[lit-ideas] Re: What's wrong with Campus Watch for all?
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 23:30:56 EST
In a message dated 3/21/2004 8:05:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
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.
Agreed! (Wish I had a chance to hear Kenneth Burke lecture.)
However, when the instruction exceeds mere eccentric passion and becomes
something unhealthy and totalitarian -- what remedies are available to
students?
What percentage would sue the professor? What percentage drop the course in
protest? What percentage would play the game of pleasing the mad graybeard or
daft thistelbottom? What percentage would become True Believers? (No numbers,
please.)
One hopes for a reverse Gresham's Law here -- good ideas driving out bad ones
eventually -- but it ain't necessarily so. Still probably a venture worth the
risk.
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