Thought for the Day

[bcholmes]

On a passage from Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and the topic of political correctness:

This, I knew from the first time I read it, was wrong — though I wasn't certain precisely why yet. What I knew, viscerally, but could not articulate as a teenager, was that disappearing materials that reflect institutional harm, without or instead of any examination of systemic bias, is a solution to legitimate criticism of privilege, not a solution to harm. And trying to find a solution to legitimate criticism of privilege is the real partner to the anti-intellectualism also at the root of the tyranny in Fahrenheit 451, not the imagined (even by its author) solution to harm.

Bradbury got that wrong. But its wrongness worked on me, and challenged me to figure out why it was wrong. It made me more sensitive. It helped me build my argument against careless rants about "political correctness" delivered by people of privilege who specialize in willful ignorance. It informed the charter for this space.

-- Melissa McEwan, Shakesville