Ralph K. Ginorio 168-INS: ADVOCACY VS JUDGMENT

by RALPH K. GINORIO/Keep Right
| May 26, 2022 1:29 PM

A person raises their right hand, their thumb and index finger forming a circle while the rest of their fingers are extended. What does this gesture mean?

When and where I grew up, it means "OK," "affirmative," "got it" or "I understand. If one remembers the TV shows "The Prisoner" or "Babylon 5," it is also a mysterious gesturer indicating, "I've got a dark secret."

However, recently, this gesture has been proclaimed to be a proverbial "Masonic handshake" of evil. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith has classified this hand gesture to be a symbol of anti-Semitism and of white supremacy.

In the ADL's statement, they at least admit that for most people and at most times, it simply means, "OK." But, ADL insists that in the proper context it means an expression of the irrational hatred for the Jews.

This is but one of many seemingly innocuous expressions that have been reclassified as evil, hate-filled, and redolent of dark intentions. Reclassified by who?

By self-appointed guardians of public expression; you know, the same people that police speech and writing as an act of service to the rest of us. These sentinels of the Jungian collective subconscious make certain that nothing which they deem to be "problematic" passes their scrutiny without condemnation.

If, in their judgment, someone else expresses an idea that varies even slightly from their ideology, these Social Justice Warriors will pounce.

These assertions of hidden meanings have expanded recently to include decrying all criticisms of the machinations of George Soros as being anti-Semitic, all references to the Chinese origins of COVID-19 as racist, and all arguments for a colorblind meritocracy as being white supremacy.

Claiming the ability to independently discover nefarious and hidden significances to otherwise innocent expressions is an effective way to intimidate would-be opponents into silence. The spontaneous redefinition of normality into variant misogynies, homophobias, transphobias, misgenderings, Islamophobias, sexisms, racisms and heresies has devastating emotional power. How easy to win an argument when you can invent a proverbial Freudian slip that reveals your opponent's obscene thought-crime.

The penalty for anyone straying through their ever-increasingly crowded minefield of forbidden expression is "cancellation." This Orwellian term involves public shaming, then shunning, the destruction of reputation, the excising of all past works, termination from gainful employment, and even criminal penalties.

This is a betrayal of free speech. If Communists, National Socialists, Black Panther Terrorists, Klu Klux Klansmen, Antifa, BLM, and other advocates of what I would call evil are not allowed to express themselves, then no one is. The answer to hatred is not suppressing their bilious rants, but rather in allowing them to reveal the paucity of reason and value in their notions.

Free expression permits us all to more easily spot folly and mischief ourselves. We do not want or need self-appointed chaperones against "misinformation" as we navigate the marketplace of ideas.

More than this, there is a breathtaking hypocrisy in those who would censor the rest of us in service to their version of tolerance. Given the objective meaning of this word, a person need not be tolerant of those things that they are already predisposed to like.

Toleration involves being willing to put up with obnoxious and offensive things for the sake of the greater good of freedom. Yet, our would-be fact-checkers demonize anything which varies from their utopian concept.

This tendency has nothing to do with tolerance. It is about hysterically policing the speech of others, which is to say fanatically policing the thoughts of others. It is nothing less than intellectually lazy and self-servingly delusional to assume that one's opponents are evil.

No, my woke friends and neighbors, it is simply not true that only evil thought-criminals could possibly dispute your wisdom. Life is not that easy. Good and wise people are not all on your side, nor is objective reality a proof of your concepts. You are too personally involved as advocates for your worldview within our culture's debates about the meanings of life, to be fair judges over the rest of us.
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In Maine and then Idaho, Ralph K. Ginorio has taught the history of Western civilization to high school students for nearly a quarter century. He is an “out-of-the-closet” Conservative educator with experience in special education, public schools and charter schools, grades 6-12. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 2014. Email: rginorio@cdapress.com