The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization by Diana West (links to Amazon.com listing, since Hamilton Books doesn't cooperate like that).
What struck me is the description of the book, courtesy of the Hamilton mailer: "The author writes on how grown-ups have become extinct and explains why we cannot stop Islamic terrorism. She believes the disease that killed them emerged in the fifties, leading to a nation of eternal adolescents who can't say no, a politically correct population that doesn't know right from wrong."
There's quite a bit wrong with that description, I would think. First, I think the link between arrested development and Islamic terrorism (sic) is a tenuous one, at best, and yet it seems to be the only thing that even remotely interests me about this book.
Second, isn't the problem with political correctness that too many people try to be "overcorrect," which would imply that it's not their sense of "right from wrong" that's flawed, but their approach to that end.
Third, the fifties?? I'd put the blame closer to the freakin' eighties, man. If the crux of your argument includes the scourge of political correctness, did I miss the memo where political correctness erupted during the sedate and open-minded period of the civil rights movement?
Monday, January 07, 2008
New book available through Hamilton Books
3 comments:
I read a review of this one somewhere (Powell's Books? NYT?) and they absolutely trashed it.
I will, however, partially disagree with the contention that the 1960s were not the start of political correctness. The Fifties...yeah no. But the trend towards identity politics is an outgrowth of the CRM and the feminist movements of the 1960s. When it became "uncool" or unacceptable to speak negatively of any sort of difference and the country went from a "melting pot" to a "rainbow coalition"...that came straight out of the late 1960s.
Ah, gotcha. See, I was thinking of when political correctness actually came more into vogue, and the best of my recollection was during the 80s, when you couldn't turn around without hearing the term.
Of course, I went to Wikipedia to read up on the phrase, and damn, that's a fine read. Probably 62% incorrect, but still a good read anyway.
A nutbag right-winger pining for the 50s? Well, I never.
Post a Comment