{"id":3154,"date":"2007-08-20T00:30:42","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T05:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/"},"modified":"2007-08-20T00:30:42","modified_gmt":"2007-08-20T05:30:42","slug":"culture-wars-and-political-correctness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture Wars and Political Correctness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In her essay, \u201cProcrustes and the Culture War,\u201d Anne Fadiman warns us of getting caught on the bed of Procrustes \u2014 her image of getting caught up in the ideology of political correctness, of the ideology that you must toe the party line once you sign on the dotted line for that party. She contends that we are to judge literary works \u2014 and theological ones I might add \u2014 on a case by case method and not by needing to conform to the party line. Wow, what a good chapter.
\nI refer to a chapter in her book At Large and At Small<\/a><\/em>, which we have paused to consider already.
\nHave you felt the need for silence due to \u201cPC\u201d? Have you thought you liked a work only to be told that it was \u201ctoo liberal\u201d or \u201ctoo conservative\u201d? Any good stories or advice? Some think PC is all bad; some think it is all good. What is the good and the bad of PC?
\nProcrustes <\/a>famously put people on his bed; if the person was too short, he stretched them and if they were too long, he lopped off the excess. Fadiman uses this for the PC drive to make people to conform in all ways. In particular, for these four questions:
\n1. Should we read great books for their literary value or their moral lessons?
\n2. Should the life of the writer affect our valuation of the work?
\n3. Should a book be demoted if its plot fails to meet standards of behavior that have changed since the piece was written?
\n4. Should you read a book when your sex (female mostly, but now also male) is excluded from view by the author?
\nAh, what an observation: \u201cif in every battle you look around and see the same people fighting alongside you, you should ask yourself whether are demonstrating an admirable constancy or a Procrustean intransigence\u201d (77).
\nI know this problem. Sometimes I find my liberal friends thinking I\u2019m a hopeless conservative and sometimes I find my conservative companions think that I\u2019m dangerously moving off the map. This encourages me to think I\u2019m thinking for myself, taking things on a case-by-case method. Some don\u2019t think it is possible to do that \u2014 it\u2019s all one or all the other. Punch the lights out on the dichotomy. It would be an odd world if everything liberal were right or if everything conservative were right. Where\u2019s the middle ground here? Anyone game for the middle ground \u2014 or taking sometimes one view and othertimes the other side?
\nDo I have a witness?
\nOne more from Fadiman: \u201cBut if you start hacking the toes off your culture, you will soon look down and find that your own toes \u2026 are unaccountably missing\u201d (77-78).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her essay, \u201cProcrustes and the Culture War,\u201d Anne Fadiman warns us of getting caught on the bed of Procrustes \u2014 her image of getting caught up in the ideology of political correctness, of the ideology that you must toe the party line once you sign on the dotted line for that party. She contends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[476,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-education"],"yoast_head":"\nCulture Wars and Political Correctness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In her essay, "Procrustes and the Culture War," Anne Fadiman warns us of getting caught on the bed of Procrustes -- her image of getting caught up in the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Culture Wars and Political Correctness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In her essay, "Procrustes and the Culture War," Anne Fadiman warns us of getting caught on the bed of Procrustes -- her image of getting caught up in the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-20T05:30:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/\",\"name\":\"Culture Wars and Political Correctness\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-08-20T05:30:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-08-20T05:30:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"In her essay, \\\"Procrustes and the Culture War,\\\" Anne Fadiman warns us of getting caught on the bed of Procrustes -- her image of getting caught up in the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/08\/20\/culture-wars-and-political-correctness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Culture Wars and Political Correctness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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