EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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William Phillips:
Do any of you believe that anything should or can
be done organizationally? Are you opposed to that?
c.
Vann Woodward:
I think there are some powerful people who are
speaking for our viewpoint in the institution, and I think we ought to
use them for what it's worth in promoting our ideas and asserting our
values.
William Phillips:
What kind of organization are you referring to?
C.
Vann Woodward:
The university.
William Phillips:
I see, take advantage of the university itself.
C.
Vann Woodward:
There are publications and facu lty who have in–
fluence. That's an organization. I think it would be difficult to suggest
another type of organization that could advance the cause further.
Members of the American academy have a unity they don't express, and
they've been divided by fear of offending, of being out of line, or of be–
ing politically incorrect. We've got to regain our confidence and assert
our values, and that's not primarily an organizational matter but an
individual one - a profession of good teaching.
Irving Louis Horowitz:
There are already many, many organizations
that did not exist ten years ago or twenty years ago. In sociology, for
instance, you now have a complete spin-off of demography, five national
associations of criminology, three national associations of urban affairs.
People are not hidebound or locked into their old professional associ –
ations.
William Phillips:
What roles do these organizations play? What
IS
their nature?
Irving Louis Horowitz:
They advance the debate and provide a hos–
pitable environment for research. If a demographer wants to do serious
demography, it is not feasible within the demographic society itself.
These groups are not uniform in political orientation. But their purpose
is to provide hospitable environments within a university or within the
larger world of learning. The Rand Corporation in California is a hos–
pitable environment; so are Lincoln Laboratories and Research Associates.
Many of the people at this table have, I'm sure, multiple associations,
professional as well as non-professional. Academic life is remarkably dif–
ferent than it was fifteen or twenty years ago. In the area of political sci-
