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enough," he wrote. "But more serious, because less conscious and more
pretentious, is an intellectual fashionableness pinned up on such shibbo–
leths as 'the people ' (the most procrustean of categories), 'relevance'
(the most reactionary and totalitarian of educational doctrines), and 'life
style.' "
The resort to political considerations, in the context of the critical
evaluation of works of art, implicitly devalues art, though this is not
usually acknowledged in the committee rooms of foundations and gov–
ernment agencies. Scholars, who can afford to be somewhat more can–
did, will grant that the emphasis on the political goes together with an
antipathy
to
the moral and aesthetic dimensions of experience. In ad–
vanced circles, works of art are approached as cultural "products"
deemed to be of interest because they reinforce ce rtain political suasions
and tendencies. Art requires demystification . It is a front, a camouflage,
diverting the concerned citizenry from some sort of power play or ploy.
It is as if works of art operated on principles akin to those of television
commercials: paid for, they are charged with the task of propagandizing
for a particular platform. And if art is no better than and no different
from an editorial or an advertisement, how else to judge it except on
the basis of the message it expresses or the political gesture it makes? The
subordination of art to politics, almost always a surefire prescription for
artistic disaster, is the risk run by high-minded philanthropic enterprises,
let alone by the attempts of clumsy bureaucrats to use art, culture, and
higher education as arenas in which to pursue agendas of social justice.
The reign of intolerance and political correctness has had other
consequences as well, many of them deleterious. Grade inflation by itself
seems a minor enough thing to worry about until you remind yourself
that it is a function of groupthink, c1osed-mindedness, and a priori argu–
mentation. "A lot of grade inflation in the humanities is due to the £,ct
that many courses now have an ideological basis," Harvard Professor
William Cole observes. "Where once you had a course in, say, nine–
teenth-century French literature, now the course will be something like
'The Repression of Women by the Dominant Discourse of Nineteenth–
Century French Literature .' Students who enroll will all agree with its
premise, that literature acts in a certain way to marginalize women. It's
curious that the same academics who most vociferously promote diversity
wind up with the most monolithic classrooms. The teacher is surrounded
not by students but by disciples. And hey - you give your disciples A's."
Overheard on a cactus university campus: "Historically," said the
graduate student, "we've gotten to the point that irony is immoral. "
The attitude is unfortunate, but it is easy to understand. In dreary
earnest, the politically correct tend to distrust the anarchic, uncontrol–
lable impulses of mirth and humor. Irony and wit are casualties of this
