Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

BOOK REVIEWS - András Tamóc: Robert Hughes: Culture of Complaint. Oxford University Press, 1993. 203 pp

revision of American history and reforming public education. The movement's guiding principle is the notion of equality and it is aimed to recompensate heretofore neglected or oppressed components of American society at the expense of "mainstream American culture". On the linguistic front a bizarre campaign is waged against genderspecific words reflecting oppressive male-female relationships or any sign of racial or physical difference. In PC speak "chairman" becomes "chairperson" "woman" is replaced by the androgynous term "womyn" and a "cripple" turns out to be "physically challenged." Hughes mercilessly dissects this "linguistic Lourdes" as he writes. "Does the cripple rise from his wheelchair, or feel better about being stuck in it, because someone back in the days of the Carter administration decided that for official purposes he was physically challenged? Does the homosexual suppose others love him more or hate him less, because he is called a gay? The net gain is that thugs who used to go faggot-bashing now go gay bashing". America's obsession with victimhood as an access to social and political acceptance made the white male a victim himself, seeking solace in esoteric male liberation movements and habitual shirking of public responsibility. The nucleus of the political correctness movement is the academic world where the college campus is in danger of becoming, a modern day equivalent of Puritan Massachusetts. Speech codes governing student conduct in such venerable educational institutions as Stanford or the University of California Santa Cruz prohibite pejorative references to ethnic minorities, women and the disabled. The Santa Cruz campus' campaign against terms like "nip in the air" and "chink in one's armor" are just the few of the ever growing examples of this bizarre trend. In politically correct history books Columbus is depicted as a procurer of genocide, a "Hitler on caravel" and the Native American is assigned the role of an innocent historical bystander. Hughes however, is not content with simple description, recognizing that the PC movement is no more than a band-aid solution, a surface treatment for the underlying problems of present day America. The economic gap between whites and minorities, the "glass ceiling" and the 178