On 9/5/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Heads of universities must not be involved in politics: President
Tehran, Sept 5, IRNA<
that's not that different from the rhetoric that Horrorwitz uses. His
main emphasis is not that universities should stop being "liberal" and
"secular" but that they should be more apolitical, allowing more
variety of opinions. But we know what he means.
A lot of secular political liberals themselves use the same rhetoric.
The most prominent example in the USA is Stanley Fish.
<blockquote><http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opinion/23fish.html>
July 23, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Conspiracy Theories 101
By STANLEY FISH
Andes, N.Y.
KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of
Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians
and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.
Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled
"Islam: Religion and Culture," acknowledged on a radio talk show that
he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction
of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the
American government. The predictable uproar ensued, and the equally
predictable battle lines were drawn between those who disagree about
what the doctrine of academic freedom does and does not allow.
Mr. Barrett's critics argue that academic freedom has limits and
should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and
fantasies. Mr. Barrett's supporters (most of whom are not partisans of
his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic
institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular. (This
was the position taken by the university's provost, Patrick Farrell,
when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett would be retained: "We
cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to
inhibit the free exchange of ideas.")
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that
academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor's
speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in
advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the
denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by
almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is
not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they
like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous
or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to
study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of
material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation
and analysis.
Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an
intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material
others consider trivial — golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads,
convenience stores, street names, whatever — I should get a chance to
try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying
this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual
interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new
subject for classroom discussion.
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study
is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a
history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its
availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author
of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law
professor, Ann Althouse: "When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a
professor of astrology?" The question is obviously sarcastic; its
intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in
the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the
university wouldn't think of hiring someone to teach the one, it
should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.
But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a
university to hire someone to teach astrology — not to profess
astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of
Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There
is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer
and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one
understands astrology.
The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and
proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us
where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of
academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into
the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history,
influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the
point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political
agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to
being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself
Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political
agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration "not only
permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events."
Is the fact of this group's growing presence on the Internet a reason
for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who
discusses the group's arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It
is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and
urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it,
academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And
that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.
Provost Farrell doesn't quite see it that way, because he is too hung
up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important
thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is
reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his "unconventional"
ideas and "personal opinions" with readings "representing a variety of
viewpoints."
But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is
not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic
requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue,
although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true
requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to
the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather
than as candidates for allegiance.
There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro
and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic
assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side. Of course
the instructor who presides over such a survey is likely to be a
partisan of one position or the other — after all, who doesn't have an
opinion on the Iraq war? — but it is part of a teacher's job to set
personal conviction aside for the hour or two when a class is in
session and allow the techniques and protocols of academic research
full sway.
This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After all, we
require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters. And while its
exercise may not always be total, it is both important and possible to
make the effort.
Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is not "Do
you hold these views?" (he can hold any views he likes) or "Do you
proclaim them in public?" (he has that right no less that the rest of
us) or even "Do you surround them with the views of others?"
Rather, the question should be: "Do you separate yourself from your
partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of
Wisconsin and teach subject matter — whatever it is — rather than urge
political action?" If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to
remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a
yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he
should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the "wrong"
things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for
indoctrination.
The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that it
outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in: on the
one hand, faculty members who shout "academic freedom" and mean by it
an instructor's right to say or advocate anything at all with
impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout "not on our
dime" and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas they can
and cannot bring into the classroom.
All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the
freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not
the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor
paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be
taught — no list of interdicted ideas or topics — there should be an
absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for
partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to
indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its
critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true
way.
Stanley Fish is a law professor at Florida International
University.</blockquote>
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
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