The dictatorship of relativism's thought police

Don't take my word for it. I felt oppressed by "political correctness" at Columbia and Penn back in the 1970s and 80s, but then I thought it was just me. I was young, and a student, and weren't the politically correct, well, correct? Not entirely, as it turns out; still less so now. As usual, Joseph Ratzinger, that consummate academic, has it nailed:

Political correctness…seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It prescribes itself as the only way to think and speak - if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. Being faithful to traditional values and the knowledge that upholds them is labeled intolerance, and relativism becomes the required norm. I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo-enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion. In Sweden, a preacher who had presented the Biblical teachings on the question of homosexuality received a prison sentence. This is just one sign of the gains that have been made by relativism as a kind of new ‘denomination’ that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super-dogma of relativism.

That from Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, and Islam, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Marcello Pera, Michael F. Moore, Benedict, and George Weigel (p. 128). Buy the book and read it. This is not a commercial. I don't get a kickback, and I'd say the same thing even if I had to pay for the privilege.