11-11-90 . . . When you look at academia through the eyes of a sociologist, you see some interesting things. Many of today’s professors came of age in the turbulent sixties, when war posed a threat to their lives and drugs were the escape of choice from what was believed to be an oppressive, reactionary society. It was the age of war protests, flower power, and psychodelia [sic; should be “psychedelia”]. These people were politically radical then and are politically radical today. The only difference is that they were powerless in the sixties; now they’ve taken control, in large measure, of university administrative offices, academic departments, and journal editorships. The hippies have come of age. This, naturally, is viewed with alarm by reactionaries. I see more and more articles by conservatives about the “intolerance” and “oppressiveness” of academicians, by which they mean radical academicians. The rallying cry, they say, is “political correctness”. It is alleged that modern-day radicals are trying to make students and everyone else conform to what they believe is “politically correct” (PC). Environmental concern is PC; business profits are not. Palestinian rights are PC; support for Israel is not. Feminism is PC; belief in “traditional family values” is not. Affirmative-action programs are PC; equality under the law is not. Or so it is held. Conservatives such as William Murchison of the Dallas Morning News are attacking academicians as tyrants—as political demagogues who stifle dissent and do whatever it takes to promote their own beliefs and values.
As someone who came of age in the seventies, but is nonetheless radical in his social and political views, I think I can speak for the academicians who are coming under attack. What we have come to realize, belatedly, is that worlds are built, not discovered. The world we have been handed by our elders was built by white, affluent, heterosexual males, so naturally it redounds to their benefit. It is their world. Alternative voices have been systematically squelched. Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, women, the poor, gays, and lesbians have been relegated to the fringes of history and society, as if their experiences were unimportant. They have been marginalized, or treated as deviant. What the privileged saw is what existed; what they chose to ignore had no reality. In light of this, it is important to start a chorus of new voices—to begin to remake reality, as it were. This scares the dickens out of those who have benefitted from oppression; they quite literally see their world crumbling. Murchison bemoans the fact that English professors assign texts other than those he read, texts by women and minorities. He’s afraid that the core of “Western civilization”, which is to say the core of white, male oppression, will disappear. If I were him, with a vested interested [sic; should be “interest”] in the status quo, I’d be scared, too. But it’s a mistake to interpret what radical academicians are doing as the stifling of dissent. Adding new voices to what was a monotony is hardly intolerance; it’s openness. Is Murchison afraid that, in the competition of ideas, his ideas—those of dead white European males (DWEMs)—will lose out?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 