EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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romantic, to students. And that is troubling. The university ought not
just to turn out specialists but
to
provide a civic forum, to educate peo–
ple to be citizens. If we're losing the ability to do that on a college
level, we are in serious trouble. How do you recapture that? Some of
the civic lessons I got out in the provinces when I was growing up in
Colorado now are seen as silly nonsense.
Digby Baltzell:
Do they still believe those lessons in Colorado?
Jean Elshtain :
I would like to think so. But to show a film like
Mr.
Smith Goes to Washingtoll,
which I do from time to time when I get a
chance to teach politics, makes students laugh. They think it's hysterically
funny that a guy would be that idealistic and just naive. Of course he
should have known that it all comes down to power plays. That's part
of what we're dealing with. What ever happened to the notion of citi–
zenship?
Abigail Thernstrom:
Are you describing a widespread phenomenon? I
think we don't know. I would add that question to AI Shanker's.
Jean Elshtain :
There are modes of analysis. If a student isn't already
cynical we talk about how the film is not so much about Washington,
but about the possibility of what you might do in your own commu–
nity,
about whether being engaged by self-interest is objectionable. And
then to bolster that fact by various modes of analysis, such as economet-
..
.
ncs,
IS
wornsome.
William Phillips :
The last time I taught, which was a couple of years
ago, my students were not cynical at all. If by cynicism you mean that
they don't believe everything they're told, that they know there's a lot
of crap going on in society, everybody believes that. That's not typical
only of cynics. They were also interested in jobs and careers after they
got out of school, as everybody is. But what I found, which is very dif–
ferent from what has been described, is that they shared, almost uncon–
sciously, certain assumptions and certain ideas about society, and about
America and Europe and the West that can come only from certain very
simplified left-wing traditions. They would state things automatically
about the nature of American society. They might even talk about
imperialism, because that word has sunk into their heads. In other words,
they are the recipients of a kind of culture that existed earlier in the
country. They spout it out, but they're not cynical. They believe these
things. They're concerned about poverty, about justice, although they
have cliched and knee-jerk opinions about it all, perhaps that's the way I
