360
PARTISAN REVIEW
of people who look upon the campus as another therapeutic setting for
career advancement through social work has been extraordinary.
Multicultism is most deeply entrenched among the career academic
administrators for w hom any new fad is a potential ticket to
advancement, particularly as in this case when the fad comes with Ford
Foundation funding.
Administrators are largely immune to intellectual argument, but they
aren't immune to the precipitous plunge of academic prestige set ofT by
the recent college funding scandals such as at Stanford, in conjunction
with the negative publicity garnered by the politically correct posturing
on campus. From what I can tell by talking to politicians and their aides
in Washington and elsewhere, the college campuses have suffered a con–
siderable loss in standing. That loss has only been compounded by the
pressures imposed by the continuing economic downturn, which has
forced schools to reconsider their priorities. There is good reason to
think that under these circumstances, the most luxuriant versions of mul–
uti cultism will end up being trimmed.
William Phillips: I
think Fred Siegel is wrong. Yet, if he's right, then
what I think he's saying, as Abigail Thernstrom says, is that there seems to
be no problem.
Abigail Thernstrom:
No, I didn't quite say that.
William Phillips:
It
seems that all we have to do is to let it take its
course. As to Gerald Graff, I just read a piece by him in
The Chrollicle
~f
Higher Education,
in which he defends multiculturalism. He defends it on
highly dubious and questionable intellectual grounds. He says, as though
he's confessing, that he's been teaching
Heart of Darkness
improperly
all
these years, and he beats his breast, saying he should have been pointing
out that Conrad was representing merely the Western imperialist point
of view, that he was not expressing African values. That, he says, is the
best argument for multiculturalism. For the people here, I think, I
needn't belabor the point that this kind of literary criticism may be
all
right for multiculturalists but not for people with critical minds.
Fred Siegel:
I think you're right about what Graff does in print. But
when he 's confronted in public and is asked to defend these positions, he
doesn't. He runs. You're right, when looking in the
Chronicle
nothing
seems changed. I'm not sure the
Chronicle
recognizes that the Berlin
Wall
has fallen yet. But outside those limited spheres Graff backs ofT rather
dramatically. I'm not saying that in the short and medium run there
