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PARTISAN REVIEW
free fall . The question is not which classics or almost-classics students
should read, but whether or not they are reading at all or reading any–
thing other than celebrity biographies, feel-good, quick-fix, soul-healing
books, and picture books for adults.
PC Wars,
the volume edited by Jeffrey Williams, gathers a number of
provocative essays about the struggle over what is and what is not politi–
cally correct. To Williams's mind, "the PC scare is a savvy ideological
power play that negates any opposition or critique from the outset, a
highly successful public relations campaign that cushions and justifies the
current corporate redistribution of wealth and the organization of life."
While the question of who is and who is not closing the American mind
is a great deal more complex than some critics of deconstruction and
other reputed intellectual crimes are apt to admit, laying the PC scare at
the doorsteps of corporate America rather than at conditions within the
university is falsely simplistic. Corporations are dedicated to the politics of
the marketplace; as long as people are buying, there is little angst in cor–
porate suites over the ideological issues beloved by academics. If students
want to read Foucault in designer clothes, corporate America does not
tremble.
Many of the themes found in
PC Wars
are also found in Michael
Berube's and Cary Nelson's edited volume,
Higher Education Under Siege.
They write, "The 1990s have not been kind to American institutions of
higher education .. . We are convinced that many of the obstacles col–
leges and universities now face are systemic and will not disappear in our
lifetimes." The essays in this collection approach the subject from a vari–
ety of perspectives, but one theme is shared by
all
of them: the university
is in chaos. The tone of some of these essays suggests a kind of massive
mid-life crisis of the over-educated and unfulfilled who see the world as
one dysfunctional seminar.
This tone is echoed in David Damrosch's informed book,
We Schol–
ars: Changing the Culture of the University.
He argues, "To an un–
precedented degree, American intellectual life today is shaped by the val–
ues and habits of mind inculcated during years of specialized
undergraduate and graduate training." The freewheeling intellectuals of
days gone by have been replaced by "jargon-writing academic specialists."
"Throughout this book," he concludes, "I have been arguing that schol–
ars should be able to do better at working together and listening to one
another." This is helpful and even laudable, but unlikely to happen.
As Diane Ravitch and Maris A. Vinovskis point out in their edited
volume,
Learning from the Past,
American educational reform is stormy,
and education's relation to the larger society is complex. Patricia Albjerg
Graham likens American schools to battleships: they are large and difficult
