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                   Imprimis, On Line  -- July, 1992
        
        Imprimis, meaning "in the first place," is a free
        monthly publication of Hillsdale College (circulation
        360,000 worldwide). Hillsdale College is a liberal arts
        institution known for its defense of free market
        principles and Western culture and its nearly 150-year
        refusal to accept federal funds. Imprimis publishes
        lectures by such well-known figures as Ronald Reagan,
        Jeane Kirkpatrick, Tom Wolfe, Charlton Heston, and many
        more. Permission to reprint is hereby granted, provided
        credit is given to Hillsdale College. Copyright 1992.
        For more information on free print subscriptions or
        back issues, call 1-800-437-2268, or 1-517-439-1524,
        ext. 2319.
        
           --------------------------------------------------
        
                     "The Ideology of Sensitivity"
                   by Charles Sykes, Author, Profscam
        
           --------------------------------------------------
        
                          Volume 21, Number 7
              Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
                               July 1992
        
                            ---------------
        
             Preview: As readers of Profscam and The Hollow Men
        will know, Charles Sykes has devoted the last several
        years to investigating firsthand what actually goes on
        at American colleges and universities. In this Imprimis
        issue, adapted from his forthcoming book, A Nation of
        Victims (available in September from St. Martin's
        Press), he argues that it is not merely political
        correctness, but "the politics of sensitivity" that has
        overtaken higher education. Mr. Sykes participated in
        Hillsdale's Center for Constructive Alternatives
        February 1992 seminar, "Thought Police on Campus: Is
        Academic Freedom in Danger?"
        
                            ---------------
        
        When Newsweek magazine reported on what it called the
        new "Thought Police" on America's university campuses,
        it described academia's new rage--"political
        correctness"--as "strictly speaking, a totalitarian
        philosophy." Nothing escaped its attention; nothing was
        too trivial for its ministrations; no one was immune.
        
             From the reading lists peppered with ideologically
        approved Third World writers to a disciplinary
        apparatus poised to stamp out the slightest offense to
        the sensibilities of designated political and ethnic
        groups, campus opinion was smothered in a paternalism
        that would have been the envy of any college chaplain
        of the 19th century. Struggling to place all of this in
        some sort of historical and philosophical context,
        Newsweek reported that politically, "PC is Marxist in
        origin, in the broad sense of attempting to
        redistribute power from the privileged class (white
        males) to the oppressed masses." But even as the
        magazine sought to trace PC's lineage, the inadequacy
        of categories of political philosophy was obvious.
        
             Despite the usual paraphernalia and rhetoric of
        left-wing politics, the peculiarly claustrophobic
        atmosphere of campus life often seems less like Big
        Brother than Big Nanny. The focus of Big Nanny, after
        all, is on "sensitivity," which is not a political term
        at all, nor one that is terribly helpful in sorting out
        the relationships of various economic classes.
        
             Instead, "sensitivity" is a transplant from the
        world of culture and psychology, in which taste,
        feelings and emotions are paramount. Political
        correctness turns out to be a form of the larger
        transformation of society reflected in ascendancy of
        psychological over political terminology. What began as
        the attempt to politicize psychology (and psychologize
        politics) had led to the swallowing of each by the
        other and the emergence of a new form of therapeutic
        politics.
        
             I should clarify here what I mean by the
        therapeutic culture. In general, the term refers to the
        psychologization of modern life profiting therapists,
        support groups, and new ailments du jour. But it has a
        larger implication as well: the substitution of medical
        standards and terminology for what had traditionally
        been moral, ethical and religious questions. As a
        society we have grown far more comfortable with saying
        someone is sick than with saying they have done evil.
        
             Therapeutic politics is an equally radical
        departure. While it remains ostensibly concerned with
        moral issues, it does not primarily concern itself with
        what is just or unjust; or even with whether something
        is true or untrue. These considerations are not
        irrelevant. But they are overshadowed by concern over
        "self-esteem" and "feelings." In the therapeutic
        culture, all of us are trembling on the verge of
        confusion and anxiety. But for the politics of
        victimization, the new ethos has been a windfall.
        Psychic frailty has replaced class as the focus of a
        new politics.
        
             Armed with the new political/therapeutic
        categories and heirs to four decades of the endless
        elaboration of grievance and psychological fragility,
        victims could be transformed from capable citizens in
        need of fundamental legal rights into frail
        psychological growths, easily blighted by the slightest
        gesture, facial expression, or word that they might
        find uncongenial. Consider this: If the distinctive
        format of traditional liberal education was the
        patriarchal and phallocentric Socratic dialogue, the
        model for the new order is the therapeutic workshop and
        consciousness-raising session. Such approaches do not
        seek debate or a reasoned balancing of rights, but an
        embracing of victims, often accompanied by the coached
        acknowledgment of guilt.
        
             The results, predictably, have been dramatic.
        
             Once "feelings" are established as the barometer
        of acceptable behavior, speech (and by extension,
        thought) becomes only as free as the most sensitive
        group on campus will permit. One of the central dogmas
        of the new victimist politics is that only members of a
        victim group are able to understand their own
        suffering.
        
             Some postmodern political theorists, including
        Harvard's Judith Shklar, argue that traditional
        conceptions of justice are inadequate because they fail
        to take into account "the victim's version." Shklar
        argues that "the sense of injustice should assume a
        renewed importance" in political thinking, "for it is
        both unfair to ignore personal resentment and imprudent
        to overlook the political anger in which it finds its
        expression."
        
             But at its extreme, this view turns injustice into
        a subjective experience and denies the validity of
        objective and shared understandings of equity and
        justice to which victim and nonvictim can appeal.
        Abolishing such norms makes contentious issues
        irresolvable, as each group is trapped within its own
        experience and sense of aggrievement. Not only does
        this accelerate the balkanization of ethnic groups, it
        also creates a protective barrier that hermetically
        seals off one group from another.
        
             Because only a victim could really understand
        their plight, any criticism or questioning from non-
        victims is rejected out-of-hand as an act of disrespect
        and (of course) insensitivity. One direct product was
        what Bard College President Leon Botstein would call
        the "culture of forbidden questions."
        
             The fear of hurt has trumped the search for truth.
        
             This is not to suggest, however, that all of the
        concern is misplaced. In particular, the anxiety of
        minority students is very real. Any student going to
        college in a strange town, facing unknown challenges,
        is prey to feelings of self-doubt, loneliness, fear and
        confusion. Minority students are no different, except
        that they face even greater pressures. Many of them
        tend to suffer from feelings of exclusion or
        "competitive rejection" when they arrive on campus, and
        many of them experience considerable anxiety over the
        quality of their academic preparation.
        
             As colleges and universities have escalated
        affirmative action programs, their dilemma has been
        compounded. While denying that they are practicing
        favoritism, elite schools have in fact admitted
        minority students with substantially lower test scores
        than their white counterparts. For many of those
        eagerly courted minority students--who have been
        repeatedly assured that they have been admitted
        strictly on their merits--the reality of academic life
        often comes as a cruel shock. Roughly two-thirds of
        black students who enter higher education eventually
        drop out before graduating.
        
             Because it is politically impossible for the
        institutions of higher learning to acknowledge their
        racial sleight of hand--and thus confront the
        educational inequities among their students honestly
        and openly--many have turned instead to symbolic
        politics. It is easier to "celebrate diversity" than to
        admit that their school's academic standards have been
        bent; it is easier to blame "racism" than to reallocate
        scarce resources. Dinesh D'Souza describes the process:
        "Eager to prevent minority frustration and anger from
        directing itself at the president's or dean's office,
        the administration hotly denies the reality of
        preferential treatment and affirms minority students in
        their conviction that the real enemy is latent bigotry
        that everywhere conspires to thwart campus diversity.
        As the Harvard political scientist Harvey Mansfield
        puts it, 'White students must admit their guilt so that
        minority students do not have to admit their
        incapacity.'" This is the climate for the sensitivity
        revolution.
        
        
        Mum's the Word
        
        "Sympathy," remarks essayist Pico Iyer, "cannot be
        legislated any more than kindness can." Iyer obviously
        will never be a college president. Universities and
        colleges have rushed to create new bureaucracies to
        "protect" and shield victims from further
        victimization--whether it be an Indian symbol at
        Dartmouth College, a student who sings "We Shall
        Overcome" in a "sarcastic" manner at Southern Methodist
        University, or expressions of such proscribed attitudes
        as "ageism" ("oppression of the young and old by young
        adults and the middle aged"), "ableism" ("oppression of
        the differently abled by the temporarily abled"), and
        "lookism" (the "construction of a standard of
        beauty/attractiveness") at Smith College.
        
             The University of Arizona has taken a similarly
        expansive view of sensitivity. Its "Diversity of Action
        Plan" expresses concern over discrimination against
        students on the basis of "age, color, ethnicity,
        gender, physical and mental ability, race, religion,
        sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status,
        socioeconomic background, or individual style." When
        John Leo, a columnist for U.S. News & World Report,
        tried to find out just what the university meant by
        "individual style," he reported that "'diversity
        specialist' Connie Gajewski explained that this
        category would include nerds and people who dress
        differently. 'We didn't want to leave anyone out,' she
        said." Indeed.
        
             Not to be outdone in their zeal, University of
        Wisconsin-Milwaukee officials have handed out a list of
        49 "Ways to Experience Diversity," which urges students
        to "Hold hands publicly with someone of a different
        race or someone of the same sex as you" and to "Go to a
        toy store and investigate the availability of racially
        diverse dolls."
        
             The University of Connecticut has banned
        "inappropriately directed laughter"; Duke University's
        president has appointed a watch-dog committee to search
        out "disrespectful facial expressions or body language
        aimed at black students"; while Smith College's
        malediction upon "heterosexism" includes the crime of
        "not acknowledging their [gays'] existence."
        
             Even that citadel of tradition William & Mary has
        succumbed to the mood of the times. The alma mater of
        Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe has issued guidelines
        to nonsexist language insisting that terms such as
        "kingpin" be changed to "key person."
        
             At Harvard, sensitive professors at a re-education
        seminar have joined in a chorus of therapeutic concern
        for the sensibilities of their students. One professor
        has argued that faculty members should never "introduce
        any sort of thing that might hurt a group." He
        recognized the implications of his comments for a
        professor's freedom to teach, but "the pain that racial
        insensitivity can create is more important," he
        insists, "than a professor's academic freedom." Or, he
        could have added, a student's.
        
             At the University of Michigan, students have faced
        discipline for suggesting that women are not as
        qualified as men in any given field; one student was
        actually brought up on charges of sexual harassment for
        suggesting that he could develop "a counseling plan for
        helping gays become straight."
        
             Officials at New York University Law School
        recently bowed to pressure and cancelled a moot court
        hearing on the question of custody rights for lesbians,
        after PC cadres complained that "Writing arguments
        [against the right of lesbians to win custody] is
        hurtful to a group of people and this is hurtful to all
        of us."
        
             At times, this new paternalism has gratuitously
        extended the status of victimhood to individuals who
        feel they are doing quite all right without being
        liberated or otherwise protected. At the University of
        Minnesota, for example, cheerleaders have been banned
        from performing at UM games on the grounds that it
        fosters "sexual stereotypes" demeaning to the dancers.
        Said one of the cheerleaders: "We feel we're
        intelligent enough to know when we're considered
        objects." The sensitivity police did not agree in their
        conviction that the real enemy is latent bigotry that
        everywhere conspires to thwart campus diversity.
        
             In part, this shift from substance to form can be
        traced to the civil rights movement's shift in emphasis
        from combatting discrimination to fighting "racism."
        Although apparently a subtle shift in nomenclature, the
        new focus on racism abolished the distinction between
        private and public acts and between conduct and
        attitudes. It meant, according to Julius Lester, "in
        effect, that the opinions, feelings, and prejudices of
        private individuals were a legitimate target of
        political action. This was dangerous in the extreme,
        because such a formulation is merely a new statement of
        totalitarianism, the effort to control not only the
        behavior of citizens, but the thoughts and feelings of
        persons." But the shift in civil rights cannot fully
        account for the new politics of "sensitivity" and the
        metastasis of offended groups. For that we need to look
        to a broader cultural shift.
        
        
        Ego Uber Alles: Self Over All
        
        On one level, the push for sensitivity is little more
        than the age-old fight for human dignity, the demand
        that all individuals be treated with respect and
        rational sympathy. To be against sensitivity is thus to
        risk being against good manners or hostile to an
        attitude of "caring." The opposite of sensitivity,
        after all, is boorishness. So the arguments in favor of
        "sensitivity" have moral weight and they deserve to be
        taken seriously. But it is the nature--and the tragedy-
        -of victimism to take legitimate concerns and distort
        them for self-indulgent ends.
        
             The victimist distortion of "sensitivity" is the
        insistence that it is not enough to behave correctly--
        one must be attuned to the feelings of others, and
        adapt oneself to the kaleidoscopic shades of grievance,
        injury and ego that make up the subjective
        sensibilities of the "victim." The relationship between
        individuals and groups is not mediated by mutual
        respect or principles of justice, but must now be
        recast solely in therapeutic terms--the avoidance of
        injury and offense, the need to sacrifice for the self-
        esteem of the other. Superficially, this resembles
        Christian charity, but as a series of demands and
        mandatory obeisances it is something else altogether.
        
             The essence of naked egotism is imposing one's
        likes and dislikes and the subtle prejudices and
        whining annoyances of the self on others. Society
        exists to put limits on the desire of the ego to make
        itself the center of the universe; and maturity could
        once be defined as the child's gradual recognition that
        his or her emotions, demands and sensitivities are no
        longer absolute.
        
             "Sensitivity," however, (and please note the
        quotation marks here) transforms the self--especially
        the aggrieved self--into the imperial arbiter of
        behavior. Everyone now must accommodate themselves to
        the sensitivities of the self, whose power is based not
        on force or even shared ideology, but on changeable and
        perhaps arbitrary and exaggerated "feelings." This is
        the historic (if not logical) culmination of the
        development of inner-directed man into anxiety-ridden
        other-directed man and later into psychological man.
        David Riesman had written that inner-directed man had
        relied on an internal gyroscope, other-directed man had
        taken his lead from emotional radar. But the
        mechanistic metaphors are now obsolete. Sensitive man
        is neither a gyroscope nor a radar. He is a raw nerve,
        frequently inflamed.
        
        
        Big Nanny Is Watching
        
        Despite its psychological pedigree, "sensitivity" has
        proven to be a powerful political weapon. By redefining
        ideology in non-ideological terms, it has provided a
        pretext for sweeping changes in American universities,
        but also in the larger society, by radically changing
        the standards of equity and evidence. Here again, Brown
        University has set the pace. All minority students have
        been assigned to the school's Third World Transition
        Program (a rather eccentric name for a program designed
        for black students from New Jersey). In a description
        of the program, journalist Pete Hamill notes that "It
        is race-driven; it assumes that non-whites are indeed
        different from other Americans, mere bundles of
        pathologies, permanent residents in the society of
        victims, and therefore require special help. 'They're
        made to feel separate from the first day they arrive,'
        and 'they stay separate for the next four years.'"
        
             In this atmosphere the scope of victim-protections
        goes far beyond simply punishing undergraduates who
        yell "nigger" in the dormitory. Few schools have so
        eagerly embraced the metaphysics of victimism and the
        therapeutic ethos of stamping out "insensitivity" as
        has Brown, which has hired sensitivity "experts" and
        consultants to minister to the prejudices of its
        unenlightened undergraduates.
        
             One consultant hired by Brown is Donald Kao, who
        openly acknowledges that his goal is to convince his
        audience that America is a racist society in which
        "privileged" whites have established arbitrary norms of
        acceptable behavior. Nor is his goal merely to
        encourage tolerance. Kao's "standard of gauging one's
        behavior" is far more demanding. "If you are feeling
        comfortable or normal," he insists, then you are
        probably oppressing someone, whether that person is a
        woman or a gay or whatever. We probably won't rid our
        society of racism until everyone strives to be
        abnormal."
        
             Having acculturated minorities to their oppressed
        status, Brown insists on preternatural alertness for
        signs of racism--which, by definition, is everywhere.
        "It is both subtle and overt," a university publication
        announces. "Racism is encountered through our language,
        actions, non-verbal communications, institutions,
        access to privilege and educational processes." No one
        at Brown, it declares, is "immune." But, like guilt,
        potential victimhood is also an equal opportunity
        affair. Individuals are protected against slurs on the
        basis of such characteristics as "race, religion,
        gender, handicap, economic status, sexual orientation,
        ethnicity, national origin, or on the basis of position
        or function." (It is unclear whether the ban on
        ridicule "on the basis of position or function" applies
        to jokes about "dumb jocks" or rich frat boys.)
        
             Significantly, Brown's policy has not been framed
        as a ban on improper activity; it is cast in the form
        of a right of victims "to live in an environment free
        from harassment." The importance of this distinction
        lies in the fact that the right to be free of
        "harassment" can be enforced even when there is no
        intent to harass or demean. Banned activities include,
        "inappropriate verbal attention, name calling, using
        racial/ethnic epithets, vandalism and pranks." More
        explicitly, students are warned: "If the purpose of
        your behavior, language, or gesture is to harass, harm,
        cause psychological stress or make someone the focus of
        your joke, you are engaged in a harassing manner. It
        may be intentional or unintentional and still
        constitute harassment." [Emphasis added.]
        
             It is not, I think, an exercise in over-scrupulous
        legalism to point out the inherent contradictions in
        that statement. In one sentence harassment is described
        as the purposeful infliction of harm ("If the purpose
        of your behavior...is to...cause..."): but the very
        next sentence renders it meaningless by declaring that
        even "unintentional" acts may constitute harassment as
        well.
        
             Brown's administrators have unintentionally but
        graphically revealed the slippery nature of such
        policies and the near-impossibility of crafting
        equitable policies that are grounded on purely
        subjective judgments. This becomes even more pointed
        when Brown describes the "effects" of harassment in
        purely therapeutic terms. In almost every case the
        alleged damage is purely subjective--a matter of
        "feelings" and impressions--rather than a matter of
        actual or demonstrable harm. The listed effects
        include: "Loss of self-esteem"; "a vague sense of
        danger" (rather than actual danger); "a feeling that
        one's personal security and dignity have been
        undermined"; "denial of opportunity, privilege or
        right"; "feelings of impotence, anger and
        disenfranchisement"; "withdrawal"; "fear"; "anxiety";
        "depression"; "a sense of embarrassment from being
        ridiculed." Almost by definition there is little or no
        defense to a charge of such harassment. If the victim
        insists that he or she experienced "anxiety" or
        "embarrassment" because of something someone said,
        proof is beside the point. Lack of intention is no
        defense. Sensitivity demands belief.
        
             In the late 1980s, the University of Michigan
        adopted a sweeping "speech code" aimed at wiping out
        racist, sexist, homophobic, and ethnocentric slurs.
        Students were warned that they could be suspended or
        expelled for any act "verbal or physical, that
        stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of
        race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation,
        creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status,
        handicap, or Vietnam-era veteran status." Because the
        policy was so broad--and vague--it raised the obvious
        question of how it would be enforced. How would
        students know exactly what stigmatized someone on the
        basis of, say; "Vietnam-era status" or "ancestry"? Most
        important of all, what sort of proof would be needed?
        The university's answer was direct: None. (It also
        raised questions of how it could be reconciled with the
        First Amendment. A federal judge later invalidated the
        policy.)
        
             "Experience at the university," a university
        publication explained, "has been that people almost
        never make false complaints about discrimination."
        [Emphasis added.] That specifically included any
        alleged incident for which there were no witnesses, the
        school said. If it was one student's word against
        another's, the accused was presumed guilty. Michigan's
        policy did more than simply invert normal standards
        that require accusers to shoulder the burden of proof.
        It enshrined the doctrine that issues of victimism
        could and should be judged on radically new terms--
        further breaking down the distinction between fact and
        fabrication.
        
             In March 1990 a black student at Emory University
        reported that she had been the object of a campaign of
        racial harassment. The nineteen-year-old freshman
        reported that her room had been ransacked, racial slurs
        written on the walls, and said that she had received
        death threats. Her allegations received national media
        attention after she reportedly curled up in the fetal
        position and refused to speak.
        
             Emory's president--the episode clearly on his
        mind--penned an article for The New York Times
        denouncing "renascent bigotry," and using the incident
        as a justification for his schools' sweeping ban on any
        "conduct (oral, written, graphic or physical) directed
        against any person or group...that has the purpose or
        reasonably foreseeable effect of creating an offensive,
        demeaning, intimidating, or hostile environment."
        
             But the episode of "renascent bigotry" never
        happened.
        
             After investigating the allegations, officials
        determined the episode was an elaborate hoax on the
        student's part, designed to divert attention from her
        alleged cheating on a chemistry test. When asked for
        his reaction, however, the head of the Atlanta NAACP
        said: "It doesn't matter...whether she did it or not,
        because of all the pressure these black students are
        under at these predominantly white schools. If this
        will highlight it, if it will bring it to the attention
        of the public, I have no problem with that."
        
             At Emory, the metaphysics of victimization finally
        transcended the mundane world of reality and fact.
        
             But if "sensitivity" demanded belief, it also
        demanded the opposite, depending on the racial or
        gender identity of the perpetrator. It turns out that
        insensitivity is not always insensitivity; and only
        someone with a reliable and up-to-date political
        scorecard can tell for sure.
        
             Gayatri Spivak, a professor of English and
        cultural studies at the University of Pittsburgh,
        argued, for example, that it is unreasonable to expect
        minorities to practice the sort of tolerance demanded
        of white students. "Tolerance is a loaded virtue," he
        explained, "because you have to have a base of power to
        practice it. You cannot ask a certain people to
        'tolerate' a culture that has historically ignored them
        at the same time their children are indoctrinated into
        it." His position was echoed by a group of professors
        at the University of Michigan who declared: "Behavior
        which constitutes racist oppression when engaged in by
        whites does not have this character when undertaken by
        people of color."
        
             Similarly, one of the authors of Stanford's speech
        code argued that its ban on offensive language would
        not apply to black students. By definition, they were
        incapable of "insensitivity." In the same way that the
        guilt of whites as universal racists was simply
        assumed, the innocence of blacks was axiomatic.
        
             According to Professor Robert Rabin, whites did
        not need any protection from abusive language because
        they did not have a history of being discriminated
        against. Only those who have been victims of oppression
        needed to be shielded from offensive words, he said.
        Calling a white a "honky" is not the same as calling a
        black a "nigger." This was essentially the same
        argument advanced by Stanford Law Professor Mari
        Matsuda in a 1989 law review article in which she
        argued for anti-racist speech bans because freedom of
        speech should be understood as an instrument to help
        members of powerless groups. The emphasis on group
        rather than individual rights is crucial because it
        locates constitutional protections not in one's
        citizenship, but in one's status on the victim
        hierarchy. Under Matsuda's doctrine, critic David Rieff
        noted, "a rich woman would presumably be protected by
        the First Amendment but a poor white man (unless gay,
        or disabled, or otherwise 'disenfranchised') would
        not."
        
             As interpreted in the light of victimist politics,
        the Stanford policy embodied what Nat Hentoff called a
        "new sliding scale of permissible expression" that was
        completely dependent on comparative victimhood. Given
        their history of oppression, Hentoff wondered,
        shouldn't Native Americans get even more protection
        than blacks? Was a slur against an Italian-American to
        be punished more harshly than being offensive to a
        Presbyterian? Given the history of anti-Semitism,
        Hentoff wondered whether Jews would "get special
        leniency when they insult members of other religions?"
        
             The question was not entirely frivolous.
        
             Once status was determined by the degree of one's
        victimhood, every nuance of oppression became crucial--
        one's rights now depended on the constantly shifting
        scorecard of aggrievement. This is not a trivial
        distinction; there is a vast difference between basing
        rights upon respect and linking rights to personal
        inadequacy.
        
        Restoring Common Sense
        
        This is a distinction that most Americans can
        understand. And this brings us to the fourth and final
        point in our attack on the politics of victimization:
        Common sense. It is always a mistake to underestimate
        the reservoirs of good sense that have survived the
        various attacks of political, cultural and therapeutic
        elites. Simple native good sense has already
        experienced a modest comeback of sorts on college
        campuses, where the more lugubrious and heavy-handed
        aspects of political correctness have foundered on
        their own absurdity.
        
             Common sense can certainly go a long way toward
        making distinctions between a bungled pass and an act
        of rape; between greed and "compulsive shopping
        syndrome"; between victims of racial discrimination and
        victims of "motorism," or "sizeism"; between the
        genuinely handicapped and the "chronically late"; and
        between bad luck and acts of social victimization.
        
             In short, Americans need to lighten up.
        
             The politicized culture of victimization often
        confuses mere difference with inequity and oppression,
        while common sense reminds that difference is, well,
        often just being different. Most of us can tell the
        difference between making a mistake and being
        victimized; between excelling and oppressing someone.
        All of us experience unfairness and injustice, but that
        does not mean we need to turn them into all-purpose
        alibis.
        
             Most important of all, our common sense and the
        human tradition it reflects reminds us that we are all
        fallible, all beset with human foibles and limitations.
        At some level of our being, we all know that something
        is required of us, however much we may try to shake it
        off. Instinctively and rationally we know our
        responsibilities; we know that we are not sick when we
        are merely weak; we know that others are not to blame
        when we have erred; we know that the world does not
        exist to make us happy.
        
             At the end of one of his novels, Saul Bellow has
        his character Arthur Sammler, survivor of the
        concentration camps and eternal witness to the follies
        of his fellow man, sum up the life of a dead friend by
        declaring that in the end, "he did meet the terms of
        his contract. The terms which, in his innermost heart
        each man knows. As I know mine. As all know. For that
        is the truth of it--that we all know, God, that we
        know, we know, we know."
        
                        ------------------------
        
        Charles J. Sykes' best-selling book, Profscam:
        Professors and the Demise of Higher Education (Regnery
        Gateway, 1988), won critical praise from the New York
        Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
        Mr. Sykes followed up with a second volume, The Hollow
        Men: Politics and Corruption in Higher Education
        (Regnery Gateway) in 1990. He has also co-edited The
        National Review College Guide (National Review Books,
        1991) and is editor of WI: Wisconsin Interest. He is
        currently a senior fellow of the Wisconsin Policy
        Research Institute.
        
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