ABSTRACT
The most urgent project involves redesigning and expanding the social and cultural role of the academic humanities. But this project will be most successful when it more clearly accounts for the meanings and effects of the Political Correctness (PC) debates. PC played a key role in forcing Clinton to withdraw his nomination of law professor Lani Guinier to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department. The anti-PC attacks led with an intertwining pair of complaints: PC was an agent of aggressive minority groups pressing excessive group demands, and PC said that everything was political. Anti-PC writers often said they were only objecting to politics in cultural scholarship, but "politics" covered nearly any conceptual innovation, especially one that drew public interest. Democratic accountability must remain decentralized and local: it must mean inclusive, open self-management—a government of peers—rather than a government of remote control.
