posted
I usually can't stand "War Watch," nor can I normally stand the things that OSC has to say about academia, but he expressed quite a few wortwhile positions in his latest column. Some of his statements rest on misconceptions, but even those are good points which need answering.
quote:When the administration and faculty have all had to make the same affirmation in order to get their jobs, how likely is it that anyone will use their "academic freedom" to question a doctrine that they have already declared they believe in?
This is interesting, because it presumes what I think is a false answer to the question of why academia does not reflect the average political opinions of the US public. His position seems to be that belief in PC diversity is a "litmus test" (his words) for decisions about which professors to hire and tenure. I don't think this can be supported by the facts.
Here's why: I think it's obvious that the "selection" of liberals over conservatives doesn't happen at the hiring stage. It happens at the graduate admissions stage. My evidence for this is simple: grad students are just as overwhelmingly left-wing as professors.
Fine, you might say. Academia is politically biased, and the bias comes in even earlier than we thought. People can't even be admitted to good graduate schools unless they're PC liberals.
But that can't be right, because graduate admissions committees have no way, in general, of gauging the political opinions of applicants. A typical application for grad school consists of GRE scores, a report of any previous research experience, a writing sample (for the humanities), and a personal statement about future career plans. None of this could give the committee any hint as to a student's politics unless the student were to mention them in the personal statement (which I gather would be pretty weird and off-putting). I know that I made no mention of "diversity" or any other political theme in my own applications, and I didn't exactly receive a bunch of rejection letters.
Card does mention a case in his article of a military officer who was nearly denied grad school admission, but this must be the exception rather than the rule. Few people make their political identities obvious at the application stage; only in special cases, such as this one, can admissions committees come across any information that might hint at a student's politics.
So it must be that there is no "litmus test" to get into academia. The people who go to grad school are overwhelmingly liberal, but they can't have been admitted on the basis of their politics. It must just be that the kind of people who become professors are also the kind of people who usually become liberals.
quote:It's a sad state of affairs all around, especially because the remedy is not in a "bill of rights." Forbidding teachers to use their courses for "political, ideological, religious, or non-religious indoctrination" is an invitation to a nightmare of complaints and counter-complaints...
I can't think of a way to be a good teacher without my personal beliefs at least being mentioned. Part of the value of a university education is that the classes are taught by intelligent humans, not by machines.
His position here surprises me. I thought it was a matter of course that teaching should never be used for indoctrination of any sort. Card's solution seems to be that professors should be allowed to indoctrinate or push their opinions on students, and the diversity of opinions among professors should be increased. I guess he envisions a system in which students go to History and hear the opinions of a conservative historian, then rush to English to hear the opinions of a radically liberal post-modernist.
I don't see how such a system could be made to work. Indoctrination is the sort of thing that "evens out," it's the sort of thing that doesn't work, period. If all professors tried to win students to their sociopolitical causes, we would quickly have a system in which conservative students took classes only from conservative professors and vice versa for the liberal students. No one's ideas would be challenged. Not to mention the fact that education, ideally a method for passing on skills and facts, would move further from that ideal.
This time I think Card has at identified a real problem. There are classes in which opinions are taught and students are tested on whether they have the right ones. These classes should not exist.
In the sciences (including social sciences), the formula for success is pretty simple. If you have to express a political opinion in order to teach a science, there is a problem with either the science itself or the way it's being taught. Of course, learning the data discovered by some sciences might affect someone's political beliefs. A class in geosciences might move someone toward environmentalism, for example. But this is acceptable, because it is different in principle from a professor teaching political opinions.
Things are tougher in the humanities, when one often deals with politicized or religiously relevant material, but it is possible to be objective even then. One of my favorite professors at the University of Michigan regularly taught a course in philosophy of religion. He wasn't a believer himself, and in fact had once argued against religion in a public debate. But he was careful to offer arguments both for and against every position he presented to the students. He expressed his own religious beliefs to the students on the first day of class as an aside, and then didn't mention them again. And he found a graduate student who was Christian to work as his teaching assistant.
All of this at a university with a firm PCU reputation.
You can't force professors to teach as well as my professor taught that class, but you can try to hold them to the same standard he held himself to. There is a problem with political honesty in academia, but it's not a problem with how professors are hired. It's just the sort of presumtuousness that arises when a bunch of people who mostly agree with each other work together for a while. Professors need to remind themselves that while their colleagues mostly agree with them, their students may not, and students' opinions are to be respected. We don't need affirmative action for conservative professors to bring that about, we just need good teaching.
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posted
The problem with Universities is that they are given the status of a religion. Everything about University smacks of Greek-salvation-through-education. Our whole society has bought the lie we can be saved by getting "educated"--as if that alone will raise the quality of life. Sure, education is really important, but there *are* more important things.
Meaning, some people choose not to get an education so that they can have one of those more-important-things. How we treat these people reflect how Greek we are...
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quote:Here's why: I think it's obvious that the "selection" of liberals over conservatives doesn't happen at the hiring stage.
There is a problem with political honesty in academia, but it's not a problem with how professors are hired. It's just the sort of presumptuousness that arises when a bunch of people who mostly agree with each other work together for a while.
Destineer, that is just not true. Dr.M is a conservative Republican philosophy professor. He is going to the APA conference next week to interview for tenure-track positions. He would sooner bite his tongue off before giving any indication that he is a conservative. According to him, there is a huge bias against conservatives in philosophy. There is an assumption that conservatives cannot be good philosophers because they don't have the correct, rational (i.e. liberal) viewpoint. In fact, he was discussing his dissertation with some academic person and mentioned that it involves Posner's work and the person said, "But isn't he a conservative?" In fact, Dr.M plans to keep his political views to himself until he gets tenure.
quote:Things are tougher in the humanities, when one often deals with politicized or religiously relevant material, but it is possible to be objective even then. One of my favorite professors at the University of Michigan regularly taught a course in philosophy of religion. He wasn't a believer himself, and in fact had once argued against religion in a public debate. But he was careful to offer arguments both for and against every position he presented to the students. He expressed his own religious beliefs to the students on the first day of class as an aside, and then didn't mention them again. And he found a graduate student who was Christian to work as his teaching assistant.
I completely agree with you and I, too, was surprised to learn that OSC feels that way. I was a religion major and the worst classes I took were taught by professors who were basically proselytizing. The worst offender was Robert Thurman, who is a Buddhist monk. He's a brilliant man and very famous, but I had to drop his class b/c the discussions all devolved into variations of "Buddhism is great. Buddhism is so much better than oppressive Western religions." On the other hand, my Western religion professors never disclosed what religion they were and those discussions were great.
Dr.M and I were discussing this topic and he would never be inclined to share his religious or political views with his students. His areas of specialty are ethics and philosophy of law. Here's how he put it: "It's devisive. Even if I don't let it affect my grading [he grades blind anyway], the students who agree with my position will feel favored and those who don't will feel slighted."
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posted
I think it varies by discipline, as well. My International Relations tutor was saying that in IR in the US, you basically have to hold a certain set of positions (known as "neo-utilitarianism" and more allied to conservative than liberal politial viewpoints) to get an academic job. Basically you have to be in the Kenneth Waltz, Robert Keohane and Samuel Huntingdon camp - and an economist rather than a historian. The "English School" or "constructivist" (basically historical) approaches to IR don't get a look-in in the US - all of that work is being done in England and Australia. Eddie (this tutor) is teaching at Georgia Tech at the moment, lecturing on US government to engineering students, partly because he couldn't even get a TA job in any IR dept he tried. He took a two-year sabbatical to teach in Oxford (which is where he taught me) and confessed to being surprised by the diversity just in the Oxford politics faculty, and how nice it was that professors took on grad students who disagreed with them. He even had to get his book published in the UK rather than the US. And he's what you'd describe as a "liberal." Given that this is my sole contact with American academia, I'm always slightly surprised by the "liberal bias" that's claimed to exist by people who actually deal with it on a day-to-day basis...
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posted
In general, to teach in a field you need to accept the generally accepted paradigm in the field, whether it's science or art. I'm not sure this amounts to liberalism in most fields, though. I suspect philosophy, political science, socioogy, and some of the humanities would be a lot more along those lines than most.
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quote: I thought it was a matter of course that teaching should never be used for indoctrination of any sort
I'm sorry -- but my viewpoint is that all education IS indoctrination. Period. I mean, it has to be -- from the teacher, or the book, or whatever source -- you are being "indoctrinated" with ideas from others. So whether it is a liberal, or conservative, or a politically correct indoctrination, it is still one of those.
I'm hoping my oldest son, who is an ultra-conservative (much more so than me) won't have a lot of trouble getting into graduate school (planning a career in genetics) -- but I think he will be able to keep his viewpoints silent. However, he will be definately be swimming against the current in his chosen field.
He had one American History professor in his freshman year of college that was from India, not even a citizen here, I believe, that was EXTREMELY anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war, etc. And spouted it daily. This upset the students quite a bit BUT, it also made them THINK, do their homework on current issues, and be ready to debate and give their answers and their varying viewpoints. I guess, in the end, I would rather have someone who causes dissention in that way, over someone who promoted apathy. When you have to defend your beliefs, it can make those beliefs get stronger and more well-defined within yourself.
posted
There is a selection that goes on before. A big reason I am not currently in grad school is because of the politics. I am wearied by the thought of every day being a fight and needing to defend myself at every point. I'm not sure the fight is even worth it.
I was offered a position at SMU in their English department, and I turned it down after discussing the focus of the department with some of the professors. I just don't believe the prevailing religion there - it wasn't the place for me.
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posted
I'm wondering where OSC is getting this data about faculty being denied tenure/not hired because of political beliefs.
I went to an extremely liberal college. The only "liberal" thing that the professors had to do was mind their own business about students' personal lives (except for if expressly asked, of course). If professors were against gay marriage, that was fine. They could say it as loud as they wanted. But they were still expected to say "Congrats" to a student who had just announced that she was going to have a commitment ceremony. And likewise on a host of issues. Including the students that discovered religion while at school.
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quote:Destineer, that is just not true. Dr.M is a conservative Republican philosophy professor. He is going to the APA conference next week to interview for tenure-track positions. He would sooner bite his tongue off before giving any indication that he is a conservative. According to him, there is a huge bias against conservatives in philosophy. There is an assumption that conservatives cannot be good philosophers because they don't have the correct, rational (i.e. liberal) viewpoint.
Huh. That may be true in political philosophy and philosophy of law, probably because much of the research in those fields goes toward justifying political liberalism. In most of the 'core' areas of philosophy, politics just isn't relevant. I do philosophy of science, and I've never felt insecure expressing my (admittedly few) non-liberal opinions; I've argued against affirmative action with my fellow grad students. I just can't see a serious department turning down someone with a good publication record because of politics, unless that person has made enemies with other professors by arguing politics with them. Some people are jerks and don't like to be contradicted. Most of the philosophers I know like to argue, and take no offense when others disagree with them, but it's possible that I've been lucky. I've only really known people at a couple of departments.
One problem I have noticed in academia is that everyone assumes you're a liberal atheist unless told otherwise. I don't think this is mean-spirited, it's just thoughtless. In my case the assumption is correct, but I still resent people making assumptions about me based only on the fact that I work at a university. So that's a part of the culture that ought to change.
quote:In fact, Dr.M plans to keep his political views to himself until he gets tenure.
How does he plan to do that, if he does philosophy of law? I agree with you that it's possible (and the right thing to do) to withold your beliefs when you're teaching, but in your research papers you have to express opinions.
quote:I'm sorry -- but my viewpoint is that all education IS indoctrination. Period. I mean, it has to be -- from the teacher, or the book, or whatever source -- you are being "indoctrinated" with ideas from others. So whether it is a liberal, or conservative, or a politically correct indoctrination, it is still one of those.
This is interesting... I'm just now starting preliminary work on a paper about how we ought to distinguish between education and indoctrination. If you take the position that education is indoctrination, I don't see how you could both approve of educating children and disapprove of indoctrinating them, but these both seem to be natural attitudes. Out of all the ways we can bring others to share our beliefs, some of them (brainwashing, cults, Hitler Youth-style organizations) are definitely wrong, while education is right. There has to be some difference between them.
quote:I'm hoping my oldest son, who is an ultra-conservative (much more so than me) won't have a lot of trouble getting into graduate school (planning a career in genetics) -- but I think he will be able to keep his viewpoints silent. However, he will be definately be swimming against the current in his chosen field.
Like I said above, I don't see how he could possibly have any trouble getting into grad school on the basis of his politics. I could see how someone might have trouble starting out at a new grad school if one takes the conservative side in a bunch of political arguments or something. Expressing unpopular ideas can make one unpopular in any community. But I imagine what will happen to your son is: he'll make a number of good friends among his professors and fellow students, and by the time anyone mentions politics they'll like him enough as a person that his conservatism won't matter a bit.
quote: If you take the position that education is indoctrination, I don't see how you could both approve of educating children and disapprove of indoctrinating them
perhaps this is why I homeschooled my kids much of their younger years. I knew that whoever was teaching them would have a vast influence on their beliefs. Although my own world views are probably flawed with my personal paradigms and bias' (known or unknown, intended or not), at least they were getting it from a source I had some control over.
I think you DID catch my meaning in that "indoctrination" does not always have to have a negative context. We all "indoctrinate" our kids, maybe unwittingly, with our personal ideas as we converse with them and others while raising them. Churches teach their doctrine to children, etc. Only for some reason people only seem to think of the negatives (as you pointed out, like brainwashing) as being indoctrination.
If you teach one child world history here in America, and another learns world history from a textbook in -- say-- China or Japan -- do you really think they are being taught the exact same thing with no biases?
Main Entry: in·doc·tri·nate Pronunciation: in-'däk-tr&-"nAt Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): -nat·ed; -nat·ing Etymology: probably from Middle English endoctrinen, from Middle French endoctriner, from Old French, from en- + doctrine doctrine Date: 1626 1 : to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments : TEACH 2 : to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle
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posted
The connotations of education and indoctrination are different, and I think that you can judge this difference by their fruits.
A rigorous education should yield a curious mind, poking and prodding, and trying to resolve the truest inconsistancies, a mind which is directed toward clearly and honestly forming an opinion about the world as it opens up to him/her.
Indoctrination is the supplanting of one's own view by the view of another. I'd believe that indoctrination signals the end of thinking.
The quality of a person's education can be judged by the questions that they ask as much as by the answers which they give or propped up tenants by which they may live. The good teachers I've met have never had to lapse into indoctrination.
posted
When I was a senior, I was told that I wasn't "Learning" enough to get a music composition degree. But just the year before at a concert with my first piece I was told I had the best music there. (Ooo, listen to a recording of it!)
Why was I threatened? I was resisting my teacher and wasn't writing the atonal music he wanted me to write.
To write atonal music, you have to turn off your desire to please the public, because they hate that music. And there is just a little something that whispers in your head that atonal music is worth less than puke and the value professors give it is just part of a big practical joke.
So I wrote atonal music and pleased the professors. In fact, when I was a grad student, I wrote the stupidest song but because it was the most atonal work I had written, they loved it the most. That was the proof I needed...
My point? The Universities produce more graduates who think the same as the professors because the professors can threaten degrees. I saw so many students drop out because of the atonal issue. The only ones who stuck with it liked the music or were really committed to getting that degree.
And it was so much easier for the former to get the degrees because writing atonal music isn't hard to write from the skill point of view. But it is hard to write from the willingness-to-produce-puke-and-call-it-art point of view. So anyone who didn't like puking, well, most of them dropped out or quickly moved to some field other than music once they graduated.
I didn't see anyone get a grad degree that didn't totally agree with the professors. Anyone who seriously wanted to write popular music either moved to LA, or started a band and played pop music (which is an insult to any University trained musician).
And then there is that issue of hiring. Yeah, the music composition division turned down the best applicants and hired the guy who was 100% in favor of atonal music but couldn't teach worth crap. Why did they hire him? Pushing the agenda was more important than a skilled teacher.
While that may just be music composition, I figure the same is true for other fields. They will produce and hire like-minded people. Heck, it took me 3 years of listening to nothing but pop music to shake the elitist snobbery I was indoctrinated with.
I totally agree that education should produce curiousity, something I didn't get, not fact quoting or agenda pushing, something I got and have had to shake off.
quote:I'm just now starting preliminary work on a paper about how we ought to distinguish between education and indoctrination. If you take the position that education is indoctrination, I don't see how you could both approve of educating children and disapprove of indoctrinating them, but these both seem to be natural attitudes. Out of all the ways we can bring others to share our beliefs, some of them (brainwashing, cults, Hitler Youth-style organizations) are definitely wrong, while education is right. There has to be some difference between them.
Why? Perhaps it is the content, not the method of teaching our children that is wrong in the examples you gave. After all, parents spend a lot of time essentially brainwashing their younger children to believe things about right and wrong, etc.
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quote:A rigorous education should yield a curious mind, poking and prodding, and trying to resolve the truest inconsistancies, a mind which is directed toward clearly and honestly forming an opinion about the world as it opens up to him/her.
posted
"The Universities produce more graduates who think the same as the professors because the professors can threaten degrees."
If it's any consolation to those of you who are in school or have kids in school, this kind of thing doesn't stop when you graduate. The "real world" does it, too.
Getting promoted when you publicly disagree with your superiors is considerably more difficult than the alternative.
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posted
Education doesn't produce degrees, though there is a correlation that shouldn't easily be dismissed. I appreciate the University because it's a place to free base education, get a distilled version directly into your bloodstream, making your mind fire faster, with more aquity, and more rigorously. Now I've heard a fair share of people with technical degrees complain about how a university education didn't make them better people, but it's their own fault that they studied the manipulation of widgets. Then I've heard a share of liberal arts majors make the same complaint, but these are the ones proudly expound on their procrastination skills and ability to write volumes of dreck while receive a passing grade in class. Sadly, I think these people have missed the point, though I wager that it was clearly illumed in the great works that they skimmed and butchered in interpretation. As to the self-taught, in The Art of Fiction, John Gardner articulates the problem with self-teaching better than I ever could:
quote: No ignoramous- no writer who has kept himself innocent of education- has ever produced great art. One trouble with having read nothing worth reading is that one never fully understands the other side of one's argument, never understands that the argument is an old one (all great arguments are), never understands the dignity and worth of the people one has cast as enemies...
Take the Grapes of Wrath. It should have been one of America's great books. But while Steinbeck knew all there was to know about Okies and the countless sorrows of their move to California to find work, he knew nothing about the California ranchers who employed and exploited them; he had no clue to, or interest in, their reasons for behaving as they did; and the result is that Steinbeck wrote not a great and firm novel but a disappointing melodrama in which complex good is pitted against unmitigated, unbelieveable evil...
If one studies the work of the self-educated and we do not mean here the man who starts out with limited by rigorous and classical education, like Herman Melville- what one notices at once is the spottiness and therefore awkwardness of their knowledge. One forgives the fault, but the fact remains that it distracts and makes the work less than it might have been.
One finds, for instance, naively excited and lengthy discussions of ideas that are commonplace or have long been discredited, or one finds curious, quirky interpretations of old myths- interpretations that, though interesting in themselves, suffer by comparison with what the myths really say and mean.
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