THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

GIGGLING AT A FUNERAL | 2003-07-19

Every time I listen to a Politically Correct speaker giving a grave and deadly serious lecture, I am afraid I am going to laugh at the wrong moment. I am like one of those guys who tends to giggle uncontrollably in the middle of a funeral eulogy.

This happened while I was watching a biography of Confucius on the Discovery Channel. The concluding lecture was about how Confucius was Politically Correct. He was a champion of the Working Class, just like Chairman Mao and our other recent idols.

OK, that's standard stuff. But then the Politically Correct narrator made the flat statement that Confucius was directly responsible for the high level of prosperity the Chinese people have enjoyed since his day. To me, the idea of Chinese peasants as prosperous was funny, but it wouldn't be to a modern college graduate.

The flat statement that the average Chinese peasant has lived high on the hog since the fifth century B.C. caused me to give that laugh I am so afraid of. But a roomful of today's college graduates would be able to sit there with that grimly determined look every professors likes to see while he's repeating the liberal lines for the hundredth time.