Are American Universities the "Covert Enemies" of America?

marite · August 23, 2006, 12:05am

Let’s stick to the subject at hand: the idea that colleges and universities are full of covert enemies of the United States. Why bother send our kids to college then? CC, USN&WR rankings, Princeton Review, Kaplan’s, disappear! You are aiding and abetting the enemy.
Meanwhile, I’m looking at the latest list of Fields Medalists: two Russians, one Australian of Chinese origin, and one Frenchman.

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 12:23am

Hayden, I want to communicate, not argue.

I think Michael Barone’s point is that many American educators (and members of the media) believe in the moral equivalence of nations and that some even believe America is morally inferior. Professors like Churchill, Jensen, and Barrett have publicly embraced these views, and anecdotal reports from college campuses suggest there are milder versions teaching on almost every campus. I find that troubling, not only because it undermines us as a nation but also because it’s wrong.

marite · August 23, 2006, 12:30am

DRJ:

You won’t find many supporters of Churchill, Jensen and Barrett within academia. It’s way over the top for Barone to paint all or most college profs with such a broad brush and call them enemies of America. By talking about “they” he is feeding into a streak of paranoid anti-intellectualism which I find deeply disturbing. And by trotting out Churchill et al, he is giving them far more prominence than they deserve. He, after all, is part of the media.

spoonyj · August 23, 2006, 12:59am

hayden,

It’s not just that the Swiftboat Vets misused facts. That’s something I take as a given on both sides of the aisle. More insidious is that some committee in some conference room decided that it would be especially effective to exploit the concept of Truth as part of the marketing plan. I’m assuming, of course, that the title of the organization, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, was a tactical decision, not a spontaneous, high-minded cry for justice. What this highlights is that today’s political climate requires that power brokers be ironists of the first order, hatching campaigns that reek of smugness and manipulation. The problem is that smug irony, while proof of one’s education and hipness, is a very difficult platform from which to celebrate concepts like objective truth and absolute morality, even if one truly believes in these things. All of this is just a way of putting the lie to the notion that liberals are relativists while conservatives are the defenders of bedrock values. This formulation just seems too easy and sef-serving to me; like most strategies of consolation, it is comforting and simple, failing to acknolwedge the way in which the tactics employed by the conservative political machine–and others, for that matter–contribute to the erosion of objective truth as a concept worthy of reverence and vital to our culture, not something to be used, and necessarily cheapened, in an all-out effort to win a campaign.

spoonyj · August 23, 2006, 1:08am

DRJ4:

I assume you support tenure, predicated as it is upon the notion that academic freedom is a core value too precious to compromise by leaving professors open to reprisals for what they think and research and write about? Just curious.

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 1:26am

Marite #23,

Barone never mentioned Churchill. You asked for names and I gave you some but I know you realize this isn’t just about Churchill, Jensen, and Barrett.

In my limited time at CC, I believe you are a person who reads extensively and gives thoughtful consideration to important issues. I hope you will read the Albert Shanker Institute report entitled “Education for Democracy” issued in 2003 that details the way we fail to teach students about America, its history and the value of democracy. According to the website, “Education for Democracy” was endorsed by more than 140 prominent citizens, scholars and educators across the political spectrum including former President Bill Clinton, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and actor Christopher Reeve. Here’s an excerpt from page 8:

Here’s a PDF link to the full report: <a href=“http://www.shankerinstitute.org/Downloads/EfD%20final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.shankerinstitute.org/Downloads/EfD%20final.pdf</a> and here’s a link to the Albert Shaker Institute website: <a href=“http://www.shankerinstitute.org/education.html[/url]”>http://www.shankerinstitute.org/education.html</a>

The Organization of American Historians has joined the chorus of experts decrying the state of students’ and teachers’ knowledge of American history and further believes that what teachers do know is skewed:

Additionally, proponents of traditional history have charged that the “serious issues…such as what constitutes appropriate history” have been altered beyond recognition by “political correctness,” if not neglected completely. In their introduction to Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong?, James Leming and Lucien Ellington use David McCullough’s testimony to support this assertion. In his NEH Jefferson lecture, they write, McCullough “decried the way in which the kind of political correctness exposed in this volume [Social Studies] has stripped the American history that today’s students study of any messages as to why we should appreciate the ideals and sacrifices that have made this country great. He called the emerging national historical amnesia rooted squarely in vapid politically correct accounts of our history, a threat to liberty: ‘Something is eating away at our national memory…For a free, self-governing people, something more than a vague familiarity with history is essential if we are to hold on to and sustain our freedom.

<a href=“http://www.oah.org/reports/tradhist.html[/url]”>http://www.oah.org/reports/tradhist.html</a>

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 1:36am

I don’t know how many people in academia support these professors but they certainly have enough support, or support from the right people, to enable them to teach in high-profile institutions.

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 2:38am

I support tenure because it is a fixture of academia and it has a valid theoretical purpose. I do not support tenure that is treated by its holders as a license to avoid teaching, research, or scholarly performance standards.

Why do you ask?

Dadguy · August 23, 2006, 2:53am

Are Americans woefully ignorant of our nation’s history? Absolutely, and have been for some time. It’s a national characteristic.

But the idea that just the negative stuff is being taught without any of the positive stuff is just ludicrous. Use Barone’s own example, the only reason to note that some of the founding fathers were slaveholders is because of the very proclimations he would like to see emphasized. How did they reconcile this? Obviously they did somehow. They didn’t say " Gee, since we’re slaveholders, we have no moral currency to say anything about freedom, so let’s cut the meeting short so we can all go home and make pudding." Knowing how they reconciled these two things makes history come alive. Just saying they were slaveholders and leaving it at that makes no sense, even for America’s harshest critics.

On the other hand, is there value in teaching about the founding fathers without mentioning that some of them were slaveholders? Or that voting rights were denied to certain people at the beginning of our nation’s history? Maybe, but only to very small children and others who can’t handle the conflicts and paradoxes that people experience. You could easily make the founding fathers sound like the Second Coming if you leave out enough stuff.

Judged by the things we stand for, America has set the bar higher for herself than any other country has. When we meet this standard, we know we have done something wonderful. Conversely, we’re more subject to shortfalls and disappointments because, sometimes, our goals exceed our grasp. In order to meet our own standards, we need to know how we came to set the bar so high, how we’ve met the standards before and where and why we’ve come up short.

Allmusic · August 23, 2006, 6:57am

Who needs those pesky “high profile institutions”? There’s always Oral Roberts and Bob Jones University. I am quite sure your children will not be subjected to all that filthy liberal indoctrination in such morally upstanding institutions.

Of course, they might not learn about scientifically proven evolution, global warming, medical breakthroughs from stem cell research…

I’d suggest anyone worrying about Ward Churchill and his ilk’s influence on impressionable young mind immediately enroll their children in one of these:

marite · August 23, 2006, 7:47am

DRJ:

My great hero has always been Voltaire.

There are several issues at stake.

On the issue of Churchill, Jensen and Barrett. They have tenure. One essential dimension of tenure is that a prof cannot be stripped of it for his/her opinions, however wrong these may be. So these three–and some more like them–can say whatever they like. The rest of academia need not agree with them, and does not. And I am sure most students give them a wide berth. It’s the media that keeps them in the limelight and gives them a platform that reaches far from their classrooms and endows them with an influence they do not actually possess.

On the issue of what American students know about American history. Every few years or so, there appears an article that bemoans the lack of knowledge about the past of American students and their ignorance of geography. Several years ago, I bought a little book called Non Campus Mentis as a present for S1. We all had a good laugh over the silly statements culled from history exams at a variety of colleges. I suggest you hunt for it. Ignorance of history and geography may be blamed on poor teaching but this is very different from saying that college profs are brainwashing their students . In fact, I’m sure that many wished their students retained a great deal more information than what seems to be the case. When quizzes show that some Americans believe that Picasso is the capital of Ireland, or that the Middle Ages are thus called because everybody then was middle-aged (I kid you not) you wish that profs and high school teachers had a better grip on their students’ minds.

Are there some left-wing profs on American campuses? Of course, just as there are some quite conservative ones as well, and often on the same campuses. What I object to in the article by Barone is the paranoid description of what goes on in college classrooms and the indiscriminate use of "they.’ Three or even thirty or even 300 do not represent all academia.

Now for some of the specifics of the article: Are students taught that the Founding Fathers advocated liberty and justice? Of course, they are. Are they told that Jeffeerson owned slaves. Yes, they are also taught that (although I expect that this should come up in high school). Should they not be taught about Jefferson’s slave ownership? Why not? It is a historical fact. Not liking it won’t make it go away. Many years ago, I recall meeting an African-American teacher explaining how he got his class excited discussing the meaning of “We, the People” and how it had evolved since the 18th century to embrace not just white males but also women and finally African-Americans. That, frankly, is a much more uplifting story than to suggest that the United States had attained perfection in 1784.
I once met a Japanese-American professor who recalled his time in an internment camp. At the time, he was in his teens and was well educated. He got good treatment from one of the guards for whom he used to write letters, the guard himself being illiterate. The professor was not bitter about his internment. Nonetheless, his family had lost all of their hard-earned property. It was not until the 1980s that Japanese-Americans began discussing their experience in internment camps.

Historians area not and should not be praise-singers. And Barone, despite his two Ivy League degrees does not seem to know how classrooms function. Assign a non-controversial book and see students doze in class. Assign one with which at least some of them disagree and see them come alive. A good prof will not let his students get away with just “I hate this book;” or “the author is a jerk” or variations thereof, but will challenge students to explain why the author’s arguments are unsound, unsupported by evidence, etc…
Come to think of it, Barone’s article should be assigned to many classes. Profs could then sit back and see how their students tear it apart: where is the evidence? What sources does he cite? And so on. They would recall that discussion much better than any names and dates thrown at them in a dull lecture.

yulsie · August 23, 2006, 9:11am

I think we should just send students to Koran schools and be done with it.

spoonyj · August 23, 2006, 9:29am

DRJ4,

I asked because often those who decry the “liberal” intelligentsia as a threat to democracy are the same people who oppose tenure, a system designed to ensure the free exchange of ideas necessary for democracies to thrive. It’s one of those moments where the devotion to democracy comes up against the devotion to free-market principles, often leading to inconsistency in the positions of some conservative critics of higher education.

hayden · August 23, 2006, 12:17pm

DRJ4, there seems some friction between your concern about the tendency of the (allegedly) liberal university professors to be liberal, against your concern that too many college kids do not have an adequate grasp on American history. Do you think the lack of historical knowledge leads to insufficient appreciation for America’s goodness? If so, how do you reconcile the fact that perhaps the most highly educated and more knowledgeable tend to be (allegedly) more liberal, which you appear to equate with lack of appreciation of America’s goodness?

On a different but related point, with regard to the low level of knowledge of American history: to understand the potential ramifications of the statistics you cited, it would be interesting to evaluate whether and/or to what extent the lack of knowledge of American history simply echoes the lack of knowledge of world history (in other words, is American history being singled out, or is it just a lack of interest in anyone’s history).

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 12:45pm

Hayden,

Thanks for your response. Briefly, I believe:

<ol>
<li>Most university professors who teach in the liberal arts/social sciences are liberal, not allegedly liberal.</li>
<li>Students at all levels have a poor grasp of the basic facts of American history. Maybe world history, too, but I haven’t researched that enough to address it. In general, I think many American students are taught writing, expression, and how to form an opinion but often they learn a limited amount of basic facts in many subjects. Why? Because our educational system doesn’t want to stifle their creative juices. It’s the Montessori system gone wild.</li>
</ol>

No, I think the lack of historical knowledge leads to insufficient appreciation for democracy and Western Civilization.

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 12:49pm

Marite,

Ah, Voltaire. The French champion of civil liberties who believed that the people are not fit to govern themselves or, as Wiki puts it:

.

Tarhunt · August 23, 2006, 12:56pm

Let me throw in a twist if you will (or even if you won’t ).

I would say that it is vitally important that students be very aware of the difference between the reality of American history and the myths.

Here is why.

The US is not really a “nation” in the traditional sense. When we say we are “American,” it is not the same as the French saying “We are French.” We
Americans do not share (in many cases) a common genetic heritage or even a deep cultural heritage. This country exists because of implied agreement, among American citizens, that the principles on which it is founded are worthwhile and worth protecting and defending, if necessary.

Unfortunately, many Americans do not see the US as a nation of principle and law, but as something entirely different. Read what they have to say over time and one will find that, in fact, their identification as Americans has more to do with territory, tribalism, nationalism, and even (God protect us) religion. Their mantra appears to be, “My country; may she always be right but my country right or wrong,” a quote that might have provided comfort if carved on the inside of the guard towers at Treblinka.

These people represent a very real threat to the America the I love, the one of principle and law, because they don’t appear to be terribly interested in principle or law. If we must violate the Constitution to give more power to the executive branch to conduct illegal wiretaps, then do it. If it might catch some terrorists to keep everyone suspected of terrorism locked up in prison without benefit of trial, then do it. If we are the true defenders of America, and if we must break in to a Watergate office to stop the evil doers who would make America weak, then do it. If we are at war with the Japanese and it makes me feel safer to lock up everyone of Japanese descent, even if they are American citizens, then do it.

History that points out our flaws is anti-nationalistic. It provides some inoculation (but not much, it would seem) against repeating human rights abuses and other mistakes of the past. It is very important to understand that hypocrisy is the enemy of principle, and that it is principle, as embedded in the underlying law of the Constitution, that is the most important thing in America. Without it, we are not America at all, but just some other nationalistic tribe hell bent on self-interest in the exercise of our power.

I believe that those who want to sanitize history so that our students learn only the good and never the bad are America’s real enemies. Or, at least, they are the enemies of what is good about America.

DRJ4 · August 23, 2006, 1:03pm

I’m confused, Tarhunt. Who said to teach only the good? Michael Barone’s point is that we have to teach the good with the bad but it seems some teach only the bad. If teaching only the good is despicable, it’s equally contemptible to teach only the bad.

Tarhunt · August 23, 2006, 1:52pm

DRJ4:

Well, let’s take a look at what was actually said, shall we? (all following sarcasm intended for Barone, not for you)

“We are taught that Japanese-Americans were interned in World War II – and not that American military forces liberated millions from tyranny.”

Take a look at what he’s writing. Yes, of course, we Americans went to WWII for a noble purpose. We had no interest in the outcome at all. Our interest was to “liberate millions from tyranny.” It had nothing to do with the fact that we were attacked and then responded to a declaration of war from Germany with our own counter-declaration. And the fact that we told Western democracies to go fish for more than two years before being dragged in against our will. What he, apparently, wants schoolchildren taught is that we noble Americans, out of the noble goodness of our hearts, sacrificed the lives of over 300,000 soldiers in order to liberate others, just because we are so very, very GOOD and so very, very selfless.

Or let’s take this one:

“The slave trade was ended not by Africans, but by the Royal Navy, with aid from the U.S. Navy even before the Civil War.”

Yep, we noble Americans again. We hated slavery so much that we helped the British Navy to stop the slave trade RIGHT when we had enough slaves in the South that normal reproduction and relocation from non-Cotton states to Cotton states adequately filled our slave-labor needs.

“In World War II, our elites understood that we were the forces of good and that victory was essential.”

There you have it. American history is about how good we are. How noble. Victory wasn’t essential because of the military threat posed by our enemies, but because were were “the forces of good.”

“Today, many of our elites subject our military and intelligence actions to fine-tooth-comb analysis and find that they are morally repugnant.”

See? Our military and intelligence services are inherently “good,” right? So to subject them to “fine-tooth-comb” analysis is a bad thing. Because they are good. Just like our forces in WWII were good. Just like we are all good because we’re Americans. Inherently good.

“But then the elite young men who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War set out to write a narrative in which they, rather than those who obeyed the call to duty, were the heroes.”

See? The people who declined to serve in the military were “elite” (that wonderful word). And being “elite,” they wrote “a narrative” in which they made themselves look good at the expense of those who “obeyed the call to duty.” There was nothing wrong with the policy that got us into Vietnam, was there? There is no utility in looking at the legacy of colonialism in Vietnam, the complex interaction of the communists and anti-colonialists, the authoritarianism and tyranny of various South Vietnamese governments, the conduct of the war itself, or any moral ambiguity whatsoever. Those who obeyed the call of duty never did so because they were drafted and had few or no options, did they? No. The implication is that we are the good guys. They were the bad guys. Get it? American; morally superior. Everyone else; morally inferior. And since we are always the good guys and “they” are always the bad guys, nothing we do can possibly be morally suspect. Right?

Or, lets just take one of the first things he said:

“Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam.”

Do you see? People in parts of the Middle East have absolutely no reason to dislike or distrust us wonderful Westerners. No Westerners have ever had troops there for imperialistic reasons, have they? If they don’t like us, it MUST be because they are inherently bad and hate us because we are inherently good. It seems they hate our freedoms and don’t merely want us to leave them alone, they want to conquer us!!! Yes!!! They want to send that Islamo-fascist Navy, with its 35 aircraft carriers, 1,300 nuclear subs, 5,000 surface ships, and army of 40 million well-trained, well-equipped soldiers to attack my Aunt Maude in the aisles of Wal-Mart.

“But they (you know, the covert “elites” and “intelligentsia”) have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness.”

Confidence in its goodness. We are good. We are very, very good. Better than others, don’t you think?

Or maybe we’re just human like everyone else? We have a government of checks and balances designed to help us fight our lesser natures, which aren’t so good at all. And maybe we’d better be reminded that we aren’t inherently good if we don’t want to allow those we elect (and many of those we don’t) to destroy those checks and balances.

People who want to turn our history into a fairy tale are no different, in my book, from Japanese history books that call the “Great East Asia War” a necessary Japanese response to Western economic aggression. In both cases, that sort of approach to history is likely to lead to further abuses.

Hanna · August 23, 2006, 2:06pm

If this is untrue of Bryn Mawr – where I, a mainstream Democrat, was part of a tiny cluster at the right end of the political spectrum – then I suspect it is untrue everywhere.

The issue isn’t whether there are individual kooky professors out there. Of course there are, and they come in many flavors. But that doesn’t mean that a student’s entire education is going to be blind in one eye. Maybe none of the 55 “elite institutions” requires a course in American history, but it’s also true that none allows a student to graduate after studying with just one professor.

DRJ, are you alleging that if the questions had asked the students about Thomas Jefferson’s slaves and the Japanese internment camps, they would have done better on the quiz? If not, then this is about ignorance in general, not about a political slant in education.

As a Montessori alum who does just fine when it comes to knowing facts – I made it onto “Jeopardy!” when I was 15 – I’m skeptical that this is really the problem with American education. The problem seems to be inadequate education across the board, especially in the least politicized areas like math. I’d love to meet these fact-ignorant kids who were taught about forming opinions and written expression. I don’t think they know any more about effective communication than they do about the Civil War.

Are American Universities the "Covert Enemies" of America?

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