Woke and Cancel
How much is wrong with higher education?
Before being pulled into the political spotlight, “Woke” meant awareness within the Afro-American community of social problems and issues. Twinned these days with “Cancel Culture” it has become a new criticism of the Left and education practice.
Is there something to these charges?
On one level it seems an extreme call. If college courses in the humanities do not raise awareness, there is little to be said about their merit. Hopefully, colleges do not just prepare contestants for Jeopardy.
As for making changes in curricula, to reflect new research, it is, or should be, the essence of good teaching.
So to understand the criticism, we have to dig deeper into the problem and search beyond definitions. What universities are being accused of is bias: practices that advance the political agenda (or intellectual bases) of one party at the expense of the other.
And, to reach further, it is the intimidation of students to the extent that our next generation of leaders will be unable to think for themselves.
Those of all political stripes that teach students are probably the best authority to critique the later claim. Students are “intimidation” resistant. Even when they put down their cell phones for a while and listen in class to what is generally not world-class persuasive rhetoric, they hold tight to what they believe. Partisans of both Right and Left, I hope, will accept the fact that an 18-year-old, growing up in largely homogenous cultural settings, should reexamine some of their beliefs, or at least developing a judgement that sees nuance and accepts subtlety. And, at the same time, realize that this form of intellectual growth is not easy to guide and support.
As for the first claim, biased information. It needs to be said that some degree of misinformation has always been a problem for university teaching. What was offered in a classroom always trailed the cutting edge of new research. All too often lectures were the ideas of a professor’s own former mentors, who were neither then nor now the final answer in a world constantly dealing with new issues, new technologies and new ideas.
This is as true today as in the past. The key ideas and policies advocated by Republicans and Democrat are and should be challenged by new research. When these ideas are introduced in the classroom, we “raise the game of our students,” increasing their level of awareness and understanding so they can be the citizens of tomorrow that we desperately need.
Reading the best new economic thinking by the next generation of economists of all stripes, considering the insights of historians who are exploring newly available original materials (information technology has opened so many more windows on the past), provides our students with a good education. It is not bad practice.
But does it go too far? Or perhaps not far enough? More about that below.
Finally, let’s look at the charge that educators are “cancelling culture,” i.e. replacing old truths and heroes with “lesser Gods,” or downright poor role models for the present. I suspect that it is natural for each generation to be suspicious about historical figures on pedestals. Hence, being a little to eager to practice “revisionist” history. Bathwater and the Baby problem.
If you are on the “right” side of politics today you probably think that Harry Truman was a good President. That wasn’t the case 70 or 80 years ago. We accept the debunking of past myths (and popular history is always a bit mythic) as a right of the present to pass its own judgements on the past, and learn its own lessons from experience.
Of course, some will go “too far” (at least in our own eyes). And, therefore, the social media will always have a field day finding exceptions that they claim to be the rule. This is why we must be careful, cautious consumers of “the news.”
We need to be concerned about the pandering (Left and Right) which is the bread and butter of partisanship.
“We need their votes.”
“They won’t vote unless they are motivated.”
“They won’t be motivated unless they are angry.”
We might wish to call a halt to extreme charges and rhetoric, but as was said more than a century ago, “politics ain’t beanbag.”
And, we might be wise to remember that our own biases are as much, if not more a problem, than the biases of others.
I'm frequently reminded that I'm not the mirror image of many of those around me who call themselves "conservatives". I've wondered about this quite a bit and I think I tend to live in a world where ideas exist in various shades of gray while "conservatives" I know think and argue in absolutes, absolutes that are like boxes of judgement. This goes in the box of things "we" like and that goes in the box for all the things "we" hate.
Another thing is what I would call "false equivalence" and "conservatives" seem unable to see a difference. For instance, to fight "cancel culture", a county in my state of North Carolina banned Coke from all county property. The reason given is that Coke made a statement about restrictive voting laws in Georgia. Georgia isn't even in North Carolina! The statement given by one of the offending politicians is that this is what the "left" is doing with "cancel culture". I see it as a fake cause with a slogan they can use, but this is nothing like what the "left" is doing. If I, or a business, make a decision to buy or not buy something, even because of politics, that's called free speach. When a government makes that same decision, that's crony capitalism. Not the same.
I also want to say that I did change my views when I left home and went to college. I don't know anyone else who switched from right to left or vice versa. So, in my case they might have a point, I changed when I had more information.
One more thing. Left and Right aren't the bread and butter of partisanship, power is the bread and butter of partisanship. Oh, and please forgive any generalizations!