EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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of funds, I am convinced that our problems in first line are moral and
ethical: we need liberal values without knee-jerk liberalism; humane
treatment of all citizens driven by humanistic principles rather than guilt.
And we must get people to realize that those of us who believe that
with rights there come responsibilities are, in fact, concerned citizens
rather than reactionaries or simply too old to understand. I myself would
like my grandchildren, and everyone else's, to have the opportunities I
was offered when I came to New York as a young refugee : to get a free
and excellent education which, when I didn't handicap myself, allowed
me to grow and develop.
.
Some of you may want to speak directly to fighting political cor–
rectness; others may want to focus on the value of restoring history, phi–
losophy or mathematics as central subject matter, and at specific age lev–
els; and yet others may want to address various means of re-education. In
any event, I expect us all to argue sharply, to help clarify some of these
issues, and, if possible, to suggest directions for future action. Who wants
to
go first?
Jean Elshtain:
I would like to address several of Edith's questions. Edu–
cation always has political implications, at least in the social sciences and
in the humanities. But that is not the issue here. Instead, it is politi–
cization . It's politicization that has crept in under an exclusive ideologi–
cal rubric, which has met no paradox, no irony, no ambiguity, and
permits certainly no counterargument. This position combines cynicism
with naivete, leads to dogmatism in the classroom and silliness in the
polis. Of course moral and political issues belong in classrooms - but as
debate and inquiry, not as dogma.
I'll give an example of how this type of dogmatism might work.
(I'm sure each of us has examples.) Imagine a university teacher of nine–
teenth century British literature who presents a syllabus which excludes
George Eliot. I daresay that there would be a hue and cry; a delegation
might appear and point to this remarkable omission; and the department
chair would pay a visit. He or she would ask whether this was due to
sexism, or whether there was some rationale for this selection. And the
professor would have to answer for this startling exclusion. But consider
another case that isn't hypothetical, but is known to me personally. A
graduate student in English told me that with the blessing of her advisor,
she had completed her comprehensive exams, was working toward her
degree, and she was going to offer a course on the nineteenth-century
British novel which excluded all male writers. I didn't know what to
say, but temporized, "Dickens too?" She said, "Yes," and told me that
this was a woman-identified course and that no men were being read.
Such a stance is immunized from challenge because it is part of a larger
