Yesterday, my friend Josh Bellin posted a great essay to his blog about why he doesn’t “support” the troops. (http://bellsyells.blogspot.com/) His essay was inspired by a troubling encounter with the principal of his daughter’s elementary school. Josh’s daughter’s class had been required to write “letters of support to the troops in Iraq.” Josh objected—and quite rightly in my view—to requiring children to take a moral position they are not “qualified to take.” Josh’s position reminded me of one of my favorite essays, William G. Perry’s “Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts.” Perry reminds us that “too early a moral judgment is precisely what stands between many an able student and a liberal education.”
The best way to “support the troops,” in my view, is to demand a clear and cogent explanation for why putting them in harm’s way is absolutely necessary. I think Josh would agree.
But Josh also got me thinking of how conservatives take it as a given that liberal professors indoctrinate their students. Having been one of those bête noires, a liberal professor, myself, I don’t think we indoctrinate. But, in a subsequent reply to my comment on his piece, Josh supplied le mot juste. We may not indoctrinate, but we certainly “proselytize.” And it happens in high school and in college.
The teenage daughter of a young friend, for instance, used to come to us full of received opinions and instant outrage about the dangers of global warming, worker exploitation by Walmart, and the unwholesome nature of McDonald's food. In the words of the poet, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” She clearly wasn’t ready to engage in the complexity of these issues. But the well-meaning high school teachers who attempted to raise her consciousness were just taking their cues from those of us in higher education. How many freshman composition courses these days are built around sustainability and other green issues? Personally, I agree with all those positions. But as a former professor and dean, I know how easily students are intimidated by a teacher or professor who seems really well-versed in a topic, and I question whether classes built around such topics really give a fair hearing to divergent points of view.
I say this having long ago taught a course of my own design called "Vietnam in Fact, Fiction, and Film." The course was very much one-sided. Having studied the history of our involvement, I knew all about the cultural and historical misapprehensions, as well as the cynical Realpolitik, responsible for that original "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." And I fervently believe that the revisionists who have come along since, trying to justify that war as in our strategic best interests or even as a “noble cause,” are wrong. But the fact remains that, having only so much time, I did not give much time and attention to other points of view. And some students were probably afraid to challenge me. I may not have been indoctrinating, but I was proselytizing.
I say this having long ago taught a course of my own design called "Vietnam in Fact, Fiction, and Film." The course was very much one-sided. Having studied the history of our involvement, I knew all about the cultural and historical misapprehensions, as well as the cynical Realpolitik, responsible for that original "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." And I fervently believe that the revisionists who have come along since, trying to justify that war as in our strategic best interests or even as a “noble cause,” are wrong. But the fact remains that, having only so much time, I did not give much time and attention to other points of view. And some students were probably afraid to challenge me. I may not have been indoctrinating, but I was proselytizing.
I'll add something that may at least serve to prime the controversy pump. Counting my Naval Academy time, I was a full-time academic for 16 years, and if there is one thing I have learned about the academic profession, it is this: Academics are no more open-minded than anyone else. They're just better at articulating and defending their prejudices." Hence, I side with Stanley Fish, who once admonished us all to "save the world on your own time." --EFP
