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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Inwardness


Via Andrew Sullivan, a reminder from Adam Kirsch that "all the official apparatus of the university is extraneous to its highest purpose, which is to cultivate freedom and inwardness.... The danger to postwar America [W.H. Auden suggests, in a poem Kirsch considers] lies in the soft tyranny of institutions, authorities, and experts — of people who know what’s best for you and don’t hesitate to make sure you know it, too."

People who care about universities should worry, Auden writes, about colleges where “Truth is replaced by Useful Knowledge,” with courses on “Public Relations, Hygiene, Sport." A sample stanza:

Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.


Kingman Brewster, president of Yale, said something similar a long time ago:

Faculty members, once they have proved their potential during a period of junior probation, should not feel beholden to anyone, especially Department Chairmen, Deans, Provosts, or Presidents, for favor, let alone for survival. In David Riesman’s phrase, teachers and scholars should, insofar as possible, be truly ‘inner directed’ - guided by their own intellectual curiosity, insight, and conscience. In the development of their ideas they should not be looking over their shoulders either in hope of favor or in fear of disfavor from anyone other than the judgment of an informed and critical posterity.”