Things that make it very difficult to call oneself a Leftist.

The below item represents an entire genre of rhetoric which in language, content, and tone, represents that side of leftism with which makes me sigh.

Before I get to it, several comments. I like environmentalism just fine. What I don't much like is the romanticized version or the sort of thinking that connects a sometimes unfrugal use of resources with "oppression" against human beings, as in the phrase "The domination of wimmin is parallel to the domination of Mother Earth and "non-humyn" animals." These are not parallel. They are quite different. The Nazi regime was utmostly respectful of nature; an attempt was even made to replace traditional German Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism with even more traditional German (read Germania by Tacitus) pagan tree worship.

One notices that trees have replaced, in this line of thinking, the Noble Savage: trees are uncorrupted, free, beautiful, and so on. This thinking takes Rousseau's faulty romanticism even further. (For the most penetrating critique of Rousseau and the Noble Savage, I recommend Camille Paglia's book Sexual Personae; whether one agrees with all of her ideas or not, it's a great read and it reminds you that there many angles from which to examine a problem.) It also represents the "pathetic fallacy." In the back of my mind I wonder what statistically average males from many countries, including America, think when they read this. I cannot help but to think that this sort of thing tars the entire Left. The website is http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~insurgnt/13.1/fallcreek.shtml.

Note the use of terms like "wimmin" which if you are unfamiiliar is supposed to be the non-sexist term for women since it does not contain the word "men." In other such writings, wymyn is used. This one also uses humyn. Note the careful placement of "wimmen and men" which is supposed, one assumes, to decenter masculinity from thought, but only looks like a bearded, bespectacled version of that very 1940s chivalry that many current feminists deride as paternal and sexist.

Note the term "patriarchal death culture." (For current views on patriarchy that radically revise the absolute negativity in which patriarchy is seen by modern academics, I recommend a fascinating article in a recent issue of Foreign Policy by Phillip Longman, March/April 2006. I can put a link to it if requested.) Equating patriarchy with death will be most difficult after reading Longman's article.

The document is interesting and sympathetic as a snapshot of how a small community of radicalized, focussed individuals tries to solve interior problems. I'll give it that credit. It makes me want to be a fly on the wall in some of their community meetings. But it is precisely the sort of ultra-left, very PC attitude that turned me away from the radical left after I heard it too long in San Francisco at Real Food grocery store and a nonprofit punk rock record store on 16th and Valencia where I volunteered for six months or so, and at Berkeley on campus at every single protest. When the radicals take over all left action, the moderates who don't agree with the radicals simply leave. Many are so disgusted they turn right. I did not do this; I stayed moderate left, which is a lonely place in the city of Berkeley.

Note what the writer declares is the source of sexist stereotypes or views about the differing general characteristics of the human genders: society. One wonders if it is "society" that makes male and female cats differ in their behavior; at some point, those feminists who sincerely believe that all gender differences between human males and females are constructed will have to deal with this question.

Note the sigh-inducing line:

"Another reason why abusive men and their supporters felt justified in their behavior is because they felt that a direct action campaign is not a place for feminist politics. Sound familiar? They were either "sick of hearing wimmin whine about sexism" or very self-righteous and denied that they had any sexist, racist, homophobic, classist, speciesist, ageist, ableist behaviors imbedded in their minds."

For those unfamiliar with far left rhetoric, "speciesism" is the belief that some species are more worthy of preserving than others. This is not an "ism," properly speaking, but a respect for the dignity of human life that must lie at the center of progressive politics, or of any politics worth participating in, but has been relegated to another irrational prejudice by the tree people along with discrimination against the handicapped or ableism. For more on their use of the word "racism" which I argue needs to be seriously dissected, please note the Norman Davies post below as well as the Comment section of the "what this site is all about" post.

I will occasionally meet people who talk a much more radical left talk than I do and who are shocked when they finally read things like the below. I realize then that they have never really read much of the far left's rhetoric; and so have never actually comprehended my earnest protestations that the far left is pursuing policies -- if a disjointed group of individuals can be said to pursue policies of any sort -- that are not in sync with the moderate left.

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Addressing Sexist Oppression at Fallcreek
a collaborative effort of wimmin and men

Sitting in the canopy of this old growth forest, in treesits that we created with our friends, as birds sing to one another and the sun turns the sky pink, we think about the beauty of the earth, this place, and the imminent threat of logging. We also reflect on the current strength and good feeling of the Fall Creek Treevillage. We have been here for over three years trying to create an alternative to the patriarchal death culture. We'd rather the Fall Creek Timber Sale was cancelled so we could take down the treesits and leave the red tree voles and flying squirrels in peace. But the forest service and Zip-O Lumber want their profits; they want "their" trees.

Our community has gone through tremendous changes. We've dealt with forest closures, law enforcement, cold weather, diarrhea and oppression within our own campaign. Those of us who currently make up the Cascadia Forest Defenders collective take this opportunity to provide some insight into dealing with problems that affect all campaigns. This information is the collective experience of wimmin and men involved in the preservation of this campaign. Many times issues of sexism and power-tripping are ignored or excused, but left to fester these problems will inevitably divide people and weaken the group. When that happens our efforts to save the forest and end patriarchy suffer too. When it comes down to dealing with problems, most individuals would rather look the other way. We chose to be responsible for our community and pursued the difficult step of getting people who would not stop being abusive to leave.

In January 2001, it became apparent that several men were creating an unsafe environment for wimmin and keeping wimmin and men from full participation. Some men who lived at Fall Creek were abusers or supporters of abusers. They espoused sexist stereotypes, actions and words that had become engrained in their minds (as we all have, society puts them there). They refused to admit to their sexist actions and they refused to begin working on themselves to amend these behaviors. Many wimmin who were involved around this time were no longer willing to keep confronting the abusive, misogynistic behavior, with no positive results or end to the abusive patterns. At that point, Fall Creek became mainly men in the treesits with only a small number of wimmin visiting for short periods of time. This created a situation where wimmin ended up doing the majority of the town and grunt work.

We all suffer from sexism, externally and internally. A beginning step in deconstructing sexism is to recognize the institutional role it plays and that men are trained to be sexist in a patriarchal society. Some men created a "boy's club" within Fall Creek; they would stick up for each other, defend each other's actions and deny that any type of abuse had occurred .

Some of the men in the boy's club had vital skills and resources. Therefore, some people in the campaign questioned whether these men should be approached or asked to leave. They wanted to avoid the issue of sexism because they feared it might hurt the campaign financially and strategically. People tend to be valued for the money they provide and the skills they possess. Traditionally, the men who hold these skills share them with other men, perpetuating inequality. To prevent this chain of male dominance from happening in your campaign it is important to emphasize sharing skills with wimmin. We have found that it was not worth putting up with bullshit from "skilled" people because when they were finally asked to leave, it opened up space for skilled anti-oppressive people and funding is still available. It is more common for people to ignore problems when the people in positions of power are the problem. To avoid this, divide tasks between many individuals and look for funding from several sources. You will be amazed at the opportunities this creates.

Another reason why abusive men and their supporters felt justified in their behavior is because they felt that a direct action campaign is not a place for feminist politics. Sound familiar? They were either "sick of hearing wimmin whine about sexism" or very self-righteous and denied that they had any sexist, racist, homophobic, classist, speciesist, ageist, ableist behaviors imbedded in their minds. It takes a lot of thought, open mindedness and hard work to challenge our inherited beliefs of ism's that dominate our lives. Because of much of the white skin privilege at Fall Creek and in many eco-defense circles, the confrontation of oppression, if any, usually falls along gender lines. We believe this is something that must be challenged and that all oppression with in our action groups must be confronted, not just sexism. This is one of the many lessons we have learned over the past few months and are continuing to work on.

Fighting oppression should have equal importance as the fight for the forest. The domination of wimmin is parallel to the domination of Mother Earth and "non-humyn" animals. There is no fighting for one without fighting for them all. After putting up with sexist behavior for years, some of us felt totally disempowered to do anything. We did not like the way things had been going, and we had no hope that it would change. We became pessimistic and depressed with the situation. We are so grateful that enough of us were empowered to fight sexism and truly create what we want at Fall Creek, a safe space for challenging oppression--a place where we all have the opportunity to learn together and from the forest while we defend it.

We started to have meetings about what to do. It was agreed upon that two men, because of the level of their abuse, were no longer welcome in the campaign and two others were given a chance to evaluate themselves and learn the importance of an anti-oppressive attitude before returning to the forest. All men were asked to participate in a "gender bender," where traditional gender roles in the campaign would be switched for a period of time.

There were people who felt that people in town had no right to make decisions regarding people in the forest. We feel that all people involved in the campaign, whether they live in town or in the forest are part of the same campaign and support each other. Many forest defenders go back and forth between town and the forest and were in town because they were disempowered and depressed by the situation in the forest. In general, most of the people in the forest supported the changes too. We all have a responsibility to confront oppression wherever it may occur, and to work for an atmosphere of inclusion for every gender.

No physical force was used to remove people from the forest. Each man was approached in a way we hoped would minimize defensiveness and help communication. One style was to have a representative of the larger group whom was also a friend of the man approach him one on one. We also tried a group approach with wimmin and men taking part. In either case, talking with people was not easy. A few people had a hard time with the idea of asking anyone to leave permanently. This led us to sugarcoat our words, compromising our group's decision. It was very frustrating to not be firm. We were met with much hostility and verbal abuse. This strengthened our confidence that our decisions would benefit the campaign and that we had not misjudged their character.

One man who needed to leave was in a treesit and refused to be replaced. After determining that he had enough bulk food and water to survive, we decided to cut off his ground support, including fresh food. Within a few days he came down, and the "gender bender" month began.

This entailed having an all wimmin occupation in the forest, teaching and learning practical skills about forest defense and wilderness survival. Many new wimmin came to Fall Creek with fresh energy, skills and resources. They also came with stories of intimidation and offense that had kept them from getting involved when it was predominantly male. Most of these new wimmin are still dedicated and involved.

During this all wimmin forest time, supportive men were in town organizing funds, rides, food and the office. This freed wimmin from town responsibility so they could go to the forest. Everyone's knowledge of forest defense was expanded.

The men whose abuse inspired these actions, did not support the "gender bender" and chose to leave the campaign. Any loss of resources or skills that might have been felt from their absence has been met, and met by people who are as dedicated to a community free of abuse and hierarchy as they are to forest defense. Of course, nothing is perfect and we have to constantly deal with our own shit, but that's part of what this is all about.

If you are interested in what we are doing and would like to get involved or send donations, please contact us! Logging could happen at any time, so come defend the old growth and destroy patriarchy! Contact Cascadia Forest Defenders PO Box 11122 Eugene, Oregon 97401 (541) 684-8977; greencanopy@popmail.com; www.echoecho.org

Endnote: We have made a conscious decision to not name the abusers in this article. Part of this is to respect the privacy of the people who may still feel threatened by them. Some of us would like to have a network to alert campaigns about abusive individuals. Anyone interested in contributing, please get in touch.

Web Site Design by: Fruition Design Collective
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Department of Justice Crime Statistics

Several people at Berkeley have asked me for raw data on crime in the USA categorized by ethnic background of the offender. It is only on such statistics, not on a discussion about "perception" (the phrase "it's the media, stupid" comes to mind) that any meaningful dialogue can occur. Here is a link to violent crime statistics from the Department of Justice website. On that site are statistics of every sort imaginable. The below link takes one most directly to issues more pertinent to Ethnicity and Feminism at Berkeley. Please examine the responses posted to the bottom post ("What this site is all about") for more on all of this, I do mention the accusation that a "racist justice system oppressing blacks unfairly" exists. Also please note the article by diIulio accessible from the link in the post IMMEDIATELY BELOW this one.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/sheets/cvsprshts.htm#table46

DiIulio on Whites, Blacks, and Crime in America

While looking for reliable crime statistics in the USA to examine ethnic groups' differential crime rates, and alert for anything else that may have been interesting as well, I came across a quite well-written article in something called "City Journal." The author is that rara avis, a professor from a working class environment who kept something of a working class perspective. We need more of these if "diversity" is indeed a goal to be striven for. He talks about children picking on each other, which is something that needs close study for the future by developmental psychologists as well as by sociologists of, I should hope, a more moderate political bent than the majority of the people who enter that profession. The main thrust of his article appears to be a reasoned and calm refutation of whether the US criminal justice system, including the juvenile ofender system, is racist or racially prejudiced in any meaningful, rational sense. He provides interesting analyses of drug offender statistics as well. He draws data from a number of sources that sound interesting, including a study by Stanley Rothman and Stephen Powers that I am going to try to find. He discusses the Racial Justice Act which I know nothing about but wish to research, which he says was going to apply a "racial quota" to murder cases. He also mentions jury nullification -- it's quite important sounding.
The article at least touches on a great many issues and points the way to further discussion.

Here is a teaser quote that is not representative of the careful and measured tone of the article but that is quite interesting: "You can’t have it both ways—protesting that police are less responsive to black crime victims than to white ones in one breath, charging that “too many” black victimizers get caught, convicted, and sentenced, in the next;"

http://www.city-journal.org/html/6_2_my_black.html

McWhorter on Race

I don't generally approve of Front Page Magazine, a radical right-wing inflammatory e-journal started by lefty apostate David Horowitz, although I certainly recommend that people read his fascinating autobiograpy "Radical Son." The book chronicles his shift from radical Berkeley leftist in the late sixties to gung ho right wing supporter. As the left, and academia, refuses to realize that the conservative movement in America is in fact worthy of study and quite rich in its ideological textures, I doubt that such conversion narratives will be studied by sympathetic (yet, I hope, critical) scholarly audiences at any time in the near future. However, I do respect John McWhorter, a young linguist who taught at Berkeley and wrote, in addition to works on social and historical linguistics, a remarkable book called "Losing the Race" which critiqued affirmative action. As McWhorter is black, the book gained perhaps 5% more grudging respect than it would otherwise have gotten from those persons who are confirmed pro-affirmative action ideologues. Although, again, I don't wish to give Front Page Mag undue publicity, here is a most perceptive teaser from their interview with McWhorter with the link below.

Then I address some other issues, showing that we are dealing less with "racism" than some people's inner need to pretend that "racism" remains the problem it once was.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21170

Bay Area Protests

Yesterday I discovered an interesting website, courtesy of my friend Katya. The anonymous author of the site, who I believe is a female, is known only as zombie. The exact connotations of her moniker are uncertain to me. The site consists of many, many photographs, mostly of political protests in the Bay Area over the past few years. In its captions, at least the site is not rabidly political but lightly criticizes various platforms. Among other things are photographs of a protest against the execution of the founder of the Los Angeles Crips, a gang which has led to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of young men and women in Los Angeles. Personally I do not think the death penalty is a good idea but its protestors in this instance conducted themselves in a fashion that may raise eyebrows. She also photographs anti-Israel protests and anti-war protests as well as a clash between pro-choice and pro-life protestors. If one examines the "hall of shame" section one sees a particular selection of protestors. These are the sorts of people who will give any leftist or progressive political causes a very bad odor among the unconvinced.

WIth notable consistency certain themes snake through many of these protests. One: a general contempt for civility. Another is a contempt for civilization. A third is a stubborn insistence on comparing the USA with Nazi Germany. A fourth is a comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany. A fifth is a confused miscegenation of all the causes that happen to fall under the rubric of leftism. Protest signs against Israel are visible in the Tookie Williams manifestation. As Helen, a ravishing British acquaintance of mine stated several years ago, "I don't understand these American protests. I saw a girl with a shirt saying 'STOP RACISM. STOP RAPE.' What have these to do with each other?" (For a comparandum note the phrase "our efforts to save the forest and end patriarchy" located in an online "zine" called "The Insurgent" located at http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~insurgnt/13.1/fallcreek.shtml)

A final thing present at many of these demonstrations is Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party or RCP, a Maoist (!) group that sincerely thinks a revolution in the United States of America, with prisoners freed to form a revolutionary party, and a subsequent dictatorship of the proletariat, is the answer. Elsewhere I have described and critiqued this group. From the protest photos, the group ingeniously insinuates itself into every vaguely leftist or even "progressive" protest. It is organized and somewhat disciplined. Brilliantly it co-opts an array of demonstrations into its own. An example would be a speaker I saw on the steps of Sproul Hall at Berkeley a few weeks ago who said that "as an American-born person of Guatemalan descent" he felt marginalized in the American discourse in general. He then stated that he was fighting for solidarity among the oppressed people of color in America and that recent Congressional talk of strengthening border guarding was a blow against the immigrants. Finally he asserted that there should be no borders and no nation states. This last is of course a primary goal of communism and one that the RCP supports. For some, this set of logical steps made sense. I am pretty certain he was working for the RCP although I did not ask him.

Here is the link:

zombietime.com

Feminism and Science: Diana Blaine

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(From Chronicle of Higher Education Oct 4, 2000, "The State of Women's Studies" available at http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/transcripts/2000/10/20001004patai.htm)

Question from Diana York Blaine, U. of Southern California:
Doesn't the teaching of the periodic table imply that "man's" appropriate relationship with "nature" is one of dominance? And that we should search for the meaning of existence through science? Since when are such humanist assertions free from political implications?

Daphne Patai:
I'm confused by the reference to the periodic table as a "humanist assertion." Not to get too hung up on the example of the periodic table, but Diana seems to be saying that we can't teach about the principles of solid bridge construction without getting into questions of who builds bridges, men or women? whether or not they should at all be built? and so on. Their are appropriate fora, no doubt, for dealing with such questions, but I don't think they should be the main focus of an engineering program or a chemistry program.

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The above exchange, in which the first speaker attacks the "political" biases inherent in teaching chemistry, is not her only contribution to women's studies. She is a professor at USC. The second speaker tries to maintain rationality in the conversation; this can be difficult with some people. Before we continue, let me say this. I have determined to maintain a professional tone on this website. The issues I wish carefully to treat are simply too important to joke about. I have found that the seriousness and sobriety that seem prudent when dealing with ethnicity and feminism are not universally appreciated. The following link leads to a website that I first thought was a joke. Apparently this is that same person who thought the periodic table was sexist: a real professor at USC. In addition to possessing that hostility toward science that one occasionally finds in certain circles of "identity politics," she maintains a jocular attitude toward the very real problems at stake in her stance. Although one hopes it is hard to imagine a professor being unprofessional, especially about the things she professes, it is all real. It is no wonder that a genuine conversation about the issues I treat is so difficult, and no wonder that the debate in this country -- especially academia -- has become so polarized.

http://www.dianablaine.com/

New Flash: I have just discovered a website apparently from a USC Trojan who critiques Diana Blaine: go to http://cardinalmartini.mu.nu/ although I really think you must go to Blaine's website first -- in the same way that if you are going to write on, for example, T. S. Eliot's "Waste Land" you should read the poem first and let it wash over you before you read anything written about it.

Book Review by Paul Trout: John K. Wilson's "The Myth of Political Correctness" by John K. Wilson

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The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education

John K. Wilson
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995
205 pp., $14.95 pb
Paul Trout
English
MSU-Bozeman

There is no question that the phrase "politically correct" has been used successfully to discredit a wide assortment of values, ideas, programs and attitudes embraced by the left, especially the academic left.

Not surprisingly, ever since the term started to draw blood in the early 90s, those who smarted from the nettlesome PC label have attempted to convince a dubious public that "political correctness" does not even exist, or is too negligible to deserve attention.

This is the thesis of The Myth of Political Correctness by John K. Wilson, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and editor of--as well as the main contributor to--Democratic Culture, the newsletter for Teachers for a Democratic Culture. By pulling together all the arguments and statistics that PC deniers have used to fend off the damaging charge of "political correctness," Wilson hopes to provide a "sustained rebuttal to the conservative attacks" (25). Sustained it is, but convincing it is not.

In Chapter 1, Wilson contends that "political correctness" is a big lie, concocted by conservatives funded by "right-wing foundations" and by "liberals and journalists who dislike the academic left" (2). By distorting, exaggerating, and then repeating ad nauseum a few anecdotes about so-called PC repression at some elite universities, these forces have conspired to create the "myth of political correctness," which has convinced a clueless American public that a "vast conspiracy" (4) "under the control of a secret cabal of leftist professors" now threatens the civil liberties of "conservative white males" (2-3).

In Chapter 2, Wilson pushes his argument farther: the real threat to academic freedom, he contends, does not come from PC but from CC--conservative correctness. According to Wilson, conservatives have exploited fear of "political correctness" to wage "culture war against radicals of all kinds" ( 118), fomenting a "backlash" against "anyone who advocates progressive ideas" (14). In subsequent chapters, Wilson examines widely trumpeted PC anecdotes about the canon, speech codes, sexual correctness, and reverse discrimination, arguing that "when closely examined," these cases simply "unravel" (xv). This is precisely what happens to Wilson's book.

But before I address the work's deficiencies, a few concessions are in order. There is no doubt that some PC stories have been distorted--and exaggerated--in the telling and the retelling. This is what happens when winning the culture war trumps scholarship and telling the truth. But sometimes inaccuracies do not signify conspiratorial propaganda (whether right or left) but writing to a deadline. Of course, when the facts are (finally) known, they should be objectively reported. If this bromide now sounds a bit quaint, it could be because academics on the Left have been so assiduous in Reconstructing such terms as truth, facts, and objectivity. It seems hypocritical and self-interested for one of them to now evoke the terms in self-defense.

Nevertheless, Wilson is to be commended for correcting the record in several cases, and for admonishing right-wing culture warriors to get the facts straight (for example, about the canon, which is not being trod to dust under the jackboots of multiculturalists, about the ballyhooed Thernstrom case, etc.) and to eschew the dehumanizing, demonizing rhetoric of which they are too fond ("liberal fascism," "stalags of state-subsidized sensitivity fascism," "liberal thought police." etc.).

To admit that some anecdotes have been exaggerated and distorted is not to admit, however, that the reaction to "political correctness" has also been excessive. Wilson contends, quite understandably, that the whole issue of alleged PC repression has been blown out of proportion. While this claim will appeal to those chafing from the term, it is a claim that is ultimately tendentious and vacuous, for it is unprovable. Who has the scales in which to weigh cultural concerns? How could a culture as pluralistic as ours agree on a standard that convincingly determines when cultural attention moves from being justified and reasonable to being "exaggerated" and "excessive"? Although Wilson has corrected the record here and there, he certainly has not discredited enough stories to support his argument that PC is some sort of mythic confection. By now there have been too many reports about too many incidents of coercion and intimidation for them all to be simply dismissed as invented or wildly exaggerated. Indeed, a number of these reports have appeared in centrist, and even liberal, periodicals (such as Mother Jones) and have provoked academics from across the political spectrum to speak out against them (more on this in a moment).

In Zealotry and Academic Freedom (1995), Neil Hamilton, a professor at the William Marshall School of Law, carefully and soberly recounts enough stories of PC zealotry to make the point that the coercive policies and practices endorsed by the academic left now constitute a more dangerous threat to academic freedom than any other wave of zealotry, including McCarthyism (143-145). And it is not just "conservatives" who understand the nature and source of this threat. Wilson is forced to acknowledge that many centrists, moderates, liberals, and even some Marxists, have also opposed PC (1). He accounts for this opposition by suggesting--insultingly--that they either were duped by conservative propaganda (156, 17), or were "alarmed" by radical attacks "on liberal ideas about rationality, free speech, and objectivity." He adds, "liberals were also concerned at the intolerance of leftists, who did not accept liberal notions about the marketplace of ideas" (24).

Does not this disconcertingly frank explanation concede precisely what Wilson denies--the existence of intolerant leftists who do not accept widespread and traditional notions about free speech and reason? It is this leftist assault on cherished liberal values that provoked, for example, the eminent historian C. Vann Woodward to articulate one of the most incisive definitions and critiques of "political correctness" yet written:

In the present crisis the attack on freedom comes from outside as well as inside and is led by minorities, that is, people who speak or claim to speak for groups of students and faculty.... In behalf of their cause and to protect feelings from offensive speech they have, as we shall see, proved themselves willing to silence speakers and professors, abuse standards of scholarship, curriculum, and admissions, and impose conformity or silent submission on the campus (in Beyond P.C. 31).
Many others who are not die-hard conservatives have also spoken out against the well meant but puritanical and coercive practices and policies to be found at too many of our best universities. If Wilson wants to brand these scholars with the dreaded label of "conservative," he is free to do so, but the ruse will console only die-hard PCers deeply into denial.

Wilson is even less convincing when he argues, provocatively, that "the greatest threat to freedom of expression in America" comes from conservative correctness (164). In a bid to make his case, Wilson must employ an exceedingly elastic definition of "conservative." For instance, under the heading "conservative correctness" Wilson lumps any restriction imposed by administrators (107, 12), any rule or act that upsets campus gays and lesbians--even when these occur at decidedly"liberal" campuses (46) or in the "most liberal" departments (43)--and every vile, bigoted act he can dig up, even when the identity and political beliefs of the perpetrator are unknown (31). Thus, when a male student sends a message to a female student in which he threatens to stalk her (41), this becomes, for Wilson, a case of conservative correctness! Given this sweeping definition, it is not surprising that Wilson thinks conservative correctness, like Chicken Man, is everywhere.

Not content with using a bloated definition of "conservative," Wilson also searches through a number of fourth-tier and sectarian campuses for anything that looks like "conservative correctness," finding his own alarming examples at such influential schools as the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Messiah College, Campbell University, Bethel College, Nyack College, the College of Saint Scholastica, Viterbo College Millsaps College, and Ohlone College (2).

Granted, small regional and religious schools are rarely bastions of free thought for obvious reasons, and it is hypocritical, as Wilson contends, for conservatives to talk glowingly about the academic freedom at such places as Brigham Young University, Boston University, and Hillsdale College (135). I share Wilson's suspicion that the right's recently acquired commitment to academic freedom is not as permanent or even-handed as it claims, especially given the right's continuing willingness to ignore, palliate, or applaud violations of the academic freedom of leftist professors (10-11, 32, 57, 77, 135). The cases that Wilson manages to find at these schools proves that there is such a thing as right-wing PC, and he does well to remind us all that "intolerance is not a monopoly of the left" (55). But it is a telling revelation that Wilson chooses to express it this way.

For Wilson to make a plausible case that conservative correctness is now a greater threat to free speech and academic freedom than PC, he would have to draw examples from large secular universities, the same ones that have furnished so many alarming examples of Leftist coercion. The debate about PC has justifiably focused on these major universities because they educate so many students and establish precedents and set the pace for smaller and less influential campuses.

Why, then, does Wilson not draw examples of conservative correctness from such schools as Stanford, Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin, Duke, etc? The answer is simply: they don't exist. As Neil Hamilton puts it, "the left so totally dominates departments of humanities and social sciences at elite universities that moderate and conservative faculty have almost no presence." Because "there are virtually no faculty members from the far right at universities or four-year colleges,...there exists no threat to academic freedom from the far right within the faculty itself" (101, also 106).

In his chapters on speech codes, sexual correctness, and affirmative action, Wilson tries to explain the extent to which certain features of the "progressive agenda" have been misunderstood or wilfully distorted. Although his treatments of these topics does not amount to a convincing case that there's no such thing as PC and it's a good thing, too, he does make some subtle distinctions that culture warriors on the right too often overlook. But even in these sections Wilson's arguments suffer from logical inconsistencies, elastic definitions, and the tendentious interpretation of evidence.

Those at the political extremes always see themselves as a beleaguered minority desperately contending with a hostile majority threatening to overwhelm them. This mindset may help explain Wilson's sincere but preposterous thesis. Far to the left, Wilson believes that he is fighting for his intellectual life in a country that, from his point of view, is overwhelmingly "conservative," where every institution, from elementary education to the military-industrial-political complex, is saturated with socially endorsed capitalist values. No wonder he is outraged that the "conservative" majority--despite owning everything else--won't let leftists at least control higher education as their last redoubt.

John Wilson is not only a precocious graduate student but an indefatigable and battle-tough combatant in the culture wars. This may have been his undoing. The flaws to be found in The Myth of Political Correctness illustrate the consequences of writing polemics before one has mastered the argumentative and intellectual skills and values of traditional academic research: "accuracy and thoroughness in the collection and use of evidence, reasonable assertion, impartiality in the determination of the weight of the evidence, careful analytical reasoning, and fairness in argument or controversy" (Hamilton, 93).

Those who esteem such skills will take little pleasure in the fact that The Myth of Political Correctness is such a shallow and ineffective endeavor to find--and face--the truth.

Notes
Among the centrist-to-Marxist opponents of PC are such distinguished and influential scholars as: C. Vann Woodward, Nat Hentoff, Mortimer J. Adler, Todd Gitlin, Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Louis Menand, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, David Bromwich, Derek Bok, Nuretta Koertge, Stephen Carter, John Patrick Diggins, John Searle, Irving Howe, Edward W. Said, Shelby Steele, David Riesman, James David Barber, Nadine Strossen, Russell Jacoby, Susan Haack, Steven Marcus, Daphne Patai, Helen Vendler, Nathan Glazer, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Louis Horowitz, Alan Kors, Jacques Barzun, Edward O. Wilson, Donald Kagan, Julius Lester, Allan Dershowitz, Colin Diver, Benno Schmidt, etc.

Wilson palliates a case of "political correctness" that even he says is legitimate by saying that the incident was not significant or worrisome because it occurred at "a small liberal Christian college, not a leading secular university." He conveniently overlooks the fact that his own evidence that "conservative correctness" is now sweeping the country is also drawn from the same kinds of schools: Marquette University, Gonzaga University, Bringham Young University, Idaho State University, Southwestern Michigan College, Pacific Luthern University, Saint John's University, Loyola Marymount University, Campbell University, Converse College, McKendree College, Elmira College, Jamestown College, Mount Vernon College, Stephen F. Austin State University, Ohio Northern University, Southwestern Theological Seminary Saint Martin's College, North Idaho College, Dallas Baptist University, Palm Beach Atlantic College, Wheaton College, and Montana Tech.
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Norman Davies on Poles and Jews

Norman Davies wrote the marvelous popularizing behemoth "Europe: A History" a decade or so ago as well as several books on Polish History including "God's Playground." One of the things I like the most about Davies is that he is a political moderate. About twenty years ago in the New York Review of Books (to which I advise all persons to subscribe) he wrote something that has been rolling around in my head recently. It seems especially apropos today, not only to anti-Semitism but to the increasingly elastic usages of the term "racism." Here it is.

“One must seriously inquire whether the concept of anti-Semitism is adequate to the task of defining and explaining the historic conflict of two nations. For one thing, the word "anti-Semitism" appears to be infinitely elastic, being applied to everything from the advocacy of genocide to a dislike for bagels. Nowadays in America, it is widely used to condemn any criticism of Jews, or of the Jewish state, Israel, irrespective of the merits of such criticism. Furthermore, like all its dialectical counterparts, such as "anti-Sovietism," it can easily be used to smear all expression of dissenting opinion, since any protesters to the smear can automatically be tagged with the same lousy label.

“Worst of all, when applied to complex international or intercommunal relationships, it assumes from the start that the main source of any antagonisms where Jews are involved must lie with the Jews' opponents. In the nature of things, anti-Semitism cannot be invoked to explore the attitude and conduct of the Semites, nor to consider the happier aspects of the Semites' relations with their neighbors. When applied to the history of Poles and Jews, it cannot do other than suggest firstly that there are no redeeming features to the tale, and secondly that the Poles are to blame for all the misery.

“Anti-Semitism, therefore, looks to be a sadly blunt and one-sided tool, capable of probing only one side of multidimensional problems. It is as though one were asked to write the history of Ireland armed solely with the concept of "anti-Protestantism," or to analyze Moslem–Hindu relations in India on the sole basis of "anti-Islamism," or to expound on Russo-American relations on the sole basis of the "anti-Americanism" of the Russians. No one in his right mind would deny that an irrational hatred of Jews has been a recurrent and deplorable ingredient of Poland's many social and political conflicts. But that ingredient is but one item in a far more complicated and unsavory menu. Another ingredient is the irrational hatred of some Jews for Poles.” (NYRB Nov 20, 1986)

When dealing with the set of issues that Davies concisely raised in the above quotation, some things to think about are these. We do, it seems, automatically feel special sympathy for someone we see as the underdog. This is part of the reason why so many people consider the Palestinians as the Good Guys and the Jews as the Bad Guys. It is a knee-jerk reflex and it has certain good uses but can simplify things to the point that they are not historically accurate. Just because a group has fewer guns than another group, or grievances which may be argued as legitimate against another group, does not mean that it has the right to behave as destructively as it can. It doesn't mean that its members should deserve our exclusive sympathy for committing violent or, on a smaller scale, even rude acts against the group with more guns.

Introduction: what this site is about.

I am a fairly liberal person who votes Democrat. I live in Berkeley, California. I believe in socialized medicine, socialized daycare, higher taxes for the rich, and free or very inexpensive high quality education. I believe in the things that I think are consistent with a Democrat of about Franklin Roosevelt's era.

However, there are some things of which the American Left approves with which I cannot agree. The biggest ones are the excesses surrounding multiculturalism, especially the fetishization for ethnic diversity that often runs head-on against other beliefs of mine. Don't get me wrong. There are few things I would rather see more of (aside from peace, prosperity, scientific advances, functional colonies offworld spreading human civilization elsewhere, a cure for cancer, human happiness, etc) than persons of a wide variety of ethnic groups in, for example, the higher reaches of academia.

However, the manner in which this goal is achieved, and whether it should be thought of as a "goal" that needs to be "achieved," are questions whose answers -- at least the ones the American Left, especially in Berkeley, California, have given -- are tricky. For example, should a massive social engineering effort really be necessary to achieve this goal? How much money should be spent on it? Should individuals be pulled into the most elite instititutions by those institutions' outreach staffs just because those individuals happen to be of a "desired" ethnic minority to complete a palette, sometimes almost regardless of the individuals' levels of skill or interest in a subject?

Aside from admissions, how about some of the classes one finds in the academic setting today? I have taken an "American Cultures" class at the University of California at Berkeley. In this class I was instructed quite straightforwardly that white people are bad, nonwhites are good; men are bad, women are good; Christianity's effects have been absolutely negative;straights are bad, and non-straights are delightfully deviant and fascinating. And this was meant to be an upper-division history course. Its teacher is a perfectly respectable professor whose father played an important role in the United Nations. He wasn't a wide-eyed fanatic. This is the mainstream attitude of a whole lot of people. The obsessive identification of, identification with, and sole concentration on, history's victims trumped every other consideration in that course and in the minds of many people. Further, the obligation of insulting all things related to European culture is an active sentiment in these circles as well. Is this a reaction from centuries of oppression? What the benefits of this overlordship were to the oppressed is a highly arguable point, but even if what happened in the past has largely been a straightforward case of oppression, the overreaction to it that I see daily is not rational or reasonable.

A friend of mine told me that the word "overreaction" in the last sentence made her uncomfortable. Let me linger on it a moment. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, nor do I want to be inflammatory at all on this site. However, I don't think that the free exchange of ideas will be possible if the word "overreaction" is prohibited. The status quo of any discussion on ethnicity amongst caucasians on the left very often (since the late 1960s) has taken the form of a futile ballet of one group of people delicately tiptoeing around the sensibilities of persons who consider themselves or their ancestors as oppressed, as Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn explains in her interesting book "Race Experts." The first group feels it cannot speak frankly lest it cause offense, and that it must constantly apologize to the point of being self-demeaning, an utterly unproductive action. This status can only harm honest discussion. But honesty need not equal obnxiousness. A balance needs to be struck. Compromises need to be made both by the party whose language might hurt others' feelings and by the party whose feelings might be hurt. However, at least from having lived in Berkeley, I can say that the first party has been making all the compromises and the second party, at least as I have seen it, not as many.

Obviously this site is not meant to be a cranky conservative site that castigates "political correctness" or PC. There are already plenty of sites like that. It's meant to be for fairly leftish people, or formerly leftish people. Anyone may post; I will remove counterproductive or insulting postings. I will be posting things I find bothersome in relation primarily to the sort of extremist multiculturalism in the San Francisco Bay area that, among other things, denies agency to minorites by encouraging them to identify themselves as human beings primarily in terms of their or their ancestors' oppression; as well as the extremes to which I occasionally see feminists go, often colored similarly.

My hope is to create a critical forum for these issues that, for once, does not issue from the far right.

Even aside from the universities, let's look at a situation in a Berkeley elementary school, below from a local paper produced in the city of Berkeley.

This is from the Berkeley Daily Planet, Weekend Edition, April 21-24, 2006:

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Academic Choice Students Excused from Core Course
By SUZANNE LA BARRE (04-21-06)

It has survived heated criticism, a curriculum overhaul and a new name, but Freshman Seminar can’t stand up to Academic Choice.

Following a 4-1 vote by the Berkeley Board of Education Wednesday, students enrolled in the Academic Choice enrichment program at Berkeley High School are no longer required to take the concentrated ethnic studies and social living course required of freshmen, known in recent years as Freshman Seminar.

Instead, they will enroll in a year’s worth of ancient civilization and geography that will make time for a month-long social living segment as mandated by state law. Ethnicity and identity studies will be dispersed throughout the program’s four-year arc. The new curriculum goes into effect this fall.

“We’ve been struggling for years to provide a meaningful social studies course,” said Berkeley High School Principal Jim Slemp. “Since I’ve been there, we’ve been working on it and not succeeding. … There may be better ways to meet those goals than what’s currently being offered.”

Freshman Seminar, or Identity and Ethnic Studies (IES), as it was known pre-2004, provides lessons in identity, diversity, health. The curriculum has been a rite of passage for freshmen at Berkeley High since the early 1990s, but one that has earned mixed reviews.

Some say the course lacks structure. Instructors are free to teach—or not teach—as they please. Bradley Johnson, who served as student school board director during the 2003-2004 school year, complained that the ethnic studies course victimized ethnic minorities, demonized white students and inculcated students to the teacher’s ideology.

In 2004, the board approved an IES curriculum revamp and conferred the new name Freshman Seminar. But most agree the program is still flawed.

“Some people like the program. Some love it. But a lot of people really hate the course,” said school board Vice President Joaquin Rivera. “It has been extremely controversial. We’ve tried to improve it in many ways and with a few exceptions, it has not been successful.”

Susan Helmrich, one of more than a dozen Academic Choice parents who attended Wednesday’s board meeting in support of the new courses, described her son’s Freshman Seminar as “an absolute disaster.”

Another parent quipped that her child watched movies and learned how to play poker in IES.

Others expressed concern that the existing curriculum does not offer UC credit to Academic Choice freshmen. Academic Choice is a program within Berkeley High School for high achievers.

The newly approved freshman course offers one semester of world geography and cultures, and one semester of ancient civilization, both of which are designed after UC-approved courses. There is no guarantee they will earn accreditation, however.

Support for the curriculum is not unanimous. The proposed course was submitted to the Berkeley High School Shared Governance Committee, comprised of school site council representatives, faculty, staff and students, three times, and never received a two-thirds majority approval.

On Wednesday, School Board candidate and Berkeley High School parent Karen Hemphill spoke out against the course.

“I think the proposal is a short-sighted answer to a long-term problem,” she said, detailing the benefits of coursework that emphasizes identity development, ethnicity and diversity. “Lack of academic rigor is not due to course content, but due to lack of accountability for teachers.”

Student Board Director Teal Miller agreed teachers make the course, but that doesn’t mean other possibilities should be dismissed.

“I had an amazing IES teacher, however the more I talk to students at Berkeley High over the past three years, the more I realize I was in the minority in having a phenomenal teacher,” she said. “Taking it from a different perspective is important because of the other students I talked to who sat for a year and did nothing and I think that’s really unfortunate.”

School board directors Rivera, Shirley Issel, John Selawsky and Nancy Riddle approved the new Academic Choice curriculum. Terry Doran opposed it, saying he did not feel world history was necessarily appropriate at the freshman level, and preferred a contemporary course.

Only one other program at Berkeley High, the International High School—a small school slated to open this fall—provides an alternative to Freshman Seminar. Students at the other small schools and the comprehensive high school are still required to take Freshman Seminar.

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=04-21-06&storyID=23942

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Again, having experienced the Berkely zeitgeist on matters of ethnic diversity, I have a very easy time believing that Bradley Johnson's comments are unfortunately correct. The majority of people I have seen who disagree with sentiments like his are either people in their fifties who argue along the lines of "well, there was no recognition whatsoever of ethnic minorities in my day, so this is a step in the right direction." While I am sympathetic to their point of view, I would assert that it is not they who are being educated in Berkeley high schools but their children and grandchildren who have grown up in a much different world. Almost all agree that a recognistion of and appreciation for ethnic diversity is a fine thing -- even those who only from the perspective of self-interest because it is better to be able to select from a wider variety of national cuisines. The problem is when one has, as a mandatory course, something that is likely to become infected with the very denigration of European culture that I found in a university course at UC Berkeley. I fail to see how most high school courses will refrain from the simplistic game of "let's reverse the color of hats on the bad guys and good guys" if a UC Berkeley course couldn't refrain from that.

Terry Doran's comment that ancient civilization is not appropriate for a freshman level and that a contemporary course is preferable is confusing and even distressing. First, students are surrounded by contemporary culture. What they need is to break out of that and study something alien. Secondly, at what level would he prefer students to learn of the civilizations of the past? This is extremely important information. A proper understanding of Roman maritime culture, for example, puts diversity in perspective for us today -- and is interesting in its own right. The realization that slavery has existed in every single culture in the past puts American slavery in a decidedly less demonic perspective and makes it an understandable institution if highly regrettable. A perhaps paranoid thought in my head even makes me wonder whether there are people who profit by maintaining anger between blacks and whites; they would surely not want blacks to learn about the widespread nature of slavery.