Has my Ivory Tower Been Too Limiting?

I haven't taken claims of woke and cancer culture very seriously. Let me explain.

We need to be reminded from time to time to take things more seriously than we do.  Our own life experiences condition how present events (ideas, people, causes, reports) register on that scale of importance we carry in our minds.  At the Heidelberg reunion, among many, many fond memories and good moments, I realized how little real attention I’ve given to some ideas that many good and intelligent people take very seriously.  I apologize for being somewhat cavalier about concerns over “woke thinking” and “cancel culture.”

I think my own feelings go back to my undergraduate years at Yale.  Shortly before I arrived, William F Buckley had published his attack on the “liberal” culture of ivy league education in God and Man at Yale.  As a good midwestern Republican I read excerpts and, while succumbing to “liberal” thinking our four years of study, never felt any “pressures” to conform one way or another.  If I was “tongue-tied” to any extent it was probably due to lack of preparation and the overall intelligence of the conversations I encountered.  I never felt hostility for my beliefs, which at that time were strongly influenced by neo-liberal religion, or any compulsion to conform to one belief or another.  I actually believed that any change in my political orientation was largely due to study and reflection. 

Over my years of teaching, at Washington University, the University of Georgia and Heidelberg, I continued to feel that faculty were generally, with a few exceptions, careful about letting their personal views and preferences influence their students.  I may well have glossed over subtle examples of such influence, but overall I found myself and my colleagues going out of their way to encourage students to express their opinions in non-threatening environments.  In fact, I can remember many classes where I was disappointed by my inability to encourage discussion.  (I think I would have been willing to, very respectfully and carefully, consider flat world opinions.)

Clearly now that I reflect on these experiences, I realize that there were biases.  And I’m sure the line was crossed by some, and probably myself, but I still doubt there was much “harm.”  The passions and confidence of youth is a glorious thing and not easily silenced, perhaps not ever truly suppressed by the yattering of professors.  I can’t believe it is that different today.  In fact, I reject most thinking that tends to reduce college students to frail flowers, or “butterflies” that need careful packaging and adult protection. 

Does the serious work of thinking today lean “left?”  Too far?  I will try to write about this in another blog.  As I said I have some rethinking to do about this.  How much do we in education shape rather than guide thought?  My preliminary thought is “not so much.”  And, to the extent it happens, I don’t see the sky falling.  I still have a very healthy respect for the endurance of our Republic (another topic worth writing about). 

I think all institutions in a society, if held up to view and examined, will show isolated examples of bad practice and unintentional harm.  I still think these are exceptions, but, as I said, I need to think more about this.