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PAl<-TISAN R,EVIEW
and radicals or liberals choosing to devote themselves to the studies in
the social sciences or in literature from which professors are recruited,
More generally, this kind of self-selection seems to be at work in
faculty recruitment.
In
the case of the social sciences, there may even be
an element of "professional deformation," since its explanatory structures
for economic or social ills tend to relate them to institutional causes, a
liberal mode, rather than to individual responsibility and social disincen–
tives, a conservative mode.
[n
addition, there is the pressure of selective
reinforcement built into the peer promotional system. Without any re–
sort to censorship or confrontation, the current groups in power within
the university can send the appropriate signals of encouragement to the
ideologically compatible and of exclusion to those who reject the cur–
rent trend. Like the great historic universities that flourished on the rites
of succession to professorial chairs, the politicized faculty can also achieve
self-perpetuation if it attains sufficient consolidation of its institutional
power.
[n
terms of community reaction to a process of academic politiciza–
tion, there are two factors that constrain it, apart from its characteristic
inability to match its policies to targeted goals without counterproduc–
tive fallout. One of these is the insularity of current ideological radical–
ism. The goals of the radical segment of the faculty in the thirties or the
sixties were to effect political change in the greater society. Faculty ac–
tivism, whether in teaching students or in more direct forms of expres–
sion, believed that the university or the faculty's position in it should be
a base for political outreach. A political reaction to this activism re–
sulted, and it included some appropriate and many harmful responses.
The current radical f.Kldty community, the Marxists for example, do
not propose to establish or resurrect their social model in the society.
That world having been lost, their goal has been to pursue radical
theorizing separated from the failures of radical practice. The cultural
hegemony is achieved within the academic haven or its cultural allies, but
it is not organized for direct social action.
Multiculturalism also provides a strong reason for the irreversibility
of the present trends, for it enables politicized teaching to be sheltered in
the university within groups which are generally perceived as having suf–
fered deprivation or discrimination on grounds of race, sex, or sexual
orientation. Some forms of Marxism gain immunity from criticism be–
cause they are part of a fenunist movement which represents the point of
view of an historically deprived group.
If
such constraints function in the
general community, they are even stronger among the foundation
boards, university trustees, and other leaders in educational policy, who,
for reasons of conviction or image, tend to avoid confrontation with
groups or individuals who can be perceived as victims.
