Relaciones internacionales.indb - HOMINES

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR.
whose scorching wit has enlivened and illuminated American life.
And how practically effective have anti-racist statutes been in stopping
the dissemination of racist ideas Neither the European nor the Canadian
record demonstrates that censorship is more effective than free discussion
in bringing about a tolerant and harmonious society. Driving thoughts
underground may only cause them to explode later.
After all no one needs the First Amendment more than those who seek
to change the status quo. Radicals are always in the minority, and minorities
gain most from the protections of the Bill of Rights. Free speech may
at times be offensive, odious, repulsive, an instrument of oppression; but
historically free speech has been far more sigificant as a means—no, the
means—of liberation.
It is a paradox of our time that what began as a multicultural celebration
of diversity should end in a crusade for conformity. But the left,
it should be added, has no monopoly on political correctness—and this
should lead thoughtful multiculturalists to question the wisdom of the censorship
strategy they are currently advocating. After all, as Louis Menand
puts it, “The Censor Always rings twice.” If political correctness is the
standard, the right has its own vision of political correctness and can mobilize
far more people than the left. Leftwing political correctness is more
systematically thought out and more formidable in its rationalization. It
concentrates its corrective program on institutions of higher education.
Rightwing political correctness is more primitive and more emotional. It
concentrates corrective program on public schools and public libraries, and
it can call out its activists in large numbers.
For America has its monocultural as well as its multicultural ideologues.
The monoculturalists of the right are fundamentalists, laissez-faire
doctrinaires, anti-abortionists, homophobes, hyperpatriots and other political
fanatics who seize control of local and state boards of education,
school committees, library boards, inveigh against ideas and books they
believe to be blasphemous, atheistic, socialistic, secular humanistic, pornographic
and/or un-American and seek to impose on the hapless young
their own pinched, angry, monistic version of America.
Leftwing political correctness is an irritation and a nuisance. It demeans
the academic community, but it becomes a threat only when it
invades the public schools, as indeed it has done in its Afrocentric versions
in several of our cities. So long as it operates in colleges and universities, it
runs up against students who are mature enough to take care of themselves
and, if not mature, are hard to persuade of anything anyway. But rightwing
political correctness is a weapon with which small town zealots across the
land terrorize teachers, librarians and students in their determination to
ban Darwin, Marx, J.D. Salinger, sex, abortion and the rest. Rightwing
political correctness catches kids before they are old enough to take care
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