As some of us prepare to attend the Society for Cinema Studies Conference whose explicit theme is multiculturalism, we might want to consider the following thoughts on the recent attacks on multiculturalism. I clipped these from PostModern Culture's list. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- 1) McCarthyism from the left (Peter Wayner) 2) D'Souza and the outsider's view of the academy (Jack Kolb) 3) Two articles & D'Souza off the record (Jan Galligan) 1)-------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 May 91 16:28:27 -0400 From: [log in to unmask] (Peter Wayner) Subject: Dinesh D'Souza I've read through most of D'Souza's book and I really find it full of attempts to pull his punches and simply make very mainstream, non-kneejerk arguments. He has many solid points about the lack of scholarship in the land of multiculturalism. There are thousand of examples of how people have distorted the truth to make all of non-Europe seem like nirvana. The sad fact is though, that no one is innocent. For instance, Egypt a country from which Greece got some of its vaunted culture, was filled with slaves. This sort of left-wing Macarthyism can be quite a threat to the university. Everyone knows the story of how the editors of the King papers at Stanford sat on the story of King's plagarism for as long as they did. They even non-denied denied it to the press. Only when the WSJ threatened them with running the story with or without their cooperation did the editors at Stanford "announce" their discovery. This sort of behavior is a big threat to the pursuit of truth and all that stuff. People may say what they want about politics, but I think D'Souza is making many good points about the threats to objectivity and reason. Peter Wayner Cornell Univ. 2)-------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 May 91 22:09 PDT From: Jack Kolb <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Dinesh D'Souza Inevitably, D'Souza's article must oversimplify (I have not read his book either). But I do think he reflects an increasing judgment of those outside the academy who bother to reflect upon what goes on in this hothouse. If the perceptions are incorrect --and that's worth discussing--then they ought to be corrected and quickly, because we are dependent for our survival upon pragmatic considerations. If the perceptions are correct, then we'd better do something about them. I think the man has to be answered, whatever his political persuasion. His is hardly the only attack, and not by extremists. And much of what he raises deserves more debate in an academic environment than it has received in most. In any case, we don't want the William Bennetts of the world dictating to us. 3)-------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 May 91 12:32:57 EDT From: Jan Galligan <JPG01@ALBNYDH2> Subject: D'Souza Two recent articles worth adding to the discussion: The Nation May 13, 1991 1. Reading Around: Computing the New PC Elizabeth Pochoda Adopting Norman Schwarzkopf's Hail Mary maneuver against Iraq (one division up the center, the other outflanking the left), the Genoveses (Eugene and Elizabeth Fox) have moved in on the "political correctness" debate. Approvingly reviewing Dinesh D'Souza's vitriolic attack on the univer- sities, Illiberal Education, in The New Republic; Eugene Genovese describes a politically correct cabal of Marxists, poststructuralists and unspecified others as front men on campus for a new McCarthyism and calls for counterterrorists to 'draw their blood' and make them 'suffer hard blows'. Wow! Reviewing the same book for The Washington Post, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese struck a more moderate tone while also whole heartedly endorsing the ravings of D'Souza. That universities are hot beds of political subversion overseen by academic thought police will surprise anyone who has spent any time at one lately. And that includes Christopher Lasch, whose essay on university politics and culture in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of SaImagundi restores perspective to the matter of political correctness by granting the existence of academic radicalism and observing that none of it approaches the foothills of subverting the "corporate control of the universities: and it is corporate control, not academic radicalism, that has corrupted our higher education.'" 2. Beltway Bandits D"Souza's Disclosures David Corn Dinesh D'Souza has arrived. His book, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, is this seasons's The Closing of the American Mind. Conservatives have embraced his polemic against affirmative action, multicultural curric- ulum and the new bete noire of the right, political correctness. D'Souza, a smooth 29-year-old, is being hailed as the Wil- liam F. Buckley of his generation. A recent Washington Post profile described this former White House policy wonk as "palpably smart" "sober-minded" and a gentleman" I have a hard time associating such a characterization with the D'Souza I met nine years ago. At the time, he was on the staff of the right-wing, mean-spirited Dartmouth Review one among a group of editors who had published the notorious 'jive' article, attacking affirmative action in stereotyped black 'dialect'. D'Souza still has to defend that decision on occasion, but he seems to have escaped the shadow of a more odious episode. Back in 1982 I snuck into a conference for conservative student journalists held at the New York Athletic Club, where D'Souza was received as royalty. People were eager to talk about the Review's publication the previous year of a confidential list of the members of Dartmouth's Gay Student Association as well as their personal letters. As a result of those exposures, some Dartmouth students had their sexual orientation disclosed to friends and family. At lunch D'Souza proudly confided to his tablemates, myself included, that his paper had obtained the material through a covert operation. He intimated that someone connected to the Review had gained access to the association's office and pinched the documents. The Review's aim in this endeavor was plainly to make the lives of certain students miserable. Hardly the work of a gentleman and a scholar.