Patience is not passive;
on the contrary, it is active;
it is concentrated strength
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Bowdoin, NAS, National Review et al.:
Additional Comments
A number of conservatives besides me in yesterday's post have written about NAS' Bowdoin (College) Project. Eliana Johnson of National Review entitled her piece "Queer Gardens, Pocahontas, and Prostitutes". (I had not read Johnson's post until today, Oddly, the link to the piece is less provocatively titled "What Does Bowdoin Teach? "Identity studies” — but not History 101.) These 3 topics in her article were cherry-picked from recent freshman seminar course titles. I did reference some of these courses in passing, but I didn't want to sensationalize the piece.
I sometimes read the give and take of comments to a post. It gives me an opportunity to flesh out some thoughts on the subject. It is only natural that Bowdoin graduates would be defensive, even the occasional closet conservative. Some of responses are entirely predictable, and my suspicion is that many of the commentators have not read the full report; I skimmed through the 360-page report, this was no hit piece. It was meticulously detailed (e.g., explaining how they identified capstone courses).
Some of the defensive feedback was hey, this is a hard place to get into, there are a lot of very smart students and graduates, our graduates win prestigious fellowships and/or are highly sought by employers. I have no doubt that parents wouldn't be paying $56K a year if they didn't believe in the marketability of a Bowdoin degree. NAS didn't dispute the ranking of the college From an April 3 press release:
Bowdoin is ranked sixth in the nation among liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report. Said Wood, “We picked Bowdoin because of its outstanding reputation. We wanted to find out if the reality matched.” He added, “It doesn’t. Bowdoin has many smart students and excellent faculty members, but it huddles them into a single view on issue after issue.”
The report cites the college’s positions on race, gender, gay marriage, and climate change as examples of Bowdoin’s doctrinaire approaches to social and political issues.There is no honest debate. The courses and policies presume the debates are settled. The progressive standpoint is so systematic that there's an emphasis on locally produced food for campus cafeterias, and they point out campus power is generated by more environmentally-friendly natural gas.
One commentator suggested that the existing "liberating" approach was preferable to the "one-size-fits-all" collegiate/Great Books approach. But the point is you have requirements under each approach. I would argue the collegiate/interdisciplinary approach does a better job of developing higher-order cognitive skills and abilities, that today's graduates need to be able to think for themselves (versus faculty and administration rigging the playing field) and be able to adapt.
Think, for example, of ObamaCare: it manipulates the insurance market, by arbitrarily mandating ordinary expenses and socializing higher costs of favored special-interest groups. If an individual self-insures for minor expenses and buys catastrophic, i.e., real insurance, from a bureaucratic standpoint, his insurance is not recognized. ObamaCare has perverted the very concept of insurance. In the same way, academia with its political manipulations of curricula have perverted the very concept of a college education.
Some of Bowdoin's graduates say, this is not peculiar to Bowdoin; other colleges also promote race/class/gender (RCG) orthodoxy in majors and course selections. What's the point? Bowdoin is a liberal arts college. Let me use an analogy to make the point. During a flight emergency, oxygen masks descend for you and your accompanying child: which do you apply first? Your own: after all, if you fall unconscious, who will look after your child? In a similar sense, if you don't have a broad, deep understanding of Western civilization and US history (and I'm not referring to the tiresome RCG or foreign critiques of US history or policy), how can you adequately compare and contrast the history of other nations or cultures? Anyone who believes today's incoming college students come in with that background is in a state of denial. The observation that you could earn a history degree without taking American history but must take courses beyond Western democracies reflects incompetence and dogma in program design.
Does that mean I don't see the value of covering other cultures, histories, etc.? No. But the courses should compete on their own merits. What is clear is there are a lot of politically motivated courses that are pretentious intellectual crap. Can a bright student overcome a flawed, politically motivated curriculum? Yes. I remember a conversation I had with a high school science teacher. He summoned me after class one day and told me that I didn't have to come to class anymore, that I had my A. He explained if he taught to my level, he would lose the rest of the class, and he thought I could make more productive use of class time on my own. My Mom always thought I would make a lousy teacher because I would expect a room of Ron's, No (I wouldn't expect a short basketball player to dunk a basketball) , but I always thought the greater sin was underestimating students.
Another commentator suggested that he was accepted by progressives at Bowdoin as a token conservative, not unlike how a coed with a sexy French accent might get a lot of attention (my choice of words). Another was incensed about criticisms over those freshman seminar courses--the content was incidental; it was more about writing papers. All of this is besides the point; progressives assert, without a scintilla of proof, that their post-1969 "liberating" model is "superior"; I'm absolutely certain the opposite is true, for much the same reason I'm sure a kosher hot dog is superior to one of those bargain brands with various fillers. I'll finish with an excerpt from the end pages of the report:
If Bowdoin has dissolved into every-student-his-own-curriculum and every-faculty-member-his-own-research-agenda, where is the whole? The whole in one sense is Bowdoin’s emphasis on “critical thinking,” but the real answer is Bowdoin’s emphasis on politics. Politics is enthroned at Bowdoin where Reason once reigned. Like all usurpers, this one presents itself as the legitimate heir of the old order. Bowdoin manages this substitution by claiming that Reason all along was political and that “truth claims,” seen accurately through the lens of “critical thinking,” are only assertions of self-interest by the powerful. Since everything was politics anyway, why not promote the politics you prefer? This is the short route to replacing open-minded liberal education with political activism centered on diversity, multiculturalism, same-sex marriage, sustainability, etc.
Bowdoin does not spend much time debating possible answers. Rather, it has settled doctrine that informs students what sorts of knowledge, habits, dispositions, and aspirations are desirable. What does Bowdoin want all students to learn? The importance of diversity, respect for “difference,” sustainability, the social construction of gender, the need to obtain “consent,” the common good, world citizenship, and critical thinking. The answers embedded in these terms are not, as we have noted, arrived at by careful weighing of arguments and evidence. The general procedure has been for the college president to announce a “commitment,” such as President Mills’s announcement in 2007 that he had signed the “College and University Presidents’Climate Commitment,” or the College’s 2009 release of its “Carbon Neutrality Implementation Plan.” The same procedures underlie Bowdoin’s creation of the Studies programs, its commitment to minority student recruitment, and its determination to increase the number of minority and women faculty members.
College education is always about more than the courses in the catalogue. It is a complex fostering of knowledge, motivations, character, skills, attitudes, and commitments. Bowdoin presents a distinct collection of these welded into a characteristic whole. It teaches a lot, and leaves those who have sampled the extensive cafeteria offerings with the impression that they have eaten a well-balanced meal.
What does Bowdoin not teach? Intellectual modesty. Self-restraint. Hard work. Virtue. Self-criticism. Moderation. A broad framework of intellectual history. Survey courses. English composition. A course on Edmund Spenser. A course primarily on the American Founders. A course on the American Revolution. The history of Western civilization from classical times to the present. A course on the Christian philosophical tradition. Public speaking. Tolerance towards dissenting views. The predicates of critical thinking. A coherent body of knowledge. How to distinguish importance from triviality. Wisdom. Culture.Slavery and Its Current Relevance
One of the questions I would have liked to see then deal with is the phenomenal success of Asian Americans in the classroom and business. Why hasn't the increasing representation of black politicians at the legislative and executive level mitigated black-on-black violence, resulted in better public schools, stabilized the family unit, etc.? I think Williams starts to hint about morally hazardous public policies (e.g., more generous support if the husband or father leaves the family); what about the high percentage of young black males in prison, say, as part of the war on drugs. What constructive public policies, if any, would remedy the situation?
Most libertarians think that slavery would have ended peacefully like it did in England, Brazil and elsewhere, and the way Lincoln and the Republicans conducted the Civil War and its aftermath perhaps exacerbated racial tensions. Dr. Williams, of course, is correct: slavery ended nearly 150 years ago and can't explain more recent phenomena like family fragmentation. In part, I point to government (progressive program) failures.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
U2, "With or Without You". This is the last in my U2 series. Next up: Crosby, Stills & Nash.
