Tightly Wound

If it weren't for Stanley Fish, my blood pressure would be normal

Well, seems that the can of worms that is intellectual diversity on campus has been well and truly opened, turned upside down, and flung wildly into blogland. Let me pause a moment to pluck one or two of the meatier specimens from my hair (thanks, Dr. Brandon), and then call your attention to the intellectual diversity debate as it is being played out in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

To recap: David Horowitz creates an Academic Bill of Rights. Read it yourself. This prompts some students to create their own bills of rights. There is debate, which rapidly degenerates into name calling and the magical ability to divine the evil dark motives of those on the other side. I could write another rant about the dearth of logical argument in any academic setting nowadays, but I fear my head would explode from rage during the composition, so let's leave that for another time. Enter Stanley Fish, an academic whose most admirable quality nowadays seems to be the ability to remain in the limelight by co-opting any current issue and turning it into a discussion about sliding signifyers, while simultaneously urging everyone past post-modernism. Stanley Fish: the Madonna of academia. And I don't mean the demure lady with the halo, folks.

Here's Mr. Fish's latest take on intellectual diversity. It's fun! It's pithy! It makes some decent points! And then it takes those points, turns them on their head, and concludes not only that the Academic Bill of Rights can become politically tainted, but that intellectual diversity is a "non-starter." Here's where I must offer an unqualified "Whaaaa?"

Yep, I'm sure that the Academic Bill of Rights will be politically tainted. Just like all the programs Fish lauds as champions of the leftist cause are politically tainted: it's a fact of life, and something that Horowitz understands the universities will wrestle with themselves--my criticism of Horowitz here is with the "pie-in-the-sky-everyone-will-be-rational" idea of academic debate. We all know better. But I digress. Here's the meat of the "intellectual diversity is a silly idea" argument:

But it is a mistake to go from the general assertion that no humanly accessible truth is invulnerable to challenge to the conclusion that therefore challenges must always be provided. That is to confuse a theory of truth with its pursuit and to exchange the goal of reaching it for a resolution to keep the question of it always open.

While questions of truth may be generally open, the truth of academic matters is not general but local; questions are posed and often they do have answers that can be established with certainty; and even if that certainty can theoretically be upset -- one cannot rule out the future emergence of new evidence -- that theoretical possibility carries with it no methodological obligation. That is, it does not mandate intellectual diversity, a condition that may attend some moments in the pursuit of truth when there is as yet no clear path, but not a condition one must actively seek or protect.

To put it simply, intellectual diversity is not a stand-alone academic value, no more than is free speech; either can be a help in the pursuit of truth, but neither should be identified with it; the (occasional) means should not be confused with the end.

Oh, that's a forest? All I see is some trees. Fish is picking some seriously bizarre nits in light of what the actual Bill of Rights states. Nowhere is Horowitz stating that every class MUST offer the opposing viewpoint as equally valid when the opposing viewpoint is objectively silly: the best (and most tired) example here is being forced to present Nazism sympathetically in a WWII course. Of course, Fish is setting up his later argument here, that those evil oppressive conservatives will try and mandate intellectual diversity:

Now if intellectual diversity is not an academic value, adherence to it as an end in itself will not further an academic goal; but it will further some goal, and that goal will be political. It will be part of an effort to alter the academy so that it becomes an extension of some partisan vision of the way the world should be.

And while I'm not naive enough to assume that this won't happen, I also find it amusing that the person warning us most vociferously against intellectual diversity is exactly the same person who used a political agenda to ensure that diversity he finds more politically palatable was mandated and incorporated into the university: If victory for the right meant turning back or retarding the growth of programs like women's studies, African-American studies, Chicano studies, Latino studies, cultural studies, gay and lesbian (and now transgender) studies, postmodern studies, and poststructuralist theory, then the left won big time, for these programs flourish (especially among the young) and are the source of much of the intellectual energy in the liberal arts.

Goose, meet gander. The university system is a perfect example of a partisan vision of the way the world should be. It's insular and political, and right now those politics are tilting left. So, while Fish seems to believe that diluting the academy by creating whole new departments of a certain political slant that might have been better incorporated into existing ones (in the interest of intellectual diversity, yet) is a means of ensuring "intellectual energy," if someone comes along and says that there should be equal time given to opposing viewpoints, then they are partisan, and advocating a position that is a "non-starter."

There are criticisms to be made about the Academic Bill of Rights. Discounting the entire exercise from the get-go as a tool of eeeeevillleee is frankly evidence of a partisan position. To my mind, that's the non-starter.

Posted by Big Arm Woman at February 11, 2004 10:05 AM