Will zealots spell the doom of great literature?

This is fine, but would Takaki be so accepting if the book were entitled The Weiner Schnitzel Crowd and featured four young German males in emotional torment as they fight to retain their Teutonic heritage? What is the difference between the 20th-century German past and Chinese life under Mao Tse-tung, wherein the dictator's wife presided over the killing of 10,000,000 people during the Red Guard reign of terror? The answer is that the PC cultural police are selective when it comes to which ethnic identities are worth preserving, praising Asia, the Third World, and Africa while deriding all of Western Europe.

A Doll's House is unique because it is one of the few works of literature accepted by the politically correct that was written by a white male, a 19th-century Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen. The reason? The play is about a woman who frees herself from the prison house of her marriage by leaving her oppressive husband (along with her children) and venturing forth into the world to find herself.

The praise of this play reveals that the PC gendarmes never really read the texts they teach. The crucial question is why did the heroine, Nora Helmer, leave her husband? The answer is that she deserted her family because her husband refused to take the blame for a crime she had committed. She says, "I was so absolutely certain you would come forward and take everything upon yourself and say: I am the guilty one."

Feminist author Betty Friedan would hit the roof if she heard a husband suggest that his wife take the fall for one of his crimes. A Doll's House is, in effect, exactly the opposite of what a true feminist should desire since it rests upon complete inequality. When I taught the play and pointed out this fact, the feminists in the class believed me to be "hopelessly insensitive." They probably were right.

Possibly the most popular PC text is Kate Chopin's The Awakening, written in 1899. One of this novelette's major themes is the quest by the heroine, Edna Pontellier, for "erotic freedom." This is accomplished when she rejects her husband and relinquishes her role as mother of her sons and allows herself to be pursued, and caught, by a young lover. Unable to be fulfilled completely, Edna swims away into the sea, never to re turn, drowning, literally, in her sorrow.

The topic of this book is adultery. Would a feminist so readily concede that a middle-aged man could ditch his wife and kids so that he could have a fling with a young, pliable damsel, the reason being that erotic freedom was more important than familial responsibility? Their answer would be an emphatic, vociferous No! These works have certain things in common: They all glorify men and women much like the PC professors themselves, who are largely privileged white woman and Asian- and African-American would-be revolutionaries; exhibit a disdain for Western civilization; and engage in white male-bashing. As misguided as some of these books are, they are on the reading lists at the reputedly best colleges in America. They are taught while classic texts are dismissed as Unteachables.