Note: the occasion of this essay was the discovery of a wonderful newspaper calling itself "Heterodoxy, the Cultural Equivalent of a Drive-By Shooting," by the 'Center for the Study of Popular Culture.'
What does it mean to be heterodox? One definition you might find in Webster's dictionary is "to challenge prevailing assumptions, to defy orthodoxy, to resist conventional authority." Well then! To be heterodox is to be a rebel! It means to rise above the crowd, to resist the status quo, and to show that one is a free thinker. In short, to defy the powers that be. Since that open age of rebellion in the 1960s, in our society it is though to be rather heroic to be heterodox - since the "powers that be" must, by Lord Acton's maxim ("absolute power corrupts absolutely"), be worth fighting. People equate orthodoxy with religious fundamentalism, unquestioning belief, lack of critical thought, a "cultlike" mentality, and irresolute commitment of ideology. Since ours is a pragmatic age, we have no place for ideologues or absolutist thinking. So then, let us be heterodox!
Yet a strange thing often happens to many brands of heterodoxy. When everybody tries to be different, they all end up the same. "Punk rockers" in high school all seek to be different from their peers, so they all color and 'spike' their hair, wear leather, etc. Eventually they all end up looking alike. At first it's a new "style." But then it becomes stifling and closed. So it becomes a new orthodoxy, and people don't want to go along with it anymore, and they become the "new heterodox" by doing something new and different, say, tattoos or body piercing. Occasionally, these "neo-heterodox" decide the best way to be different from their peers is by going back to looking the way people did before they went "punk," i.e. dressing like "squares" all over again. These particular heterodox can be called 'reactionaries.'
Sure, everyone wants to be heterodox. But sometimes you have to look at just what orthodoxy it is they're rebelling against. Let's say that the conventional wisdom is "question authority" and "think for yourself." Then I come along and say, challenge the conventional wisdom, and obey authority and listen to everything I tell you! This particular kind of heterodoxy is known as 'fascism.' Sometimes people want to resist authority, not for its own sake (as anarchists do), but so they can replace it with what they consider to be a 'better' authority. And, more often than not, that 'better' authority means they are in charge. Usually these 'heterodoxists' resent power being in the hands of new people, because it used to belong to them and their group. The 'difference' they want to bring about is the old homogeneity.
So heterodoxy is only a label, not a value judgement. It can be good or bad depending on what orthodoxy one is resisting. And no one resists orthodoxy without having some sort of view of a new orthodoxy to replace it; even anarchists have some vision of what their new society would look like, even if they refuse to use authority to establish it. The question is, who wields power? Let us say that in a particular society, certain oppressed groups begin to win rights that they previously did not have. Poor people, racial minorities, women, religious minorities, people whose behavior is outside of the 'mainstream' in some way. Theirs is a heterodox movement - they are fighting for inclusion in an orthodoxy that has no place for them. In order to win these rights, they need to have some power of their own, so they end up fashioning some sort of orthodoxy of their own. As with all orthodoxies, this one has its flaws. It focuses more on victimization than empowerment, concentrates too much on "esteem" and not enough on critical thought, often promotes group inwardness instead of inclusion, and works too hard on controlling speech and not enough on pluralism.
This ugly orthodoxy comes to be called "political correctness" or "PC." It gets to be compared to Stalinism, to Maoism, to the Pol Pot Regime, to McCarthyism, and to Orwellian 1984ism. The heterodox opponents of PC begin to stand up and flount their heterodoxy. Academic freedom, intellectual diversity, and Western civilization itself is said to be under attack. But what, ultimately, is this heterodoxy about? The same old thing. This "heterodoxy" is nothing new. It is about going back to the old orthodoxy, to the previous conventional wisdom, to the outdated status quo. If the "new" orthodoxy of PC means that groups that were previously disempowered now have some power, then these "heterodox" folks must want to go back to a time when these groups were kept in their place.
The irony, of course, is that the PC orthodoxy is anything but. While it supposedly rules from "enclaves" on university campuses, PC "dogma" does not seem to be the true conventional wisdom. If all the media, the think tanks, and the government are so busy criticizing PC, then where is the orthodoxy that supposedly enforces it? The "heterodox" claim to merely be standing up for diversity of opinion. But do they want a multiplicity of opinions to be heard, or to have what they consider to be the "prevailing" opinions silenced? The irony is that these "heterodox" are not dissenters in the true sense. One would expect dissidents, like the circulators of samizdat in the Soviet Union, to face hardship and suffering. So why are these "outsiders" doing so well and getting so much money from the "establishment?" Could it be that the "heterodox" are really the "orthodox"?
Might it not be the perfect Orwellian coup? If war is peace and black is white, why not make orthodoxy heterodoxy? It would be a true triumph of doublespeak. To turn the "powers that be" into the wronged and persecuted. Many of these "heterodox" folks call themselves "conservative" and yet talk about "change." Well, you can't change things by making them the way they were before. Might they be trying to "conserve" an existing orthodoxy, to prevent it from being diluted? If so, then the PC "orthodoxy" might really still be a "heterodox" movement. Maybe instead of trying to narrow thought and opinion and restrict speech, its goal is to give the previously unheard and unrepresented voices, to broaden the "canon," to widen the horizons of people?
After reading this, the only thing I hope you come away with is that heterodoxy and orthodoxy, like 'liberal' and 'conservative', are relative terms. Remember this much: think for yourself. Critically evaluate opinions and consider their sources. That's the only "orthodoxy" I would want to impress on you. And if you're going to be "heterodox," at least don't try and sound so much like everybody else.