[lit-ideas] Re: What's wrong with Campus Watch for all?
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 21 Mar 2004 17:05:17 PST
>It's hard to imagine that [1] Robert has never suffered through an imbecilic or
intemperate instructor or [2] that he is oblivious to the pressures on
students,
many of whom, though of voting age, rely on grants, loans, or family money to
earn degrees in this best of all possible worlds.<
*[1] I've never met an instructor whom I would call 'imbecilic.' Sorry. I've
suffered dim bulbs, listened to drones, fallen asleep, lost the thread, judged
English profs in light of my sophomoric understanding of Language, Truth, and
Logic; but no--no imbeciles. Intemperate? Sure. Norman Malcolm was intemperate.
He scared the hell out of me. But I learned far more from him about the
seriousness of the enterprise than I would have from a dozen polite,
fair-minded, and charming Stepford profs.
Student: 'You just said this, and a minute ago you said that, and...'
Malcolm (growling): 'You say I said this, and then I said that, and if I say
this and I say that, I'm contradicting myself--?'
Student (nodding): Yes.
Malcolm (losing interest): Hmmpff!
What can I say? Learning doesn't mean just learning _stuff_. It means learning
what you don't know, learning how to maneuver, learning how to take a joke,
learning that the course in Management of Ocean Shipping (which fascinated you
when you got the UO catalogue in the summer of 1949) won't lead you to the top
at Cunard, and that you have to be majoring in Business to take it. In college
you get to play at real life, while at the same time living your real life. Take
an even strain, for goodness sake. If I found out that old guy thought that the
kouroi and Duchamp gave meaning to all intervening art, I'd want to hear what he
had to say. 'But what if he's _wrong_!?' He may be wrong--and so? Is his
existence a serious argument for installing academic watchdogs at every corner
of the quad, or is there an echt version of art history which would require him
to shut up?
[2] I'm not oblivious to the financial straits of many who would like to attend
and do attend college. I know of them not only by description but by
acquaintance. However, what this has to do with the question isn't at all clear.
(I've asked independently for clarification, but have received none.) On the one
hand we have people suffering at the hands of Maoists, professors obsessed with
archaic Greek sculpture and Duchamp, and on the other--? Truth, light, justice,
fairness, every 'view' balanced by an opposing view, no matter how absurd? Who
could be against that? It might occur to people that students are engaged by,
attracted to, the forceful expression of views (theories, positions) that are
not only false, but palpably so. It's the spectacle that attracts them, the
passion, the experience of seeing someone committed to something for a change.
An education which didn't include some taste of this would be a drab, pedantic
wasteland.
I'll go farther. I'll say that a perfectly balanced intellectual menu is
implicitly an insult to students, who are on my view far more capable than Eric
may believe at spotting nonsense and sorting things out, and who might like to
take part in the messy fun of doing so. Of course, this will vary according to
discipline and subject matter--or would seem to. I remember though watching a
very bad film--Italian, I think--years ago on public television. Galileo walks
into a lecture hall in which the galleries are packed with students. He begins
to lecture on Copernicus. Boos, jeers, catcalls. They know a priori he's wrong,
right? Maybe not a priori.
Cut to Biology 101 at Big State University. Time for the section on evolutionary
biology. Lecturer starts to babble about genetic drift. Half the students walk
out in protest. They know she's selling them a bill of goods; but where can they
go? The state legislature, that's where. Time for a Department of
Creationism--or, if the legislature won't spring for all those new buildings and
endowed chairs, maybe it can at least require that the Biology department
incorporate Creationism into its own offerings. (Just as any department with a
Maoist ought to include a follower of Chiang Kai-shek.)
>Because I do not believe Robert is out of touch with what it is like to be a
student, but on the contrary believe he knows more about this subject than I do,
I can only assume that he has taken my broaching the subject as itself a Fishy
Trojan horse to some political agenda of my own.<
*I've said all I want to about the last bit. Whether I know more about what it's
like to be a student than does Eric, I have no idea. I know less and less about
student life, but I don't think I'm wrong about what students are capable of,
and to the extent to which they can or can't be taken in. I spent 30 years at
Reed, and before that a year at Indiana, and three years at the University of
Oregon. I've been retired since 1996, but I've taught one philosophy course a
year most years since then. I'm teaching a course this term. So, I've seen a
fair number of students, and although it might be argued that Reed students are
not all that typical of American undergraduates (we're strictly Arts & Sciences
here, no business school, no school of journalism, e.g.), I didn't find my
students at Indiana (who terrified me more than I terrified them) or at Oregon,
mere sheep waiting to be fed.
Lately I've mostly been letting the students talk unless my inner off-topic
alarm goes off, or unless things get so interesting that I _want_ to say
something--as they frequently do. I do this because they're talking to one
another and not to me, and because I believe that one of the best ways to
discover what you think is to have to try to express it. Sometimes I draw little
pictures on the board; sometimes I write out sketches of arguments; but mostly
we just talk. ('I don't pay $38,970 a year just to listen to some other
student!')
About impressionability. Isn't it a bit disingenous to argue that students must
impressionable because if they weren't they would be either unteachable or not
in need of learning in the first place? This merely plays on two senses of the
word 'impressionable.' The original claim wasn't that they were capable of
receiving impressions but that they were _highly impressionable and probably are
in no position to evaluate the views advanced by their professors_. My
experience tells me this isn't so, and hasn't been so for many years. I think
that the words between the _'s are a coded preface to 'and so, should be
protected by those who know better, namely, us.'
My evidence is that they are not extremely impressionable in this pejorative
sense; they are not easily impressed, swayed, or intimidated. Whether they are
'easily cowed by professors into parroting radical or marginal views for the
sake of a good grade' is an empirical question. I have no first-hand knowledge
of this having happened: if it does happen, a moral (and perhaps legal) issue
has been raised. A student with a conscience won't 'parrot' offensive views for
the sake of a grade. To some things, an F is preferable.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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