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

"mommy track" keeping women from realizing their American Dream and the historic ethnocentrism of American public education will not be obliterated by the magic wand of euphemism and the onslaught of sensitivity courses. The author also refrains from unilaterally blaming liberals for the present paralysis of public discourse, for ill-guided attempts of social engineering through language is a favored method of obfuscation employed by the "patriotically correct" American Right as well. In the second section Hughes analyzes the multiculturalism phenomenon and its unwelcome companion, cultural separatism. Multi-culturalism, initially a government sponsored promotional program for public acceptance of minority cultures turned into a complex assault on the myth of an ethnically homogeneous American civilization. As a result of the demographic transition of the U.S. multiculturalism finds its origins in cultural relativism, a school of anthropology assigning equal value to all civilizations. Hughes emphatically attacks the conservative perception of a uniform mainstream culture, arguing that American society had always been multiculturalist and continues to be so. He believes in intelligent multiculturalism and its mutual acceptance of all cultures. He laments the latest example of distorted multiculturalism, the emergence of Afro-centrism and its efforts to rewrite history. Afro-centrists assert that prehistoric Egypt and its achievements are part of a lost black civilization and all human culture originates from the black continent. The author poignantly refutes the fallacies of Afro-entrism, but warns of the increasing influence of its tenets, manifested by the popularity of the Portland Baseline Essays and the curricula of the New York School District. Multiculturalists aim to restructure the Canon, the nationally accepted reading list for public and higher education by eliminating works of Dead European Writers. Consequently Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky are claimed to be elitist and representative of an oppressive system irrelevant to the lives of ethnic minorities. Hughes not only disputes the need for a Canon, but by quoting 179