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make a case for some foregone conclusion; except that, since it is a tau–
tology that inquiry aims at the truth, the sham reasoner is not really en–
gaged in inquiry at all. This should remind us that those who despair of
honest inquiry cannot be in the truth-seeking business (as they should say,
"the 'truth' racket"); they are in the propaganda business.
And this makes it apparent why the idea that inquiry should be
politicized is dangerously mistaken, also, from a political point of view,
because of the potential for tyranny in calls for "politically adequate re–
search and scholarship." Think what "politically inadequate research"
refers to: research informed by what some feminists deem "regressive"
political ideas - and research not informed by political ideas at all, that
is, honest inquiry. Have we forgotten already that in
1984
it was
"thoughtcrime" to believe that two plus two is four if the Party ruled
otherwise?
This is no trivial verbal quibble, but a matter, epistemologically, of
the integrity of inquiry and, politically, of freedom of thought.
Needlessly sacrificing these ideals would not help women; it would hurt
humanity.
ROGER KIMBALL
From Farce to Tragedy
Nearly everyone who observes the contemporary cultural scene has had
occasion to savor Marx's witty elaboration of Hegel's dictum about the
important events and personages of history occuring, "as it were, twice."
"He forgot to add," Marx quips, "the first time as tragedy, the second as
farce." How much in our cultural life today qualifies as a farcical reen–
actment of half-forgotten tragedies! And yet the most ludicrously £:1rcical
of all recent cultural phenomena - the juggernaut of political correctness
- seems poised to accomplish the revenge of Hegel on Marx, transform–
ing an instance of farce into tragedy.
Egregious examples of political correctness have been so numerous
(and the impotent, hand-wringing commentary that accompanies them
so common) that it is easy to forget that the term gained currency only
three to four years ago. It is even easier to forget that the epithet origi–
nated not with conservative commentators, as most academic radicals
would have you believe, but with impatient college students. "Politically
