ABSTRACT
As demonstrated in Chapter 2, a lot of energy was invested by conservative thinkers in the US in the 1980s to shape the term ‘political correctness’, and to ensure that it became wholly derogatory in its meaning. The broad purpose was to use it to denigrate a series of political causes which were being pursued by what they saw as a radical left, made up mostly of intolerant zealots. Those causes were often associated with developments in higher education, most notably: restrictions on freedom of speech, the promotion of forms of multicultural curricula, and strategies aimed at affirmative action. However, it is clear that this is not a simple left/right debate because there was some measure of support for this critique from more liberal intellectuals, who saw within the conservative critique an attempt to resurrect the Enlightenment principles of reasoned argument by the autonomous individual, the disinterested pursuit of the truth, and the general idea of cultural, economic, and social progress. Furthermore, in what might appear on the surface as an irony, many on the more radical left also felt some measure of agreement with the critique, particularly when it argued against the misplaced establishment of an educational ethic of diversity, and one which promoted forms of affirming and protectionist strategies aimed at vulnerable students (Furedi 2004a). For some on the radical left this form of liberal politics became a distraction from the need for more authentic forms of political struggle, where the term political correctness came to symbolize the replacement of a programme of real social reform with a cosmetic exercise in papering over the cracks of social division and disadvantage (Scatamburlo 1998). Here the PC accusation is not that there is too much politics, but not enough. And, perhaps more troubling for some, this became the basis for all kinds of separatist thinking and, thereby, a dismantling of any sense of a common humanity, sharing a ‘common dream’ (Gitlin 1995).
