Antimulticulture
2005-08-12 12:23:54 UTC
9/11 for Dummies
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19096
By Professor Anonymous
August 12, 2005
Why is it, wondered my faculty friend, that
after 9/11, and after the start of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, all of a sudden professors
without professional experience or expertise in
the subject became experts on the Middle East,
Radical Islam, terrorism, U.S. foreign policy and
the like? These instant experts were eager to
teach students, colleagues -- and anyone they
could get to listen -- about these subjects. They
were especially anxious to ensure that everyone
would adopt their politically correct viewpoints
and have an arsenal of facts to support their views.
We both know, I said, that this is
propagandizing, not educating, and it is an abuse
of the true mission of universities, which is the
pursuit of knowledge, not political ideology. We
see how this undermines academic discipline and
standards essential for the pursuit of knowledge.
You know what I mean: thorough knowledge of the
primary sources and the main scholarship for ones
field; critical and rational analysis of many
different approaches and complex explanations for
the key questions and problems in ones field; a
total commitment to accuracy and honesty, even if
this means sacrificing ones pet theories; and
above all, making sure that our students learn the
importance of these standards. They have to
embrace them fully. Without these, the pursuit of
knowledge leads to the dead end of propaganda and
distorted theories, not truth. We see how
vulnerable students are to the seductive
attractions that instant experts offer with
their simplistic instant explanations and
ideology. This makes insisting on upholding our
professional academic standards all the m ore
important, dont you think?
Sure, said the professor, but theres been a
problem here ever since 9/11 and even before that.
Instant experts and their low standards are
spreading everywhere nowadays.
I know that this is true, and this is my subject
here. The information I am about to present comes
from my own experience at the university where I
teach, from my teaching assistants and students,
from colleagues at other universities, from
professional journals such as The Chronicle of
Higher Education and Academe, the Journal of the
American Association of University Professors, and
from newspapers such as The New York Times and The
Washington Post.
The 9/11 Emergency and Instant Experts
Thus radical professors sought to use their newly
asserted expertise to indoctrinate and radicalize
as many students and faculty as they could;
especially students. [1] Students were too
conservative, said some; the tragic demise of the
ideals of 60s radicalism was at hand, thought
others. This crisis called for action.
In one department at a large public university a
professor of American business history took it
upon himself to organize a "teach-in" with some
other professors--most of whom had no particular
knowledge or expertise that made them logical
choices for this. Meanwhile, faculty members who
did have such knowledge, including specialists on
foreign affairs, Islamic history, political
theory, and military and diplomatic history, were
not asked to participate; they were expected to
attend and be indoctrinated like everyone else.
This event was well- advertised throughout the
university, thus insulting genuine experts who
should have been in charge of the whole thing,
given their qualifications and knowledge. The
qualification for leadership here was leftist
ideology, not substantive knowledge of the issues
and relevant fields.
Another example: a professor of 17th c. British
history organized a panel on American foreign
policy and Afghanistan. He was no expert on the
subject, but considered himself qualified to
organize and choose a panel of speakers who all
belonged to the "No Blood for Oil" antiwar school
of thought. Their analysis of the crisis of
radical Islamists, terrorism, Osama bin Laden,
Afghanistan and the Middle East etc. revolved
around one idea: that our involvement in these
problems was entirely and exclusively aimed at
gaining control of oil pipeline territories and
oil. Not only was the political and cultural
analysis beyond poor, even the economics were
wrong! (there was and is now no oil pipeline in
Afghanistan). Most of the audience, faculty and
some graduate students from the history and
government and politics department, sat quietly
nodding in agreement. Only a few courageous souls
dared to question this analysis and its purported
factual basis, and in so doing risked getting the
disapproval and contempt of the rest of the
audience. Social pressure to accept the teachings
of the pseudo-experts as much as real experts was
evident. Challenging them was not cool.
A third example: a U.S. History professor began
offering an upper-division course on international
terrorism. He had never taught this subject
before, and had no professional training or
experience with the material. What qualified him
to teach such a course? He knew the correct
political approach to the material. He had been an
anti-Vietnam war protester in the 60's, and knew
the importance of indoctrinating students, lest
they become naively complacent in U.S.
imperialism and capitalism, not to mention the
exploitation of the underprivileged all over the
world. The course reading list was one-sided
(left) and predictably anti-American. With no
other points of view included. He continued to
give the course, which was very popular.
One of the most controversial cases involving an
instant expert occurred at UC Berkeley. [2] A
graduate student in English was assigned to teach
a Freshman English course on reading and writing
skills. He decided to turn it into a course on the
Palestinian Resistance, from a strictly
pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli perspective, as
he announced in his course description.
Conservatives were explicitly warned in writing in
the description to stay away from the course. Was
this really a Freshman English writing course? Was
the grad student in English really well-prepared
without knowledge of Arabic to teach
Middle-Eastern political affairs, much less
literature? Was he even qualified to teach Basic
Intifada for Dummies? And what do you suppose
would have happened if a grad student in English
decided to turn Freshman Reading and Writing R1A
into a course on the Israeli cause, strictly
pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian? What if the
instructor warned leftist students who might
disagree to stay away from the course? Hed
probably be driven from the department by
diversity police as some sort of Zionist bigot
who was unfit to teach. This instructor would
never, ever, have received the support of the
Faculty Senate, and the Chair of the English
Department, who all came to the defense of the
pro-Palestinian course and the instructors
academic freedom. Yes, they made him tone down
the course description a bit, and arranged for
extra supervision and for the prospective
students to be assured that they were free to
dissent from the instructors views without fear,
but they did not require him to change the
reading list or balance out the one-sided focus.
And they never questioned his fitness to teach
such a course.
To the question about why this sort of thing
happened, what entitled professors without various
qualifications to claim and act upon their
"expertise," my answer was this. We saw the same
thing happen in the 60's in connection with the
crisis of anti-Vietnam war protests and strikes
and disruption of many campuses. In such an
atmosphere of chaos and emergency, with classes
cancelled and universities on strike, many
radicals and their supporters believed that it was
absolutely crucial to provide guidance and
information to students they presumed would be
"lost" and confused, traumatized by the
disruptions and conflicts, and unable to respond
appropriately without the leadership of those who
did know "the real truth." The need to mobilize
opposition to the war and the military-industrial
complex supporting it seemed urgent. Crisis and
urgency made any radical with a bullhorn and a
vague grasp of basic Marxist-Leninist principles
an expert.
More recently the attacks of 9/11 presented a
similar emergency. All across the country leftists
on campuses became experts overnight, and began
offering teach-ins, lectures, forums, panels,
discussions, using any venue where they could
enlighten the lost and confused to the truth and
politically correct positions based on those
truths. [3] Comparisons with the leftist activism
of the 60s were natural, with some faculty
radicals consciously trying to renew the spirit
and antiwar movement of the 60s. Some of these
professors had been student protesters and
activists in the 60s; this experience was perhaps
enough to support their claim of qualified
expertise. This rush to educate and organize was
widely regarded as a noble and humane pedagogical
undertaking which would help the students to
weather the frightening international crisis. How
else would they be able to grasp what had
happened, what it meant for them, and what they
should do? There was a call for clear, simple
explanations, mostly focused on our role and
responsibility for what had happened. Experts
issued straightforward and specific directives:
1. Promote Sensitivity to Others, Especially Muslims
Prevent any harassment or attacks on Muslims and
people of Middle Eastern and South Asian
background; promote sensitivity to Others and
diversity. As the Association of American Colleges
and Universities official Statement on Higher
Educations Role in the Wake of the National
Tragedy of September 11 said:
Valuing diversity and enabling constructive
intergroup learning have become hallmarks of the
contemporary academy. As we face the current
crisis, we must redouble our efforts to build
broad understanding of the diversity that is a
wellspring both of our democracy and of our
intellectual vitality.
At most universities administrators issued
warnings such as the one at The University of
Southern California:
Our goal was to prevent harassment of students
who shared a common heritage or religion with
those responsible for these crimes. And to that
end the president communicate[d] to all faculty,
staff, and students via e-mail that, while he
condemned the attacks, he also condemned the
harassment of Muslim students, faculty, and staff.
At the same time, student affairs staff contacted
Arab and Muslim student leaders to reassure them
of the universitys support; and in meetings
offered reassurance to Arab and Muslim students
that we did not want anyone unfairly attacked or
questioned about their status in our educational
community.[4]
2. Protest! Oppose War, Capitalism, Imperialism,
Globalism
Oppose war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq;
oppose President Bush and his war-mongering
advisers and their policies; oppose U.S.
imperialism and supporting of vile dictators and
oppressors; oppose capitalism and globalism; and
above all, express this opposition in public
protests and demonstrations. [5] A classic
statement came from Eric Foner, one of this
country's most prominent historians, DeWitt
Clinton Professor of History at Columbia
University, and a past president of both the
Organization of American Historians and the
American Historical Association:
I'm not sure which is more frightening: the
horror that engulfed New York City or the
apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the
White House. 'We will rid the world of
evil-doers,' President Bush announces as he
embarks on an open-ended 'crusade' (does he
understand the historical freight this word
carries?) against people who 'hate us because we
are free'.
Howard Zinn, professor emeritus of political
science at Boston University and the author of one
of the most widely assigned U.S. History
textbooks, expressed similar reactions to the
horrors of 9/11:
Then our political leaders came on television,
and I was horrified and sickened again. They spoke
of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment. We
are at war, they said. And I thought: They have
learned nothing...from the history of the 20th
Century, from a hundred years of
retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of
terrorism and counterterrorism, of violence met
with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.
[....] We need to think about the resentment all
over the world felt by people who have been the
victims of American military action.
At universities all over the country a new
anti-war movement mobilized, inspired by these
sentiments. Organizers argued that imperialism,
capitalism (its cause) and racism were to blame
for what Catherine Lutz, an anthropologist of the
American military at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, calls our permanent
state of war since the late 1930s. Noting that
this war has now come home to roost [sound
familiar, followers of Ward Churchill?] she
attributes it to anticommunism and capitalism:
it has been carried on in the name of stability
for any regime that would don an anticommunist
mantle and allow American business access, hiding
a rotten core of systematic terrorism against its
own people, often with our weapons....the long
reign of nuclear terror by the Soviet Union and
the United Stateswho together took aim at
millions of people in skyscrapers and hovelswas
called defense, or even peace.
Traditional leftist criticisms about the U.S. and
its bullying imperialism became a litany repeated
continually. The favored Leninist paradigms were
invoked to explain everything in a vague way
(Hello! Imperialism the Highest Stage of
Capitalism!). Faculty and students were exhorted
to organize and attend teach-ins and forums to
criticize the American policies that brought this
just revenge upon us and to blame America first.
An early example was the teach-in at the City
University of New York, described in a New York
Post article as a stupid peacefest. Academe
reported that the Post writer:
complained that the forum was dominated by
speakers who looked to the history of capitalism,
colonialism, religious conflict, and class
divisions for answers about why the terrorists
crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on September 11, and that it included
speakers who opposed U.S. military action in
Afghanistan.
3. Protect Academic Freedom and Free Speech (Think
Critically)
Not surprisingly, many objected to these
criticisms and the blaming of America for the
attacks. These objections in turn alerted the
protesters to understand that academic freedom was
in danger, and this produced instructions to
exercise academic freedom and freedom of speech to
the utmost, and test their limits, while
discouraging patriotic displays and flag-waving.
The American Association of University Professors
expressed intense concerns about perceived threats
to academic freedom, especially after the CUNY
peacefest was denounced by the schools
chancellor and some of its trustees. The teach-in
was organized in order to give students an
opportunity to learn about the crisis, lamented
the professor who moderated the event. Right: an
opportunity to learn by being indoctrinated with
recycled propaganda from the 60s. But this raised
grave concerns about an atmosphere seen as
chilling to academic freedom and free speech.
[6] And this near-hysteria resulted in many
universities echoing the AAUPs orders to assert
and protect academic freedom. At USC a typical
proclamation was issued by the administration
focused on ensuring that those who dissent from
the prosecution of a war on terrorism in
Afghanistan and elsewhere can share their views in
a setting of academic freedom. [7] Many
universities issued similar statements. On the
whole, though, there was less concern about the
academic freedom of conservatives (more below).
There were some universities where students,
faculty, and staff were even forbidden to display
the American flag for fear of offending Others
and to avoid crude jingoism.
The message given to students was that patriotism
was offensive and that it was best to blame and
criticize the U.S. for the tragedy and its
underlying causes. [8] Small wonder that besides
organizations for the defense of free speech, also
the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
condemned academias blame America first
response and said that after 9/11 College and
university faculty have been the weak link in
Americas response to the attack, with public
messages [that] were short on patriotism and long
on self-flagellation. [9] When it came to blaming
America first, it was hard to beat the Arabic and
Islamic studies professor who bitterly complained:
Little, indeed, is said about the disastrous
effects of an American foreign policy that has
supported many twisted dictatorships in the Muslim
world and helped thwart democratic reforms, or
about the American-Saudi partnership that turned
the country [Afghanistan] into a breeding ground
for misery and monstrosity. [....]While the
September 11 acts were criminal, the grievances
that fed and inspired them were real... The list
of grievances is long, but it invariably boils
down to the obscene indifference to the loss of
human lives that do not appear on American
television screens...
4. Organize Rituals, Promote Comfort and Community
Spirit
Having encouraged students to avoid seeking
comfort and collective solidarity with the
American majority in support of what they
portrayed as an unacceptable patriotic national
response to the crisis of 9/11, there remained the
problem of finding appropriate sources of comfort
and emotional release. Universities and colleges
demonstrated care for students welfare and
development (and heeded the importance of good
university publicity) through organized rituals of
mourning, candlelight peace vigils, prayer
services, planting peace gardens, and writing
messages on huge sheets of paper for public
display. They congratulated themselves on the
moving spirit of community (and diversity!) these
rituals displayed. At the University of Virginia a
teach-in on September 13 ended with a religious
studies professors observation that with the
deeply moving closeness of the university
community at this event he had never seen UVA as
beautiful as it was...You and I have the
opportunity to continue to turn negative energy
and use it to produce more human awareness among
our citizens. Thus:
Students took this opportunity to educate
themselves at a moment when the world seemed
incomprehensible. Disillusioned by the media and
disheartened by many reactions of their fellow
Americans, the University of Virginia, in an
evening, provided its students with the familial
comfort for which they all so desperately longed.
The lines between students and faculty
were blurred as both shared honestly and
sincerely. Despite their grief, they were left
with the tangible sense that, as a group, they
would be able to face the world as one. [10]
At the University of Maryland the vice-president
of student affairs urged administrators to press
faculty members to lead teach-ins, pay special
attention to the concerns of Muslim students, and
recognize the desire for public grieving. This
produced, in addition to many teach-ins, a
ceremonial placing of roses in a fountain and
later burying the flowers in a mound of soil that
would be tended by students. As the vice president
emphasized, Its really important to the grieving
process. ...This is, I think, the defining moment
for this generation of college students. [11]
Universities awarded themselves high scores for
all kinds of sensitivity and took full advantage
of all opportunities to get rid of negative energy
and guide students towards proper
self-actualization. It seemed as though many of
the instant experts could also serve as instant
grief counselors.
So there you have it: if you could master these
concepts, it was easy to become an expert
faculty leader or a student activist leader. These
instructions made things quick and simple for the
followers, especially apolitical students with
little knowledge of the relevant issues. The
clever and empowering principle of blaming America
was easy to grasp and placed control of the
situation in our hands.
Expert Advice: Blame America First
Everyone assumed that amidst the chaos and
mourning students would be unable to concentrate
on the courses they were taking, and would prefer
their professors and teaching assistants to devote
class time to informing them on the political
struggles of the moment. The main guideline
presented was that in the face of a vicious
terrorist attack which precipitated international
crisis and war, the proper response was deep
questions: what did WE do wrong? Why do they hate
US? Why did WE deserve this? The narcissism of
this is striking. It offers a simple explanation
for what went wrong, points to remedies that lie
mainly in our control, requires little or no
understanding of other cultures and peoples except
as victims of our exploitation and political
oppression, and spares us from having to expect of
the Others any sort of cooperation ,
comprehension, or toleration, much less
self-criticism such as ours. This seems to provide
for us reassurance and hope, although it
infantilizes and disempowers our terrorist enemies
(our victims) by stripping them of
responsibility for minimally civilized behavior
and improvement through critical self-reflection
and reform. It is, in a word, condescending.
In the days and weeks (and eventually semesters)
after 9/11 many faculty members responded to the
need for decisive measures to attend to shocked,
frightened students. These students were of a
post-Vietnam, post-draft, post-Cold War generation
with no experience of fears of attacks on our
soil, war, and international crisis. To be fair,
much of the facultys concern was
well-intentioned. Moreover, it was encouraged by
college and university administrators who
cherished the image of the benevolent caring
university nurturing its young and proclaiming its
political and social awareness. One university
public relations official couldnt contain his
excitement in a meeting of deans and department
chairs about how we can use this to improve the
universitys image!. This explains why many
university presidents and administrators not only
allowed but encouraged instant experts to do
their thing.
However not all university presidents were in a
position to be as thrilled with this. As mentioned
earlier, a teach-in at CUNY went over the edge of
decency in the facultys merciless bashing of the
U.S., bringing shameful publicity and disgrace to
the university. [12] And who can forget how poseur
professor of ethnic studies Ward Churchill, with
his instant expert rants against U.S.
imperialism and tyranny, has polluted the
reputation of the University of Colorado? But for
some instructors this was also a golden
opportunity to recruit and indoctrinate converts
for the left, and to expand its influence and the
effectiveness of its criticism and protest; an
irresistible golden opportunity which could be
presented attractively as the humane duty of
concerned educators in a crisis.
Apart from the concerns of college administrators,
for much of the faculty the traditions of the 60's
antiwar movement were reborn, teach-ins and all.
And as in the past, it was the perceived need to
provide politically correct guidance and knowledge
to help students comprehend the crisis and face
the future that made instant experts out of
faculty members and teaching assistants. This is
what qualified them to begin teaching about Islam
and radical Islamists, about U.S. foreign policy
(a.k.a. imperialism and bigoted hatred of
"Others") and about terrorism and how to respond
to it. What students most need in an international
crisis, they felt, is guidance towards the truly
politically correct, moral, humanitarian, leftist
doctrines, and if possible, organized activism. In
a crisis, those who can provide this guidance are
therefore suitable experts. Radicals with
new-found "expertise" and "truth" about foreign
and domestic affairs strove to minimize
potentially confusing disagreement, dissent,
contrary information and ideas, confident that
they knew what was best for everyone. In addition,
they used this authority to instill leftist
ideology in their students in order to safeguard
the survival of radicalism in future generations.
"Threats" to Academic Freedom?
Three great fears seemed to trouble academics:
concern about heightened patriotism, which they
saw as a potential moral threat to human rights
and their own core beliefs such as
multiculturalism and the evils of American
capitalism; the problem of properly grasping
terrorism, especially because of their claim that
we brought this upon ourselves and were getting,
in the attacks of 9/11, what we deserved; and
grave worry about academic freedom and free
speech, which they claimed were threatened. [13]
No one, however, expressed concerns about
protecting academic standards and the quality of
teaching.
Instead, educators on both sides of the political
divide complained about constraints on academic
freedom, and violations were recorded and reported
by defenders of free speech. But administrators
and professors on the left usually significantly
outnumbered conservatives, and thus the shrillest
outcries about suppression of academic freedom
came from professors on the left, even as their
freedom to criticize and blame America was
continually asserted. Rather, more often it was
expressions of patriotism, even displaying the
flag, and criticism of the left's anti-Americanism
that were silenced, along with conservatives whose
speeches were protested and disrupted. (No
academic freedom for them!). Radicals interpreted
any criticism of their views as suppression of
their academic freedom, using this claim to fight
back and silence their critics. Campus radicals
had little respect for their opponents and
critics, whom they mocked, attacked, and accused
of trying to destroy academic freedom. [14] They
portrayed themselves as victims of right-wing
repression, a posture which strengthened their
bonds to Other victims of American tyranny and
increased their credibility as radical experts on
oppression.
But the academic freedom of the highly qualified
was largely neglected in the frenzy to snatch up
young minds for enlightening to leftist doctrine.
Instant experts were more numerous and vociferous,
usually more stylish and hipand appealingly
rebellious against traditional authority. They
proclaimed their complete freedom to teach almost
anything (from rap music to comic books and
erotica) and expect it to be accepted as
legitimate college course material, and their
teaching was relatively simple, with light
workloads and easy grading. Against these
advantages real experts and traditionalists with
heavy reading lists and course requirements, and
complex ideas and dissent didn't have much of a
fighting chance.
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Union Against Multi-culty
"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19096
By Professor Anonymous
August 12, 2005
Why is it, wondered my faculty friend, that
after 9/11, and after the start of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, all of a sudden professors
without professional experience or expertise in
the subject became experts on the Middle East,
Radical Islam, terrorism, U.S. foreign policy and
the like? These instant experts were eager to
teach students, colleagues -- and anyone they
could get to listen -- about these subjects. They
were especially anxious to ensure that everyone
would adopt their politically correct viewpoints
and have an arsenal of facts to support their views.
We both know, I said, that this is
propagandizing, not educating, and it is an abuse
of the true mission of universities, which is the
pursuit of knowledge, not political ideology. We
see how this undermines academic discipline and
standards essential for the pursuit of knowledge.
You know what I mean: thorough knowledge of the
primary sources and the main scholarship for ones
field; critical and rational analysis of many
different approaches and complex explanations for
the key questions and problems in ones field; a
total commitment to accuracy and honesty, even if
this means sacrificing ones pet theories; and
above all, making sure that our students learn the
importance of these standards. They have to
embrace them fully. Without these, the pursuit of
knowledge leads to the dead end of propaganda and
distorted theories, not truth. We see how
vulnerable students are to the seductive
attractions that instant experts offer with
their simplistic instant explanations and
ideology. This makes insisting on upholding our
professional academic standards all the m ore
important, dont you think?
Sure, said the professor, but theres been a
problem here ever since 9/11 and even before that.
Instant experts and their low standards are
spreading everywhere nowadays.
I know that this is true, and this is my subject
here. The information I am about to present comes
from my own experience at the university where I
teach, from my teaching assistants and students,
from colleagues at other universities, from
professional journals such as The Chronicle of
Higher Education and Academe, the Journal of the
American Association of University Professors, and
from newspapers such as The New York Times and The
Washington Post.
The 9/11 Emergency and Instant Experts
Thus radical professors sought to use their newly
asserted expertise to indoctrinate and radicalize
as many students and faculty as they could;
especially students. [1] Students were too
conservative, said some; the tragic demise of the
ideals of 60s radicalism was at hand, thought
others. This crisis called for action.
In one department at a large public university a
professor of American business history took it
upon himself to organize a "teach-in" with some
other professors--most of whom had no particular
knowledge or expertise that made them logical
choices for this. Meanwhile, faculty members who
did have such knowledge, including specialists on
foreign affairs, Islamic history, political
theory, and military and diplomatic history, were
not asked to participate; they were expected to
attend and be indoctrinated like everyone else.
This event was well- advertised throughout the
university, thus insulting genuine experts who
should have been in charge of the whole thing,
given their qualifications and knowledge. The
qualification for leadership here was leftist
ideology, not substantive knowledge of the issues
and relevant fields.
Another example: a professor of 17th c. British
history organized a panel on American foreign
policy and Afghanistan. He was no expert on the
subject, but considered himself qualified to
organize and choose a panel of speakers who all
belonged to the "No Blood for Oil" antiwar school
of thought. Their analysis of the crisis of
radical Islamists, terrorism, Osama bin Laden,
Afghanistan and the Middle East etc. revolved
around one idea: that our involvement in these
problems was entirely and exclusively aimed at
gaining control of oil pipeline territories and
oil. Not only was the political and cultural
analysis beyond poor, even the economics were
wrong! (there was and is now no oil pipeline in
Afghanistan). Most of the audience, faculty and
some graduate students from the history and
government and politics department, sat quietly
nodding in agreement. Only a few courageous souls
dared to question this analysis and its purported
factual basis, and in so doing risked getting the
disapproval and contempt of the rest of the
audience. Social pressure to accept the teachings
of the pseudo-experts as much as real experts was
evident. Challenging them was not cool.
A third example: a U.S. History professor began
offering an upper-division course on international
terrorism. He had never taught this subject
before, and had no professional training or
experience with the material. What qualified him
to teach such a course? He knew the correct
political approach to the material. He had been an
anti-Vietnam war protester in the 60's, and knew
the importance of indoctrinating students, lest
they become naively complacent in U.S.
imperialism and capitalism, not to mention the
exploitation of the underprivileged all over the
world. The course reading list was one-sided
(left) and predictably anti-American. With no
other points of view included. He continued to
give the course, which was very popular.
One of the most controversial cases involving an
instant expert occurred at UC Berkeley. [2] A
graduate student in English was assigned to teach
a Freshman English course on reading and writing
skills. He decided to turn it into a course on the
Palestinian Resistance, from a strictly
pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli perspective, as
he announced in his course description.
Conservatives were explicitly warned in writing in
the description to stay away from the course. Was
this really a Freshman English writing course? Was
the grad student in English really well-prepared
without knowledge of Arabic to teach
Middle-Eastern political affairs, much less
literature? Was he even qualified to teach Basic
Intifada for Dummies? And what do you suppose
would have happened if a grad student in English
decided to turn Freshman Reading and Writing R1A
into a course on the Israeli cause, strictly
pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian? What if the
instructor warned leftist students who might
disagree to stay away from the course? Hed
probably be driven from the department by
diversity police as some sort of Zionist bigot
who was unfit to teach. This instructor would
never, ever, have received the support of the
Faculty Senate, and the Chair of the English
Department, who all came to the defense of the
pro-Palestinian course and the instructors
academic freedom. Yes, they made him tone down
the course description a bit, and arranged for
extra supervision and for the prospective
students to be assured that they were free to
dissent from the instructors views without fear,
but they did not require him to change the
reading list or balance out the one-sided focus.
And they never questioned his fitness to teach
such a course.
To the question about why this sort of thing
happened, what entitled professors without various
qualifications to claim and act upon their
"expertise," my answer was this. We saw the same
thing happen in the 60's in connection with the
crisis of anti-Vietnam war protests and strikes
and disruption of many campuses. In such an
atmosphere of chaos and emergency, with classes
cancelled and universities on strike, many
radicals and their supporters believed that it was
absolutely crucial to provide guidance and
information to students they presumed would be
"lost" and confused, traumatized by the
disruptions and conflicts, and unable to respond
appropriately without the leadership of those who
did know "the real truth." The need to mobilize
opposition to the war and the military-industrial
complex supporting it seemed urgent. Crisis and
urgency made any radical with a bullhorn and a
vague grasp of basic Marxist-Leninist principles
an expert.
More recently the attacks of 9/11 presented a
similar emergency. All across the country leftists
on campuses became experts overnight, and began
offering teach-ins, lectures, forums, panels,
discussions, using any venue where they could
enlighten the lost and confused to the truth and
politically correct positions based on those
truths. [3] Comparisons with the leftist activism
of the 60s were natural, with some faculty
radicals consciously trying to renew the spirit
and antiwar movement of the 60s. Some of these
professors had been student protesters and
activists in the 60s; this experience was perhaps
enough to support their claim of qualified
expertise. This rush to educate and organize was
widely regarded as a noble and humane pedagogical
undertaking which would help the students to
weather the frightening international crisis. How
else would they be able to grasp what had
happened, what it meant for them, and what they
should do? There was a call for clear, simple
explanations, mostly focused on our role and
responsibility for what had happened. Experts
issued straightforward and specific directives:
1. Promote Sensitivity to Others, Especially Muslims
Prevent any harassment or attacks on Muslims and
people of Middle Eastern and South Asian
background; promote sensitivity to Others and
diversity. As the Association of American Colleges
and Universities official Statement on Higher
Educations Role in the Wake of the National
Tragedy of September 11 said:
Valuing diversity and enabling constructive
intergroup learning have become hallmarks of the
contemporary academy. As we face the current
crisis, we must redouble our efforts to build
broad understanding of the diversity that is a
wellspring both of our democracy and of our
intellectual vitality.
At most universities administrators issued
warnings such as the one at The University of
Southern California:
Our goal was to prevent harassment of students
who shared a common heritage or religion with
those responsible for these crimes. And to that
end the president communicate[d] to all faculty,
staff, and students via e-mail that, while he
condemned the attacks, he also condemned the
harassment of Muslim students, faculty, and staff.
At the same time, student affairs staff contacted
Arab and Muslim student leaders to reassure them
of the universitys support; and in meetings
offered reassurance to Arab and Muslim students
that we did not want anyone unfairly attacked or
questioned about their status in our educational
community.[4]
2. Protest! Oppose War, Capitalism, Imperialism,
Globalism
Oppose war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq;
oppose President Bush and his war-mongering
advisers and their policies; oppose U.S.
imperialism and supporting of vile dictators and
oppressors; oppose capitalism and globalism; and
above all, express this opposition in public
protests and demonstrations. [5] A classic
statement came from Eric Foner, one of this
country's most prominent historians, DeWitt
Clinton Professor of History at Columbia
University, and a past president of both the
Organization of American Historians and the
American Historical Association:
I'm not sure which is more frightening: the
horror that engulfed New York City or the
apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the
White House. 'We will rid the world of
evil-doers,' President Bush announces as he
embarks on an open-ended 'crusade' (does he
understand the historical freight this word
carries?) against people who 'hate us because we
are free'.
Howard Zinn, professor emeritus of political
science at Boston University and the author of one
of the most widely assigned U.S. History
textbooks, expressed similar reactions to the
horrors of 9/11:
Then our political leaders came on television,
and I was horrified and sickened again. They spoke
of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment. We
are at war, they said. And I thought: They have
learned nothing...from the history of the 20th
Century, from a hundred years of
retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of
terrorism and counterterrorism, of violence met
with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.
[....] We need to think about the resentment all
over the world felt by people who have been the
victims of American military action.
At universities all over the country a new
anti-war movement mobilized, inspired by these
sentiments. Organizers argued that imperialism,
capitalism (its cause) and racism were to blame
for what Catherine Lutz, an anthropologist of the
American military at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, calls our permanent
state of war since the late 1930s. Noting that
this war has now come home to roost [sound
familiar, followers of Ward Churchill?] she
attributes it to anticommunism and capitalism:
it has been carried on in the name of stability
for any regime that would don an anticommunist
mantle and allow American business access, hiding
a rotten core of systematic terrorism against its
own people, often with our weapons....the long
reign of nuclear terror by the Soviet Union and
the United Stateswho together took aim at
millions of people in skyscrapers and hovelswas
called defense, or even peace.
Traditional leftist criticisms about the U.S. and
its bullying imperialism became a litany repeated
continually. The favored Leninist paradigms were
invoked to explain everything in a vague way
(Hello! Imperialism the Highest Stage of
Capitalism!). Faculty and students were exhorted
to organize and attend teach-ins and forums to
criticize the American policies that brought this
just revenge upon us and to blame America first.
An early example was the teach-in at the City
University of New York, described in a New York
Post article as a stupid peacefest. Academe
reported that the Post writer:
complained that the forum was dominated by
speakers who looked to the history of capitalism,
colonialism, religious conflict, and class
divisions for answers about why the terrorists
crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on September 11, and that it included
speakers who opposed U.S. military action in
Afghanistan.
3. Protect Academic Freedom and Free Speech (Think
Critically)
Not surprisingly, many objected to these
criticisms and the blaming of America for the
attacks. These objections in turn alerted the
protesters to understand that academic freedom was
in danger, and this produced instructions to
exercise academic freedom and freedom of speech to
the utmost, and test their limits, while
discouraging patriotic displays and flag-waving.
The American Association of University Professors
expressed intense concerns about perceived threats
to academic freedom, especially after the CUNY
peacefest was denounced by the schools
chancellor and some of its trustees. The teach-in
was organized in order to give students an
opportunity to learn about the crisis, lamented
the professor who moderated the event. Right: an
opportunity to learn by being indoctrinated with
recycled propaganda from the 60s. But this raised
grave concerns about an atmosphere seen as
chilling to academic freedom and free speech.
[6] And this near-hysteria resulted in many
universities echoing the AAUPs orders to assert
and protect academic freedom. At USC a typical
proclamation was issued by the administration
focused on ensuring that those who dissent from
the prosecution of a war on terrorism in
Afghanistan and elsewhere can share their views in
a setting of academic freedom. [7] Many
universities issued similar statements. On the
whole, though, there was less concern about the
academic freedom of conservatives (more below).
There were some universities where students,
faculty, and staff were even forbidden to display
the American flag for fear of offending Others
and to avoid crude jingoism.
The message given to students was that patriotism
was offensive and that it was best to blame and
criticize the U.S. for the tragedy and its
underlying causes. [8] Small wonder that besides
organizations for the defense of free speech, also
the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
condemned academias blame America first
response and said that after 9/11 College and
university faculty have been the weak link in
Americas response to the attack, with public
messages [that] were short on patriotism and long
on self-flagellation. [9] When it came to blaming
America first, it was hard to beat the Arabic and
Islamic studies professor who bitterly complained:
Little, indeed, is said about the disastrous
effects of an American foreign policy that has
supported many twisted dictatorships in the Muslim
world and helped thwart democratic reforms, or
about the American-Saudi partnership that turned
the country [Afghanistan] into a breeding ground
for misery and monstrosity. [....]While the
September 11 acts were criminal, the grievances
that fed and inspired them were real... The list
of grievances is long, but it invariably boils
down to the obscene indifference to the loss of
human lives that do not appear on American
television screens...
4. Organize Rituals, Promote Comfort and Community
Spirit
Having encouraged students to avoid seeking
comfort and collective solidarity with the
American majority in support of what they
portrayed as an unacceptable patriotic national
response to the crisis of 9/11, there remained the
problem of finding appropriate sources of comfort
and emotional release. Universities and colleges
demonstrated care for students welfare and
development (and heeded the importance of good
university publicity) through organized rituals of
mourning, candlelight peace vigils, prayer
services, planting peace gardens, and writing
messages on huge sheets of paper for public
display. They congratulated themselves on the
moving spirit of community (and diversity!) these
rituals displayed. At the University of Virginia a
teach-in on September 13 ended with a religious
studies professors observation that with the
deeply moving closeness of the university
community at this event he had never seen UVA as
beautiful as it was...You and I have the
opportunity to continue to turn negative energy
and use it to produce more human awareness among
our citizens. Thus:
Students took this opportunity to educate
themselves at a moment when the world seemed
incomprehensible. Disillusioned by the media and
disheartened by many reactions of their fellow
Americans, the University of Virginia, in an
evening, provided its students with the familial
comfort for which they all so desperately longed.
The lines between students and faculty
were blurred as both shared honestly and
sincerely. Despite their grief, they were left
with the tangible sense that, as a group, they
would be able to face the world as one. [10]
At the University of Maryland the vice-president
of student affairs urged administrators to press
faculty members to lead teach-ins, pay special
attention to the concerns of Muslim students, and
recognize the desire for public grieving. This
produced, in addition to many teach-ins, a
ceremonial placing of roses in a fountain and
later burying the flowers in a mound of soil that
would be tended by students. As the vice president
emphasized, Its really important to the grieving
process. ...This is, I think, the defining moment
for this generation of college students. [11]
Universities awarded themselves high scores for
all kinds of sensitivity and took full advantage
of all opportunities to get rid of negative energy
and guide students towards proper
self-actualization. It seemed as though many of
the instant experts could also serve as instant
grief counselors.
So there you have it: if you could master these
concepts, it was easy to become an expert
faculty leader or a student activist leader. These
instructions made things quick and simple for the
followers, especially apolitical students with
little knowledge of the relevant issues. The
clever and empowering principle of blaming America
was easy to grasp and placed control of the
situation in our hands.
Expert Advice: Blame America First
Everyone assumed that amidst the chaos and
mourning students would be unable to concentrate
on the courses they were taking, and would prefer
their professors and teaching assistants to devote
class time to informing them on the political
struggles of the moment. The main guideline
presented was that in the face of a vicious
terrorist attack which precipitated international
crisis and war, the proper response was deep
questions: what did WE do wrong? Why do they hate
US? Why did WE deserve this? The narcissism of
this is striking. It offers a simple explanation
for what went wrong, points to remedies that lie
mainly in our control, requires little or no
understanding of other cultures and peoples except
as victims of our exploitation and political
oppression, and spares us from having to expect of
the Others any sort of cooperation ,
comprehension, or toleration, much less
self-criticism such as ours. This seems to provide
for us reassurance and hope, although it
infantilizes and disempowers our terrorist enemies
(our victims) by stripping them of
responsibility for minimally civilized behavior
and improvement through critical self-reflection
and reform. It is, in a word, condescending.
In the days and weeks (and eventually semesters)
after 9/11 many faculty members responded to the
need for decisive measures to attend to shocked,
frightened students. These students were of a
post-Vietnam, post-draft, post-Cold War generation
with no experience of fears of attacks on our
soil, war, and international crisis. To be fair,
much of the facultys concern was
well-intentioned. Moreover, it was encouraged by
college and university administrators who
cherished the image of the benevolent caring
university nurturing its young and proclaiming its
political and social awareness. One university
public relations official couldnt contain his
excitement in a meeting of deans and department
chairs about how we can use this to improve the
universitys image!. This explains why many
university presidents and administrators not only
allowed but encouraged instant experts to do
their thing.
However not all university presidents were in a
position to be as thrilled with this. As mentioned
earlier, a teach-in at CUNY went over the edge of
decency in the facultys merciless bashing of the
U.S., bringing shameful publicity and disgrace to
the university. [12] And who can forget how poseur
professor of ethnic studies Ward Churchill, with
his instant expert rants against U.S.
imperialism and tyranny, has polluted the
reputation of the University of Colorado? But for
some instructors this was also a golden
opportunity to recruit and indoctrinate converts
for the left, and to expand its influence and the
effectiveness of its criticism and protest; an
irresistible golden opportunity which could be
presented attractively as the humane duty of
concerned educators in a crisis.
Apart from the concerns of college administrators,
for much of the faculty the traditions of the 60's
antiwar movement were reborn, teach-ins and all.
And as in the past, it was the perceived need to
provide politically correct guidance and knowledge
to help students comprehend the crisis and face
the future that made instant experts out of
faculty members and teaching assistants. This is
what qualified them to begin teaching about Islam
and radical Islamists, about U.S. foreign policy
(a.k.a. imperialism and bigoted hatred of
"Others") and about terrorism and how to respond
to it. What students most need in an international
crisis, they felt, is guidance towards the truly
politically correct, moral, humanitarian, leftist
doctrines, and if possible, organized activism. In
a crisis, those who can provide this guidance are
therefore suitable experts. Radicals with
new-found "expertise" and "truth" about foreign
and domestic affairs strove to minimize
potentially confusing disagreement, dissent,
contrary information and ideas, confident that
they knew what was best for everyone. In addition,
they used this authority to instill leftist
ideology in their students in order to safeguard
the survival of radicalism in future generations.
"Threats" to Academic Freedom?
Three great fears seemed to trouble academics:
concern about heightened patriotism, which they
saw as a potential moral threat to human rights
and their own core beliefs such as
multiculturalism and the evils of American
capitalism; the problem of properly grasping
terrorism, especially because of their claim that
we brought this upon ourselves and were getting,
in the attacks of 9/11, what we deserved; and
grave worry about academic freedom and free
speech, which they claimed were threatened. [13]
No one, however, expressed concerns about
protecting academic standards and the quality of
teaching.
Instead, educators on both sides of the political
divide complained about constraints on academic
freedom, and violations were recorded and reported
by defenders of free speech. But administrators
and professors on the left usually significantly
outnumbered conservatives, and thus the shrillest
outcries about suppression of academic freedom
came from professors on the left, even as their
freedom to criticize and blame America was
continually asserted. Rather, more often it was
expressions of patriotism, even displaying the
flag, and criticism of the left's anti-Americanism
that were silenced, along with conservatives whose
speeches were protested and disrupted. (No
academic freedom for them!). Radicals interpreted
any criticism of their views as suppression of
their academic freedom, using this claim to fight
back and silence their critics. Campus radicals
had little respect for their opponents and
critics, whom they mocked, attacked, and accused
of trying to destroy academic freedom. [14] They
portrayed themselves as victims of right-wing
repression, a posture which strengthened their
bonds to Other victims of American tyranny and
increased their credibility as radical experts on
oppression.
But the academic freedom of the highly qualified
was largely neglected in the frenzy to snatch up
young minds for enlightening to leftist doctrine.
Instant experts were more numerous and vociferous,
usually more stylish and hipand appealingly
rebellious against traditional authority. They
proclaimed their complete freedom to teach almost
anything (from rap music to comic books and
erotica) and expect it to be accepted as
legitimate college course material, and their
teaching was relatively simple, with light
workloads and easy grading. Against these
advantages real experts and traditionalists with
heavy reading lists and course requirements, and
complex ideas and dissent didn't have much of a
fighting chance.
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Union Against Multi-culty
"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"