From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 22 2005 - 16:39:39 BST
Greetings Ham,
[You wrote]
The junk coming out of universities today from the liberal arts crowd, like
deconstruction and and political correctness, is Orwellian.
[Arlo replies]
"Political correctness", as an attempt to use language to reconceptualize
patterns, is neither the domain of the political "left" or "right". As far as I
can tell, both political parties select, advance and demand the use of
particular terminology that aligns party position with "Good", and opposition
with "Evil". The military has long used this tactic as well, to dehumanize
concern over civilian (and military) killing, for one example.
Can you tell me, however, specific examples of "leftist" political correctness
you object to? Should we revert to calling the mentally challenged "retarded"
or "imbeciles"? Or African-Americans "negroes"? Firefighters "firemen"? How are
these "leftist"?
Underlying this is the strawman that the left demands absolute adherence to all
"politically correct" relanguaging, while the right is a champion for honest,
free speech. No one I know, either self-described leftists or rightists, either
accept or reject ALL calls for "political correctness". Just ask the folks in
Congress who dine on "freedom fries", or the pundits who call civilian deaths
"collateral damage." Or those on the right who demanded Bill Maher be taken of
the air, a show ironically called "Politically Incorrect", for saying ""We have
been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's
cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want
about it, it's not cowardly."
As for "deconstructive", do you mean Derrida's concept of deconstructing texts?
What do you object to? His idea was that texts deconstruct themselves along the
lines of cultural ideologies, supporting and reaffirming certain cultural
"normalities". Texts, he argued, do not exisst independantly of how they are
interpreted. Derrida argued further that rhetoric pervades language and the
cultural structures which evolve out of it. The underlying goal of Derrida's
deconstruction (keeping in mind that he did not think people deconstruct texts,
but that texts are self-deconstructing) was to shine a critical light on what
was being said to be a faithful, mimetic representation of reality.
"Deconstruction", then, is concerned with "interpreting the interpretation".
Critical thinking. How do you feel this causes "third rate" schools?
Indeed, your critical assessment of "political correctness" is based on
deconstructive principles.
Arlo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Aug 22 2005 - 16:51:24 BST