Mistaken Identities: The Second Wave of Controversy over "Political Correctness"

«Political Correctness» refers to the initiatives of feminists, multiculturalists, and postmodernists to promote cultural sensitivity, social inclusion, and protections against harassment. Though the media has covered its more salacious incidences over the past decade, the dominant understanding of this controversy - as a political war between a stodgy Right and a united Left - is misleading. In the past five years, a new «second wave» of controversy over political correctness has presented a distinctive set of issues, which has unveiled a core of enduring problems that strike at the heart of liberal democracy. This book collects the work of seventeen authors, all of whom situate themselves somewhere from the center to the left of the political spectrum and who challenge the view of political correctness as a simple square-off between leftists and neo-conservatives. They examine the challenges posed by political correctness to individual rights, universalism and equality, and science and reason.

«A learned and lively examination of the well-intentioned but alarming excesses of political correctness, identity politics, and dogmatism...» (June Callwood, Canadian Author, Social Activist, and Feminist)
«A volume of critical essays that alerts the thinking reader to the unanticipated pitfalls of essentialist thinking from ideological positions across the political spectrum. All intellectuals will profit from these briliant, clearly written, and thought-provoking writings – in ways they might not predict.» (Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, Author of 'Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender, and the Social Order')
«It is characteristic of the radical moralisms that are so often criticized for their 'political correctness' that they are taken at face value as promoters of 'progressive' causes and as champions of the disadvantaged. The fine essays in this collection withhold consent from such mistaken identities and instead, present a much-needed counteroffensive, left versus left, to reclaim core liberal values and freedoms for the projects of left utopianism, as against the illiberalism currently rampant in left-sponsored identity politics and biopolitics.» ( John Fekete, Distinguished Research Professor of Cultural Studies and English Literature at Trent University, Canada; Author of 'Moral Panic: Biopolitics Rising')
«An enormously useful, thoughtful collection of essays on a topic of vital concern. The writing is measured, detailed, and incisive, on a topic that arouses intense emotions.» (Robert R. Alford, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, City University of New York, Graduate Center)