What's wrong/right with being pc

[David Casseres]

>I'd agree generally that these debates are unlikely ever to be 
>resolved, particularly not through a forum whose contributors are as 
>diverse as this one; and that therefore the continuation of this 
>debate is probably futile. On the other hand, issues of language and 
>power which are at least corollary to the issue of political 
>correctness are very central indeed to discussions of Pynchon. At 
>times we may find it necessary to depart from the minute discussion 
>of the text to illustrate our understanding of these issues with 
>personal anecdotes. I don't think that is entirely alien to the 
>spirit of the texts themselves.

Nothing there that I disagree with.  I don't object to discussing things 
that are not very directly related to Pynchon.  I do object to people 
using this forum to vent their personal distaste for so-called "Political 
Correctness," because this specific topic is a garbage topic.

Your anecdote on South African politics, btw, was not really an example 
of this and I regret that I made it the occasion for my surly remarks.  
Perhaps from the South African perspective the context of the American 
catfight over "PC" is not clear.

The phrase "politically correct" originated among the Old Left, who used 
it with utter solemnity as a judgement on such things as books, plays, 
movies, even music.  It meant "consistent with Marxism."  Note that the 
Old Left are no longer with us; this is not the usage that some foax get 
all sweaty about.

In the 1960's the New Left picked up the phrase and used it ironically 
and humorously.  It was basically their protest against the rigidity and 
the political humorlessness of their political forebears, who in many 
cases were their parents and teachers.  But the joke didn't have much 
staying power and went into decline until that damned and best-forgotten 
decade, the 1980's.  It was somewhere in there that a few Horst Wessel 
wannabees at Dartmouth College began publishing racist tracts in a 
magazine called the Dartmouth Review.  The college threw the magazine off 
campus, where it continued to flourish among the burgeoning New Right.

One participant named Dinesh D'Souza vaulted into reactionary pop history 
by reviving the phrase "Politically Correct" (note the ever-so-clever 
satiric capitals) or "PC."  It was an instant phenom fave rave on the 
Right, because it provided a new rallying cry for every loser who had 
every been reprimanded for calling blacks niggers or women cunts.

A-and just when the natural juice of this fad was just about to crest, 
along came the lovely Nineties with the Internet mostly in the hands of 
young, alienated, poorly socialized male tech-weenies (of Northern 
European extraction, natch), and talk-radio shows with professionally 
bigoted hosts, and a general feeling, openly sponsored by a major 
political party, that it was now chic to find every instance of someone 
trying to get a little basic civility and denounce it by screaming "PC" 
as loudly as possible.  Oh and along the way, it's even more chic and 
daring and exciting to actually *practice a little racism* as part of the 
exercise in political courage and honesty.

These days it's particularly (and most repellently) prevalent among the 
lumpen-intelligentsia who infest today's Internet, and among them it 
takes a peculiarly obsessive form.  It is endlessly repetitive while at 
the same time filled with a nauseating self-congratulation.  It leads to 
interminable circle-jerks of posters each trying to top the other with an 
even wittier and more acerbic denunciation and lamentation.  All pretense 
of relevance to any other discussion is abandoned, and anyone who 
complains about the torrent of swirling bullshit is instantly accused of 
trying to be a censor, of trying to protect everyone else against their 
will, and of being a soul-mate of Mao and Stalin and sooner or later, of 
Hitler.  (Napoleon was a recent and novel addition to this list -- too 
bad the name was misspelled in the rush (or was it a Rush?) of fervent 
condemnation).

And that's why I wish the "PC" stuff would go away.  It's useless and 
boring as well as offensive.  For anyone who wants to discuss issues of 
power and language -- and I agree, they are close to our literary 
concerns here -- I have a modest suggestion: try stating the issues and 
discussing them without using the wretched cliches "Political 
Correctness" and "PC."

I see that I have written at length about this, and I pledge that I will 
not do so again, but will limit myself to such remarks as "Please take 
this shit somewhere else."

Cheers,
David