Number 25
In PO 15, I wrote about a preview of Diane Ravitch's book The Language Police that appeared in the March 2003 Atlantic Monthly. The book came out, I bought it, I read it, and now I'm going to review it for you and recommend it, whether or not you teach, attend school, or have children in school.
Ravitch explains how individuals and groups from the multicultural left and the religious right have, over the last two or three decades, put pressure on textbook publishers that has effectively resulted in heavy censorship of literature and history textbooks now used in schools. The world of these books is vastly different from the world students know directly, or on TV or the Net, yet it's even more bland than the textbook world of my childhood. Also, the vocabulary has been dumbed down (though Ravitch discusses that issue only peripherally).
Some wag of a newspaper reporter observed that extreme PC revisionism could lead us to Hemingway's The Elderly Man and the Sea ~ except for the problem of the sea, which would not be permissible as textbook or test material, according to some lists, because some students do not live near the sea and have never seen it, so referring to the sea would be geographical bias against those students, who would then be at a disadvantage.
Likewise, gender equality would proscribe Death of a Salesman. Death of a Sales Rep might be all right, if the subject of death would pass the screening committees. (British mystery writer Robert Barnard, however, has already written a short story called "Death of a Salesperson.")
One must be careful about using "America" so as not to exclude Canada and Mexico, and the Central and South Americas. But it occurs to me that we've got ourselves into a bind here with "Native American" and "African American" and so on. If we're going to be really PC, we should say ~ if not "Native-United Statesian" since the other American countries also had pre-European populations ~ at least "African-United Statesian." I am reminded, however, that people who are particular about African ancestry really don't care to know that I'm Scottish-American ~ they only want to know just how white I am ~ and they may worry over what to call Egyptian and South African immigrants.
In the textbook world, diversity is mandated, yet it is considered stereotyping to indicate in any way just what constitutes this diversity. You may not describe or depict women as domestic; men as powerful; Asians as industrious; pre-Civil War blacks as slaves; American Indians as maintaining any of their ancient traditions; Jews as religious; old people as more wrinkled or slower than younger people; children as bundles of energy ~ or disobedient; and so on. It seems we are all "diverse" only in the sense that we look a little bit different ~ but not too different. (Remember comedian Pat Paulsen? When he ran for president, he said, "Nobody should be discriminated on because of the shape of her skin.")
I just finished teaching an English composition class at a two-year college that shall remain nameless. The students are working people returning to school, with whom I greatly sympathize. Most were young enough to have come up in the Language Police textbook world. Things (meaning literacy levels) seem worse than I remembered from my last teaching days. One student thought Shakespeare had helped to write the Bible ~ that's write, not translate. I'm not sure if this student came to class with that bit of anti-knowledge, or if it blossomed in the brain because I mentioned Shakespeare and the Bible in the same class as being influences on the English language. (For more "refreshing and daring reappraisal[s] of how we came to be who we are," be sure to read Non Campus Mentis, by Professor Anders Henriksson, a collection of essay and test items from college history students.)
"Word Watch" in the June 2003 issue of Liberty magazine is about words and slogans that the media has propagated, though not necessarily originated, during the current unpleasantness in Iraq, such as "in harm's way" and "fog of war". (See also PO 18.) The article mentions words and phrases that came out of old U.S. wars, but does not mention the terms for the aftermath of the trauma of war on soldiers. In World War I, it was "shell shock". In World War II, it was "battle fatigue". After the Vietnam War, it was "post-traumatic stress syndrome". The Gulf War produced "Gulf War Syndrome," which was psychobabble and anyway seemed to refer only to a medical condition.
It's too soon to know what branding term will come of the war in Iraq, but consider that so far tours of duty have been comparatively short and victory was quick, although the Husseins may still be alive (yet there's always the hope of finding them, with the aid of the Most Wanted deck of cards ~ use them in all your friendly games of poker and fifty-two pickup); the weapons of mass destruction are elusive; we're working on "regime change" with the hope of injecting a sort of democracy into a country drenched in blood. I'm thinking, Iraqi Wacky. But that's mainly because it rhymes. I'm sure you can think of something better.
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.
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