Re: multilingual silence
nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Sun, 5 Oct 1997 10:30:56 -0500
To any argument for taking seriously the perspectives of anyone outside
the mainstream... "Politically correct" is the
parent term for academic "leftists" who object to
academic/intellectual traditions that exclude voices from the
margins. PC later became THE term to designate
cultural criticism, post-modernism, you-name-it by proponents and
opponents alike. But it ended up primarily a pejorative in the
political/popular/cultural arena, thanks primarily to right-wing
activists. Many of the designated PC academics are White Liberals, which is
the point that Jay makes to complicate the ethics of a politics of
difference.
I also think the word PC is an abstract concept. I have regularly gotten
into heated arguments with family members about how politically correct the
University I attend is. Ironically, when I push the discussion to
specifics the discussion ends. The conservatives like putting the argument
under the PC umbrella, because it is an abstract term that includes
anything ideological.