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The Revolt of the Primitive: an Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness examines contradictions and injustices in the exercise of political correctness, primarily in educational institutions. Schwartz's dissent from political correctness derives from a psychoanalytic reading of what the demands for political correctness represent: the giving over of the self and group to the primordial or primitive maternal. What results is the emasculation of the Father, the appearance of social policies and groups dominated by the maternal ego ideal, and the disappearance of respect generated by the imagery and practices of authority. This is particularly the case in Universities where traditional authority has been supplanted by the values of political correctness, and in a set of public assumptions about behavior that psychoanalytically “expresses the premise of the primordial mother whose children have no need, and certainly no right, to have their own minds” (p 155). In this view, political correctness is an assault on paternal law, on rationality, and on balance in the institution. Further, it is an attack on moderation and fairness; it replaces guilt with shame, and demonstrates extreme impatience with the ambivalence and doubt associated with the superego.
In this meticulously argued, lucid and well-written book, Schwartz does present some interesting theoretical ideas and questions: I found his use of the concept of projective identification as a way of describing group reactions to abhorrent values to be useful. We often hate others to avoid hating ourselves; and there is no reason to think such a mechanism does not condition strident ideological attacks coming from both left and right on University campuses. The notion that the world holds us like the primordial mother (p 132) - “our desire to deny the world outside ourselves and what that world tells us about our own limitations” (p 111) - gives us fascinating insight into the sense of entitlement, narcissism, an