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PARTISAN REVIEW
ticular kinds of social change. These changes have largely to do with in–
terpretations and versions of equality, and in the name of equality and
related social values, I have been arguing, quasi- or soft totalitarian ideas,
formulations, persons and arrangements have in recent years made them–
selves felt as important influences within our colleges and universities.
The connections between the two are neither accidental nor inevitable.
And the outcome of the conflicts that are entailed in the term "political
correctness" and what it refers
to
is uncertain as well. For the present,
however, one must as an individual continue to resist the decay of
language, the decay in question at this moment having to do with the
discursive occupation of university life by a variety of political and cul–
tural orthodoxies and their thought-stifling idioms. The discourse of po–
litical correctness is political in the bad sense, and we could do worse
than to recall Orwell once again. "Political language -," he wrote, "and
with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder re–
spectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." That
wind continues to blow, and I believe that one still doesn't have to be a
weatherman in order to figure out what one's responsibilities arc.
JERRY
L.
MARTIN
The Postmodern Argument Considered
I. The Fundamental Issue
The
debate over political correctness has missed the main point. One side
claims that the enforcement of politically correct language, attitudes, and
behavior is alarmingly widespread. The other side claims that, at most,
there are a few isolated, unverified incidents which have been overplayed
in the press.
[n
short, the debate has been about whether PC exists.
What this debate overlooks is that there is a very significant body of
opinion in academe which holds that, while the term "political correct–
ness" is an epithet to be avoided, the mission of higher education should
indeed be political - that the goal should be not the pursuit of
"objective" truth, but nothing less than the fundamental transformation
of society. According to this "transformationist" view, education should
be, as Miami University professors Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren put
