Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

Re “How Far Can Novelists Go?” (Arts pages, Sept. 13), about “cultural appropriation”:

The answer is all the way!

Virginia Woolf wrote “Flush,” a biography, from the point of view of a dog.

Norman Rush won a National Book Award for his novel “Mating,” which had a female narrator.

I have written two novels from the point of view of a man. One of them was sold to a publisher who thought that I was male.

Whoever makes up the ridiculous rules against “cultural appropriation” should quit this job and go into something more sensible and benign, like catering weddings.

Four cheers for the American writer Lionel Shriver, who bucked the trend with muscular courage.

ANNE BERNAYS

Cambridge, Mass.

To the Editor:

Perhaps the most absurd tenet of the spreading political-correctness takeover is the objection to “cultural appropriation.” I hadn’t realized that it had jumped, scarily, from the college campus to the critics of writers. Hats off to the novelist Lionel Shriver for speaking out against it at a writers’ conference in Australia.

One writer actually walked out of Ms. Shriver’s talk because it was a “celebration of the unfettered exploitation of the experiences of others, under the guise of fiction.” Isn’t that almost the definition of what fiction is? Will someone soon claim that men should not write about women?

Writers of fiction need to be unfettered to explore the limits of their imaginations, period.

JANICE GEWIRTZ

Mountain Lakes, N.J.

Note from KBJ: When leftists went after conservatives, leftists cheered. When leftists went after theists, leftists cheered. What will leftists do when leftists go after them? We're about to find out. I call it "eating your own." It's going to be delicious to watch. Hillary Clinton may be a woman, but she's white, heterosexual, and wealthy. She will feel the wrath. Brian Leiter, the academic thug at the University of Chicago, may be a leftist, but he's white, male, and heterosexual (or so I infer from the fact that he's married). He will feel the wrath. Jesse Jackson may be black, but he's male, heterosexual, and wealthy. He will feel the wrath. If you live by the sword of identity politics, you die by the sword of identity politics.

Here.

Here.

A Taste for Passion (1979). This takes me back to my law-school days in Detroit.

Here is Ann Coulter's latest column. Permit me a few words of commentary: The word "racist" has lost—or is rapidly losing—all specific meaning. It is now—or is rapidly becoming—a generic (i.e., all-purpose) term of abuse or condemnation, like "scalawag," "rascal," "blackguard," and "cretin." To put it in philosophical terms, the word has prescriptive (emotive) meaning, but no longer any (or much) descriptive meaning. This is what happens when you apply a term far beyond its proper scope. The technical term for this phenomenon is "persuasive definition." The word "racist" has long had a negative emotive meaning, and rightly so, because racism—treating people differently because of their race, where race is irrelevant—is odious. However, certain people with an agenda (hint: leftists) have applied the word to whatever they oppose, hoping, thereby, that the stigma of the word rubs off on, or attaches to, the thing to which the word is (wrongly) applied. It's a form of rhetorical manipulation (not to mention personal abuse). Fortunately, most people now understand the technique and (rightly) resent its practitioners.

To the Editor:

I am tired of seeing articles about why people like Donald Trump and why people supposedly don’t like Hillary Clinton. Writing about Mr. Trump, even in the guise of trying to explain him and his supporters, gives him traction. The more we are told that Mr. Trump is popular and the more his supporters are put in the limelight, the more people on the fence will be swayed to think there might be a choice in this election.

Why go around looking for people who aren’t wild about Hillary and trumpeting their voices? How about some frequent, front-page and in-depth coverage about all the people who are working hard to elect Hillary; those who think she is terrific; those who want a strong, determined, informed, smart and hardworking person as our next president?

There are millions of us out here; give us a voice. Give Hillary a fair shot.

KATHLEEN LEARNED

Seattle

Note from KBJ: I hate to break it to Kathleen Learned [sic], who lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land, but there is a choice in this election. The choice is between (1) a corrupt, mendacious, career politician (who happens to be gravely ill) and (2) a fabulously successful, charismatic, energetic entrepreneur who speaks to and for ordinary Americans on issues of great concern to them, such as free trade, illegal immigration, foreign policy, crime, unemployment, and political correctness. By the way, is Kathleen Learned really asking the New York Times to propagandize in favor of Hillary Clinton? It sure sounds like it. Has she ever heard of disinterested journalism? Is there no longer even a pretense, on the Left, of covering people and events fairly so as to allow readers to make up their own minds?

Here.

Here.

These people are incorrigible. Law professor Maimon Schwarzschild once referred to Ronald Dworkin's "relentless spin." Dworkin had nothing on the Clintons.