Friday, April 01, 2005 Zywicki on intellectual diversity:
I don't think that my experience as a Government major was unique--I read Marx in almost every class (often even in classes where he didn't even seem relevant). But for the fact that at the time Dartmouth had a Burkean and a Straussian on the faculty--both now retired--I don't know that I would have ever read Burke, Locke, or The Federalist. (link)
Interesting. I just taught three weeks of Locke and The Federalist.
Posted by Timothy,
11:49 AM
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005 In Dispute Instapundit says:
IN THE MAIL: Stephen Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Not my area, but the reader reviews look good.
I thought that was a strange title. So I decided to look at the reader reviews. One reviwer (who was representative, I think) said: "Hegel's worship of the all-powerful state and Rouseau's worship of humans' 'animal spirits' are widely known and indisputable." Hmmmm. Indisputable? Actually, I've seen modern Hegel scholarship dispute this traditional interpretation as a myth. An article I recently read not only made a plausible case, but a rather persausive case for thinking otherwise.
The other odd thing is that Hicks seems to think that Kant is a counter-enlightenment thinker (look at the index, and the reviews). The publicity for the book says that postmodernism has its roots in Kant (and Rousseau). That is the second time this week I've heard that claim. This must be some old school idea drilled into student's heads a while ago. The odd thing is that Kant is often taken as THE enlightenment figure. Now, my father (a philosopher professor) instructed me at a young age that the enlightenment was not all about one figure like Kant, but I don't remember him ever saying that Kant was not of the Enlightenment. So what is going on? I can think of several possibilities, including that the German Idealists claimed Kant as one of them. A;sp. Kant is (claimed as) an inspiration for many 'postmoderns' (but I quote Aristotle in papers and I'm not an Aristolean). Near the end of his life, Foucault wrote an essay on Kant's famous essay 'What is Enlightenment?' A lot of people thought Foucault was going BACK on his suppossed 'postmodernism' (I put that in quotes because I don't think the term was coined until after or just before Foucault's death, and for other reasons). I suppose I cannot take this too seriously. Hicks would probably say for very bad reasons that Habermas was a postmodern, and that makes little sense to me.
Posted by Timothy,
12:47 AM
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Sunday, March 27, 2005 On Trustee Candidate Engles Alumni Council nominated Trustee candidate Gregg Engles '79 has sent out his first campaigning email. (If you didn't receive it, it's over here on dartlog)
The first thing to note is that it provides an articulated defense of what I think is the administration's position on the 'research university' accusation. There is thinly veiled criticism of Wright for saying 'research university' but I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that he essentially agrees with Wright. The basic position of Engles seems to be that the Ph.D. programs we have are in the Sciences, we need these and modern research facilities in order to get the best professors, and hence the best teachers. Furthermore, we need the best professors, and part of who is the best teacher is who has a research record. Whether you agree with this position, it seems at odds with the attacks on Dartmouth for not focusing on its traditional mission of providing the best undergraduate education. It purports to be a defense of how to provide that education.
Engles says "There are always two sides to the issues." No, that's not true. I don't mean sometimes there is only one side. I mean there is often three or more sides. Engles writes later that "No one even notices when a poll shows Ivy League professors support one political point of view by 84% to 16 % (link to academia.org website)." Um... I hate to say it, but 84% of the professors do not represent one political point of view (As I said, there are more than *two* sides to every issue. I assume Engles mean these 84% are democrats. It is not black and white, democrats versus republicans. I really hate when people looking for balance pretend the 'left' and 'liberals' are monolithic. There sure aren't many members of the socialist party at Dartmouth (compared to the other two at the very least). Why isn't Engles concerned about that? Is he too lost in his 'group think' to not notice that? Or does he not care? Here's what is comes down to: it is not a plea for diversity, but a plea for a balance. But any balance needs a 'center'. And where does Engles want to draw the center? Presumably to match the political affilations of the public at large. And why? Who knows.
Engles says "Because whether you're liberal or conservative, the issues can't be fully vetted, nor positions or thoughts honed, if you have no worthy advocate on the other side with whom to match wits." Is the assumption here is that only liberals and conservatives are worthy participants in a debate? A green cannot have an interesting debate with a liberal? Or a 'neocon' with a 'paleocon'? And if you see my point here, do you need all four in the debate? Does the absence of one automatically makes for a weak debate? I'm skeptical that what Engles says must be true. I'm not willing to say that it *must* be the case that any good 'debating society' must represent merely the political affiliations of the public at large. If anything, I think you need a large diversity of views.
Engles says "I believe the College is losing its ability to educate its students in a balanced way about the most important issues of our time."
Engles himself makes the following ad hominem attack: "The faculty selects and weeds out their own in the hiring and tenure process. They tend to support their own as they move into the administration. The process reinforces and concentrates, often silently, certain attitudes and philosophical tendencies in the institution." What, I'm wondering, does Engles want to do about this? He seems to indicate he will work hard to convince faculty (e.g. moral sausion). If that's all he means, that's not a big deal. But if he means that faculty decisions to hire should be taken away from faculty, this is a big deal.
Engles' letter does not evidence great subtlety. Dare I suggest that it is really a product of what he calls 'groupthink'. Maybe he has not approached the right 'other side' to give him the 'balance' and other perspective he clearly needs. Basically, I do not think that academia should automatically be centered and recentered like they are an SAT scoring grid.
(I should add however, that as a teacher, I do believe in fostering 'both sides' of the debate; though 'both sides' is inaccurate, I think that 'all sides' is even more inaccurate given the limitations of the classroom)
