Invisible Adjunct

While I greatly admire Burke's call to "renew a covenant with American society" in which academia would "explain again, with fresh eyes and confident voice, why higher education matters, why the liberal arts makes our citizens stronger, why our economic future is tied into critical thought," I question the use of the word 'again'. When was this covenant between academia and populace ever in place in 20th century America? Is it the 1920's with the advents of American Studies and Western Civilization programs? If this is what's being referred to, I'd offer that the covenant, such as it was, was fashioned within academia and was the primary vehicle conveying the ideology of American exceptionalism.

I agree that a vast discourse existed, and continues to exist concerning the interconnectedness between "our economic future" and critical thought, but to the degree that it involved the liberal arts, the shape and tenor of the discourse was quite conservative. And if there was some dissent from this conservative line during 1950's and 1960's, something obviously went awry as this generation became the tenured neo-conservatives we see today. The principle focus of this discourse joining academia to civil society concentrated more on the sciences and mathematics, not the liberal arts, and its intensity stemmed from the impending space race and the cold war.

Perhaps I am vastly off the mark here, so I'll phrase my last point as a question: is it not the case that whatever benefits the liberal arts enjoyed as a result of the massive influx of students into colleges and universities on the G.I. bill, and later in the 1960's, was largely accidental, statistically minimal?

I think Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game has interesting things to say on this point.

Chris, that's a very good point. Forget the again: we need a wholly new covenant for the first time ever that underscores the common values that we have attempted by sleight-of-hand to simply presume into existence. It's just so tempting to rhetorically summon a Golden Age, but you're right, none such existed. The only reason we got away with it before was the massive inrush of the GI Bill/Baby Boom era and a host of associated accidents.

Also a nice thought on The Glass Bead Game, I need to read it again.

I suspect that a thoughtful historian of American higher education could point us to a half dozen benchmarks or turning points which articulated or implied covenants: the founding documents of our earliest colleges, the Morrill Act of 1862, the GI Bill, already mentioned, and more. Chris is, I think, mistaken to locate the origins of American Studies and Western Civ in the 1920s, to dismiss them as "conservative" in some negative sense, and to suggest that the GI Bill's effect was statistically minimal or accidental for the liberal arts.
What strikes me as remarkable about the benchmarks I see above is that the covenants they suggest were mandates for higher education initiated by the public. They didn't come from "us" in the first place. Whatever the differences Tim may have with Fish's approach (and I think Tim is correct), they seem to agree that the time is ripe for a new covenant, a new benchmark, a new turning point. In fact, we're well overdue, if higher education is not to be overwhelmed by deprofessionalization and privatization. My children and my students deserve better than that.

No Golden Age, and probably no seamless and continuous covenant either. But I think Ralph is right to suggest at least a half dozen benchmarks. What about the founding of land grant universities in the 19th century, for example? I don't much about this, but what little I know suggests some kind of public mandate for higher ed.

I agree with Ralph that there are problably a number of significant benchmarks to cite--I just didn't know what they were. But at the same time, isn't the GI bill responsible for having made it possible for an unprecedented percentage of the American population to attend colleges? I could be way of base here, but the Morill Act didn't do this, did it?

As for the conservativism of the early American Studies and Western Civ. programs, well, perhaps that is a debate for another day, though I stand by what I claimed.

The Morrill Act set aside public lands in each state to subsidize the establishment of "land-grant" institutions. Given the condition of American higher education at the time, it surely did extend its availability to many people who would otherwise have not had access to it.

For a contrast I think of the Progressive-pragmatist period between about 1880 and 1950. Many in philosophy and social science were engaged in social and political life. They were NOT uncontroversial at all and made many bitter enemies ("progressive education", which is 60-80 years old, is still a curse word for many), but were close enough to the common life that they were actually able to see some of their projects succeed politically.

As an outsider, in my contacts with academic humanists, one of the things that strikes me is the sense of invulnerability that tenure-track people seem to get. Nothing is really going to affect them personally.

The second is the serene assurance they have that the paradigm they're working in (I'm thinking especially of analytic philosophy) is not only good, but the best, and really the only viable paradigm. (I've been told that professional philosophers rarely read anything older than about 10-20 years old -- they're scientists now). When I've read a book that the other guy hasn't, it often seems to count against me.

The third is the timidity about expressing views which go outside the professional / academic consensus OR which might be offensive one of the important tendencies within the academic community. In fact, people are uneasy even being seen in the company of someone expressing those views.

I'm told that P.C. and post-modernism, for example, are imaginary bugaboos, but based on some of the startle responses I get from people, I don't think so.

The issue for me is always gender politics/ studies and identity politics/ studies, which I think are unfortunate deadends either personally, politically, or intellectually. As soon as I venture this opinion I am ejected into the outer darkness with my fellow racists, rapists, homophobes, etc.

Here's a funny thing -- that conservatism that Chirs sees in American Studies and Western Civ can often be seen as liberalism! I tend to focus a lot on the ideas of citizenship, enfranchisement, disenfranchisement, suffrage, acquisition of civil rights, and the responsibility of the citizen, where applicable, in my Western Civ courses. Many of my students think that that is a very liberal agenda. Oh well --- I suppose times change.

I think the talk of "new covenants" and "common values" is too grandiose. We will always be disconnected from the larger society unless and until we recognize that we must speak to non-academic questions, and speak in language accessible to non-specialists. When our informal professional biases dissolve enough to accept the "popularizer," then we will make greater inroads into the society at large. It is, after all, through popularizers that more esoteric work finds its way outside a small circle of adepts. But could they get tenure?

I really do not belive that a substantial case can be made that academia existed as much at odds with the rest of America before the mid 1960's as it does today. I began college in 1965. I do not recall that there was any feeling that the faculty consisted of anything but middle class sort of oridary people. Some of them were, to be sure, distinguished scholars, but neither they nor we felt that our mission was to turn us into any thing other than exemplary citizens of the United States.

The sixties, the "new left," and the other disturbances of that era shattered that calm forever and not for better. Many New Lefties (Todd Gitlin, William Ayres) stayed in Academia hoping to build a counter-hegemonic something or the other (I am just no good with my revolutionary catch phrases) and have managed only to create a vast wasteland.

Not specific enough. Think about this. We are at war with a huge underground network of men who speak mostly arabic. Most of the Arabic language experts graduated from our universities over the past generation regard the United States with fear and loathing and would not consent to work for its agencies or instrumentalities. And the faculties of the universities expect their subsidies to flow uninterupted?

I think Tim was right the first time. But I am not sure there is much basis for a reconciliation at this time.

(#11)--"I do not recall that there was any feeling that the faculty consisted of anything but middle class sort of ordinary people."

If you look past the cloak of the academic jargon, and allow for some changes in fashion styles, and SUV's, Robert's description of the faculty of the mid-60's is an apt characterization of the faculties of 2004.

Mr. Schwartz is, apparently, one of those righty-pundits who see a natural affinity between the secular academic left and bin Laden's religious zealotry. It's so obvious. How could all the rest of us have missed it? Really, Mr. Schwartz, check with Juan Cole. He's never been consulted by the State Department. Check with the Arabic speakers who were ousted from military service in the middle east -- not because they regarded the United States with fear and loathing. They were there in its service. They were ousted because they were gay. You've allowed yourself to become overwhelmed with the power of your own conviction. Touch base with some facts.

Mr. Luker, for the sake of argument let us say that you are 100% completely accurate in the statements you make (discharged homosexual Arabic speakers and all). Nevertheless, I was rather put off by your response to Mr. Schwartz, and so will many other people be. In fact, the tenor of comment #12 is remarkably similar to what one would expect from Bill O'Reilly. I'm especially curious about what legislators who hear such statements might think; I think we can agree that their first response will not be to rush out and raise appropriations for academia. Your commentary serves little purpose in connecting or reconnecting academia and those who support it, except for maybe schools supported by philanthropists who vocally share your opinion (and I believe building public support for higher education was the topic of IA's post).

Perhaps you might wish to try an actual argument instead of an ad hominen attack against Mr. Schwartz? You, not Mr. Schwartz, brought up religion, and in a manner that implies that if you are not of the "secular academic left" but are willing to state your mind, then you are "overwhelmed with the power of your own conviction". Whereas I see it as a tactical mistake, my mother would be hopping mad right now over the implied insult. It doesn't pay to insult broad swaths of the American public when what you need is their agreement and support.

Let me try a non-ad hominen response to Prof. Schwartz. His observation about 1965 is interesting historically, but largely irrelevant to academic politics in the last two thirds of the twentieth century. It was the Vietnam War that started the transformation, at least of any significant scale, of American academia. More specifically, it was the massives lies of the US government in connection with the Vietnam War, and the attendant extensive loss of American and Vietnamese lives, that enraged many academics who had, up until then, been quite happy to accept a close relationship with the US government, in the form of grants to fund Area Studies.

A few years back, Bruce Cumings wrote a good overview of the links between the national security state and Asian Studies. A key point in that analysis is that Area Studies was founded in the US by government research money to train people to support US foreign policy. We were, essentially, learning how to kill, or at the very least dominate, them more effectively. Vietnam showed just how brutal this could be. For anyone who is interested, the story of the emergence of the group, Concerned Asian Scholars, tells this tale with respect to Asian Studies.

In the aftermath of all of that terribly costly lying and misuse of power (and we haven't even mentioned the effects of Watergate...), it is, to my mind, good to know that American academics have been willing to resist a repeat of those circumstances in the Middle East and elsewhere. That we have largely failed in recent years simply demonstrates our lack of real political power.

In short, if there has been some breach between academia and civil society, it is a breach that was caused, in large part, by the abuse of state power.

ADM, I agree with what you say here:
"Nevertheless, I was rather put off by your response to Mr. Schwartz, and so will many other people be. In fact, the tenor of comment #12 is remarkably similar to what one would expect from Bill O'Reilly." Not being a card carrying member of the secular academic left, myself, I don't agree with much of the rest of your statement.

ADM, These two sentences don't seem to fit together: "Nevertheless, I was rather put off by your response to Mr. Schwartz, and so will many other people be. In fact, the tenor of comment #12 is remarkably similar to what one would expect from Bill O'Reilly." Is it Mr. Schwartz or I who stands accused of sounding like Bill O'Reilly? If Schwartz is accused, I concur. Not being a card carrying member of the secular academic left, myself, I don't agree with much of the rest of your statement.

In #15 above I meant to write: "...irrelevant to academic politics in the last THIRD of the twentieth century." You know, after 1966...

Sam's point (#15) is salient, and I think we could all agree, more or less, to this understanding. However, it still doesn't speak to the need, perceived or otherwise, to renew a contract or covenant with public society. Given the nature of intellectual inquiry in an anti-intellectual society and the deep historical skepticism engendered by the events of the 1960s and afterwards, I'm not sure this is possible. I am tempted to say even desirable, however without it I am sure the academy as we know it will continue to whither, and eventually be reduced to some form of museum or corporate micro-structure linked to capital, a la Bill Readings.

Unfortunately, my experience does not augur optimism in this regard. My current institution is pursuing "excellence" like mad dogs after a bone, but the resulting blood baths and disorganized firings, hirings, and attrition loss has drained the life blood from the place. Caught between dead wood and vulnerable junior fac, between teaching as a mission and the university as an institution, between the minor political and social tensions that determine one's future in academia and the general hostility of society towards this specialization (which society itself demanded through the cold war, and which was sustained by the public ruptures of the 1960s), what is one to do? Our professional culture is rarely a pretty place, but unlike corporate correlates, we don't really acknowledge both the limits of meritocracy and the sociopathic nature of faculties in most institutions. After a stint on the tenure-track, one can be forgiven for thinking that most tenured academics are freaks, or at the very least undependable interlocutors.

However, in a quick aside, I'm not sure that area studies such as gender or racial studies are necessarily to blame (post #8). The only way to think of these fields as "dead ends" is to lack a certain sort of imagination. One could argue that the disciplines themselves have been dead ends for those seeking a larger intellectual knowledge, not to mention historical acuity around the experience of mis- or unrepresented populations. While I would never deny that area studies can be, shall we say colloquially, "loopy," so in fact can the obsessions of any accepted discipline. The fact that Gender/Ethnic Studies are thought of as a barometer of the decline of the university or the end of the social compact turned over into a descent into political pandering is itself a symptom of the breakdown of what Todd Gitlin calls "common dreams," whatever you wish to make of that term. And this is the crux of the matter, no? What is education? What is supposed to happen in the university? What is supposed to be produced? However much academics might realize these are questions without answers, society seems to think otherwise. And Fish's challenge, no matter how much some might loathe the man, are at the very least one answer to this question. The barbarians are at the gate, but does anyone care to defend the castle or even lock the door? While we're all busy publishing and perishing, I fear we may wake up one day very soon and find the university is no more. Some would say good riddance to bad rubbish, which is certainly true to an extent, but what do we lose as well?

I've been thinking a lot about the comments by Tim that touched off this thread, and I realize now that I need to ammend my initial criticism. Initially, I argued there was no era to return to in which the kind of unity that Tim calls for between education and civil society existed. But I was wrong--sort of. I overlooked the examples of the socialist Rand School and the communist Jefferson school, both of which existed in NYC until the mid-1950's. These schools, which were geared largely toward an adult working-class and immigrant population, offered surprisingly diverse curricula. They weren't just organs promoting party ideology. According to Stanley Arronowitz, "many courses concerned history, literature, and philosophy and, at least at the Jefferson School, the student could study art, drama, and music, as could their children." A golden age indeed.

One of the many difficulties impeeding any sort of re-creation (or re-invention) of this sort of politically and socially engaged pedagogy in higher education is that by the time they arrive in college or university students have already internalized the vocational ideology of contemporary education. Higher education is simply the final step, the last requirement to complete in order to be credentialed to enter the "No Collar" workforce, to borrow Andrew Ross's phrase. In other words, the issues impeeding the kind of socially and politically aware (and activist?) pedagogy that Tim (sort of) suggests are more systemic by the time students arrive But schools transmit. Again from Arronowitz, "schools ... contrary to their democratic pretensions ... teach conformity to the social, cultural, and occupational hierarchy. In our contemporary world they are not constituted to foster independent thought, let alone encourage social agency."

Anecdotally, I find this to be very true. I teach at two schools, one an elite liberal arts college similar to where Tim teaches, and the other a large urban state university. Adjusting for the differences in academic preparation and polish between the two groups of students, in both of these environments I encounter overwhelmingly conformist "critical" approaches. And when I ask my students "why would you begin your paper on The Odyssey by saying 'Odysseus is very courageous', and then go on to cite a dictionary definition of courageous, which is followed by a list of examples wherein Odysseus acts, according to the parameters you have created, "courageously," and conclude by saying 'so therefore, in conclusion, Odysseus is a courageous man'?" The answer, which is offered 9 times out of 10, is 'when I was in high school my teacher told me to do it this way, and when I did I got an A'.

And if, just for the sake of argument, I ask if perhaps Odysseus's putative "courage" is really just a shroud that masks a murderous, masculine, philandering egotist who, through some fancy interpretive footwork has become the exemplar of the calssical hero .... well, you get the idea. The expression on the face of the student(s) is some admixture of incomprehension, disbelief, and utter incredulity. One very bright student once told me that if she had written that in high school she she probably would have been expelled.

Chris. I am not sure where you are coming from. Is it the revolutionary left, that condemns the pomo's as parlor pinks incapable of being truly revolutionary or the merely cynical who say they are all just a bunch of careerists? At any rate I think Ralph and Sam made my case.

Ralph:

"Mr. Schwartz is, apparently, one of those righty-pundits"

Pandit -- no. Right Wing -- Sure. Now that I have been labeled I can be safely dismissed, n’est pas.

"a natural affinity between the secular academic left and bin Laden's religious zealotry."

See it? I don't even begin to understand those words. What still bothers me though is the number of people, larger I believe in academia than in the general population, who saw 9/11 as condign punishment for America’s multitudinous sins. And Stanley Fish’s remarkably smug and obnoxious article of October 2001, telling us that we need to understand the terrorists point of view. My guess is that 99.99% of non-academics thought that we did not need to understand them, just to track them down and kill them.

"Really, Mr. Schwartz, check with Juan Cole. He's never been consulted by the State Department."

I had never heard of him, before. So I checked out his web site. I hope you are correct about the State Department avoiding him, although I fear that you are not. He seems to be of the opinion that he deserves government funding without oversight. I am of the opinion that we should be funding the Route 33 bypass before we fund him.

"Check with the Arabic speakers who were ousted . . . because they were gay."

Scratches head. Wonders how that hobby horse wound up in this parade.

Ralph: My feeling is that that you have proved the case. There is a wide cultural gap between Academia and Mittel Amerika, and little hope that it will close in the near future.

Sam: We are in agreement then. Fine.

Like any bitter divorce, the parties nurse their grievances like small furry creatures for years after the event. He cheated, She was frigid and withholding, He yelled at the kids, she wasted money. Right you may be. But this divorce like most of them has a glaring asymmetry. One side has the money. The other is sick and broke. Only changes of heart and reconciliation can bring them back together. Without it, I see premature death and burial unmourned in potter’s field.

Tim, I think has the better take. Fish, per usual, stinks.

This is off the main topic of the academy and society, but relevant to the general issue of critical thinking skills. In post 20, Chris asks students

"why would you begin your paper on The Odyssey by saying 'Odysseus is very courageous', and then go on to cite a dictionary definition of courageous, which is followed by a list of examples wherein Odysseus acts, according to the parameters you have created, "courageously," and conclude by saying 'so therefore, in conclusion, Odysseus is a courageous man'?"

In order to make ends meet as I work on my dissertation, I just started teaching GRE and GMAT courses at a small private tutoring agency. While it isn't as soullessly corporate as the Kaplan/Princeton/etc. method, I am required to train my students to craft unimaginative essays just like Chris's Odyssseus example. Pays well, though.

On the contrary, Clovispoint, I think your anecdote speaks very eloquently to the state sponsored intentions underlying the structural design of the relationship between the academy and the society at large.

To teach in public secondary and elementary schools, one needs state certification. My example was intended to show one of the effects of that certificatory process. Yours does it better, though. Presently, in higher education state certification is not a requirement, but I suspect that if the right and corporate interests have their way, that may soon change. And at that point, the most recalcitrent rogue elements within higher education, History and English, and to lesser degrees Sociology and Anthropolgy (Philosophy sold out to quasi-science long ago), will then be brought in line. A brave new world indeed!

Ralph -- AGM, not ADM!! It weren't me at #12. I only posted at #9.

Apologies to ADM. Chalk it up to a senior moment.

The question about academia in 1965 (Schwartz, #8)is a relevant one -- it was after all the point at which a large-scale cultural transformation began to happen, the implications of which are still with us. But maybe the more specific reason why everything seemed so calm and the professors so ordinary in 1965 is that the faculty were overwhelmingly white and male, and there were no obvious ways in which they differed from the student body.

One can disagree about the role of ideology in academia over the last four decades, however, and there is certainly something to be said for an academic community that doesn't think it's morally superior to the rest of the nation. But like it or not the demographics of academia, like those of the nation, have changed; it is in fact a more diverse place than it was 40 years ago. And some people didn't like that change and don't like it now.

(As an aside, the apparent oppositional stance of academic left politics may be one of packaging to some extent: I suspect quite a few closet conservatives and racists behind the smug p.c. radical image presented to the campus community.)

The remark about Arabic speakers is a little more eerie, however. The contribution made by German and Austrian immigrants to the U.S. during WW2 included, among other things, bringing a significant amount of language and cultural skills to bear upon intelligence work and the subsequent politics of occupation and denazification. They were aggressively recruited by OSS and other branches of the war administration.

Now in 2004 we are indeed engaged in a war with an underground network of men who speak (among other languages) Arabic. That is why our government, following the example of WW2, is going to great lengths to win the Arab-American communities over to government service, recruit native Arabic speakers for intelligence and diplomatic work, work on issues such as middle east policy that tend to alienate Arab-Americans -- oh, hang on a minute, dammit, isn't that what the government is utterly refusing and failing to do? Doesn't the alienation of Muslims and Arabs of other faiths (and none) have almost the nature of a freudian death-wish in its desire to create as much dislike and hatred as possible?

And that is the reason why it is precisely relevant -- to answer Schwartz's head-scratching, gee-whiz, 'what's that about?' comment (#21) -- to note that the military got rid of trained Arab-speaking signals intelligence people on the grounds, it seems, that their sexual orientation was going to negatively impact their linguistic and analysis skills.

flu

Sorry, not #8, #11

flu

"And if, just for the sake of argument, I ask if perhaps Odysseus's putative "courage" is really just a shroud that masks a murderous, masculine, philandering egotist who, through some fancy interpretive footwork has become the exemplar of the calssical hero .... well, you get the idea. The expression on the face of the student(s) is some admixture of incomprehension, disbelief, and utter incredulity."

That's to be expected. First, "masculine", in the context of its placement in the list between "murderous" and "philandering", seems as if it were meant to be an insult. If you think "masculine" really is an insult, then you'll have to accept the fact that an awful lot of people are going to disagree with you, and with plenty of good reasons, not the least of which is the fact that individuals who fit that description regularly prove to be quite useful in the defense and maintenance of society.

Second, I'll grant that he was "philandering" (but the fact that he was separated from his wife for 20 years is a mitigating factor!), but killing natural and supernatural creatures in self-defense and in defense of his homestead can't fairly be called "murderous" behavior.

When you get right down to it, incomprehension, disbelief, and utter incredulity are quite natural reactions to someone who thinks "masculine" belongs in a list of insults with "murderous", who thinks that violence in self-defense is "murderous", and who dismisses the courage displayed by Odysseus on such nonsensical grounds.

And when people outside the academy get the idea that the people inside the academy hold masculinity, self-defense, and courage in such low esteem, the people outside the academy will begin to regard the academy itself, and everyone in it, with a certain degree of suspicion, again with good reason.

Poor Flu:

We hope you recover soon.

"But like it or not the demographics of academia, like those of the nation, have changed; it is in fact a more diverse place than it was 40 years ago. And some people didn't like that change and don't like it now."

It is a measure how cut off academia is from the mainland that this argument can be advanced with a straight face. It is academia that has tenure and is whiter, maler and older than the rest of the country. Fact is that businesses and other social institutions are more racially diverse in more meaningful ways than is academia.

Flu then rambled on for a couple of paragraphs about refugees and language skills. I am really not sure what the connection between those paragraphs and my post was.

My original point had been that one of the demonstrations of the gap between the academy and the country was inability/unwillingness of a large chunk of the former to admit that 1) the 9/11 attacks were an act of war against the United States, 2) there was no provocation or justification for the attacks and 3) citizens of a republic are duty bound to come to its aid in its hour of need.

Flu apparently gives a free pass to those US residents who have blood ties to the Middle East and who disagree with current government policy. I would assume that Flu regards the numerous felony convictions as illegitimate. Again, it demonstrates my point.

Finally, gays in the military. Whatever the alleged number of discharged gay linguists was (I think it was in single digits), it is irrelevant. It is a classic red herring. A smelly, rotten fish dragged across a trail to throw the hounds off the scent. The issue here is what is the relation of academia to the rest of the United States, not what is the attitude of the Defense Department to homosexuality. The mere fact that a number of posters in this thread think that the topics are somehow related is both sad and scary. Sad because it confirms my intuition that there is a very wide gap between the mainland and the lost island of academia and scary because current technology is not sufficient to bridge the gap between the two land masses.

"Second, I'll grant that he was "philandering" (but the fact that he was separated from his wife for 20 years is a mitigating factor!), but killing natural and supernatural creatures in self-defense and in defense of his homestead can't fairly be called "murderous" behavior."

This is surely off-topic, but Ken, do you really think the slaughter (yes, I said slaughter) of the suitors is really reducible to defense of his homestead? Hmmm ...

Probably I should have said "murderous, phillandering, egotist ... who became the exemplar of the classical masculine hero. There, is that better?

If Odysseus had lived nowadays, then slaughtering the suitors would have been overkill. But he lived a long time ago.

There wasn't a large justice system to deal with these guys. There were also a *lot* of them, and Odysseus didn't have a huge army with him to subdue the suitors.

If he had had the large army and had subdued them, what would he have done with the suitors? There probably wasn't a giant prison on Ithaca to house them all. He could have sold them into slavery, I suppose.

His view would probably be that the suitors were trying to force his wife to commit adultery, and that he was meting out summary justice.

I always thought of him as one of the cleverest and most admirable of the Classical heroes - he uses cunning and reasoning to achieve his ends, rather than charging straight at the enemy like Ajax or sulking like Achilles (who was the child of a goddess anyway).