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July 21, 2008

Exclusive: Yet Another Failure of Higher Education

Colonel David F. Bedey (US Army, ret.)

Last month in this space, I recounted how it is that American higher education produces graduates bereft of the broad and reasoned worldview needed to thoughtfully assess the social and political challenges that face our nation today.This prompted an interesting response from Jill Rodde, a social activist at Minnesota's Carleton College.Before taking up Ms. Rodde's objections, I'll summarize the ideas that she found to be so perplexing.

In my essay, I pointed to three co-mingled dynamics that sustain a troubling state of affairs on campus.First is the Left's domination of the professoriate, which has been accompanied by widespread abuse of academic freedom as so-called "progressive" professors either actively advocate or subtly insinuate their personal politics in the classroom.Second is the rise of multiculturalism and its handmaiden - cultural relativism - which at once support the Left's hostility toward Western civilization while deriding the notion of making moral and ethical judgments regarding other cultures.And finally, the strictures of political correctness severely limit discussion of ideas outside those the Left deems acceptable.Consequently, at many colleges a tradition of unfettered and dispassionate inquiry has morphed into ideologically monotonic groupthink.

Ms. Rodde rejects this assessment.And given her choice of venue - the Free Exchange on Campus website - one should not be surprised.

The Free Exchange on Campus Campaign purports to be "a coalition of faculty, student, and civil rights organizations working together to preserve the free exchange of ideas on college campuses." But in fact, this group - which includes the People for the American Way, the AFL-CIO, and teachers unions (like the National Education Association and the American Association of University Professors) - is devoted to preserving the status quo on campus. As National Review Online's Mark Bauerlein has observed, notwithstanding its boldly mendacious name, "Free Exchange is not about free exchange. It's about circling the wagons and ensuring professional privilege and sanctifying progressivist ideology."The Left understands the political advantage that attends its control of higher education and thus is ruthlessly determined to maintain that control.

Normally, reactionary attacks, such as Ms. Rodde's, merit no reply; they are inevitable when one - as she might say "desperately" - defends sacred ground.However, in this instance Ms. Rodde has inadvertently provided yet another example of how higher education fails today's students.

Let us start by disposing of her tendentious avoidance of the issues at hand.She opens her piece with the implication that my concern is only for the "facile minds of today's coeds."Nice try at tarring me as a sexist, but even a casual reader of my work will see through this subterfuge.She goes on to "wonder what colleges [I'm] looking at." Perhaps if she had glanced at the essays I cited from The New Criterion, she could have answered her own question.And she makes the claim that "in academia and out the ‘prevailing dogma' is hardly one of demonizing Western culture, but is still mostly hell-bent on talking about (mostly dead) White guys, that [sic] is deeply suspect of ‘multiculturalism' in many of its forms, and [sic] deeply suspect of claims of racism, sexism, and other bigotry."Really? What colleges might she be looking at?

Perhaps this is just another illustration of obfuscation in the service of an activist's cause.But one cannot help but to think that had Ms. Rodde been open to questioning her own assumptions, she might have been able to make a reasoned and persuasive case for her position.

And her apparent inability to question her own assumptions is all the more puzzling given that she sees "questioning" to be at the center of a liberal education. In her own words:

If there's anything I've learned from my liberal arts education, it's to question.If there's any "prevailing dogma" in academe, it's criticism.You get called out on racism, sexism, Eurocentrism - you get called out when you make broad claims from small data sets. You get questioned when you make assumptions and you don't see the whole picture.We ask you for more, not less; complexity, not simplicity - and even that gets questioned.That's the opposite of indoctrination.

Seeing the big picture?Avoiding broad claims based on small data sets?Neither is evident in her blog.But more importantly, notice how circumscribed is the range of her questioning.The Left's familiar catalog of villainous "isms" is fair game, but what about the tenets of Leftist thought? Perhaps Ms. Rodde was too quick to dismiss the possibility of her own indoctrination.

Nonetheless, I do agree with her on one point: questioning is a fundamental part of a liberal arts education. But simply raising questions is not enough.Nor is criticism. Both come naturally, especially to the inexperienced.The real intellectual challenge is to ask the right questions.It is here that a liberal education can make its greatest contribution. But not unless colleges provide students a deep understanding of our shared cultural heritage, which is a prerequisite to gaining the self-awareness necessary for informed debate of the issues of the day.

The promise of liberal education cannot be realized until the Left's stranglehold on academe is broken.This is not a matter of supplanting the Leftist oligarchy with one from the Right.And this is not the objective of those advocating the reform of higher education, such as the Students for Academic Freedom, the National Association of Scholars, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Instead, their goal is to transform our colleges and universities into forums for the fair and reasoned examination of ideas, free from institutionalized ideological bias.

Overthrow of the Left's dominion on campus is essential not just for the sake of our students but also for the political health of our nation.Colleges ought to be places free from the rancorous grind of contemporary politics where a spirit of collegiality and civility softens the unavoidable - and I would argue indispensable - tension between liberals and conservatives.This in the long run might well improve the tone and substance of political debate in America.

But until higher education is reformed, it will continue to fail bright, energetic students like Jill Rodde. For regardless of their politics, all students would benefit from the broad and reasoned worldview that a true liberal education imparts.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor David F. Bedey holds a Ph.D. in space physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and master's degrees in national security and strategic studies earned at both the Naval War College and the Army War College.

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