Puritanism

We all know what the word "Puritan" means, right? 

I don't mean the historical group of dissenting Protestants who fought in the English Civil War and settled in New England. I'm thinking more of the way the word is popularly used. H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy." And in casual conversation, Puritans are taken to be people who disapprove of booze and sex. They are also routinely assumed to be wrong. Even people who advocate caution in the use of alcohol (because of risks like addiction and early death)—or who advocate selectiveness and discretion in choosing sexual partners (because of risks like abuse or disease, among many others)—hate to be called "Puritans." Even as they argue in favor of temperance and a restraint on indulgence, their message is always a little apologetic: "I'm not a Puritan, but …."

Of course, even in this casual sense, Puritans have something to say in their own defense. It is a simple fact that alcohol abuse can have devastating effects. Drink too much, and your judgement is shot to hell; drink too much, and your nervous system is never quite right again; drink too much, and your liver starts to shut down. These are all terrifying consequences. In the same way, unchecked sexual libertinism can result in recklessly unplanned pregnancies, not to mention the spread of nasty diseases. It can also mess with your emotions, leading people into abusive and exploitative situations that they find themselves powerless to leave. Again, when you go to the extremes the risks can be terrifying.

Why then are Puritans mocked so badly, when they are warning against real dangers? Simply because the vast majority of people who drink alcohol or engage in non-marital sex never get near the extremes. Plenty of people drink beer or wine with dinner, and maybe even something stronger while watching TV, but never let it ruin their lives. They don't get fired from their jobs, and they never experience delirium tremens. In the same way many couples live together without benefit of clergy, but their lives are in other respects boring, respectable, and normal. And when Puritans warn that these people are playing with fire, that they are just one bad day away from catastrophe, … the people laugh at them. And rightly so.

This is why so many people make fun of what used to be called "political correctness" and is now called "woke-ism." The speakers of the Left—preachers, activists, harridans, or what have you—condemn racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and other similar scourges. And the folks who hear them, mostly laugh at them. This persuades the activists on the Left that those other people actively support racism. It's why the Left genuinely believes that every recent Presidential election has been a contest over racism, and that every registered Republican is a racist at heart. The accusation is absurd (and often means that people laugh at them a second time for believing it). But for the Left it is logical: Why would they laugh at us, unless they supported all those things we oppose?    

Before I answer that question, let me pause for a minute to explain that the Left has sober reasons for opposing all these things. The way they see it, racism is the root cause behind lynching; if you allow racism to flourish unchecked, lynching is the inevitable consequence. In short, racism means murder. In the same way, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other phobias also mean murder, because those things have led to murder in the past. Sexism might not mean murder (although remember Bluebeard!) but it certainly means exploitation and servitude, just because we all know that in extreme cases women have been reduced to terrible conditions in the past.

In short, the Left are Puritans. They see that racism, sexism, and the rest can have terrible consequences in the extremes, and so they insist that all these tendencies be eliminated root and branch. But of course, just as with alcohol or non-marital sex, the vast majority of people never come anywhere near the extremes. Let's say we're all together at Thanksgiving Dinner. When Uncle Ernie gets a bit drunk and makes a jovial remark about the cute little "pickaninnies" down the street, he's not about to murder them. When Aunt Esther shakes her head primly while talking about the "confirmed bachelors" in her apartment building, she's not contemplating foul play. And when Dad slaps Mom on the ass at the end of the feast and announces loudly to everyone in the room how lucky he is to have married such a good cook, he's trying to convey affection and devotion, not ownership.

Normal people know this. 

Normal people know that the extremes are a distant memory, and almost never a risk in real life. 

Normal people know that the United States has already made huge progress along all of these fronts in the last sixty years, and has come as close as any society in history to embodying the ideal where racism, sexism, and the rest have disappeared as meaningful threats. Any vestigial remnants are harmless.

Normal people know all this. But Puritans can never let it go.