[Xmca-l] Re: WaPo article on higher ed: "Elitists, crybabies and junky degrees"

[Peter Smagorinsky]

I've written a few short essays on political correctness in case anyone's interested.

Smagorinsky, P. (2015, September). Political correctness and the future of society. Scholars Speak Out of the Journal of Language and Literacy Education.  http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SSO-September-Peter.pdf

Smagorinsky, P. (2015, July 21). To be or not to be politically correct: What was that question? Atlanta Journal-Constitution. http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/Op-Ed/PoliticallyCorrect.html

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2017 4:30 PM
To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity' <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: WaPo article on higher ed: "Elitists, crybabies and junky degrees"

Hi Alfredo,


The person they interviewed in the article was someone who had gone to war, which is, after all, a legitimized and normalized manner "to go out in the world and cause trouble" in many traditional cultures, though historically not all. War is a way to prove oneself, but to prove oneself to whom and for what reason? Who proves oneself with a war?


The part about elitism stings both directions. That word can be thrown around so many ways, but when I think of the meaning of the word "elite" I think of exclusion, rather than of, say, philosopher kings. Its meaning is closer to the words "not of my tribe."


Couldn't the phrase "politically correct" be just another way to say "democracy" or "inclusion"?


"PC" is such a relative acronym that is seems to have lost its original meaning, if there was one. It is the Rattlesnake Shooter who is bellyaching, isn't it? "I'm afraid I'm not important to anyone anymore. So I think I'll shoot a rattlesnake, because I can."


Rewind. The historical US narrative goes something like this, give or take a few important events:


Native American peoples were living here doing their thing, and quite happily enough.


Europeans cross over an ocean or two and rape and pillage lands, peoples, and cultures along the way. This is called "progress" or "civilization."


Nativized Europeans call themselves "Americans" because of the locii of their mothers' wombs, all the while excluding the true native peoples. The upstarts start a revolution so indentured servants can have non-dentured servants, and send the landed gentry packing back to their island and their king. That king was such an elitist, wasn't he?


Meanwhile back at the plantation, the color of skin is the best way to brand a person like a cow, and from that point on race matters ever more than it once did, in matters of private property and of law. It's called grazing rights for cowboys. Genealogy for weaklings who actually want to live like a king.


This is the first significant barrier of exclusion as made by the original elites of this nation, who were male and landowners, but perhaps did not call themselves White Nationalists at that point in time. What did white mean, and what was a nationalist, back then, anyway?


Fast forward through pioneer trails west, slaughtered buffalo, land grants, revolving pistols, railroads, shotguns, and a civil war, carpetbaggers, a gold rush, 50 states, and Jim Crow, a few world wars for good measure. and...who was it again who started this elitism??? My head is dizzy from all the historical distractions.


Now, the marginalized (people living in the margins in relation to those in the center) want to empower themselves with the written word and the spoken word, and to be able to participate with words, democratically. Because that's what was written down at the beginning: "We the people" just want to use words, and not bullets or other weapons of mass destruction. It's a declaration of independence from a belief in colonialism. We believe in words not markets as our unit for analysis.


But those who want to live by the sword and wage any old war, like a bully on the playground, don't understand what a play of words really means, It's just Greek to them, or an Elizabethan balding guy in tights. Dead poets who just don't make economic sense. Rattlesnake Shooters don't understand what life really means when life is so disposable, so meaningless. And so they go on seeking the meaning of life in less elegant ways than what might be read about in wilderness survival manuals.


For those who want to use exclusively words to craft a future, our future, a future that includes us, to prefigure what might be with a vibrant and colorful imagination, who want to speak many languages, and who can appreciate many cultures, and tirelessly strive for world peace, rather than uphold a virtually nonexistent monoculture of a shrinking gene pool (that really never was from here, was never glorious, but emerged from the ooze shameful and shamelessly at the same time), we who value words, not war cries, are the ones told, "You Are Elitist."


The irony. The irony.


Kind regards,


Annalisa


On 11/26/17 4:21 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:

Thanks for passing this on, Annalisa. The text from the Washington post got to put me in a double bind situation: on the one hand, I felt glad that someone would fear that universities were actually teaching people "to become activists and basically go out in the world and cause trouble", which would seem like a great success to me, a promising and necessary one. On the other hand, when I read that those who hold that view also criticise universities for having become "elitist, politically correct institutions that often fail to provide practical skills for the job market," that universities are essentially disconnected from the local communities and their needs, I can't but see some true in that. The situation gets worse when I realise that, in fact, I am very uncertain about how far have come universities in helping people becoming 'activists', at least here on the other side of the Atlantic...
Alfredo