english essay

G ERALD G RAFF

Clueless '* \,.cademe HOW SCHOOLING OBSCURES THE LIFE OF THE MIND

INTRODUCTION

In the Dark All Eggheads

Crn¡lo Cn,rnr. professor of English and eclucation ar the Unir.ersitv of Ilìinois at Chicago. is the author of manv books and articlcs. includine Bet.ond the Cult¿¿¡.e lI'at.s. He s,as winner of rhe AmeriJan Book An,artl in 1Çg2.

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN AND LONDON

rHts BooK ts AN AtrEMrr by an academic to look at academia fromthe perspective of those who dont g"t it. Its subject is cluelessness,the bafflemerr¡, ¿5r,rlly, ".*n"*åìr'rn"_" and resentrnent, feltby students, the general public, *¿ .uá lo"rry

"."d.mics in the faceof the impenetab'ity of the acade*. *"¿¿. It examines some over-Iooked ways in which schoors ""t.;u"* themselves reinforce crue-lessness and thus perpetuate the miscãnception that the life of themind is a secret sociery

{oyfricfr oofy an ai " few qualify.

Given the inherent difficulty of "L¿"roi. intellectual work, somedegree ofcluelessnes

Ir cluelessner, *i ""ì L:r"ff.];ff: i

*" process or education.

"tt. My

"'gr.*.,r,; this book, h";."o ; å:,ïåi,"i.ïH.:Jduelessness by making its ideas, proUt"r*, *d ways of thinking lookmore opaque, narrowly specia'zed, and beyond ,roá¿,""*rr.""n".-ities than they are o¡ need to be. As l ,". ii, my academic intetec¡¡alcuiture is not at ar ir¡ere¡¡ant ,o -t ,*J"*, needs and inte¡ests, butwe ! a very good job of making,, "onäì, if it is.One way we do so is-by obsciring'å. .orru"rg.rrce between acad.e-mia and the popular media. Too oft.;d;"t, *a coreges take interec_tual conversations that resembre the ones students engage in or en-

Are Gray

¡ ') ) a)L')W,

2 I NTRO DU CT¡ ON

coünter in the popular media, and make them seem uruecognizable'

as well as no firl. To put it another way' schooling takes students who

,r" p"rfe.tly street-smert and exposes them to the life of the mind in

*"y, ,frra -"t" them feel dumb. why is this? Why in many cases-do

strået smarts not only fail to evolve nan¡rally into academíc smarts' but

end up seemilg opposed to acailemic smarts' âs if the two can't coexist

inside the ttt"" ¡."¿l Pa¡t of the reason has to do with the legacy

of American a¡ti-intellectualism, which elevates hardheaded common

,.or. *o zupposetlly impractical academic navel gazing But educa- tional institutions themselves contibute to the

problem by making the

cr:lture ofìdeas and arguments look opaque ald therefore more remote

than it actually is ftom the nisdom of the slreel

How this happens, "how schoolir:g obscures the life of the mind'"

is my central concem' fargon and specialized terminoiogy' L" 1""

frequently blamed culprits, are only the tip of the institutional icelere'

f too am amused by the satires on oPaque academic iargon produced

by ioumalists, siand-up comics' and disaffected academics' But blam-

iog ,h" .-i.,.nigililiÇ of acailemia exclusiveþ on jargon and obscure

#,iog pr"u"rr,t o. &om recognizing deeper sources of o|fus1tion

that ar'e ìootea in the way academia organizes and thinks about itself'

To eppreciate these deeper cåuses' we need to go beyond spoofs of

*ö," the way schoois and colleges represent the cultwe of ídeas

and atguments. --t ah. cultwe of ideas and arguments' I ¡efer to-that l*t*dft bÇ entity that spens the academic a¡rd inteilectual worlds on

the

orr. ú-d á¿,n" ,,."" of journatistic public discourse on lhe other'

l¡ot ¡1 ""..4"*i.." are "intellectuals'" and intelectuals come in many

Af*rrt typ"r, includirrg academic scholars' journalistic public intel-

ì.ctoal", p;i.y works, information malagers' media pundits' ald legal

and gove'rnment professionals Vhat these difnerent types have in com-

-oo] Ao- tft r!"eatch professo' to the newspaPer editorialist to dle

mythical educate<I lay person on the street' is a corrmitment to articu-

lai:g ideas in public. Whatever the diffe¡ences between their special-

L"àlrrroor, tÌt y h"u. all tearned to play the following game: listen

;;ó; othe¡s, s.,mmatize them in a recognizable way' and make

tN_TRODUCT¡ON 3

yoru own relevant argument. This argument lite¡acy, the ability to üs-

::TJ,:i-"",* and respond. is rightly ,t"*.a * äoi-,i r"i"g

For American students to , percent-they need t ImrE, th::

better-all of them' not iust twenty

is the name of the *"-"; ;i.ï|,äiä'#iffi"ffi iiacademia obscures, generally by h.iding ,t' ," pfu" *,*-å"ai, " **disconnected clutter of subjects, disciplines, lnd ."*r* il" .n*.cognitive overload represented by the American *a.il;.vents

T::::iO*" fiom derecting and then teaming,h. _;;';í;.

""-oerlFng algument game that gives coherence ú it all. The coilege curricuìum savs_to students, in effect, ,Come e¡d getit, but you'¡e on you¡ own as to what to *rk"

"f i .X.;;.;;;'ä;.

has rightly observed, American college. .op.."t" urra.rã. "*ä]oo""that students know how to do it_*-lf ,ú J";;,h.;,ü,_iï:*r.

l,-.,5'f:1"1.-1 And cotieges play harã to

", "ilrriä,n oundergraduates, but with the lowe¡ schools. ffr. ,.froot.,.r"

""ry ablame for failing to prepare students fo. .o["g",

"od lt i. irra*;

";dal that, aside from a few "sta¡" schools thai¡esembl" *"rd .;;;..,.American bigh schools still don,t s". lt ",

tt "i,

*iì.ar"ä nr'.ï*.. *their.students for college, even though everyUoay ,ro* "gr"å,

tli .ol_legc is a_vrrtual prerequisite for success and a deceat life. But it is thefailure of higher education to clarify its cult".. ,f ia.", *¿ Jä."t, Aat

le^ave¡ Ae

lctrools unable to prepare thei¡ students fo..oliîg". Th"mystification of academic cultu¡e tricHes d"*" Êr;;; ;p.'""'

'

, to1" readers r¡¿ill obfect that in ilaiming to l*o*

"nh"i "toa"rrt"have to do to succeed in academia_enter the culture ofideas and argu_ments-l am really only revealing what they have to do ,";;;; course. They will say that there,s m6rs to being educated tha" ieam:L,to argue. and they are ¡ight. In giving prioritylo id"", ;;;;;;r., however, I don't minimize thJimportance of qualities that can,t be.:d"ïd ,î pure rationality_emotionel intelligence, moral characte¡vis1l and aesthetic sensitivity, and creativity ;" ,¡r}t;**ä;.. sonal narrative. What I do claim is that traini"g i. th;." qå;;'*; be incomplete if srudents a¡e unable to

"*"m ,fr._ *,åî"*än*

4 ¡ NlROÞUCTtON

public discourse. To ca.ll attention to the educational importance of vi-

sual literacy ald the body you have to make arguments, not iust weve pictr.ues, do a dalce, or give hugs.

Argumentation need not be a joyless, bloodless activity, and there

is no necessary quarrel between arguments and narratives. Good sto-

ries make an argumentâtive point, and arguments gain punch &om

imbedded stories. Nor does privilegiry argumentation in the curricu-

lum necessarily represent the etlrrocentric or racist bias tllat some make it out to be. On the contnry, since effective argument starts with

attentive listenirg, traidng in ergument is central to multicultural un' derstanding and respect for otherness. Respecting ctrltures different

ftom your own meens sumrrrerizing others' erguments eccurately, Put' ting yowself in theû shoes. After Septembe¡ rr it is all the more crucial

that Americans leam to understand the arguments ofthose who would

destroy us, and that the wo¡ld leam to fight $¡ith words rather than

with guns a¡d bombs.

I like to thi¡k I have fust-dass credentials for writing a book about duelessness, having been a university professor for forty years, thereþ

encounteriÍg a greet varietl of students and others who were ofien

puzzled by things I said a¡d even more by why i said them at all. I have met my own share of incomprehensible academic utterances, which I

<Iu1y pretended to uadersta::d in order to avoid humiliation' Glven the

genius-worship that runs through our culture, academics are often ad-

mi¡ed for speaking above other people's heads, but knowing this fact

somehow doesn't seve me fiom embar¡assment when I fumbie pain'

fi;lly to explain what I do to nonacademic relatives and füends. My experience over the years playing both the baffier and bafflee

has made me increasíngly cu¡ious about the incomprehension, anxi-

ety, and alienation that my academic intellectual world provokes. Find-

i¡g thal no study exists of tfie root causes of academic befuddlement, at some point I began contemplating a book length aaalysis, a kind of notes toward a field of dueless studies. I had been unscientifically collecting data on attitudes toward "intellectualism" a¡rd what one of my students once called "1ife of the mind stuff,a data that i¡duded

notes on classes and office conferences, copies of student papers, ald

I NIRODUCTION 5

specimens, good and bad, ofacademic and joumalistic wrìting. i began äl:ffiTX;üi 3ilf .î', :To*",J ;;;;l.iilå .-o* t".t rti,- ".,¿li.';;;'#;Ï*"i -probrng

how thev relt about inret-

-ry rit"*o,* " r;:äiï *o t plunged into the extensive schoi-

,J.o thoueht b".k.l;,;:::t::? a¡d students problems with it. I

dent, before ,h" i"r"il;ä;', '::''""tt-"* as a¡ awkward colJege stu- r ø.got toon;;igi;iir""i::t had become so ra¡nilia¡ to me ûrat the dirrded ra"ti',;; ;'r6,ï:jing

ít had once seemed. I refleted on lile an academ.ic il;;ilt:t

as someone who often feels most nonacademic whe";;1î::,äÍ.,1:**0"*.. a',d most rike a - Since professors a¡e suDDth..utti'g

"ag.. ;ä: íi']|:lj:

be sman sophisticated. and on ret ogr"de-liie il;î;

"T"t "t

incomprehension car seem oddly kürderseften. or"ä.;;r;"ï-:lol*"1 ú-"" in order .o reen¡olr in interesting negariv. ;;;;;r" iT-"i

to thinft ofcluelessness as ar un- superior knowledø" *," '--.-i,liÍ

or a bìank space to be Êlled r,' by has been r" ;;i";il ;äosttv'

which heips explain whv teaching forms; for ."*" o.-;;;rr;:dlah¡ed

in universitit', t -1", diff.r"nt is inherently *"úot.î,-"ioì,. llcators'

lo speaj< ofcluelessness at aìi t¡-t¿""t' ¿.n.i.rï;;.."r*il"Ïdemocratic' as if acÌcrowledging Þaditionarists. ., ;;;.;ï#,::Ti":"Í their abirities For some svmprom of cutturat ",rj;*;;;: ::: "ee

duelessness as a ösbstefir clueless. like *" orr. "rär"nïl.i ".*T:

ot* ooptilar cuJture, the .u.t'

",,yuoay."í;;i ii]: :l *ù.*' a¡d there is nothir:g

let the rest fend ,bril;;""i.nt to teach ro rÌìe best students a¿d

- These attitudes may explain intellectual cultu¡e, though a .orllt

*" oPaque nahl'e of academic promi.nent topic inil;i;;;iT-"n r¿rset or iokes, is not e more we all now oil;;î";"ï'JÏl"u: *""*n education' rïough t *..r,"u", u""rr-.,r;""t;;;Titt"c¡atic education, as a c¡.rltu¡e we mi¡d or nor' Then' t""' ;; ;;;:':Yone

is cr:t out fo¡ the life of the witr arxieties

"o;;;;;#;'#c:-d:mic dueiessness is so Êaught

have a Êank di,*.,i;;;;;.;ü"iÍjf::tv rhat it is harjto De .riscemed lurlcing in the backsr ute roprc can ofien tiona.l issues. t*.il;;;;"**T:und

of dÍscussions of other educa. ng concems about tàe achievement

5 tNlRoDUcrtoN

gap between high- and low-i¡come students. Recent debates about

standar¿ized testing, for example, are really a ryrnptom of the murki-

ness about v¡hat it is that intellectuals do. Ifs as if sta¡dardized tests frli a gap left by or:r failure to darify what real intellechul Prorvess is

all abou¿

But attention to academia's opacity has been firrther diverted in

recent years by the polarlzed politics of educational debate. ln the cur-

¡icula¡ wars that have raged since the eighties and nineties, we have

become so caught up ìn battles between rival lists of books-the uadi-

tional classics ve¡sus multicultural end minority texts-that we forget

that the chronic problem for the vast meiority ofAmerican high schooi

and college students has always been the atlture of books ønd ílzøs øs

s!¿h, regardless of whidl faction gets to dlaw up the reading list.'We

become so enmeshed in rival¡ies berween traditional and progressive

r¿rs¿o¿s of intellectuel cultrue that we overlook the fact that to most

sürdents intellectual culture of any kind,.whatever its political leanings,

is dl the same old 'school stuff." This is not to minimize the imPortance of ideological differences

or to avoid taking a stand in the canon wars' It is simply to point out

that in order to r¡¡de¡stand or articulate a political stand you already

have to belong to the culture of ideas and arguments' and wield its

lingo of "whereas x argues

-,

I daim

-."

The point was

rude1y brought home to me in â course i taught at Northwestem in the late eighties: i had asked my dass to write responses to essays by

traclitionalist Allan Bloom and radical black feminist bell hooks ln

reading the papers I realized that some students saw litde difference

between Bloom and hooks. To their eyes, these two writers, who seem

ideologrcally on different planets to me âld my colleagues, were iust a couple of professors conversing in a¡cane language about nonprob-

lems. And many of the students who. did discem the differences were

not able to formr-r1ate them articulateþ or enter the debate' It r¡¡as not

that they lacked interest, but that the lalguage of public contoversy

t¡.at Bloom and hooks commanded eluded them. I conduded that it wouldn't matter much whether Bloom's or hooks's side won the debate

if these students remained exduded from the discourse in which it was

carried on.

I NtRODUCTToN 7

CaIl it the lew of Relative Invisibility of Intelectual Differences: T.j-",,":.,:ttn*{..anr two eggheads. no *"*.;;;; "';;.rrrtua.lly indi sti ngui shable. a With : rhe Før side.\¡r'e can pichr¡e

"" ;t#äij:rff;ïst

Garv r-arson's

Whõf ¡l|f¿lkcluols Sqyl

Yc.¡ po¡'tno¿crt ¡c¡¡t¡vi¡nì nih¡lists o¡l. slóttrtùþ f,tl¿

cæÞt qf ob¡.ctiv. lrirh o¡r Fh¡dl ol' vdsas os o q¡lñrr

What Pc¡Þlc H¿ar:

l¡rpcôl to obj.cäv¿ îfvth ôrd shôæd vúlü..r i! d..Dly

conpliciturs with hcgcåánic \porrfs of dolrli¡otion

ø,Ë

/{t' c. cr¿fr

- 1. UïO all rntellectual disagreements are gray.

, On the othe¡ ha¡rd, beìng "Ín the dark. .rr"il". yo,, to.rotice thiagsthat get overlooked by those supposedry in the know. r¡a.-l¿""1.", eye view opposing intellecuals look the same, i, i. b;;.. ;;;'"."the same in.a aucial way. They share, prbt.;";;;;ìoä"i*u arguments thet transcends their ideological ¿rfi-.r.i."J *a ,"o"r"a",them Êom many students and other o_"n.""1.'-"-'"

.*g ùcPd¡d

, As for the battle of the books, my argument curs both ways ia theskirmishes between taditionalists and progressives. TraJO"_r*

"..

8 tNTRoDUcrtoN

right to insist that not a-ll texts are equal in value and thet students should study a significaat selection of the wo¡ld's dassics. But what

does it profit them to keep the syllabus safe for Plato a¡rd Shakespeare if many students need the Cliffs Notes to get a due about what such authors are up toì Progressives are right that students who are turned otrby HørnIø may be turned on by Alice lfalker's Thø Color Purple (though such results don't necessarily follow predictable racial, ethnic,

or class lines). It's foolish not to assign Walker or a popular magazine

or fllm if doing so inspires students to read and study who otherwise would not. Progressives are also right that since every reading list makes a statement about how the experience of particular groups is or

is not valued, questions of cultual representation have a legitimate place in decisions about what texts to teach. But \ryhat does it profrt progressives to get minority läriters like Walker a¡d Black Elk into the

syllabus if many students need the CLffs Notes to gain an a¡ticulate grasp of either)

ln fact, works by Walker and other multicultural \lriters are now prominently displayed in the Cliffs Notes rack, perhaps the ultimate sign that multiculturalism has made it, but hardly in the way its advo-

cates hoped. Again, tfien, our intense debates over cou¡se reading lists

will be academic in the wo¡st sense if students remai¡ outside the aca' demic conversation about books.

tNfRoDUCltoN g

- fut who gives a fig, you ask, about .the

academic conve¡sation," which is often a bad conversation, boring, self_import"nt, arrd jom¡- nated by insider o¡thodoÈes? Academic .oou".r",iorr,

"r" on* ¿

these things, to be sure, but at thei¡ best mo*.rrt* th"y ... _or. uarr_ able and pertinent to students, lives than academic-bashers !r" *._cedit fo¡. Even so, you persist, isn,t the point ot.a,r."tion tå p.oa*" good citizens, not more academics? Surely it is, but these giJ.

"r.compatible, for the issues and problems addressed by ac.d".mic ,e_ search and teaching are increasingly indistinguishable fro- th" iì.,r". we w¡estle with as public citizens. The point is not to turrì students into dones ofprofessors but to give them access to forms ofintelectr¡¿ capital that have a lot of power in the worÌd.

Those who charge that academic discourse is itselfthe problem fail to see thet talk øbout books and subjects is as important eãucationally as_are the books and subjects themselves. Fo¡ the ¡/"y *e talk about a subject becomes part of the subject, a faa that explais *hy *. ir"u" book-discussion groups to supplement solitary readtrg, *hy t .Lki", form dubs and hold conêrences as well as prlvateþ en¡iying Sø, ir"B, and why sports talk call-in shows and sports ioumalisi ñ"u" oi".r, alongside the games tlemselves. Students must not only read texts, but find things to say âbout them, and no text tells you what to say about it. So our habit ofelevating books and subjeas oár the secondary talk about them only helps keep students tongue_tied..

Seeing academia, then, as these stuggling students see it, is a key prerequisite for improved teaching. It is also a key to improving the quality ofprofessoriaì nriting. The sociologist Howard Becker ha"s ob_ served that the¡e is something unfairly circular about the common yiew that sociologists write badi¡ since sociological work that is tvell writ_ ten is not considered sociology.s Becker,s witticism holds for academic writing generally: people assume that if they understand it, it must not be academic. Though I have a good. deal to say in this book about why academic writing is often bad, I argue against th" popu1* b.li"f that academic writing generally tums its b"ck on nooa..ãemic outsid_ ers_ or that to make it as a professor you have to envelop your ideas in a doud of smoke.

IO INTRODUCIION

The view that academic writing is necessarily insular and obscu¡e props up the overdrawn opposition between ¡esea¡ch a¡d teaching. V/e are so used to opposi¡g resea¡ch and teaching that we overlook the fact that go-od research is itself pedagogical, often drawing on skills of explaaation, da¡ification, and problem-posing-of asking, "So what?" and "Who ca¡es?"-that are cenuai to good teaching. lndeed, as ma_ny academics testify, teachiag often helps us shar¡ren our research writing and thereby advance our careers, a fact that refutes the renunciatory view ofteaching that sees it as necessarily sacrificing professional self- interesL

I myself seem to have the most impact on professional audiences when I write in ways thet a¡e accessible to lay readers and take thei¡ or¡.tside/s perspective into account. As t see it, having to explain myself to fteshmen or high school students forces me not to durnb my ideas down, but to formulate them more pointedly than I do when I address only my colleagues and graduate students. I agree with the liryuist Steven Pi¡ker that "having to erplain an idea in plain English to some- one with no stake in the matter is a¡r excellent sc¡een for incoherent or contradictory ideas that somehow have entrenched themselves in a fie1d."6 For again, those outsiders' questions that at fust sight seem dueless-"So whatl" 'What's your point?" 'What does it have to do with mel" and "Why does any of this matterl"-often turn out to be the smertest and most darifying.

It is by making us feel that asking such questions would expose us as naive o¡ foolish that academia gets av/ay with its mystfications. As a recent college graduate put it ì hen asked how well her English major had dariûed the issues in her discipline, "The assumption seemed to be that if I was aly good I ølreødy knevt what those issues were and why they mattered. I cor:idn't asþ since I did¡'t want to look dumb." Academia has its owrr unspoken policy of"don't ask, don,t tell. that prevents darification from breaking out.

Much of the problem lies in the belief that to símpffi academic inquiry is to vulgarize it, whereas simplification is a necessary feature of even the most complex kínds of work. Nothing fuhibits dariÊca- tion-and good teaching-more than the professorial fear and loathing of arry formulation tåat seems reductive. ln fact, ¡eductions ca¡ be

tNIRODUCI¡oN ll

Tï1:r *.y, and failiag to mai<e the distinction leads us to iustifyobtuscarion and exclusion ("lt,s just t"" ."*U."* ;;ilr, n"r,you were in the field you,d uaderstand what I,m ,n*, íiî*1. o, ,argue in chapter 7, reductive ins bu,,o ñ.-;il;#:i:TitrJî5#: :T;:î ï"* ::l Tryg

professors. as Gregory Jay recenrty has, to ,compltent-our v/ork "with essays and books th.t r¡"osUú "*'0el0, ,"iä. n*-

1.," }*tn this is cerÞiniy a good thing . a"., i J"*ä._c ,hotranslating academic ideas i¡to nonacademic terms ís already intemalto zuccessfi¡l academic communicati"" i""H ";;;;;;;Jlä" ¡,one of my maxims for academics. . - - ,]n "O*Oott

to arraìyzirrg structures of academic obfuscation, thisbook suggests ways in which teache¡s_and o-o"*. ä.î, ä""*Ìhe curricular clutter to show students h"* ,h" ;;;; *îiär*.The book d¡aws on sûeresies r rr"* a"ra"p"a t"Ç;;ää, ",have bor¡owed from otheis that simplif the basic "moves, of publicargument for students who have difi"rlry _"k ; th";';; ;J

"_,(see the epilogue; .How to .write "o

arg..ln"rr,,"wh;i'*u"ä anoTeachers Reølty Need ro Know"). m... i"'a"a. arfî;;;;:;î","., which I use as taining wheels that enable students to get on th; argu- 1n.*

bI" and ride (exampte; "In the discussio" ,fr" n"", áîää .rr.September r¡ attaclcs, a contoversial issue has b*" . . ,. ;;;;*,objectto the formulaic naru¡e of such te_pl",o ;;;;-;;ä;"" is pardy formulaic. Formulas can on"o

", tL.y .* .ilî;;. ï ;ïïtï:ili"iå:.trï#åï

on the grounds that they are too come from the stud"rr* ,h"-r"loll":cri|.ive

01 thal ever¡},r',g has to

success. es, we iust end up hiding the tools of

" tTi it-is Êeshman composition that has been assigned the iobof teaching the basic moves of persuasive argumert, ,h^ bi;;;;"to a plea for making composition and wriLg

"oo., ,niä'ä_programs far more cent¡al than

and conege ."-r."i* n. ul,,"ïi:?ffi:,ï:i i Hj"'1"""îìIlustates the 'law of Acad.emic prestþ, that Las b."" ô;;;;ä,Dei¡d¡e N. McCloske¡ .rhe more usefi.¡l a fi.ld, th. l"*;ì;;.;..The freshman English course, *hi.¡ i, o.r" áf t¡ä, #å,

]2 TNTRODUCTION

thiags colleges do, is in academic prestþe many notches below alge- braic topology or medieval phìiosophy."8 These priorities are particu- larþ self-defeating for departnents of English, which exalt literary stud- ies over writing even though the qualiry ofstudents, literary experience is registered only through what they say and write. The spread ofcollege "fust year experience" cou¡ses ald "f¡eshmat success seminars" is a step in the right direction, but zuch courses generaliy stop short of provirling intellectr¡al socialization. They need to go beyond teaching study ski]ls, time-management, using computers, and test-taking to give students more help in entering the academic cr¡ltu¡e of arguments and ideas.

tastly, a word about the relation of this book to my previous work. In my educational \ryriti¡g, I am best knoçn for the argument that the s¡isest response we can male to the philosophical and social conflicts thet have disrupted education is to 'teach the conflicts" themselves, to bring controversy to the center of the academic curriculum. The situa- tion that called forth this atgument v/as the cultu¡e wa¡s ofthe eighties and nineties, which led me to condude that if disagreements over what should be taught and hov/ are inevitabie, the sensible cowse would be to quit trfing to hide these disagreements arrd start making productive use of them in dassrooms so as to bring students in on them. Because my examples of conficts to be taught were often the debates over the canon and politics in literary studies, some readers have assumed that teaching the conflicts for me focuses only on those debates, whereas teaching the conflicts can be done in arly discipline or subject area.

But an even more important poi¡t that some readers of my work have missed is that the ultimate motivatÍon of my argument for teach- ing the conflicts is the need to darify academic cr.rlture, not lust to re- solve spats among academics or cultu¡al factions. My assumption is that an i¡rstitution as rife s'ith conflicts as the Ame¡ican school a¡rd college carr ciarify itself orly by making its ideological differences co- herenl But even if our cultu¡al and educational scene were a less con- tentious place than it is, the centrality of controversy to leaming would still need to be st¡essed. For the¡e exists a deep cognitive conlection between conüoversy and intellþibility. John Stuart Mil1 pointed up the con¡ection when he observed that we do not understa¡d our own ideas

¡NtRODUC-rtoN .i3

until we know what cen be s who ,have never th¡o* ,rr., "rO

against them. In Mill,s words, those who think differently oo,,,' ,,11"'ott

into the menÞl position of those tr.,.*o,¿,r*o**,"ää"irä'..r.iïlrî.îJ,:å:::l;"ä::

;ilUi åî,"i#,:"*ff o'n*u, "" .;;;;;; ",ä* "".cognitionhasrongr.";ä.i:i;:.îå"å'i;iffff:::1ffi :curricuium with its self_isáht

schoo'ng is uaJ'or ffi j,î"tr"iä:"i: ffi*:.j.JH: :,lenent

of conhast or es-opposed-lo-whatness fiom students, view.I hus the academic habit of er the mind.

.ading conflict helps obscure the life of The problem, howeve¡. is rdentshe;d,o;;;îä:if å:,i'J'oHJî:,îî#ff :;i;become engaged in academic debetes about ideas unless they have areason to be interested in them

"rra c"r, gri' th"î#; ;äffr:

f..: I.:**. T which these debates a¡e conducted. Whereas my lasrbook. BEond tht Culture .Wers t¡ c," a^irtii.,, ü*i!,:,; ;oi:;: :::rued How reachíns the conflías "How Teaching the ;.*;::'yt

p:esent book might be subtitled

Itrlo¿ ? Revitalize Edu."oor, "r

r"Tjt,o-ltr,Educational Approach-

nemainsopaqueil;;;i"i"":#:.#fl:$:iiicArgument

, , t: Ol, it another way. the most fundamental cor_flict that needsto be taught in class¡ooms is the

studentspeak. i "rgr..

,h., ,."¿ll9o between Intellectualspeak a',d

ar.,",,a"u*toì;;;ä:ï1"::;:J"::";-å:","Jî:l;ï, discowse. though their uJtimate cover that these forms of discou:

goal should be to help students dis-

.yr.,*g**-,or;.J;;."i.'"*i,ii;'",ffi ::;.rï:tr.#kind of taÌk that I speak and write "rr¿

I 1""_ A"il, ;;;i;;""tionof these regrsters is more powerlul than either alone. r rus Dook extends my "teach the conflict""

"rg.,-,-..rt ii'on. furth.,way by seeing con_flicts as an intemal prjr.pl"

"f;;;;;;" ;;*ing of writing. We th¡ow ourselr position of th-ose whñ;ä"J"t

as Mill put it' "into the mentâl à¡"a".,,"i""*'ä.;î'11îi.i"iå::tffi

:"ï"."",:ï

t4 TNTROOUCfìON

are asked to complete a sentence that starts, "At this point you will probably objeci ihat . - . ," they begin to move beyond the r¡ndivided, one-dimensional voice that is a surer ma¡k of weak student wdting ther incoûect granìmar. And it's by vrriting the voices of others into thei¡ texts thåt students start learni¡g to produce a public voice.

The¡e are those who argue that the academic obfuscation I examine

in this book is no accident. They say that when schooling keeps stu- dents mystified it is not failìng at all, but working all ioo well et doing exactiy what our culture esks it to, sorting students i¡to cognitive haves and have-nots and therefore into sociefs winners and lose¡s. As this argument has it, ou¡ winner-take-all economy has to find some ' ay to maintain high levels of social inequalìty, so ecademic institutions must

keep the cr:ltural capial of literate pubiic discourse out of the gnrbby

hands of the ¡ifftaff.ro We academics, then, deliberately withhold our

mysteries from the many in order to prop up the power ofthe cultu¡al elite as well as lhe fiction that society needs our mu¡nbo-jumbo. I have

never accepted this clnica.l view of education, but I'm afraid we will go on giving it credibility untiJ we change oi.rr practices.

Q

NOIES

¡NTRODUCTTON: ¡N THE ÞARt( ¡.1! ECCHEADs ARE CRÀy r. Joha Gardaer, quoted in Ël1ie Mr

ber ro, zoor): 64. cGratl' -welcome Freslmeu'- Tiare (Septem'

". 91_"* hrgh schools, see fay Matth ews, Cl+ss Strugþ: v+øL3 Wrohe løhiRighl u'ith Anûí.o's Best pubtíc HiEþ,"¡-; ñ.;ï;,';;J;;:ür998).

3. See Gerald Grafi "Life of tle Mi¡d Stuq" i¡ Bøyo nd th¿ Ciltvre Wars: HowTøchíng tfu ConJtias CøtL Rrríralize Anerira rirrrr;" ¡i.*7ü-i *NortoÌ!, 1992), g6_104. 4. I am indebted to Michael Bérube fo¡ this fo¡m¡:lation. 5. Ho*'ard Becker, in conve¡setion. Beckels ow¡ work and c¿¡ee¡ refute the be_lief thet sociar science wib"c hrs to obfi.¡scåte in òrder ," *"-rrä"*.

See Beckerk useñrl guide, witíng.for Sociat s"*"¡* i"* li"î lì r*ßh your Thesis, Book, or Artict¿ rchicago: uûiversity;r;hiäo"í;esi:irra). 6. Steven pinke¡, .Some Rema¡k'on B..o-iog

" .po¡li. fnd"-;;al ;.*.presented at the MIT conrarurications ¡onà "pubtc lot"l-..tã" *ìthe Acedemy,"

.Deceaber 2, ¡999. posted Je¡uery j, 2ooo: bttp: / /med€.rn-tansition.miLedu/ artides / pin&er.hhoi

7. Gregory Jay, unpublished talk delive¡ed at session on "Academic Criticisma¡d the Public Media,' Modem laaguage ,Association A¡¡u¿l Conventiou, December 199r.

8. Donald þow Deirdre) McCloskey, .The Neglected Economics of Tå,k," pr2h_ ning for Hígher Ëduør¡o¡. (Surl)l¡er 1994): 12.

279

ñil"placed nostalgia, research "scholars,, were the oppoi\ of "irrtellec- tu{s," accumùl4tors of specigþed i¡formation who leftþe.big pic_ tu?p-tfre -âppfi{ation of¡}i'e faàrs to contemporary life_tó .,i.or al_. ists, the clergy, ¿¡d other nonacad.emics.

¡ / -- -- ':* The narrow peda::ûy to which scÌþlarship could descend had been

a target of satire for centuries, but it reached a kind ofculmi¡ation with the ¡ise of the modem researcà university. tt. ohr;;";h., ;";;r. Santayena, who tau€ht at Harvard from rggg to r9rz, complained that his scholarly cà,léagues $/ere too busy with their

-*l.ror.Çi. pro;".t,

t7