When I was very young my father would read me a story
about a leader who wanted everyone to be square and so he would force everyone
to line up, enter a machine, and when they exited they were all square. He loved squares so he turned everything
square. I remember vowing to never let
anyone force me to be something I was not, to fight any effort to make everyone
the same. This was the early 1950s, so I
assume that thoughts of communism had something to do with this story’s
publication. A few years back my son was
able to find a version of the story I was talking about – it is called The Square World. It was created in 1944 by Dick Huemer and Joe
Grand and was a proposed short film or cartoon that “would have satired the
conformist society of Nazi Germany.” Sadly,
it is as relevant today as it was in the 50s.
The story begins by telling the reader “IN THE beginning, the people in
the land of What’s-Its-Name looked just like the people everywhere else. Some had short shapes and some had tall
shapes. Some had round shapes and a few were rather square. Everyone seemed
quite content with these many different shapes, everyone except one man. This
man was a rascal. This man, alas, was the Mighty-Highty-Tighty, the ruler of
the land.” We learn that he was only
content with his own shape: “I do not like
so many shapes,” he growled. “My shape
is the right shape.
All other shapes are wrong. I do command that henceforth everyone be shaped
like me. And that means square! Ha ha!” And then "He chuckled with horrid glee.” We then learn how Mr. Highty-Tighty first
turned all the people into squares and then everything else as well. “At length, the great task was done. Life
itself now seemed completely square. Each family breakfasted on square poached
eggs, square sausages, and square pancakes. When each square father went off to
work, he gave his wife a sad, square kiss, and strode off blowing square smoke
rings from the end of his square cigar. When the square children went off to
their square school, they rode on a square school bus that bumped along on four
square wheels. And when people met their friends along the street, they didn’t
bow or shake their hands; they sighed,
and hailed them with the sign of a square.” The story ends, however, with the failure of
Highty-Tighty’s plans for the future when he learns that he cannot make new born babies square.
I’m not sure exactly what the moral of the story is intended
to be, but I can tell you what lesson I learned as a child, and what remains
true for me today: We must stand up and
fight against any person or government that demands that we all look, think,
act alike. We must rebel against any
such mandated conformity.
As I grew older and learned about our constitution and our
form of government, I realized how important the first amendment is and how it
is a true ally in any fight against such conformity. For one of the first things that anyone
seeking a rule like Mr. Highty-Tighty must do is to remove the protections for
free speech. That is, part of any
mandated conformity will of necessity require limiting what people can say and
making sure that all speech conforms to the approved structures and views.
Thus, you will understand why I become uncomfortable with political
correctness which is easily the first step towards a land of conformity with no
room for opposing views, or even, today, anything that any one finds the least
bit unpleasant. You will understand why
I become uncomfortable when people are told that it is not enough to be
tolerant of the views or lifestyles of others, that you must accept those views
as your own. That is, I am uncomfortable
when anyone believes they are a Highty-Tighty who has the right to tell
everyone else what to eat, what to say, what to think, what to believe and I am uncomfortable with the Highty-Tightys who believe that it is government's job to do so.
My hero in the story was a rebel (who apparently did not
really exist, at least not in the version of the story recently found, but whom
I and my father must have concocted).
That rebel refused to be turned into a square and led some sort of
revolt against Mr. Highty-Tighty, ultimately shutting down his square making
machine.
It is that rebel within me that can’t help but speak out
against the intolerance that is growing almost daily in this country. People are not free to say anything that
others might find offensive; if they do they are labeled as haters or bigots or
racists or some equally offensive term.
I see this intolerance and this disregard for the rights of free speech
of all coming most frequently from the leaders and others on the Left. They have a vision of the world which is
really not that far removed from that of Mr. Highty-Tighty. They believe that everyone should think as
they do and if they do not then it is OK to silence them; that is, put everyone
in the machine so that we all come out just the same. We can eat the approved foods, we can hold
the same values, we can say only what offends no one, we can all be just alike.
What I don’t understand is why the Left does not see what it
is doing. In trying to create its brave
new world it is destroying the key freedom necessary for any such world. With its underlying attack on free speech it
is creating a conformist world where the one in command determines the manner
in which all must conform. That is
indeed a brave new world of the type envisioned by Aldous Huxley in his novel of the same name and the "World State" described therein; a world I
think most of us would choose not to inhabit.
So, you see, I am not going to conform. I will rebel.
I will stand for free speech for all, even for the most disgusting ideas
with which I do not agree. I will
tolerate other views, but I will not be forced to accept those with which I do
not agree and I will stand for that right for everyone. I accept that means that the
Left will likely call be a bigot or racist or worse. But I will demand free speech for all and I will
speak out against the Highty-Tightys and their Leftist square-making machine.
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