Pro Anti-Anti PC

IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL grammar we all learned that a double negative signifies a positive. The previous statement was not not correct. Correct?

In the debate over the "Politically Correct," however, double negatives take on a different meaning. This week, professors from around the country--including Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr.--announced the formation of "Teachers for a Democratic Culture," dedicated to fending off the recent wave of right-wing attacks against left-wing intellectual orthodoxy.

The group is, in a sense, anti-anti-PC. Does that mean that they are pro-PC? Well, not exactly.

SUCH AN EXERCISE in semantics is, believe it or not, particularly relevant to the debate about so-called political correctness. By now, we are all familiar with the litany of charges: that there exists a set of liberal-minded values which, carried to the extreme, have the effect of limiting the amount of free discourse, particularly on college campuses. In the past, The Crimson has acknowledged that the left is capable of excesses, just like the right, but that reasonable calls for diversity, inclusion and sensitivity hardly symbolize a tyrannical reign of the left.

Nowadays, however, debate over the substantive charges of political correctness has given way to a tiresome discourse about the uses of various PC arguments. The real story is not whether there exists a pc orthodoxy, but how the anti-PC argument has itself become an issue of contention--how some have turned anti-PC charges into a rallying cry for the right, constructing in the process yet another orthodoxy of dissent.

If there is, in fact, a problem with free political speech on campus, then it should be of concern to everybody, not just the right. There has consistently been a need for a voice from the left (or at least from the center), addressing issues of intellectual orthodoxy. But because so much of this PC-talk has been dominated by the likes of the Dartmouth Review's favorite son, Dinesh D'Souza, many rational people have been reluctant to discuss the legitimate problems, for fear of association with the strangest of bedfellows.

THAT IS WHY "Teachers for a Democratic Culture" represents a welcome and urgently needed addition to the cast of characters currently involved in the PC fray. Unchecked, the dissenting right has engaged in many exaggerations, misrepresentations and distortions, adding fuel to their politically-advantageous fire. We are now realizing how the right has lumped together all too many completely different causes (environmentalism, feminism, gay rights) into one amorphous heap labeled "PC." We are finding out that the content of those "multicultural" courses, upheld by the right as the epitome of excess, were sometimes grossly exaggerated. And, as was explained recently in The Nation and Tikkun, D'Souza's retelling of the alleged political persecution of Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom (often cited as the prime example of pc totalitarianism) was flat-out inaccurate.

The new organization can therefore play an important role, not only by defending that which has been unfairly lumped as PC, but also by opposing those who engage in a sloppy, misguided witch hunt itself ultimately aimed at limiting ideas. There does indeed need to be an examination of issues of academic freedom in today's rapidly-changing universities. But it cannot be conducted only from the right. So long as this group is also willing to engage in true, substantial discussion of the issues involved in PC--and not simply whether PC exists--Teachers for a Democratic Culture can carry on a constructive debate with the conservative National Association of Scholars to put an end to the one-sided whiny haranguing of self-dubbed "PC" critics."

We support "Teachers for a Democratic Culture," then, not because we believe that "politically correct" views are inherently better than "politically incorrect" views, but because the group is a necessary antidote to the excesses of pc critics. The right maneuvered into a powerful position by portraying itself as an oppressed minority. Hopefully, "Teachers for a Democratic Culture" won't let them get away with it.