Politicizing Academic Life

A lot of space on insidehighered.com is devoted to debating whether or not there has been a politicizing of academic culture. Many articles and commenters have suggested that it is only right wing ideologues or the seriously misinformed who have complained about left wing bias at universities.

As one who has expressed concerns about political bias at universities, I can say that it is actions such as this resolution that cause concern about the incorporation of an activist agenda into academic life.

In the first place, at whom is the resolution aimed? Are they sending it to various insurgent factions that are weekly slaughtering civilians in mosques, markets and schools? Is it aimed at the government of Iran that is shipping sophisticated weapons into Iraq? Obviously not. It is suggesting that the violence is caused by US policy and by inference, if we were to leave, presumably the violence would stop.

The resolution is clearly aimed at pressuring the US to withdraw from Iraq. While that may be a reasonable thing to do in terms of American interests, it is hard to see how that is going to end the violence there. So it is somewhat disingenuous to even call it an anti-war resolution.

One can debate the merits of the Iraq war and I think clearly it has proven to be a lot more problematic for the US than any of its supporters anticipated. But that is not really the issue raised by the resolution. The question is whether the war is so clearly morally reprehensible that the professional organization representing American professional historians should commit itself to one sided proselytizing against it.

Politics is very different from education. Its goal is to convert people and enlist them in support of a particular cause or candidate. It is not about intellectual inquiry. The purpose of speeches, pamphlets, demonstrations, rallies, petitions, resolutions and the like is to convince people of a particular set of positions. It is not to present an objective set of views and allow the individuals to make up their mind. That is fine for politics but it is not so great for education.

One sidedness is what one expects in the political world and opponents of the war are under no obligation to make Bush’s case for him. If you want the US to pull out, you want to make supporters of the war feel as uncomfortable as possible for doing so. That is politics and it seems to me that the point of the historical society’s resolution is to tell its members they are going to feel unwelcome if they don’t share the society’s official opinion about US policy.

That’s fine for a political advocacy group. You don’t expect to find pro-choice groups defending the opinions of right-to-lifers. But for a group of professional historians to declare a correct political position on as controversial topic as the Iraq War is very problematic and calls into question their commitment to education. If they are professionally making objectivity subservient to advocacy, can their academic intentions still be trusted.

There is a big difference between indoctrination and education. Propaganda is not scholarship. But by passing a one sided resolution on the war in Iraq, the historical society suggests that they are unclear about the distinction.

Jonathan Cohen, Professor of Mathematics at DePaul University, at 7:01 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Back to the Peace Congress Era

This story brings up depressing memories of my readings in mid-20th century history, especially regarding those episodes in which big gaggles of Western intellectuals would get together with Stalin’s approved writers and artists in venues such as the Waldorf to display themselves as delegates of international “Peace Congresses.” They too would issue all sorts of politicized and anti-American statements, usually condemning the warlike intentions of the Truman administration while praising the USSR for spreading peace and brotherhood around the globe. Plus ca change!

Patrick, at 8:10 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Politicizing the Academy and other Silly Myths

It is rather silly to argue that there is some clearly defined boundary between the political and the non-political in academic life. Biologists, for example, routinely insert themselves into political arguments over the teaching of evolution in the public schools. When a number of climatologists started talking about global warming twenty years ago, they were widely derided as “junk scientists” with an “agenda", whose political views were driving their research. Now, of course, their position is so mainstream that even the Bush administration has given up fighting against it.

In both cases above, scientists were saying, in effect, we have a level of expertise that qualifies us to join these controversial political debates. Moreover, scientific associations were willing to put their prestige and credibility behind these arguments despite the fact that their members were not in unanimous agreement. Even today, there are climatologists who doubt global warming theory and at least a few biologists who reject Darwin.

Similarly, when the American Psychiatric Association declared in 1973 that homosexuality was not a mental disorder, the reaction from the right wing was quick and furious. They insisted that the APA was substituting political preference for scientific rigor. Thirty years later, we (most of us, anyway) understand not only that the APA’s science was good, but also that their political statement made an enormous and positive difference in helping lead to the recognition that gays and lesbians deserve equal rights under the law.

There has always been a lack of respect in some quarters for scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Thus, the assumption that the American Historical Association can contribute nothing to the debate over Iraq other than unbridled ideology. No matter that thousands of historians spend their careers studying the causes and consequences of government’s use and abuse of power. Isn’t it possible, even probable, that the historians’ condemnation of the war is driven, at least in part, by their deep and textured understanding of, you know, history?

(Back in 2003, nearly all the leading political scientists in the “realist” camp of international relations published an advertisement urging the president not to go to war with Iraq. These “realists” are generally regarded as conservatives in terms of their own political views, or so my political scientist friends tell me. It would be hard, therefore, to argue that their missive was dictated by some ulterior ideological motive.)

I have no idea whether or not the AHA resolution will have any impact. Probably not. But it’s funny that many of the same people who criticize academics as being cloistered in their “ivory towers” become enraged when these same professors climb down from the tower to lend their expertise to real-world political debates.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 9:02 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Unfortunately, it just doesn’t matter.

We’ve all heard the old saying: “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.” That speaks volumes as to why it is important to listen to historical scholars when debating modern issues.

For example, if someone were to suggest that the United States try Prohibition again, historians would argue that it would cause a higher crime rate, thus taking a stand against it.

However, not only will people continue to ignore historians (if for no other reason than that many people, in my experience, view scholars as pompous and pedantic), but the low voter turn out for this particular issue suggests that the historians know they’ll be ignored. They’ve learned that by studying the history of the world ignoring history (under redundancy in the dictionary: “See ‘Redundancy’").

Patrick Cline, Student at Schoolcraft College, at 9:21 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Historians Do Count

James Sheehan, a past president of the association, a professor at Stanford University,. . .said “There is only a certain amount of moral capital that we have.”

Prof. Sheehan may have limited moral capital, but mine, like love, is unlimited.

Einstein said it was the responsibility of educators to prevent the corruption of the German government under Hitler.

Application of that maxim to current events requires an evaluation of how the need for money to be elected has caused government officials to pander to the war machine in the United States.

Historians do matter. The low AHA vote could be attributed to the lack of knowledge of how important they are.

They should push for political elections paid by tax dollars to correct the serious flaw in the United States government. It does not matter which party is in power, both need money to get there. The big source of money is those who get the no bid contracts. Appears obvious to me.

Quizzical, at 9:47 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Mr. Cline, For better or worse people do pay attention to what academe says. Decisions are made by people with close ties to academe. Political appointments are made from academe. Government agencies recruit from graduate schools People judges each other by the schools they went to. People want to send their kids to good schools. The list goes on. Only amongst the uneducated people that listen to talk radio is academe disparaged.

Where AHA fails is by sounding preachy and political. They simply are not packaging their arguments the way people that matter are about to do so. Personally, I think the AHA should package their views like legal briefs, which hardly ever purport to be striking out new ground, but rather argue that a given position is the natural conclusion of the law.

Unapologetically Tenured, You raise a good point that separation of science or academe and politics is nearly impossible. However, most people (e.g. the biologists) are much better at not being as blatantly political, and don’t go around acting like their solutions are somehow the product of superior minds that will tell others how to live their lives.

Larry, at 10:02 am EDT on March 13, 2007

Spitting in the Wind

Anyone who imagines that anyone of consequence cares about AHA, MLA, or ABA resolutions is almost beyond Quixotic.

But whether that’s a virtue or a vice remains to be seen ...

jm, Prof. at Somewhere, at 5:30 pm EDT on March 13, 2007

Unfortunate

This vote is unfortunate. This is the kind of foolishness that gives credence to attacks on academe for becoming too political. Such attacks are often made by, ironically, very partisan groups that simply want to trade right wing bias for left. What is needed in academe is more of a committment to disinterested, objective research (please, please, no silly replys that ‘objectivity is impossible so we should junk it,’ that makes as much sense as not washing your hands because its impossible to kill all the germs). This vote is foolish. What about historians expertise enables them to morally judge the way? What social scientific methodology have they developed that can reliably and validly classify military actions as wrong or right? A little humility please (for the record I have opposed the war since the ‘get-go’, but I don’t pretend that as a social scientist I have some expertise in the moral correctness of it).

Ken, at 8:25 pm EDT on March 13, 2007

ABA v. AHA

JM, ABA resolutions usually carry more weight because 1) they are the product of deliberation of committees that usually reflect true diversity of positions; 2) because of the expertise that the ABA has in legal matters, the ABA’s positions on legal matters are often adopted by legislatures; and 3) the ABA and its members, being lawyers, has the ability to attain legal results via argument before other lawyers.

PS: I know a lot of people don’t like the ABA. But, that isn’t the issue.

Larry, at 9:35 pm EDT on March 13, 2007