COMMENT
Education without Politics
Multiculturalism and diversity, which
used
to
be just words, recently have turned into loaded concepts; what
now is subsumed under "politically correct" was a term the New Left
had used in the 1960s and then forgotten, until reintroduced by the me–
dia. In fact, when I felt compelled to propose a conference, "The
Changing Culture of the University," a little over two years ago, I partly
did so because I became aware that some colleagues who innocently
questioned, during the course of a faculty meeting, the introduction of a
new course on intellectual or pedagogic grounds were being dismissed as
"racist." And I was perturbed further by the fact that afterward these
colleagues would walk out of the meeting in anger and soon withdrew
from faculty affairs and committees. Ultimately, scores of professors
became alienated and restricted themselves to teaching their classes.
Among other things, our conference, "The Changing Culture of the
University," in November 1990 was designed to air these issues,
to
un–
cover what was under the proverbial rug. A month later, Richard Bern–
stein, in
The New York Til'Hes,
described the dominance of those whom
Roger Kitnball has called "the tenured radicals" as "politically correct."
The term has stuck, and come to mean everything and nothing. When I
was invited to over a dozen radio talk shows on the subject last spring,
one host started out by stating that "we all know there are politically
correct people on the right and on the left"; another opened up by
questioning the viability of universities given that they "don't teach
students how to hold on to jobs"; and yet another insisted I solve the
problems inherent in nursery schools through graduate programs - all in
an hour that included commercials for cars and dress shops, a news
summary, and the weather. This is not to say that these hosts did a bad
job, but to point out, once again, how hopeless it is to try educating
our population via the media, how thin the lines are dividing
information, entertainment, and politics.
We all know that media coverage is useful and necessary; that it leads
to the public discussions which are imperative in a democracy, if only to
pass legislation that may remedy - and often hopelessly worsen and com–
plicate - any subject that happens to be on the table. So, whatever topic
gets aired soon is being transformed into politics, beginning with who is
invited on what show, how many from each side are represented, who is
the host, and so on. This inevitable politicization, stemming from the
need to educate via the media, has induced a great deal of posturing
about the state of higher education. These conditions do not tend to
further integration and understanding. True, the media, just like
Partisan
Review,
invites protagonists with diverse viewpoints in order to have them
