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Sunday, April 04, 2004
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most of the post below appeared earlier in ud; somehow managed to delete it. but there's a little update at the end...
The Institutionalization of Umbrage "The lecture room of the philosopher is a hospital. Students ought not to walk out of it in pleasure, but in pain." Epictetus The reigning humanities star today is neither Slavoj Zizek nor Jovals Aziz but rather Margaret Dumont, the high-pitched, busty actress who, in a slew of Marx Brothers films, drew herself up and said Well, I never! Dumont's classic outrage bit has become a template for interaction in English departments nationwide, where trembling, confused professors greet actual, straightforwardly expressed, polemic with deep offense. "The banishment of disagreement within US academia reflects a deep level of insecurity," writes Munira Mirza in spiked online. "Academics in even the most prestigious US universities are reluctant to have their own orthodoxies interrogated - perhaps out of fear that they may not stand up to the scrutiny. As relativism becomes more widespread in academia, it is much easier to claim to be offended than to be forced actually to defend your ideas. This degree of accommodation to intellectual laziness cripples the primary aims of the universities to further knowledge. Instead of dealing in robust and critical arguments, universities in the USA have barricaded themselves in with the etiquette of 'appropriate language'." This is one of the reasons why students at a number of Ivy League universities are so upset about the lack of intellectual substance on their campuses that at places like Princeton committees have been established to consider the problem. It's one of the reasons for speech codes, and for the gradual appearance, among particularly cracked teachers, of loyalty oaths as part of their syllabae omniae ("I, Student X, agree that everything Mister Rogers told me about mean words and self-esteem is revealed truth.") It's one of the reasons why many English professors think that "argument" means indignantly denouncing as classist sexist and racist anyone who disagrees with them. This shameful retreat into emotivism in the American academy is one of the reasons why the heavies of the profession are unintelligible charismatics. "It is not just an occupational hazard that academics may be offensive to one another," Mirza continues, "but rather, one could argue, a responsibility, and one that needs to be maintained by an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. When this freedom is eroded, the first victim is critical thinking and debate. If an academic must think twice about what they say, in case they provoke personal offence, intellectual questioning - the lifeblood of the university - is debilitated." There's a professor at one of the boonier Penn State campuses who right now is in danger of losing her tenure because she put down one of the dumber new programs on that campus. Colin McGinn, a philosopher at Rutgers, has recently drawn the umbrage reflex for his pointed criticism of some of his colleagues' ideas. Jane Galt, a scientist, complains on her website about "the glib politics of many in the academy who often seem to think that the amusing bon mots of a Doonesbury cartoon constitute serious policy thought. The reaction I get when explaining, say, rent control -- [is] that somehow I'm just being mean, and that if I wanted to, I could make it so that imposing rent control improved the housing stock rather than destroying it." The mindless insistence that everybody make nice or risk being labled an evil ist dovetails with a broader cultural trend in wealthy America toward mental and physical comfort in all things. These attitudes radiate out toward one's students and produce grade inflation and indifference to plagiarism. Stuart Rojstaczer, a Duke professor, describes the difference between intellectually serious colleges and pandering universities like his own: "Recently, I toured college campuses in my new role as the parent of a college-bound kid (my daughter). Most of the places I visited have the reputation for intellectual intensity to which Duke aspires. Unlike Duke, they had no televisions in their cafeterias. I spent a Sunday morning at Wesleyan University, and I found the library jammed with students studying. At breakfast, I overheard students' conversations about the dangers of the global marketplace and the importance of improvisation in 17th century church music." With places like Duke in mind, Rojstaczer asks: "Is making students comfortable what education is about? The students at academically focused institutions are similar in social and political attitudes, academic ability, economic background, and career aspirations to Duke students. But the atmosphere at their institutions is far more conducive to learning and intellectual discovery." UPDATE: April 4 04: Another reason to be proud of the University of Chicago. From Erin O'Connor via James Lindgren, this is from Chicago's Faculty Handbook: The mission of the university is the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge. Its domain of inquiry and scrutiny includes all aspects and all values of society. A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions. By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting. |