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Saturday, June 03, 2006
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Larry, Larry you bastard, I’m through. Hokay, I’ve finished Harry R. Lewis’s Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education, and I have a few concluding things to say about it (I’ve blogged about it a little already, as I’ve made my way through it.) The only real interest, nay motivation, of this book, waits until the very last chapter to appear. Before that, it’s a blandly written (“A college should teach its students to develop and use their potential to the highest level of which they are capable.” This from a writer who derides the ‘pabulum’ one finds in college advertising brochures.), intellectually muddled claim that universities are above all about moral suasion and character formation, and that therefore, for instance, they should institute systematic “judgment of [the] personal character” of each of their professors. [265] That’s mere prelude, though, to the fugue that plays out Mr. Lewis’s disgust for Harvard’s deposed president Larry Summers, with whom he clearly had unpleasant dealings. Summers is “an economist who sees the actions and decisions of men and women as governed by rational choice and power, not by belief and commitment.” Note the mushy words “belief” and “commitment.” At no point in this book does Lewis do the heavy lifting that Allan Bloom, however you judge his conclusions, was willing to do in order to give those words substance. Instead, Lewis plucks words like “soul” and “spirit” from the air and scatters them about his book in a gesture rather than an expression of meaning. For the rest of his conclusion, Lewis lets fly. Summers was a “bully,” full of “contempt,” “impatience,” “harshness,” "thoughtlessness,” and “lack of candor.” His “lack of sustained attention” made for an “incompetent administration,” characterized by “ham-handed management” and “chaotic lurching.” He failed “to bring honor to the institution.” But honor’s another one of those words. When a marine sings “keep our honor clean” -- an awkward bit of language in itself, I admit -- I actually know what’s meant. There’s a history and a literature there. When an unimaginative dean, brimming with the accumulated irritations with everyone -- professors, students, parents, other administrators -- that deans are obviously going to have, portrays himself as an honorable man in a sea of dishonorables, a man who can renew a college’s honor, I need a good deal more substance and clarity about all that than this book is willing or able to give me. |