The Totalitarian Temptation

Nearly thirty years ago, after the first Gulf War, I read in the once-serious New Republic a poignant first-person account of a young Shiite in southern Iraq, in which she described the period when it still appeared that freedom from the hated Saddam Hussein had been obtained. She described how, in that heady moment, she and a number of other young people in their early twenties experienced for the first time in their lives the opportunity to speak openly to another human being without fear of being informed upon to the regime.

It would be a serious exaggeration to describe the United States today as a similarly fearful totalitarian society. But it is hurtling in that direction at a frightening rate. According to a July 23 Cato Institute poll, 62 percent of Americans withhold from ever stating their political views, lest they be found offensive. That number rises to 77 percent among self-identified conservatives. Strong liberals are the only ones among whom a majority feel comfortable expressing their views — 58 percent.

In the course of researching my recent feature on Professor Jeffrey Poelvoorde and his refusal to submit to a campus mandate to take anti-bias training, I discovered just how rare is the kind of courage he displayed. A senior partner in a national law firm whose politics lean conservative told me it would be unthinkable for her to follow Poelvoorde’s example. She had no question that doing so would result in her being fired. Even questioning the narrative of “systemic racism,” or denying that differential outcomes of any kind are proof of institutional racism, might provide sufficient cause for her to be hounded out of her job. In such circumstances, she admitted, keeping silent is the better part of valor.

A recent guide to “Whiteness,” produced by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, includes in its description of “White culture” such ideas as planning for the future or delaying gratification, the view of time as a commodity, belief in the nuclear family, an emphasis on rational linear thinking, and cause-and-effect relationships. These ideas and aspirations are antithetical to black culture, the Smithsonian suggests. At least we no longer have to search for nefarious explanations of black underrepresentation in the sciences: It is an outgrowth of the black rejection of the scientific method, according to the Smithsonian.