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PAR.TISAN REVlEW
value, of the kind of nation that America ought to become. Yet this as–
pect of the controversy primarily applies to the school curriculum in the
formative years before college. Even if the justified decision were to go
against multiculturalism, with a need to stress cultural assimilation into
traditional American values, for example, this would not be a strong ar–
gument against the inclusion of works drawn from other cultural tradi–
tions in college study.
Thus, if the focus could be limited to the educational arguments and
counterarguments for curricular inclusion, the differences of opinion
might be reconciled. But the intensity and depth of the disagreement
suggest that another agenda is present in the debate. The works intro–
duced to cultivate sensitivity to cultures outside the conventional main–
stream are seldom defended or refuted by any empirical evidence of how
an understanding of alternative or dissident culture is attained. Rather,
the position taken on the issue seems to hinge on different grounds.
One ground is the attitude toward the legitimacy of the "raising of
consciousness" as part of university teaching. On this issue, the critics of
"consciousness-raising" courses in the curriculum have argued that such
courses cultivate or presuppose a set of views shared by the instructor and
all of the students. Hence, underlying a decision on curricular expansion
is an attitude toward instruction in which the class is a community of
faith or belief rather than a forum of critical inquiry.
In
the study of a
literary work that is chosen as a representative expression of the values of
a deprived group, the cultivation of sensitivity is transposed into politi–
cization. For in the examination of the work, a spectrum of beliefs that
are not considered sufficiently sensitive or sympathetic to the deprived is
beyond the pale. This tacit adoption of unchallengeable assumptions
about deprived groups has been legitimized, for example, in workshop
courses that focus on human rights violations in selected areas of the
world or in social work classes that concern such issues as homelessness.
With the adoption of representative multicultural texts, views which are
not politically correct become proscribed in the study of literature.
Thus, as noted at the outset, the question of curricular inclusion
shifts from what new works are to be taught to how any text is to be
taught. Two special aspects of the multicultural debate confirm that the
issues go beyond the apparent question of adding new works to the cur–
riculum. One of these is the stress on canon formation; the other is the
stress on the new texts as those of a deprived or victimized community.
LegitimatioH: The Sacred alld the Demonic Texts
Advocates of multiculturalism argue that the prescribed curriculum is
comprised of a canon of texts written by members of the privileged elite
