[lit-ideas] What's wrong with Campus Watch for all?
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:39:31 EST
Butler in the article Omar cites:
"This listserve has done a very good job . . . in undermining support for
Campus Watch, a neo-McCarthyite anti-Arab group that has sought to restrict how
Middle East politics is taught in U.S. universities."
What do List members think of the idea of a campus watch in general--not
merely as concerns the issues of the Middle East but across the board?
On one side is the issue of intellectual freedom for academics and the
deleterious effects of promoting a standardized curriculum. Watch groups can
easily
be misused and can serve to promote a "correct" view of events and ideologies.
On the other side is the notion that students are highly impressionable and
probably are in no position to evaluate the views advanced by their professors
or can be easily cowed by professors into parroting radical or marginal views
for the sake of a good grade. (In the last case, I can cite a friend who
suffered at the hands of a Maoist professor at UVA because she was unwilling to
uncritically accept the professor's interpretations.)
Academics can just as easily be "neo-McCarthyite anti-" as any watchdog group
that monitors them. Furthermore, as intellectual personality types, academics
can be every bit as inflexible and blind as an agenda-driven watchdog group.
"My way or the highway" works on both sides of this issue.
How to resolve this? Nobody wants to enforce a state ideology in college
curriculums; on the other hand, nobody wants an unopposed demagogue to force
biased nonsense on impressionable students.
EY
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