Will zealots spell the doom of great literature?

EDUCATION

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS is the McCarthyism of the 1990s. Today, the politically correct storm troopers, operating from their positions as college professors, attack Western civilization, the bedrock values of the U.S., and white males. Their mentor appears to have been Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R.-Wis.), who trampled on individual liberty in his zeal to expose communism.

Like McCarthy, the politically correct crowd are fanatics, and they have assembled a cultural hit list that I call "The Unteachables." I've been a college professor for 20 years, and this list, like the ponderous life chain created by Ebenezer Scrooge, has grown with each passing year. It now includes: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the King James Bible, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, The Sun Also Rises. Pride and Prejudice, The Maltese Falcon, and the poems of Rudyard Kipling.

One of the better known politically correct gurus is Ronald Takaki, whom I observed, to paraphrase former Vice Pres. Spiro Agnew, pattering his negativity at Princeton University. Of course, no PC professor calls himself PC, so Takaki is a self-confessed MC--a multiculturalist.

He warmed up the Ivy League crowd with fond reminiscences of students at his college taking over a campus building in order to correct the curriculum so that it mirrored the diversity which is America. As he detailed this hooliganism, he threw in a few barbs at some professors who challenge his conclusions, such men of distinction as Alan Bloom and Nathan Glazer, who begged to differ with Takaki about the existence of the great books and affirmative action.

After venting his spleen by bashing those who believe in the values of Western civilization, the PC/MC professor spoke on the conflicts between Asian- and African-Americans, pointing out the tensions caused by the fact that, in cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., 75% of the store owners are Asian. His thesis-addressed to an upwardly mobile audience of Asian- and African-American students sitting in absolute isolation from one another--was that white male America was praising Asians as the "ideal minority." He made use of revisionist history by citing examples from the 19th century, when white planters in Mississippi brought in Chinese workers as an exemplum for the black sharecroppers, thereby driving home his propaganda that Asians and blacks are at odds because of whites.

Takaki offered a remedy for the mind-set that divides people of color in America, exhorting students to "read about themselves," to "embrace diversity," or, in other words, to resist reading books written by white males since these people function in society as prison wardens. It is the Takakis of America who've turned the great books, the classics, into the Unteachables.

In the 20-plus years I've taught, the great books have declined into the Unteachables. The PC crowd has a propaganda tag for many of the hallmarks of Western civilization, including:

* The Constitution--a sexist, racist document written by the Founding Fathers, all of whom were rich, white, slave-owning swine. At the time the Constitution was written, women and blacks were so marginalized in society that they did not appear in the text. The document should be redone by self-proclaimed civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton and feminist Gloria Steinem.

* The King James Bible--a misogynistic mythology. From Genesis onward, the Bible presents women negatively. Eve is blamed for Adam's fall; Lot's daughters are presented as sexual predators; and the supreme creator is referred to as "Father." It is outmoded for the 1990s; New Age is the answer.

* The Scarlet Letter--a classic case of the sexual double standard. Hester Prynne gets branded with a A for Adultery while the man is let off easy. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an apologist for harassment.

* Moby Dick--blatant whaleism. The entire book celebrates animal abuse. During the 1990s, the PC hordes freed Willy; in the 19th century, white males hunted Moby Dick.

* The Great Gatsby--classist claptrap. All of the characters are either bourgeois beauties or capitalist creeps. The novel focuses on the idle rich who feed off the honest labor of the proletariat. Gatsby got what he deserved.

* Hamlet--male pattern sexual abuse. Hamlet seduces Ophelia, dumps her, then mind-rapes his mother. He is a demented Dane who denounced women.

* King Lear--daughter denial. A tale of a greedy, violence-prone father denying his daughters their just rewards. They should have kicked him out years earlier.

* Othello--miscegenation and the Mafia. A family of Italians con spire against a black man. Guess who they don't want to come home for dinner?

* Macbeth--witch-bashing. Three sisters who practice an alternative religion are depicted negatively. The play reveals the necessity for separation of church and state.

* The Sun Also Rises--Hemingway's homophobic horror show. Jake Barnes' real problem is not his missing sexual apparatus, but his refusal to come out of the closet and be all that he can be. Just like "Poppa" himself, Jake protested too much.