ABSTRACT
In The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom mentions how a psychology professor colleague told him that he saw his function as ridding students of their prejudices. T S Eliot could be quick to point out the prejudices of others. 'Prejudice' has been defined by Conrad Hughes, who has written about prejudice reduction in schools, as 'a priori, unwarranted judgement', 'hasty generalisation' on the basis of inadequate evidence and a 'fixed mindset' which 'resists new knowledge'. Much of the commentary on Eliot's prejudices, and especially his alleged antisemitism, has focused, appropriately for a poet, on what he said rather than what he did. He had Jewish friends, admired Jewish authors and supported Jewish refugees during the Second World War. Eliot cannot possibly have known, seventy years ago, before, in George Steiner's phrase, 'the abject rubric of political correctness had yet been contrived', that in making this comment he was stepping out of one minefield into another.
