Israel Matzav

Woodrow Wilson and the advent of political correctness

At Gates of Vienna, Baron Bodissey has an interesting post in which he blames Woodrow Wilson for the advent of political correctness on the world scene.

Hat Tip: Shy Guy

For those of us who are attempting to unlearn the decades-long indoctrination that is now known as “political correctness”, an essential part of the process is dethroning the icons of modern liberalism. From an American viewpoint this has meant looking at JFK and FDR with a jaundiced eye, but we also need to go even further back, all the way to Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson is the only scion of the Commonwealth of Virginia whose election to the presidency I would rather forget. Wilson did much mischief in his conduct of American foreign policy, and we have yet to shake off his legacy. From Versailles to the UN to the idealism of George W. Bush: we set out to make the world safe for democracy, and ended up making it unsafe for just about everyone.

What is rarely recognized is how much Wilson had in common with Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and all the other murderous socialist dictators of the 20th century. Like them, he believed that humankind could be reshaped by the idealistic vision of the privileged few who governed them. Like them, he was loath to allow the reality of human nature to stand in the way of his vision.

Shaking off Wilsonianism is a worthwhile goal.

A commenter named Alexis ties political correctness specifically to radical Islam:

I would argue that Woodrow Wilson’s worst long-term legacy was the Europeanization of America’s foreign policy. Wilsonian politics puts undue emphasis on whatever happens in Europe at the expense of ignoring other parts of the world. He was a racist, even by the standards of the time; I have often wondered if his ideas of “self-determination” and the League of Nations were actually means to create an international atmosphere conducive to promoting the secession of a future Southern Confederacy.

There is one other legacy of Woodrow Wilson we must remember – Islamophobia, as in a phobia against angering Muslims. During the early years of World War I, American public opinion was against entering the war against German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, American public opinion was staunchly in favor of declaring war on the Ottoman Empire to avenge atrocities against the Armenian people. Yet, when the time for war came, Woodrow Wilson was scared about angering Turkey because American missionaries in danger of facing the same fate as Armenians.

This led to a private rebuke from former president Theodore Roosevelt.

“The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and failure to act against Turkey is to condone it; because the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense; and because when we now refuse to war with Turkey we show that our announcement that we meant ‘to make the world safe for democracy’ was insincere claptrap.”

From Theodore Roosevelt to Cleveland Dodge, May 11, 1918. Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 8, 1316-18. Found in p. 308, The Burning Tigris, by Peter Balakian.

Ironic, isn't it, that just a couple of months ago when the United States Congress passed a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide the Jews were blamed by Turkey, and eventually the United States backed off doing anything about it. We're still fighting World War I!

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:49 AM