I am writing a sequel to Disneyland Closes at 35, my first published novel. It is entitled After the Eclipse. The image is my mind is a period of historical eclipse that began in the 1960's and ended in the 1980's. The sequel is set in the period 2000 through 2009, remembering the eclipse, yet trying to move beyond this period in order to create a future.
I once thought of the decade of the 60's and 70's as frenetic, deranged and misguided. Society was in turmoil. Chaos was the order of the day. In retrospect, it wasn't all bad. Some degree of order came out of the chaos and some much needed change came out of the turmoil. Civil RIghts were finally honored for all Americans, although much still needed to be worked out. Women began to make some inroads into the employment and social mainstream, although there is still work to be done. So - some things were resolved and life, in some ways became more free. Who can argue with the need for human beings, all human beings, to be free?
At the same time that more people were becoming free, other people became less free. I think the name of this enemy is Postmodernism. This philosophy holds, strangely enough, that nothing is true, that everything is merely a narrative, with no one narrative being any more or less true than another.
Postmodernism, oddly enough, somehow became linked with Political Correctness. How? The two would seem to be diametrically opposed. Political Correctness, in the postmodern understanding, should be thought of as nothing more than a competing narrative, no more or less true that any other narrative.
That has not been the case. Political Correctness has been employed to make all Americans less free. Do you remember the last time you felt free to voice an opinion. It was long ago. Why do we not feel free to say the things we really feel? How many of you feel that you are walking on eggshells most of the day. At work. At school. In social gatherings. It has been a long time since most people voiced their true opinions. When will that end?
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