0 Page 16 -The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 6, 1991 Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education by Roger Kimball. harper Perennial Are students on U.S. campuses dupes of a plot by "the children of the sixties" to finally "im- plement" their "dream of radical cultural transformation"? Are the growing horror stories of leftwing "Politically Correct" intolerance and authoritarianism on campus true? Our today's "tenured radi- cals" the ringleaders of a "new McCarthyism"? Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals provides a useful starting point for answering such questions, because its sarcastic, rhetorically charged tone - coupled with an al- most blind allegiance to a rather ab- stract conceptualization of "the West" - makes Kimball's moral passion play a remarkably transpar- ent expose of the rightwing frame- up at the heart of the "PC" contro- versy. Tenured Radicals is a 200-page jeremiad on how modern evils rang- ing from psychoanalysis to Marxism have laid waste to "traditional aesthetic values such as clarity, order, and harmony." Taking us with him on a tour of numerous academic conferences all over the country where these values are re- peatedly trounced, Kimball casti- gates the decline of "the most ele- mentary distinctions of taste, judg- ment, and value." But whose taste are we talking about here? Not a man to waste time in either doubt or reflection, Kimball forges ahead, identifying taste with "the West," which is not only the most "open" society in history and the guardian of "aesthetic excellence, philosophical sophistication, and historical im- portance," but also, "demographics notwithstanding," what defines the United States and U.S. culture. Insisting that "education is the staunchest bulwark against the forces of disintegration we are fac- ing," Kimball suggests that "being ignorant of that [Western] culture means being ignorant of oneself." Skip the "unending search for works by authors of the requisite sex, skin color, sexual orientation, or ethnic heritage." Plato and Aristotle have more to tell us about modern times than Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. There are numerous flaws in this argument, beginning with Kimball's definition of a work of art as something with universal value. Universal for whom? He never defines what those values are - let alone what constitutes "excellence" or "taste" - render- ing his appeal to such standards rather circular: a work is great be- cause it is great, or, more specifi- cally, a work is great because it is Western. In other words, what Kimball really means when he calls for a cultural "bulwark" against "barbarism," "demographics not- withstanding," is that works of literature and art upholding his view of the world as the view of the world must be protected from the cultural and racial others at civi- lization's gates. Poised on the precipice of a century in which this country's white population will be- come a minority, Kimball's tract opts for a stubbornly nostalgic look at a past that never was rather than facing a present teeming with con- tradictions. - Mike Fischer A genial male-female review of the latest feminist film (directed by a man, ofcourse)* Eating dir. Henry Jaglom by Mark Binelli and Elizabeth Lenhard TRUE STORY. I was hanging out at the Daily waiting for Elizabeth, my new co-editor. Like most chicks, she's always late, so I went to McDonalds and grabbed a Big Mac and a chocolate shake. She finally showed up about an hour later, when we sat down to discuss Eating, the latest feminist film directed by a man (talk about oxymorons). Elizabeth: Sorry I'm late. I was at Meijer's with my roommates. Mark: What the hell are you chewing on? Styrofoam? Elizabeth: An organic oat bran rice cake. Wanna make something of it, you male chauvinist pig? Mark: Chill out, baby. Ow! Sorry, sorry. Elizabeth: You men are all alike. It's just like the movie we saw, Eating. Mark: That movie sucked. Except for that French chick who was always sunbathing topless. That bitch was fly. Ow! Elizabeth: You insensitive boob. Don't you understand that beneath the food in this movie lay just about every issue that wimmin encounter in the world today? Mark: What? Elizabeth: When wimmin deal with unwanted pregnancy, such as the one about which Martine (Nelly Alard) reminisces, that issue is tied into weight gain. Mother-daughter rivalry is played out in a war of at- tractiveness - Lydia (Marina Gregory) competes with her mother, Sadie (Marlena Giovi), in Hollywood and in love, but the anx- iety involved causes her to sabotage herself by overeating. Mark: Huh? Elizabeth: The approach of the director, Henry Jaglom, was fairly prophetic. Of course, the hysterical obsessiveness of the characters' discussions is obviously a male's interpretation of wimmin's extra- ordinary sensitivity. Mark: Yeah, right. But back to the film. First of all, Jaglom's ap- proach begins with dialogue that's melodramatic bordering on absurd. "I hate it that my tits are sagging"? "The safest sex that you can have is eating"? Come on. Elizabeth: You would think that. Your threshold for satire is so LOW, Mark. Mark: Look, don't worry your pretty little head over intricate con- cepts like satire. You obviously can't handle it. I understand that it was overdone intentionally, but it just didn't work. But, AS I WAS SAYING, Jaglom takes his poorly written dialogue and then he shoots his film in this pseudo-documentary style to try to make everything See EATING, Page 17 Jaglom1 BETSRIE 'PIE IN ' ETSRIC N RC ET EVC R W%:H74gwu REClORDS WE ARE A TICKET CEFNTER WE HAVE SOME MOTIVATION FOR YOU The cast of Eating (1-r): Mary Crosby (Kate), Frances Bergen (Mrs. Williams), Lisa Richards (Helene), Gwen Welles (Sophie) and Marina Gregory (Lydia). a LEARN MACEDONIAN! With Native Speaker Ema Stefanova VIOLIN LESSONS Beginning through Advanced. Doctorate from U of M 20 Years Experience. Near Central Campus. 114U South University Hours: Above Good Time Charley's non-sat: Ann Arbor, MI 48104 .am10 pm Ph: (313) 663-5800 11am-8 pm Fall Term 1991 M, T, W, TH 9-10 a.m. Division: Course: Section: 474 161 001 " 1 I 3304 MLB For more information, CALL 764-5355. 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