608
PAR.TISAN REVIEW
or wrong; but one thing about them seems certain: they are more likely
to instill self-pity and despair than the will to resist or the confidence to
make the most of one's creative energies." Do we not see ourselves in
this portrait?
Let us be frank. Polemics against the anti-intellectualism of our day,
however satisfYing, will not produce one more novel, one more poem,
one more painting, or one more work of history or philosophy.
American artists and writers facing the provincialism of earlier eras under–
stood this and left for Europe; their work mattered more
to
them than
a democratic culture they could not hope to tame. They resigned them–
selves to the fact that America will always be America. This should be
our attitude today, even if our emigration is internal and psychological
rather than physical.
So let this be the last symposium on the culture wars. Let us turn
back to our work, back to speaking to the happy few still capable of
discussing the arts, literature, and ideas in a language that will forever
remain alien to that of populist democratic politics. If we accomplish
nothing else, we can at least keep that language alive. Either American
political and educational institutions will come to their collective senses
or they will not; it will depend on the profound social dynamics that
move democratic societies, and not on anything we write or say.
America is rediscovering its provincial, nativist, anti-intellectual roots.
This is a passionate rediscovery, and passionate nations, like passionate
people, are notoriously deaf to the voice of reason.
Sallve qlli PCllt:
it is
time to disconnect.
GLENN C. LOURY
Self-censorship
P olitical correctness is an important theme in the raging "culture war"
that has replaced the struggle over Communism as the primary locus of
partisan conflict in American intellectual life. Starting on the campuses -
over issues like affirmative action, multicultural studies, environmentalism,
radical feminism, and gay rights - the PC debate has spread into news–
rooms, movie studios, and even the halls of Congress. Critics, mainly on
the right, claim that only the "correct" views on these and other sensi–
tive issues can be expressed - on campus, in print, on film, or in electoral
