The New Criterion

In the thirteen years that The New Criterion has been in existence, we have often had occasion to criticize the depredations of multiculturalism and political correctness. Indeed, even before the terms “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” gained currency, in the mid- to late-1980s, we frequently inveighed against efforts to enlist the arts and humanities in the subversive political campaigns of the cultural left. That those efforts have been largely successful—that they have managed to transform the art world and large precincts of the American university into hotbeds of ideological activism—is now a fundamental datum of our cultural life.

We appreciate that “hotbeds of ideological activism” is a contentious way of putting the matter. But our experience convinces us that it is accurate. Moreover, we have discovered that a more delicate phraseology is not so much co ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first