evelynwaughblack:

❝It is wrong to constrain political thought, even bad political thought. And if the targets of political correctness have changed over the years, its power over what gets printed, heard, or seen has not.

This may, in fact, be more a problem now than then.

England has no written constitution, and therefore no First Amendment. But even if there had been a British Bill of Rights it would have offered no protection to Orwell in this matter.

The First Amendment does not require a publisher to print anything the publisher doesn’t want to—because publishers have rights, too. If a law were passed prohibiting the expression of certain views, it would be held unconstitutional. But political correctness is not a law. That’s why it’s so dangerous. Its victims have no constitutional protections. And even today it prevents the expression of uncomfortable truths more effectively than any statute ever could.

If Orwell were with us today, he would probably welcome the Internet blogs as an alternative to the mainstream political correctness that almost kept him from print. (He would have faulted the blogs on other grounds.)

Of course, Orwell is with us today, but that was a very close call ❞

David Lebedoff, The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love & War, 2008