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PARTISAN REVIEW
detractors charge, the knowledge imparted by such courses , prop–
erly taught, is essential to understanding the world of our own ex–
perience, regardless of whether one seeks to alter or preserve it. In–
deed, the ideals of tolerance, the limitations of ethnocentrism, the
Utopian visions invoked by critics of Western society and its institu–
tions are all expressed in the literature studied in the course in
Western culture. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that of
all cultures of which we have knowledge, Western culture has been
the most critical of itself.
I have discussed elsewhere, and at length, the manifold ways in
which a course in Western culture on the model of the existing
courses at Stanford contributes to enriching the internal landscape of
the student's mind , regardless of the individual's specialized voca–
tional choice. Essential to such a course is a common core of read–
ings, modifiable from time to time, in the absence of which a coher–
ent , unified program of studies in Western culture , yet allowing for
diversified approaches , cannot be achieved. (See my book,
The
Philosophy
oj
the Curriculum,
Prometheus Press, 1975. A much earlier
discussion will be found in my
Education for Modem Man,
which
sought to apply the educational principles ofJohn Dewey to the con–
struction of a required curriculum of studies for the first two years of
a liberal arts college .)
Before examining more closely the proposed reform of the
course on Western culture, some observations are in order. The fact
that the overwhelming number of students who have completed the
course in Western culture profess to be highly satisfied with the con–
tent and manner of instruction, although relevant, is not a decisive
consideration . Students should be consulted on any matter that af–
fects them, but the faculty, which confers their degrees , bears the
ultimate responsibility for deciding what to teach them, how , and
when . A faculty cannot surrender its authority to pressure groups in–
side or outside the university without stultification.
Secondly , I have already referred to the myth that the tradition
of Western culture is something unitary or monolithic rather than a
complex of conflicting traditions including those of dissent. I would
go further. There is no definitive meaning or moral in any required
text that is necessarily imposed on students by its study.
A competent teacher can, with any required text , play the role
of devil's or angelic advocate. In my teaching days , confronted by a
class of skeptics, I would make them see the force of the logic of
beliefs in transcendence in its strongest and most sophisticated form.
