Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
It has never been easy or safe to have integrity. Being true to an ideal or an institution, especially when it violates tenets of worldly pragmatism, always inspires a reaction which usually ends in persecution.
Dedication to a standard of value beyond self-interest offends the sensibilities of many people, because so many sell out their principles the moment that genuine sacrifice is required. Encountering someone who refuses such compromise brings many of us shame at our own weakness.
Human nature abhors being made to feel shame. For those who are prey to their worst impulses, it is better to do harm to the virtuous and remove them from view than it is to endure the self-doubt and embarrassment that unfavorable comparisons may elicit.
Lightning rods are struck because they stand up. Nails get hammered because they jut out from a wall. Anyone who boldly asserts a way of life that conflicts with the, “go along to get along” mentality of pliable compliance invites attack from all sides. Jerusalem is far from the only place where prophets go to die.
This was always the problem with the Jewish people. In a world of polytheistic pagans, the Jews insisted that there was only one God. In kingdoms that demanded obedience to the royal authority, Jews insisted that even monarchs were accountable to God’s law. Surrounded by populations who followed certain cultural norms, the Jews committed the unforgivable sin of standing apart. This is why antisemitism is the oldest of human hatreds.
Truly, any individual who insists upon living according to his or her own truths rather than adhering to the common and usual practices courts controversy. “To be an individual is to be indecent” is an axiom from ancient times.
One need not be a member of the Jewish community, nor of any distinct community, to be shunned as a thought-criminal. Anyone who thinks for himself or herself risks deviating from the pale of acceptability. When a person stops living within someone else’s notions and instead insists upon thinking for himself or herself, that person risks Heresy.
In the Free World since World War II, we have allowed hysterical thought-police to grow up among us. Sharing characteristics with the worst excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and the McCarthyite Black Listings, today’s “Social Justice Warriors” demand absolute fealty to their dogmatic ideologies.
Anyone who dares to espouse traditions, norms or individual opinions courts cancellation or even violence at the hands of the Woke. Their most breathtakingly counter-intuitive claims must be accepted wholesale, without any pause for critical evaluation, OR ELSE!
Like the moment in George Orwell’s novel “1984” when Winston Smith noticed that the enemy Eurasia was seamlessly replaced in the propaganda by Eastasia halfway through the “Two Minute Hate”, anyone who even notices the logical inconsistencies within the Party Line risks being purged for treason.
Denizens of such dystopias are not expected to understand their rulers’ doctrines. Instead, their role is merely to cheer on these dogmas with boundless enthusiasm. In the end, Orwell predicted, the Party would produce endless generations of human-shaped creatures who have had their very capacities for critical thought burned out of their minds.
This is what every censorious utopian death cult strives for; a “sanitized” public discourse. The Jacobins of the French Revolution employed Terror to shock Frenchmen out of their old ways of thinking and living. Today’s Woke zealots employ the fear of being called “Racist!” to encourage anyone who might independently evaluate their ideology to censor themselves. “Political correctness” itself is a Stalinist term for thought and expression that harmonized with the ever-changing pronouncements of the Red Vozhd and his cronies.
We must be brave in any and every fight for free expression. We can stand beside people with whom we utterly disagree in support of their right to publicly argue their case. We can be willing to risk censure in our own work, family, and community to boldly say, “2+2=4”, even when everyone around us seems to be willing to let such a fraught opinion slide for the sake of peace and quiet.
We can demonstrate through our fidelity to liberty that any price is well worth paying to practice free expression. We can tenaciously fight against doubleplusgood groupthink, come what may, because without it life is not worth living. Having integrity in service of liberty is more important than peace.
