Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 2018)
Wednesday, August 22, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 2 O P I N I O N On political correctness By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: A city police department will provide local control and local accountability. The startup costs will be high, but the bene- fits of having 24-hour coverage and dedicated patrols far outweigh the startup costs. A local department of the city will be much more responsive to the values of Sisters. The citizens of Sisters deserve a higher level of service and accountability. Scott Anderson s s s Top the Editor: Our family has had a cabin on the Metolius River for generations, and we adore the ancient forests that line her gentle banks. So I was quite disturbed when I recently heard that a visitor, at another summer home, had a very large fire in their pit. This led me to the USFS where they confirmed that fires are only allowed in “des- ignated” campgrounds. Sommer Moyer, spe- cial use permit administrator for the Deschutes National Forest, Sisters Ranger District, kindly gave me a raft of Extreme Fire fliers showing the current rules, and we distributed them to all 108 summer residences in Camp Sherman. While doing so, I had some interesting con- versations, confirming my greater concerns, about campground fires. Over the years I have seen some crazy stuff: people dragging oversized logs into small fire pits, fires that were burning bigger and higher than allowed, and smoldering fires left unattended. This summer has been no dif- ferent. One night in particular we saw a very large fire in the campground across from us and when I visited the host to point out the potential danger, he was both unaware and disinterested. See LETTERS on page 29 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Partly Cloudy Sunny Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny Partly Cloudy 90/56 83/46 78/43 79/45 74/45 70/43 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Graphic Design: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partners: Patti Jo Beal & Vicki Curlett Accounting: Erin Bordonaro Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Owner: J. Louis Mullen The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2018 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. A letter to the editor last week defended “political correctness” as “basically another term for respect, consideration, kindness, and generosity towards others despite their race, ethnicity, gender, or disability.” This definition elides the modern origins of the term, which lie in totalitarian attempts to own language, and thus to dominate culture and ultimately the mecha- nisms of power. For the letter writer, “political correctness” may equate to simply being civil — and certainly we could all use a little more of that. The problem is that, in its fundamental nature, politi- cal correctness is not about being civil — it’s about control. The term in its modern context appeared in the 1920s and ’30s, used by Socialists, who decried Communists’ adherence to ideology and the party line at the expense of truth. For a true believer, the value of a line of discourse was deter- mined not by being factu- ally correct, but by whether it was politically correct and served the Party’s ends. “Political correctness” is not a bogeyman invented by the political right. It is man- ifested in speech codes and militant efforts to shut down dissent from the dominant culture on college cam- puses. I can attest to this. I graduated in 1987 with a degree in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz, which was an early adopter of the perni- cious shackling of discourse that has since percolated across the nation. My area of specialty, then and now, was frontier history. It became imme- diately apparent that my Native American History class was not about the study of history — it was an exercise in ideological agit- prop for ardent adherents of a leftist, “anti-colonial” ide- ology. This went far beyond a valid and much-needed corrective to triumphalist mainstream history, present- ing an anti-historical and simplistic mirroring of an old morality play, caricatur- ing First Nations people as “victims” and white settlers as “oppressors.” I pushed back on that — and a hand- ful of students petitioned to have me removed from the class. It didn’t matter that my arguments were well-sup- ported, sourced, and fac- tually accurate. They dis- rupted the desired ideologi- cal arc of the class and vig- orous presentation “intimi- dated” students. My position and my mode of presenta- tion were not “politically correct.” In those times, the university stood up for open and vigorous discourse and the petition was tossed aside without consideration. In 2018, I suspect the outcome would have been different. Some campus manifes- tations of PC were amus- ing — such as the insistence on spelling “Women” as “Womyn” or “Wymyn” (as in, “no men in womyn”). Well, OK. But it just looks like Welsh. The political right has its own PC proclivities, sometimes as risible as the “no men in womyn” thing. Who can forget the 2003 effort to rename French fries “Freedom Fries” because the French didn’t climb on board with the invasion of Iraq? And “political correct- ness” is by no means the only threat to the kind of vigorous discourse that is the vital life’s blood of a republic. President Trump is also tapping totalitarian roots when he decries the press as “enemies of the people.” Nice Bolshevik turn of phrase there. I’ve had experience with that sort of thinking, too, receiv- ing death threats after a March 2003 Nugget edi- torial in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, we should eschew the sort of boorishness iden- tified in last week’s letter. But we should be wary of any attempt to shut down certain types of speech, even (especially) speech that makes us feel uncom- fortable. Whether the cry is “Fake News!” or a squeal of outrage in PC griev- ance theater, the goal is to silence others and control the discourse. Whether it comes from the left or the right, it is an authoritarian impulse, inim- ical to liberty and it should be resisted wherever it is found. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
