518
PARTISAN REVLEW
pursuits may not receive their inspiration from politics - or, for that
matter, from religion, aesthetics, the market, personal experiences, or
what have you - but if the university is to stay true to its mission , if it is
to continue to carry out its vital functions for individuals and modern
society, it is essential to understand that politics cannot be made into the
touchstone of
any
academic work.
The inability of the rank and file of academics to comprehend the
implications of a politicized agenda for the future of the academy reveals
the university's fundamental failure to provide clear intellectual criteria
that would allow academics to sort out the legitimacy of multiculturalist
claims in an intellectually responsible manner. The political nature of the
agenda of such claims also provides a sorry testimony to the intellectual
shallowness of the multiculturalist movement itself. The combination of
unrelenting agitation by feisty though wrongheaded multiculturalists on
the one hand, and the quiescence of a woefully underprepared and intel–
lectually slothful professoriate on t,he other, have brought the university
today to the point of self-destruction.
Future social historians are likely to decide that the most powerful
instrument in bringing about the erosion of the modern university and, I
would argue, of our civilization as well, was none other than a multi–
culturalism left unexamined by a soft-thinking, though well-meaning,
professoriate which seriously believed that by giving in to the demands of
multiculturalists, academic harmony and enduring human felicity could
be achieved.
It
is one of the sad facts of the academy that its denizens
tend to view disputes over the value of the Western world as quixotic, if
not mad , and to enter the fray in defense of the unique achievements of
Western thought and civilization would appear to border on the suicidal
for most. Rather, they prefer to get on with their ca reers, bask in feel–
ings of good fellowship, and display "good" sentiments toward the pur–
suit of political agendas of which they have little or no knowledge.
While the record shows that a few courageous scholars have taken
the lead in drawing attention to gross inaccuracies in particular multicul–
turalist claims, and even more appear to be willing to admit, at least in
private, that many of the new paradigm's stated premises are counterfac–
tual and logically flawed, we have yet to address the basic, almost exis–
tential questions at issue in the current debate. The paradox of our cur–
rent situation is that unless we do so, we stand little chance of channel–
ing the mindless onslaught against the essence of the modern university in
intellectually productive directions. And yet, if we are to understand the
seriousness of multiculturalism's challege, a review of the distinctive intel–
lectual achievements ofWestern thought is precisely in order.
The multiculturalist paradigm, I would argue, harbors three distinct
