EUGENE GOODHEART
555
In recent years, dialogue under the sponsorship of Mikhail Bakhtin
has been fetishized in theoretical discussion, but academic practice has
confined the territory of dialogue to the politically like-minded, so that
the differences which have been played out within the prevailing dis–
course have been small and esoteric. There has been no genuine dialogue,
for instance, between radicals and conservatives, between radicals and lib–
erals, or between liberals and conservatives. The metaphor for exchange
between left and right has been "war," as in the phrase "the culture
wars." Moreover, I think it unfortunate that an issue like multicultural–
ism has been formulated in left-right or liberal-conservative terms in
which the critics of particularism are seen as persons on the right. One
can argue the reverse: that a particularism which cannot entertain a con–
ception of community beyond itself is reactionary. The failure of liberals
to affirm the importance of a common culture that represents common
interests as liberal doctrine reflects a failure of nerve. The terms of the
debate and the political and moral significance of the oppositions need
to be reformulated. We may be witnessing the beginnings of such a re–
formulation. Henry Louis Gates,
Jr.
and Cornel West, writers on the left,
who have devoted themselves to the cultivation of African-American
studies, have spoken forcefully against an invidious particularism.
Ravitch's view is important because it is forward-looking. To go beyond
particularism is not to deny the particular contributions of ethnic and
racial groups.
What is to be done? I see no prospect of a return to the status quo
ante, nor would it necessarily be desirable if such a return occurred. The
dynamism of a liberal or conservative viewpoint must not depend upon a
negative relation to cultural radicalism. The formulation of constructive
alternatives is necessary, taking into account social and cultural changes
that may be irreversible. Opponents of PC have a parasitic and negative
relation to the topic, which puts them at a disadvantage. They spend
much of their time and energy arguing against PC, but they offer little in
the way of alternative conceptions of what is to be taught and of how
one is to teach, as if the appropriate form and content of teaching had
been decided long ago and in recent years corruption had set in.
Assuming for a moment that the battle against political correctness has
been won, what would higher or lower education become?
It
is a mis–
take to think that the ferment of the past several decades has produced
nothing of value, which is the neoconservative view. The neoconserva–
tive attack rarely engages the arguments of the cultural left.
It
scorns
them as nonarguments or arguments beneath contempt. On its side, it
often commits the sin of exclusion in peremptorily declaring certain
views to be beyond the pale, precisely what its adversaries do. There are
contemptible arguments, but they should not be made to exhaust the
