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PARTISAN REVIEW
problem with my comfort level. I said I was comfortable but happened
to disagree with what was going on.
Arthur Schlesinger: I
find I think about this issue on two levels, on
the level of higher education, which we've mostly talked about today,
and on the level of primary and secondary education. I think Vann
Woodward made a valuable point about the complicity of the faculty in
allowing this situation to develop. It's odd to me why at so many col–
leges the English department is the focus of infection. Historians are more
skeptical, at least judging by my correspondence. English departments
seem to be the carriers of the malady. I endorse Digby Baltzell's point
about the administrators as an over-swollen part of the university. They
always have to find something to do
to
justify their existence . In many
cases they are transients without strong attachments to the particular in–
stitution, and they do have the therapeutic frame of mind. Sometimes
they anticipate situations, create situations, almost create their own con–
stituency.
I also rather agree with Fred Siegel, that so much of the situation
around higher education is due to the tendency on the part of professors
who know better to cultivate their own gardens rather than get involved
in some local brawl. At some point, I think, most members of £1culty
know that political correctness is a pop vogue. I believe it will be short–
lived. I think it will come to an end when other faculty members bestir
themselves and try to rescue the curriculum from the distortions that have
been imposed upon it by sentimentalists and romantics.
What worries me much more is the situation in secondary schools. I
am concerned about the extent to which the curriculum in a number of
major cities is influenced by, or based on, the Portland pamphlets - an–
other manifestation of Afrocentric extravagance. Al Shanker can tell us
more about this. It is an alarming situation. It also presents a diversion
from dealing with the real problems of schools - getting safer schools,
better teaching materials, better teachers, more investment in education.
Beyond lie the larger problems of society - achieving stable families with
children capable of self-discipline, and creating the jobs needed to pro–
duce stable families. I'm more worried about primary and secondary
schools than I am about universities.
Wilson Moses: I
think you are absolutely right. I see, however, a
problem that occurs among most intellectuals and policy makers in this
country, a failure
to
understand that the Afrocentric movement is a
movement of the right. The leadership of the Modern Language
Association is intellectually on the left. What we see in the Afrocentric
movement and in Leonard Jeffries is a very good example of the hate
