monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Also the suppression of creativity. A necessary component of a healthy economy.

And you're surprised at that given they're penchant for slave labor?

Well the term Politically Correct is very certainly well known and has been very popular among the political left here. (Though seen a bit less frequently lately, I suspect due to the mockery it quickly elicits from those who see through the facade.)

In any event I observe that a central theme of this sappy pseudo doctrine is that the values of the various groups or categories to which we may be associated transcend those of us as individuals. i.e. that one's identity is largely determined by one's position in a taxonomy, consisting of currently fashionable (but ever changing) categories of skin color, belief, sexual preference, economic situation, etc. etc. That idea of course flies in the face of the values expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, both of which address the rights of individuals, not groups. It also violates the common sense of thinking, observant people.

I also believe that such thinking is often attractive to ambitious people with linited experience, intelligence and wisdom, because it facilitates the rather effortless "analysis" of situations that otherwise may be beyond their reach. The truth is that, in all of these groupings, the meaningful variations among individuals are far greater (and often more significant) than the average differences between groups. Observant people see the truth of that proposition every day in interacting with others.

The dangerous aspect of PC is that it becomes a tool for mediocre minds and, very perversely, the suppression of the real individuality of members of these (arbitrary) "groups" and individual rights for everyone. Human nature and the world we inhabit are vastly more complex than the feeble categories of political correctitude. Freedom and justice are far more readily found in seeing the common humanity in others and recognizing their worth as individuals rather than balancing the supposed values of the groups to which they are arbitrarily assigned. Worse still is differential treatment of individuals by government on the baiss of such group lables. This is the essence of totalitarianism.

Quite possibly the greatest word there never was!

Why not respond to the words that I wrote here with some of your own?

PC is an oxymoron. Everybody has their own preference for each political issue whether left or right leaning.

What I don’t understand is why no one has mentioned that Trump could have Alzheimers. His father died from complications of ALZ. There are tests, PET scan and genetic testing, to determine if he has it but no one has mentioned it. Having dealt with dementia patients for years, I see many of his behaviors as similar and alarming. His medical records release were a joke. Wake up America.

I'm a died in wool NYer fan. It started when I was a kid in a magazine liking household, in the days of Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, NYer, and others I don't remember this minute. New Yorker cartoons, called by them "drawings", were hard at first for me to figure out. Eventually I started reading an article or two, and once I hit my first full time job after graduation, I subscribed and was pulled into multiple articles forevermore, forevermore, forevermore. I stopped subscribing relatively lately, a wise choice re funding; I'm mixed on paywall, since I want the mag to keep on going and it's well worth their price, given the effort that goes into it for research, fact checking, etc. on news and for the generally fine fiction and art/music crits. I get it that the paywall can be breached, but re NYer, I pause. Anyway, I at least look at what's going on there each month and pick a few must reads before they shut me down.

I'm probably in love with Robert Mankoff from afar...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mankoff

So what? what is that I agree with you about Remnick (the way they spell it).

Truthfully, because the notions in that piece are more enlightening than the notions in yours or in what be contained in my response.

The usual pattern of thumbing up or down is very visible here - this activity appears to be a bit confined to one side of this exchange of viewpoints, and that, itself is interesting.

Yeah, I hear he was really constipated once ... this explains how Nancy Pelosi came to be.

I stole if from Russell Brand. Please don't tell anyone.

And ain't it a great word.

Jane met Mankoff. I'll tell you about that later but have to head out now.

I have not observed any signs of ALZ with Trump, but all I care about is how he may affect our economy. That's because we must now rely on our investments to survive in our retirement.

I made my views about his subject, Totalitarianism, very clear and offered a fairly detailed and description of the phenomenon in the 20th century period that Arend and Blatham addressed. It is there and available for any correction, crirticism or change he may wish to present. However he declines.

Neither has he replied to my equally opoen response to his invitation on the Matter of Political Correctitude.

Blatham appears to be running away from any direct contest of ideas, or at least any one in which he isn't given direct control of the rules and terms of reference.

Sad.

Waves to Jane..

So, tell me! tell me! (when convenient)

I haven't taken his long time mode as Alzheimer's, which I'm quite familiar with. It runs in my mother's family (not sure about father's), a lot of grand aunts sent away a lot of years ago, in the Boston area; my mother died of it after about twelve years. Not easy at the time for me to pay for, as she was a wanderer and needed locked care. I obtained conservateurship (a particular set of months, weeks, days, one day, in a kind of hell that I still visualize). She took hard years to die; there had been money and a house intended for me, but I had to go through it to pay for her care.

I care, though, about more than the economy.

I like that "sad" ending.

You did take the time to write on your understanding of totalitarianism. Thank you. But you've drawn it out in a manner rather different and more limited than the Arendt piece (possibly because of the title). Did you actually read the piece?

Re Politically Correct, sorry, I actually didn't see the post (rushing around today). But you made no address to the origins of the phrase which is rather important. What you have done is recite a bunch of right wing cliches. That's not helpful because, frankly, it's too thoughtless and unreflective. I'm still in the midst of stuff but quickly...

The initial inspiration for this line of thought, now commonplace on the right particularly, was Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. I read review of it when it came out in NYRB and ordered and read it. There was much in it that was compelling and I still buy certain parts of his argument (which I can clarify later if it looks like we can dig in a bit). Following that book, Dinesh D'Souza drew from a book he was working on and published a long essay in Esquire. I read that too when that issue came out (about 1990). Then he published his book. These two books carbon date the beginnings of the politically correct meme on the right. Bloom's book is far more valuable than D'Souza's work. Bloom was a very bright and educated academic writing about trends he saw in his professional world. D'Souza was and remains a political agent. Bloom concentrated on certain habits of mind of the liberal students he taught and his points were valid though his target limited - understandable at that time. I'm happy to go over why his target was valid. But where D'Souza would not go (and where I fully expect you won't go) is in a failure to recognize these habits of mind we're talking about being a feature of the right as well.

My personal favourite is 'mediocre minds'. It seems that the recently converted Trump supporters are going to ape Trumps limited lingo as well.