612
PARTISAN IUVIEW
of things, because we are confident that any effort on his part to ma–
nipulate us is undertaken to advance ends similar to those we would
pursue ourselves. Hence, whenever political discourse takes place under
conditions of uncertainty about the values of participants, a certain vet–
ting process inevitably occurs, in which we cautiously try to learn more
about the larger commitments of those advocating a particular course of
action. This process encourages the conformity of expressed opinion
which we associate with
Pc.
The self-censorship which results is the hidden fact of political cor–
rectness. For every act of aberrant speech seen to be punished by
"thought police," there are countless critical arguments, dissents from re–
ceived truth, unpleasant factual reports, or nonconformist deviations of
thought which go unexpressed, or whose expression is distorted, because
potential speakers fear the consequences of a candid exposition of their
views. As a result, the public discussion of vital issues can become danger–
ously impoverished. I offer two examples which serve to illustrate the
broad scope of this phenomenon.
Phillipp Jenninger, once the president of Parliament in the former
West German Republic, was forced
to
resign in November of 1988,
following a speech he gave at a special parliamentary session marking the
fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht. An uproar was created by the fact
that many in his audience construed Jenninger's brutally frank account of
prevailing attitudes among Germans in the 1930s as a disguised defense of
National Socialism. This was so despite the fact that Jenninger was re–
garded as an opponent of totalitarianism of all stripes, a fierce anti-Nazi,
and an arch supporter of Israel. No one accused him of being anti–
Semitic. Still, even before his speech had ended, there were demonstra–
tions of anger from some in the audience who, finding his words pro–
foundly offensive, rushed ashen-faced from the chamber. Virtually all re–
viewers who examined Jenninger's speech concluded that he had said
nothing untrue, malicious or defamatory; he simply said things that some
people did not want to hear in a manner that they were unwilling to
accept. Jenninger had spoken "incorrectly."
This incident illustrates a complex social reality. Jenninger's personal
sentiments, as evidenced by a lifetime in politics, did not cause his down–
fall. Quite the contrary, his liberal reputation led him to believe he
could get away with such a graphic "truth-telling." And, though every–
one acknowledged the literal truth of his claims, in the end this seemed
not to matter. Many even affirmed the importance of his evident goal in
the speech - encouraging modern Germans to look candidly at their
history, the better to avoid repeating it. But by violating a taboo against
any expression which might be construed as sympathetic with this period
in German history, by offending an etiquette of discourse that prevents
