Quote:
Originally Posted by FoldnDark
Since there are a lot of defenders of PC here, I think I'll pick up the mantle of rabid PC hater (not too difficult ) and try to prove yall are secret commies. More to come.
Leaving aside, at least for a moment, the problem of defining what "political correctness" means in relation to various political or philosophical ideologies (post-modernism, Marxism, post-Marxism, ...) and the assertions Lind makes about those ideologies (i.e that they are totalitarian), I think you should see a problem with the way his argument is made, analogous to a problem in the way you perceive liberal arguments are made. Lind's rhetorical strategy is essentially as follows
1. "Political correctness", in the form of radical feminism, gay studies, black studies, and etc. are Marxist.
2. Marxism is bad.
3. Therefore all those things are bad too and must be rejected.
I'm suggesting that should sound to you like this argument
1. The Republican party (or conservatives, or ...) is racist.
2. Racism is bad.
3. Therefore the Republican party (or conservatives...) are bad and must be rejected.
You object to the second argument because you think (1) is an over-simplification driven by polemic. I object to Lind's argument on the grounds that his (1) is similarly an egregious over-simplification, but equally important is the fact that his reductionistic view of Marxism is also wrong, and so is yours when you take up the task of chastising political correctness (or concern with social justice) as communism.
He's lumping a pretty diverse set of ideas under the umbrella of Marxism and claiming they are all revolutionary ideologies intent on realizing Gramsci's "war of position" in order to prepare for the revolution, and that's not an adequate account even of the parts of the intellectual traditions that are the most accurately described as "Marxist." It's essentially a conspiracy theory intended to foment red scare reactions. It's a rhetorical strategy that allows him to completely bypass actually arguing with the ideas being presented.
For example, I (with a glimmer in my eye) chose to read Foucault's
History of Sexuality, Vol 1. and then Rosemary Hennessy's
Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse to kick off my SJW book report thread. Those two books are squarely in the tradition of what Lind is calling Cultural Marxism, although neither author uses the phrase. But neither are their works merely a setup for communist revolution, although Hennessy is obviously anti-capitalist and so was Foucault at least through much of his career. But, if you read my summary of the Foucault book, you'll note that besides the use of the word "bourgeois" and the reference to the rise of capitalism and the Industrial revolution, the central ideas have basically nothing to do with communism. It is quite possible to separate ideas about power and discourse from conclusions about political economy, and many people do.
Additionally, the ideas in those books are representative of an intellectual tradition centered in Humanities departments. When Lind compares "political correctness" to "cultural marxism", he conflates "political correctness" with a critique of certain prevalent traditions in Humanities departments, but there are other academic disciplines with distinct intellectual traditions that are equally concerned with social inequalities, and so I, though a consummate SJW (in terms of my interests), am not actually very familiar with many of the authors Lind mentions. That's because my version of all this cultural theory arises out of intellectual traditions in sociology and anthropology, with a whole different set of theorists, many of whom also read and borrowed Marx's idea of social conflict, but in various and different ways, and again there is quite obviously no actual commitment to socialism or communism entailed.