Go Crusaders! Is That Offensive? Oh, Uh, Go Sea Lions!

It is amazing how many people are accused of racism today. You are a racist if you criticize Obama. You are a racist if you would never move your family to urban Detroit. You are a racist if you criticize rap music. You are a racist if you think that perhaps gay marriage is a bad idea. You are a racist if you wonder if you might be paying enough in taxes. You are a racist if you happen to like the name of the team that plays in Washington.

I have referred to it as "political hypochondria," because we live in a society that seems to love its offenses. The fascinating thing in all of it is that there is very little calm discussion of the issues. Instead, there are emotional eruptions of offense at ever turn. The only people that cannot be offended are the Christians. They have enjoyed privilege for too long. They frankly deserve to be made fun of for sport without consequence by the whole of post-Christian society. So suffer in silence, Mr. Tebow. You don't count as a victim. Michael Sam does! Tebow is creepy, but Sam is brave! Boo Tebow, hail Sam!

Let me say that I think we should be respectful and loving towards all people; that all human beings deserve respect for being made in the image of God. In a purely atheistic universe, racism would be par for the meaningless course. If some animal group could exploit another for advantage, it is not like the mindless, purposeless universe is going to care. Evolution is indifferent to racism and probably even encourages it through the process of the emergent consuming the inferior.

Now I realize that there is some merit to many of the ideas circulating about Obama, Michael Sam, the Redskins, disenfranchisement, poverty, prison rates and the like. But I also would like to explore two questions I have concerning the renaissance of this charge of racism:

First, what exactly counts as racism today? C.S. Lewis once said that if we were not careful, various essential terms would come to lose their meaning. I think this has happened with words like "homophobia" and "Christian" and "racist." I was taught that a racist is someone who hates other people merely by virtue of their race or origin. Hating blacks because they are black would be a clear example of racism. But today we have people interested in broadening the meaning of the term. You are racist not merely because you hate blacks, but because you speak in ways that offend certain black people, perhaps 30 - 52% of them. Some blacks are even offended by "black" as a term of reference. So I've already offended many and therefore clearly I am a racist.

Or even speaking about another race without much knowledge of them or interest in them is offensive. The idea here is that people of different races cannot in principle understand the turmoils of other groups, and thus even speaking of them and their troubles is offensive. This is a phenomenon that philosopher Francis Beckwith has termed "hard multiculturalism."

Or what if you are not sorry enough for the crimes that your ancestors committed against blacks or Native Americans? (Of course this can work in infinite regress here, since everyone's group was at one time or another mistreated by some other group.) And by sorry enough, what I mean here is penance in the form of bottomless monetary compensations. Of course I'm a racist for even writing such a sentence, but is Thomas Sowell equally racist for saying the same thing of black entitlements? It certainly is possible to be a racist against one's own race, but can one really be so dismissive of Sowell!

Or what if you think it is a moral failure of the black community that the fatherless rate is so high among them? Is it simply a fact that since I'm not black, I don't get to make such a comment, because, again, I cannot even in principle understand black culture? And if that is the case, then why on earth should I ever even care to speak to a black person, since it will never lead to understanding? If morality doesn't bind us, what on earth does?

Or what if you think the fundamental tenets of Islam as a religion are destructive to human beings?

Or what if you happen to think that Christianity is correct as a matter of fact, and for all cultures? No, not American Christianity, whatever that even means, but Christianity!

Or what if you think it is within the realm of possibility that whites and evangelical Protestants could be discriminated against?

Racism! All of it is racism! One guy even said he knew "white" I said such things, because he was clever.

Today, if you operate outside the enlightened language codes provided for us by our intellectual parents, then you are a racist.

Nevermind that you might be a loving human being who grants the benefit of the doubt to any other human being, regardless of skin color or socio-economic background.

Nevermind that you are a truly color blind executive who hires only the best qualified person for a needed position in your organization.

Nevermind that you find every human being you meet interesting and attempt to draw them out by asking good questions and listening well.

Nevermind that you judge someone not by race or bank account, but by their character and the content of their ideas.

Nevermind that you give liberally to disadvantaged groups of all kinds.

All of that may be true, but if you cheer for the "Redskins," or criticize Obama or question entitlements, then you are clearly a racist.

And now my second question: Who gets to be offended to the point of changing our vocabulary?

Perhaps the best example of this matter for me is the Redskins controversy.

One side says the term can never be dignified and has always been a demeaning racial slur. The other side says that it can be used in a complimentary sense, as it was originally by some Native Americans and as it is presently used by some of them today.

So one side asks, "should I have the right to tell the offended that they should not be offended," and the other side replies, "should you have the right to tell the unoffended that they should be offended?"

Recently I was told that the title "homosexual" is now offensive. Then how shall I refer to those with same-sex interests? Well, just don't call them "homosexuals!" Perhaps I should start referring to "bisexuals" as "polyamorous," at least until that becomes offensive.

How are words determined to be offensive? The word "Christian" was originally an insult directed against the "little Christs" running about in the Roman empire. It was a term of derision, as if to mock them by suggesting that they were merely parrots of some other human being. But the Christians accepted it and turned it around, making it a term that accurately described their allegiance to Christ as Lord.

Ole Miss is called the Rebels, and surely many high schools in the south refer to themselves as the "Rebels," but I am left to wonder at how many find such a term to be offensive. Surely there are many offended at it, but then why is the name not changed? Most people in the south are probably now able to tease out the good connotations and the bad connotations of the term "Rebel." At what percentage of offense should Ole Miss change its name?

Christian schools call themselves the "Crusaders." Can you imagine being a Muslim student at a public school playing against the "Crusaders?" But again, Christian schools call themselves Crusaders, not because the Crusaders behaved atrociously to Muslims and Jews, but because there is still enough connotative good to the term to preserve it, even though some colleges and schools have jettisoned the name. Point Loma Nazarene changed their name from the Crusaders to the Sea Lions (and not the sea mammal, but something like Aslan coming out of the sea... I know... hilarious). But they are far less racist now for having done it.

My only point here is really just a philosophical one: Who gets to suggest that connotations have shifted and a term is now no longer acceptable to use? This is simply an epistemological question. Who bears such authority? If five people are offended at Crusaders, should I change it, when 500 love it?

As Christians we are told to exercise our Christian freedom in a way that is loving towards others who may be more sensitive to various issues than we are. Paul used the example of meat sacrificed to idols. And surely what he had in mind was something like a dinner where some Christian asserts his freedom without showing any grace to his brother or sister. Of course he was thinking of this on a small scale, among people of a similar epistemological grounding (The Church). But even on the larger cultural scale, I really don't want to offend other people. But I think we all have to admit that offending others is awfully easy to do in this culture.

You Aren't Wrong; You Are an Idiot!

One of the unfortunate results of postmodernism gaining its hold on society is that we can no longer argue with people. We don't talk about religion and politics because people can't do it without being offended. And the reason they can't do it without being offended is that they don't believe there is truth to be found in these matters. It is all so hopelessly complicated that there must be no definitive answer.

This whole thing saddens me. I read Plato and Aristotle and get the sense that they really were arguing in such a way as to find the truth. If someone turned out to be wrong, well that was no big deal, in a sense. It was a simple matter of education and correction. The argument was not successful and so the defeated person either chose to learn or abandon the discussion. One doesn't see sarcastic dismissiveness or name calling or derision in a Platonic dialogue, unless you were a sophist and got frustrated with the questioning, like Thrasymachus. And I'm convinced that the reason for this is that people actually believed in the truth in those days.

But we are too evolved for all of that. We now know that there are so many perspectives, so many interpretations of history and even science, and certainly there are a dizzying array of moral opinions out there. This has led us towards an odd way of arguing. Instead of making a logical case for a position, we appeal to convenient statistics, opinion polls and emotional rhetoric along with passion and personality. The result is that many if not most people are persuaded towards a de rigeur midline. Our culture does a fine job through public education and the popular arts of homogenizing thought. There is, after all, not much use for logic in our culture, so this form of communication sets the popular mean, the language game by which we all play. Even Christians today assert the compliance of Christianity with custom rather than its defiance of custom, at least as a general tendency.

For example, Person A says that abortion is morally wrong. Person B overhears this and says that she is offended by such comments. She had to have an abortion when she was young due to her financial and life situation at the time, and anyone who ignorantly (a favorite term of modern dialogue) pontificates about moral absolutes like this should understand the perspectives of other people. No one can know the struggles of other people. Voila! End of conversation. Person A is not shown to be wrong in his ideas. He is merely shown to be offensive. It is not as if his argument is unsuccessful and thus he can be merely corrected and set on the path of truth. He is just an idiot!

Or say you read some Theodore Dalrymple and become convinced that the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor may not actually succeed in solving the problem of poverty. Those of a different "perspective" hear this and think you are a greedy capitalist interested only in your own position. They accuse you of oppressing the poor for your own benefit. Again, it is not as though you, or Dalrymple, are shown to be in the wrong. Anyone who speaks the way you do is just a bad person or an idiot or both! Nobody argues with you; you are just shouted down. 

To the contrary, perhaps I become convinced that someone else is wrong. How will a person, suckled in a postmodern culture, hear me when I try to show him that he is wrong? For example, how might a postmodern atheist understand my attacks against the arguments of naturalism? If he is quite committed to a postmodern view, he can only see my opinions as arrogant claims to the truth and not truth itself. He is pre-committed to the notion that there are only enculturated perspectives, thus my view is merely my privileged "anglo-American Protestant view." So, again, he will not be persuaded by my argument. He will only be offended by it. Note what I am trying to do, as a person committed to the truth; I am trying merely to show him that he is in the wrong, not that he is an idiot. But he responds by helping me to see that only my worldview commits a person to right and wrong, and thus it is arrogant for me to try to impose truth upon him. Thus, I am not wrong; I am just an arrogant idiot... again.