironic manner, the obsession with "correct" language towards or "correct treatment" of "oppressed groups" that characterises pseudo-liberal activities and propaganda. This obsession makes pseudo-liberalism dangerous in three ways, which are closely connected to each other. First, its censorious, puritanical tone and often tyrannical social engineering triggers intolerant backlashes against those "groups" favoured by the politically correct. Second, it arouses great hostility to liberalism itself, and with it the notions of fair-mindedness and justice on which a free society is founded. Third, it undermines citizenship as a common bond, uniting people of different backgrounds, interests and situations. It breaks up the population, arbitrarily, into "groups" based on abstract characteristics, such as skin colour or sexual orientation, rather than inherited loyalties, such as to family or region, or chosen loyalties, such as to profession or hobby. The process of classifying individuals is central to pseudo-liberalism. It perpetuates, often wilfully, the very divisions it is claiming to heal.

Whereas a founding principle of liberal theory is respect for the private sphere, pseudo-liberalism regards every area of life as political. From this it follows that there is no form of human endeavour, or human leisure, exempt from legislative intervention, or from the wider "struggle for equality". Despite (or because of) his strong principles, the genuine liberal is ready to be pragmatic, to admit of individual exceptions, to work with rather than against the grain of an existing culture. He sees no shame in compromise and is suspicious of grand design. For the pseudo-liberal, compromise is a sign of weakness and making exceptions a form of surrender. This is because human societies, indeed human beings themselves, are eternally malleable, locked in a perpetual dynamic of change. The principles of "equality" and "progress", which pseudo-liberals revere, must be universally applied. Globally, they are as relevant to Inuit fishermen as Internet entrepreneurs. Locally, they are as valid in market towns as urban centres.

Wisely, Adorno and his colleagues understood that while conservatives and pseudo-conservatives often use the same language, they direct it towards wholly different ends. Both speak of tradition and order, for instance. Yet the pseudo-conservative goes further, when he appeals to a collective national soul or suggests some form of racial destiny. Today, we can discern between the liberal and the pseudo-liberal a similar rhetorical overlap. Both talk of "freedom", "opportunity" and "choice", but for the pseudo-liberal these are restricted to favoured "oppressed groups" and denied to "privileged" or "bigoted" opponents. Likewise, both invoke "rights" as the starting point for political discourse; to the liberal, these rights are open to all, including those he dislikes, because they are grounded in natural justice. The pseudo-liberal takes a different view of rights; to him, they are as weapons in a war, which must be captured and used against various enemies. Such enemies, by definition, are not entitled to any rights, for to give them rights would make impossible the society to which pseudo-liberals aspire. Instead of tolerating opposing views, they aim to abolish them through a mixture of conditioning and coercion.

The distinction between liberalism and pseudo-liberalism might seem abstract to the reader, but it underlies an increasingly large area of political debate. In particular, it informs issues such as homosexuality, the position of women in society and relations between the various ethnic groups that make up a modern, post-colonial nation. A good starting point, because it is currently so much discussed in the media, is the position of homosexuals in UK law and society[2]. Typically, the issue is presented by pseudo-liberals in terms of a Manichean conflict: the forces of prejudiced darkness, versus those of "inclusive" light. Those who oppose demands for the identical treatment of homosexual and heterosexual behaviour are ritually denounced as persecutors and bigots, as wishing to "criminalise" consensual behaviour or for treating a minority of the population as second-class citizens. Yet consensual sexual relationships between men have been legal for more than 30 years in England and Wales, and more than 20 years in Scotland, whilst consensual relationships between women have never been criminal. Prejudice still exists, and has political clout, but even the most notorious political backwoodsmen balk at abolishing the right to privacy. They balk, because the battle for privacy has already been won, and because even they are part of a culture where tolerance is a litmus test for civilisation.

Bigotry, however stridently expressed, has almost nothing at all to do with the case. For the true debate is between the liberal and pseudo-liberal interpretations of politics, which reveal two contrasting visions of humanity. Freedom, privacy and the dignity of the individual are the liberal model's founding principles. Until now the theoretical basis for homosexual law reform, liberalism's concern is with freeing the individual from unwarranted, unreasonable interference in an intimate area of his life. Liberalism does not seek to define the individual in terms of his sexual orientation. It assumes that as well as being "a homosexual", he may be (for example) an Anglo-Catholic, a fell walker or a native of Lancashire, and that such beliefs, activities and local loyalties might well be more important to him than his sexual "identity". The purpose of law reform is to make him a better citizen and a more complete man, and to free him from unwarranted interference in his personal life or his relationships with others.

The liberal model assumes that many areas of life are outside politics and so should lie beyond political control. Amongst these are eccentric opinions, minority religious traditions and sexual practices or relationships to which the majority of the population are not drawn. Society does not criminalise the maverick who believes that the Earth is flat, nor would it stop him from trying to persuade others that this is the case. The doctrine of reincarnation remains unorthodox in the West, but any discrimination against, or vilification of, the Hindu or the Buddhist for believing in reincarnation is rightly resisted by liberals. In the same way, liberals oppose legal sanctions against the man whose desires contradict moral orthodoxy. For homosexuals, this means the removal of legal and social stigmata, so that they can be treated as mature citizens, like their heterosexual friends and neighbours. The liberal approves of questioning, be it in politics, morals or, these days, the worship of technology. Crucially, he does not wish to force others to change their beliefs, although he might try to persuade them to do so. Thus the true liberal will defend one individual's right to disapprove of homosexual practices as assiduously as he defends another's right to engage in them. True liberal reformers take account of human imperfections. Rather than seeking to impose a "perfect" order, they hope for a steady evolution towards a tolerant, just society.

Pseudo-liberalism, by contrast, informs the gay rights movement in its various permutations. Rather than taking the individual as starting point, this movement takes an abstraction called the "gay community". Instead of being but one facet of his personality, sexual orientation is seen as the individual's defining characteristic, to which other aspects of his character are subordinate. He becomes, to return to my previous examples, a "gay" Anglo-Catholic, a "gay" fell walker or a "gay" Lancastrian. Gay activists, it is assumed, speak for all homosexuals, even those who are indifferent towards them or who oppose them openly. This is because such indifference or opposition stems from apathy, disloyalty to the "group" or a lack of "awareness" of being "oppressed". The gay rights movement draws a lot of its support from heterosexuals, but regards "straight" society as a hostile force. There is no contradiction here, because the aim is to transform that society, rather than reform it and make it more tolerant. And transforming society means that homosexuals have to be "liberated", whether as individuals they wish it or not.

While the liberal approach is reformist, the pseudo-liberal approach is revolutionary. The liberal, whatever his sexual orientation, believes in a process of give-and-take. This means that sometimes homosexuals, as well as heterosexuals, can be asked to make concessions. The pseudo-liberal adopts an entirely different stance. He rejects gradual reform in favour of an "equality" which is instant and absolute, imposed by the state and rigorously enforced by government edicts and court rulings. To him, any evidence that homosexuals and heterosexuals are being treated differently is evidence that the revolution has been betrayed. There must therefore be no concessions to institutional ethos (as in the armed forces), religious faith (as in the Catholic Church), local custom (as in conservative rural communities) or freedom of association (as in private clubs or small businesses). All institutions and values that stand in the way of "equality" must either be transformed and made "inclusive", or destroyed as "forces of conservatism".

Piecemeal reform, hitherto the basis for social change in the UK, takes account of existing human characteristics, including lack of understanding and prejudice. It operates on the assumption that the majority of the population need time to adapt to change, to "get used to the idea" of more liberal mores. Again in contrast, pseudo-liberal "equality" campaigns derive from an ideology of conflict, a belief that conflict is a positive force. We can see this in the issues selected by gay activists. It would be easy for them to promote quite uncontroversial measures, such as discreet changes to property and inheritance laws, to the benefit of same-sex couples. This would be a popular measure, threatening to nobody, in keeping with liberal principles and a wider British sense of "fair play". Instead, campaigners focus upon the age of consent for teenaged boys, the content of "sex education" classes in state schools and whether homosexual couples should openly adopt children. All this is, it seems, designed to cause maximum worry to parents, affront conservative opinion and stir up latent distrust of homosexuals. The ensuing backlash will reinforce rather than modify the "equality" campaigners' zeal. Whereas liberalism is about removing the causes of conflict, pseudo-liberalism is about polarising opinion and dividing society into hostile component parts.

The increasing prominence of "gay equality" campaigners in public life, and the lack of a coherent liberal challenge to them, reflects a much wider shift in our political culture. It is a shift away from individual freedom and towards group rights. In pseudo-liberalism, we can observe the liberal idea of freedom for all being eclipsed by a simplified Marxist view of struggle, whereby the rights of one group are acquired at the expense of another. In the class struggle, after all, the worker was defined by his relationship to the means of production. Any loyalties he considered to be more important than his "class", such as loyalty to a town, a regiment or a football team, could be dismissed by the Marxist ideologue as "false consciousness". Since the 1960s, the arena of struggle has shifted from the means of production to the means of reproduction. Accordingly, the theory of false consciousness is applied to homosexuals who dislike gay politics and women who oppose the demands of feminism, just as it was to the conservative working man.

Pseudo-liberals, therefore, can make an easy transition between supporting a woman's choice to pursue a career and demanding that all women must pursue careers. They can make an easy transition too between supporting privacy rights for homosexuals and demanding that homosexual opponents of "equality" be "outed", or publicly exposed. Likewise, they see no discrepancy between campaigning against censorship on grounds of blasphemy and for censorship on grounds of alleged "racism", "sexism" or "homophobia". It is not racist to have an Association of Black Police Officers, whereas an Association of White Police Officers would be condemned and suppressed. It is not sexist to support "women's organisations" with public funds but to refuse such funds to men-only clubs. There is "homophobia", a made-up word for prejudice against homosexuals, but there is no such thing as "heterophobia", and so gay activists can insult "straights", denounce other people's religious beliefs or attack the "nuclear family" without moral censure.

This is the politics of the forked tongue and is taken to far more extreme levels than conservative double standards or old-fashioned hypocrisy, which can seem endearing and trustworthy in comparison. Yet forked-tongued politics is not a mere discrepancy within pseudo-liberalism. It is part of a deterministic philosophy inherited from Marxism, through which certain ideas and certain categories of people are believed to triumph inevitably. Censorship is oppressive and intolerant only when it is imposed on religious or traditionalist grounds, which stand in the way of "progress". When imposed for politically correct reasons, however, censorship takes on a liberating role, supportive of "progress". And progress, for pseudo-liberals, is both inevitable and right.

The feminist movement has, in recent years, become the best organised and most strident expression of pseudo-liberalism. Although it arouses strong personal opposition, or even distaste, from both sexes, political opposition is muted and ineffective. This is because pseudo-liberals claim to be building upon previous, genuinely liberal reforms, which took away obstacles to women's participation in politics, gaining an education or entering professions such as law and medicine. We have seen the success of these reforms in the number of women who have contributed positively to these professions, and who have managed to lead fulfilled lives. True liberalism, which inspired such changes, aimed to give women who wanted to work the opportunity to do so, either in addition to or instead of fulfilling more traditional roles.

Liberal supporters of opportunities for women believe in choice rather than coercion. Because they believe in choice, they do not presume to judge those women who, quite legitimately, decide that they prefer traditional occupations, including full-time motherhood. Nor do they have an overarching goal of social transformation, through which the roles of the sexes become interchangeable. Pseudo-liberal feminists, like the gay activists discussed above, seek to impose their vision of "equality" on women who reject it, as well as men who resist it. Their methods include extensive state intervention in the economy and the lives of individuals, vilification of opponents and attempting to indoctrinate schoolchildren and students against "traditional" values.

The hostility of feminists towards traditionalist women is, if anything, more virulent and ideologically charged than their hostility to men. US feminist Betty Friedan, supposedly the movement's moderate or liberal face, describes mothers who stay at home as "obsolete". More extreme still, but with refreshing Gallic honesty, the childless Simone de Beauvoir proclaimed as early as 1975 that:

No woman should be authorised to stay at home and raise her children … Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.[3]

In the same essay, de Beauvoir defines the central goal of feminism as "freedom of choice". To view this position as inconsistent is, once again, to misunderstand pseudo-liberalism, which has its own definition of freedom. To pseudo-liberals, the choice of a woman to place husband and children before career is not an authentic choice, but a form of false consciousness. It is based on traditionalist prejudices about the role of women, which she has "internalised", and from which it is the duty of feminists to "free" her. For feminists, by definition, represent "women" and interpret their interests for them, just as an earlier, Marxist generation interpreted the will of "the working-class". Feminism is quietly rejected by many women, and so depends on male support, which it achieves largely through emotional blackmail, such as the threat of being called "sexist", which few male liberals like. Male supporters of feminism rarely question the idea that feminists represent "all women", in spite of voting patterns that suggest the reverse. To follow feminism's "correct" line, they tie themselves in complex ideological knots. When this author pointed out, in correspondence with a socialist, pro-feminist man, that female poverty had increased dramatically after two decades of feminist social policy and consequent family breakdown, the reply was crisp and honest: "They may be poorer, but at least they are free". Such romantic association of poverty with freedom was odd for a socialist "moderniser", resembling as it does a certain strand of conservative thought, or even the rustic anarchism long scorned by the "progressive" left.

Whereas the liberal approach to "women's issues" is based on freedom and opportunity, the pseudo-liberal approach relied on social engineering and compulsion. The married woman who stays at home is penalised financially by the state and stigmatised as reactionary, old-fashioned or a traitor to the "cause". Institutionalised discrimination against the stay-at-home mother has been entrenched in UK government policy since 1997, New Labour's measures being the logical conclusion of years of state-directed change. In taxation, the married couples allowance has been replaced by a "working families tax credit", the working family defined as one in which both "partners" work. Low income single mothers, meanwhile, are compelled to seek work outside the home or lose welfare benefits. This means that a young woman who leaves her own children, and is paid to look after somebody else's, is considered a better citizen than one who concentrates on her own offspring.

Feminist social policy does not discourage single motherhood, because of the relative poverty – and lack of opportunity – that it is likely to produce. On the contrary, it is presented as one amongst many "lifestyle options", along with cohabitation, "serial monogamy" and lesbian motherhood. All these options are morally equivalent, but some are more equivalent than others. The most equivalent of all are those which demonstrate that women can be independent of men, whether or not that makes them dependent on the state. Thus in true forked-tongued fashion it is politically correct to dismiss traditional marriages as reactionary, but incorrect in the extreme to criticise artificial insemination for single women.

In the interests of socially engineered equality, feminists and their supporters are obsessed with eliminating "male bastions". This is considered an ethical goal in its own right, often more important than women's true aspirations. In England and Wales, for example, the Fire Service has been ordered to employ 15 per cent more women, purely for ideological reasons. The same government report grudgingly admitted that the service was efficient, well-liked and trusted more than any other public agency – no mean feat – but criticised its "male" ethos and "militaristic culture". Similarly, the armed forces are compelled increasingly to include feminist considerations in their recruitment policy, training and disciplinary structure. The Ministry of Defence now has a "Gender Unit", the very name of which implies profound ideological bias. Its brief includes expanding areas of "gender integration" and exploring the possibility of sending women to the front line. Operational efficiency has nothing to do with any of these considerations. Indeed, they fly in the face of evidence that "gender integration" is unpopular, and a source of indiscipline and litigation. In the USA, the process has advanced still further, to the extent that group rights are often placed before the needs of a fighting force. This politically correct approach is personified by Lt-General Claudia Kennedy, who has been dubbed "Hillary Clinton's favourite general" and was recently the centre of a high profile "sexual harassment" case. Criticised for her allegedly close links with the Democratic Party, General Kennedy is best remembered for proclaiming to West Point cadets in falsetto voice that "this is not the Army your fathers joined".

In both the UK and the USA, the armed forces are used increasingly as a social laboratory. The aim of the experiments is to prove to the wider society that the traditional roles of the sexes can be transformed or reversed. Unlike a genuine scientific experiment, however, there is little or no attempt at objectivity. The response to failure is not to abandon the project, but to return to it with renewed zeal, to conclude that more "equal opportunities training", "consciousness raising" or "anti-discrimination" edicts are required. In civilian life, as well as the forces, pseudo-liberal feminism sees education as the key to "progress". Education, in this context, does not mean the quest for knowledge, but propaganda techniques which call to mind the former Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and China under the "Gang of Four". Amongst these are the censorship of traditional and much-loved children's books for alleged "sexism", along with other bugbears such as "racism", "imperialism" and "militarism". More proactive – to use a word beloved of social engineers – are "social education" classes which propagate "anti-sexist" doctrines without offering alternative views of the world. Sex education, also, is presented in terms of crude bodily functions rather than moral choice, with children of both sexes encouraged to "role play" and experiment, to question the values of their parents but not their teachers.

These methods are justified in terms of promoting "safer sex" or preventing teenage pregnancies, yet such claims are belied by statistics, which show increasing rates of pregnancy, along with a rising epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases amongst the young. One of the real intentions of "sex education", it seems, is to break down the barriers of discretion and reserve between males and females, along with the civilisation, courtesy and mutual trust that they engendered. There is also the intention that the "patriarchal" family should disappear, because it is seen as the originator of "inequality". UK parents are not allowed to withdraw their children from "personal and social" education, although they can withdraw them from religious instruction. Those teachers who oppose religion in schools, and wish to banish prayer from morning assembly, tend also to be the strongest advocates of "anti-sexist" or "anti-racist" education, or instruction in "value-free" sex. The classroom is not the appropriate place to consider anything transcendent, but it can and should be used for "tackling gender issues" or "eliminating sexism".

In the USA, where prayer is illegal in state schools, feminist intervention in the curriculum is commonplace and has aroused deep antipathy. Reassuringly, perhaps, US feminists have a talent for revealing their totalitarian instincts and exposing themselves to ridicule. Alice Rossi, for example, recommends that school outings or field trips should be curtailed, for fear that "going out into the community in this way, youngsters would observe men and women in their present occupational roles". In the late 1970s, the (former) Department of Health, Education and Welfare reviewed children's books for "sexism". The intention was that books aimed at children should reflect reality "not as it was, but as it will be". Demands persist for "unisex" schoolbooks, depicting men and women in identical roles, for "reversed role" or "non-stereotypical" material, and (as in the UK) for books showing gay or lesbian couples with children. Meanwhile, the feminist commentator Jane Bardwick describes the hostility of children to such "education" as an "anti-feminist backlash". Were there a prize for totalitarian absurdity, her conclusions would win hands down:

Another source of resistance to feminist goals is the conservatism of children. They seem very resistant to changing ideas about what the sexes are supposed to do and be like. This is probably because their gender is the only thing about them that does not change as they grow up.[4]

Unwittingly, Bardwick's statement epitomises pseudo-liberalism. It assumes that, in every sphere except for "gender", there is no such thing as an integrated individual. The individual is a constantly changing amalgam of social forces, rather than an evolving being possessing an inner core. An aspect of pseudo-liberalism rarely remarked upon is its soullessness, its refusal to admit of any spiritual dimension to human life, or any human goal beyond material well-being and carefully legislated "equality". This is reflected in the plethora of "politically correct" complaints about organised religion, and the religious faith of individuals. Religion is variously described as "patriarchal", "homophobic", "repressive" and "irrational". It is, at best, a purely private matter, "private" in the sense of a private vice, like homosexuality in the 1950s or smoking in California today.

Pseudo-liberals express their hostility to religion by demanding rigorous secularisation of all areas of public life. They aim for a "wall" to be created between church and state, but this does not stop them, wherever possible, from attempting to impose "secular" values on religious bodies. It was only through energetic campaigning (and funds from sympathisers in the USA) that it was possible to obtain an opt-out for religious organisations from the Human Rights Act, which becomes law in the UK from October 2000[5]. During a recent radio debate with Christian commentator Ann Atkins, the gay activist Peter Tatchell called for churches barring open homosexuals from the ministry to be subject to "anti-discrimination laws". To pseudo-liberals, religious freedom is conditional upon politically correct conformity. A religious organisation, like an army, has its own ethos, which leads individuals to conclusions very different from those of pseudo-liberal activists. If the drive towards "equality" is to be successful, it must be applied universally. Bodies which promote contrasting values must be controlled by the state or socially marginalised – and preferably both.

Religious faith is threatening to pseudo-liberals because of its private, at least as much as its public, functions. For it can detach the individual from overtly political concerns, to the extent that it makes campaigns for "rights" seem trivial or absurd. This undermines the dogmatic certainties on which the "struggle for equality" rests. The homosexual who regards his orientation as a moral and spiritual (as opposed to political) question is unlikely to agitate for gay rights. The woman who believes that motherhood is special and sacred will not bow to feminist demands and put "career" before "child care". Worst of all, religious faith is about the individual as an individual, not as a member of a group, oppressed or otherwise.

Pseudo-liberal attitudes towards the individual are, to put it politely, confused. We have seen, for example, that feminists – despite their anti-male vitriol – regard the sexes as interchangeable and wish to alter society by state action and brainwashing. Gay rights advocates, meanwhile, have moved in one generation from popular Freudianism to popular genetics. Increasingly, they present sexual orientation as an innate, rather than an acquired characteristic, offering tendentious evidence for a "gay gene" or a "homosexual hypothalamus", based on incomplete and politically charged research. The intention is to pretend that homosexuals are an "ethnic minority". From this, it follows that the gay rights debate is not about resolving moral ambiguities, but addressing a form of racial prejudice. Thus the biological determinism of the gay movement contradicts the social conditioning theories of feminism, so that two of pseudo-liberalism's big battalions march in opposing directions, for purely self-serving reasons. Even that contradiction signifies little to the "politically correct". For to paraphrase Marx, their task is not to interpret the world but to change it.

The exposure of pseudo-liberalism is an amusing, yet disturbing intellectual exercise. Amusing, because the inconsistencies of this hybrid doctrine are legion and often glaringly obvious. Disturbing, because it reveals the total disregard for truth that lies at the heart of "politically correct" campaigns. Inconsistency of argument does not matter to pseudo-liberals, because their arguments have nothing to do with the pursuit of truth. Indeed they are not arguments, but mere slogans, rhetorical hand grenades to hurl at opponents of "equality". The pursuit of "equality" is placed above the pursuit of truth, because equality is held to be a higher truth, that justifies lies, distortions and censorship. Yet equality, in the sense of "sameness", is a chimera. Men and women are different, thankfully for our species, and thankfully for literature, philosophy and art. Homosexuals and heterosexuals vary in their behavioural patterns and their desires, the cultures and customs of mankind differ and often directly contradict each other, even within a nation-state. As individuals, each of us is unique: we have our own gifts and our own failings, but few of us wish to be standardised, or forced to change. Freedom and tolerance can be achieved, but only with the greatest difficulty and genuine struggle. They are humanity's most precious gifts, the products of true enlightenment.

Equality, by contrast, is impossible to achieve and all attempts to impose it turn to vile tyranny and create profound injustice. This is one reason why "politically correct" pressure groups are constantly ratcheting up demands for change. Whereas the desire for freedom can be satisfied by leaving people alone, the desire for equality demands repeated intervention in people's lives and because it is unnatural it is never fulfilled. The other reason for the ratcheting up of demands is less ideologically based and more self-interested. Equality is impossible to achieve, and so promoting it creates lucrative and safe careers. Thus the first premise of pseudo-liberalism, that we can be made to become "equal", is at once contrary to human nature and corrupting to the political order.

A large part of the pseudo-liberal agenda is rooted in the expansion of higher education, and with it a culture of protest based on half-digested leftist ideas. The move away from individual freedom towards group rights began in the academic ambience and is linked to a blurring of distinctions between Marxist and liberal thought from the 1960s onwards. In the UK and the USA especially, a conformist political correctness pervades campus life, to the extent that it is considered at best eccentric, at worst subversive to question the validity of feminism, homosexual equality and "internationalism". Many universities and colleges provide bogus, ideologically based courses with titles like "Gender studies", "Lesbian and gay studies", along with "Cultural studies" programmes grounded in hostility to culture in all its recognised forms. This academic gravy train weakens opposition to political correctness. It induces compliance and plays on the fears of being "different" to which intellectuals are remarkably prone. Pseudo-liberalism uses the liberal rhetoric of "freedom", shifting it from individuals to groups and grafting onto it the Marxist conception of struggle. Liberal pragmatism is despised and rejected, as is the very different pragmatism of the conventional Marxist left.

Orthodox Communist parties, after all, made frequent compromises, whether in government or in opposition. They adapted to, and made use of, the political cultures within which they operated, and were happy to exploit "prejudices", whether moral, ethnic or religious. In 1918, the Bolsheviks did much to persuade the peoples of Central Asia that the Red Army was waging a Jihad or Holy War against the White rebels. Stalin reversed the sexual revolution initiated by Lenin and Trotsky, made motherhood a "revolutionary virtue" and emphasised the importance of the "socialist family". Not without justification, Fidel Castro blamed "Yankee imperialism" for the dissolute morals of Havana. Pseudo-liberalism's opposition to traditional mores and traditional loyalties takes its cue from variant forms of Marxism that emphasise the purity and totality of revolutionary change, the impact of revolution on all aspects of life. The emphasis on change for its own sake, the obsession with the modern and the violently expressed distaste for tradition call to mind Trotsky's "permanent revolution" and Mao's similar doctrines. Trotskyist-feminist Sheila Rowbotham ably presents this view of politics as permanent struggle in a newspaper article, where she reflects on the retention by the House of Lords of Section 28, the law that restricts the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities:

The resistance to accepting that homosexuality has as much legitimacy as heterosexuality raises much wider questions about sexual freedom and democracy … Any attempt to push homosexuality back into the shadows affects all of us. The House of Lords decision signals the need to assert once again those basic sexual radical values of the right to knowledge and the need to understand our sexual feelings and desires … [6] (author's emphasis).

All the ingredients of pseudo-liberalism are present:

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  simplification of political issues;

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  exaggerated and extreme rhetoric;

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  a call to action; and

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  the presentation of questionable, controversial propositions as if they were certainties.

The need for constant vigilance, continual renewal of old demands and the creation of new arenas of "struggle" is characteristic of this strain of left-wing thought. It is reflected in the increasing attention paid to legal fictions such as "indirect discrimination", "unconscious discrimination" or "institutionalised discrimination". All of these are impossible to measure but give the anti-discrimination industry a new rallying cry. Regimes or movements based on "permanent revolution" take up themes dear to the hearts of the "politically correct". The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, rightly described as "more Maoist than Mao", was also the most radically feminist administration to take power anywhere in modern times. Although the Prime Minister was a man, the notorious Pol Pot, women were represented at the highest levels of the Khmer Rouge angkar (organisation) and often led forced labour battalions or presided over campaigns of brainwashing and state terror. The complete interchangeability of the sexes was a matter of strict public policy during the four year blood bath (1975-79). It informed the forcible break-up of the family and the village community, the collectivist approach to child rearing, and the destruction of the monastic tradition. The latter was accompanied by a ruthless persecution of Buddhism, which according to Yun Yat, the female Minister of Culture, Information and Propaganda was:

… incompatible with the revolution, because it was an instrument of exploitation … Buddhism [is] dead, and the ground has been cleared for the laying of the foundations of a new revolutionary order.[7]

This type of revolutionary language has been almost entirely banished from Indochina, and China herself, yet it remains commonplace amongst Western pseudo-liberals. The UK's highly politically correct New Labour government, for example, immediately established a "Department of Culture, Media and Sport", a title resembling that of the ministry just cited. Meanwhile, Khmer Rouge hymns to "armed combatants of both sexes" find a remarkable echo in the panegyrics to "gender equality" by Ministry of Defence bureaucrats who know they will never have to fight anybody themselves. As if unconsciously acknowledging the roots of political correctness in deviant Marxism, Cherie Booth, QC, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, spoke of a European Union directive on employment in these terms:

If it is adopted, no court will be able to deny the unlawfulness of any kind of discrimination. This would represent a great leap forward and the promise of a real sense of equality for ALL[8] (author's emphasis).

The original great leap forward was Mao's disastrous attempt to industrialise China and promote socialist "purity", which led to famine and death. The EU directive is a piece of social engineering which would force employers (including small businesses) to "prove their innocence" whenever discrimination was alleged. It would also compel religious organisations to accept "anti-discrimination" statutes, thus overriding the opt-out they secured from the UK's Human Rights Act.

In the UK context, there is a close connection between pseudo-liberalism and the "project" of European integration. This is expressed through the obsessive focus on pan-European institutions by pressure groups, and the use of these institutions to bootleg politically correct programmes that they know to be unpopular at home. The European Commission's recent "employment directive", praised by Cherie Booth, makes one "exception" to its otherwise rigid anti-discrimination code. That exception is "positive action", or rather discrimination in reverse, to "reduce inequality between women and men". Similarly, the Commission has a "Unit" for monitoring "racism and xenophobia", definitions of which are elastic enough to please Humpty Dumpty: "monetary xenophobia", for instance, denotes opposition to membership of the single currency[9]. The European Court of Human Rights, although connected to the Council of Europe and not the EU, shows similar tendencies. Its recent judgements reflect the belief that laws governing homosexuals and heterosexuals should be identical, regardless of circumstances.

Increasingly, pro-EU propaganda calls for "oppressed groups" to reject the nation state and look towards liberation in Greater Europe. Feminists speak of "European women" and gay activists of "Euro-pride". The connection between European integration and such campaigns is more than a tactical alliance. One of the staples of pseudo-liberalism is an "internationalist" agenda, which dismisses national allegiances, and even local loyalties, as old-fashioned sentiment fit only for the "dustbin of history". The European project embodies these internationalist prejudices. It shares with the attack on religion and the campaign for "equality" a basic misunderstanding of human nature. Those who believe that most individuals can live without religious faith, or that state intervention can make us all behave identically, are just as likely to believe that a supra-national state called "Europe" is a desirable goal. They are just as likely to seek to impose their desires, using the blend of coercion and misinformation characteristic of the "single issue" movements discussed above. European integration is the ultimate pseudo-liberal campaign. At one level, individual identity is subsumed in group identity. At another, national identity is surrendered to an abstract political concept, riding roughshod over instinctual loyalties.

Like any other totalitarian movement, pseudo-liberalism has depended for its success on its opponents' failure of nerve. The pseudo-conservatism diagnosed by Adorno and colleagues became a mass movement in 1930s Germany in part because of the absence of a systematic conservative critique. Confused by the absence of familiar symbols in the Weimar Republic, and frightened by Communism's appeal, some German conservatives hoped that they could use the Nazi movement to restore their values. Its vulgarity eventually appalled them, and its contempt for human life surpassed their most dire expectations. Liberal surrender to pseudo-liberal campaigns often resembles conservative surrender to the extreme right. Pseudo-liberal campaigners appeal to liberals' belief in human progress and concern for justice. When they are weak, they emphasise "tolerance", one of the founding principles of liberal thought. When they are stronger, they call for "action" and label those who dissent as reactionaries. When they are strong, they use the state to restrict the freedoms of others and the education system to indoctrinate the young. It is then that the authoritarian nature of political correctness becomes apparent, even to many of its erstwhile champions.

Liberal values of freedom and tolerance have strong roots in the UK and the USA. They are adhered to there, and in much of Western Europe, by the majority of the population, who would not necessarily describe themselves as "liberals". Yet true liberalism has come increasingly to be the creed of the apolitical. It is reflected in conversations between friends and neighbours, in talks between strangers in pubs and cafes, in jokes told in coffee breaks at work, in all voluntary activities which bring people together. Indeed, a distaste for political correctness is one of the few potential sources of political unity, for it cuts across traditional barriers of region, class and race – the barriers which pseudo-liberals rage against but in practice reinforce. Pseudo-liberalism expresses itself through movements so alien to the wishes of the majority that a reaction against it is already beginning. To ensure that this reaction is a tolerant one, and not merely "reactionary", politicians of courage and dignity are needed. They should remind us that we are robust individuals who can and must think for ourselves, who can and must restore tolerance and fair play.

Notes

1. 1.

   T.W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswikk, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality, John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY, 1964, pp. 181-2; passim.

2. 2.

   In this article, I confine myself largely to the single-issue campaigns of gay rights and feminism. This is partly because in these movements – feminism especially – the totalitarian tendencies of pseudo-liberalism are best expressed. It is also because I have explored that other contentious issue, "multiculturalism" in "The official version", New European, Vol. 12 No. 1, 2000.

3. 3.

   Quoted in Nicholas Davidson, The Failure of Feminism, Prometheus, Buffalo, NY, 1988, p. 17.

4. 4.

   Judith M. Bardwick, In Transition: How Feminism, Sexual Liberation, and the Search for Self-Fulfillment Have Altered Our Lives, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, NY, 1979, p. 15.

5. 5.

   The Human Rights Act incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into all areas of UK law.

6. 6.

   Independent on Sunday, 30 July 2000.

7. 7.

   Quoted in Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, Spokesman, Nottingham, 1979, p. 194.

8. 8.

   Quoted in Melanie Phillips, "The new iron lady of No. 10", The Spectator, 29 July 2000.

9. 9.

   Christopher Booker, "Britain is a nations of 'monetary xenophobes'", The Sunday Telegraph, 30 July 2000.