(The Same Old) Neo-Liberal-Humanist Pedagogy
Bronwen Heap
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| • September 1993 | Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students. | |
| The Alternative Orange: Vol. 3, No. 1 (12-13,22) | ||
| • September 20, 2000 | Webpage:  . | |
| DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original. | ||
Whether it is consciously recognized or not, every teacher in every field teaches according to a certain pedagogy. This affects who learns what in the classroom, since every pedagogy has determinate political consequences.
The dominant theories of pedagogy in higher education in the current historical period are liberal humanist. By the term “liberal humanist” (or its short form “liberal”) I do not refer to the mainstream political understanding of liberal: liberal as the “opposite” of conservative. Instead, liberal humanist sociopolitical theory is a theory which understands society as composed of abstract individuals in homogeneously equal relations with abstract constraints and opportunities. In other words, liberal humanists believe that individuals are free to act according to how they “think,” “will” and “choose,” according to the effort they show and the character they possess. Individuals and their ideas, desires and actions supposedly are separate from and independent of history, society and economy. Therefore, individuals can move in and out of relation with history, society and economy as they will and choose. In addition, liberal humanist theories share the economic assumption that “progress” can and should occur through reform of the existing social system, rather than through transformation. Thus, for liberal humanists, debates around media representations and educational practices are foregrounded in abstraction from economic structures in which these representations and practices take shape.
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Liberal humanist theories, whether espoused by such writers on the “left” as Mary Louise Pratt, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Gerald Graff, Henry Giroux, Richard Rorty and Jane Tompkins, or on the “right” as William Bennett and Alan Bloom, guide the practices of the designers and the teachers of contemporary university curricula. How are these liberal humanist theories of pedagogy articulated by their proponents? What are the real presuppositions and consequences of these theories?
Certainly the “left” liberal humanists and the “right” liberal humanists claim to be different; both sides would burn with indignation to be conflated with the other. But despite their protestations, the implicit assumptions and unexplored consequences of their theories are the same. The professed goal of the left academics above is to make the world a “better” place. In the first sentence of her essay “Pedagogy of the Distressed,” printed in the journal College English, Jane Tompkins says, “As professors of English we are always one way or another talking about what we think is wrong with the world and what we’d like to see changed.” (Tompkins 8) These “good intentions” are shared by liberal humanists in other fields. Within the first paragraph of his essay in The South Atlantic Quarterly, number 89, an issue entitled “The Politics of Liberal Education” (note this title), Gerald Graff says he wants to make teaching more “democratic.” (Graff 51) In fact, the vast majority of authors in this particular issue of SAQ agree with the importance of changing the status quo. This change, however, is always implicitly understood to be a change within the economic, social, and political system which is already in place. The changes are considered to be “improvements” upon what already exists. But what is it that liberal humanists on the right call for but this “improvement” of the existing system? Debates over pedagogy, just as other debates between “left” and “right,” are over which “improvements” should be implemented, but they both agree that the system they are improving upon should be left in place. The “left” and the “right” both want to make American classrooms “more democratic.”
Mary Louise Pratt, in her essay, applies her theory of pedagogy to a national curriculum debate taking place between the “left” and the “right.” The major “players” Pratt names are William Bennett, Alan Bloom, Saul Bellow, Lynne Cheney on the right, and liberal individuals at Stanford, including Pratt herself, on the left.
Why are the “left” and “right” the two positions which are so easily available? Why do people take up these positions? According to Pratt, “Many citizens are attracted to Bloom’s and Bennett’s pronouncements… out of fairly unreflected attachments to the past (including their own college experience)…” (Pratt 10) She also says some people are ready for change but they are asking questions like, “‘If I give up white supremacy, who am I? Am I still American? Am I still white?…’” (Pratt 10) She portrays segments of the population as confused and apprehensive. Her analysis of how the University’s curriculum is chosen is that some people are stuck in their ways or nostalgic, and some people are questioning their individual identities. As a group, Pratt says, we are having a “national cultural identity” crisis. She abstracts this situation, individuals and their positions from their real social relations and their real historical conditions of possibility, and consequently, the people in her essay remain disembodied sets of ideas. They make decisions and act simply because of their ideas, ideas which are divorced from concrete history, economy and politics.
In her discussion of the forms of bias in the academy, Pratt talks at length about the tradition in schools, and elsewhere, of centering one set of texts and ideas while marginalizing others, but she does not state why one set has been and still is privileged over the others. Her theory of pedagogy suggests that a multicultural classroom and multicultural texts would be best for all concerned. She implicitly posits the following: first, there is a common good, and second, the left has ascertained what this common good is: multiculturalism. (But, of course, we haven’t yet achieved a perfect “common good” because people are “confused” and “nostalgic.”) Liberal humanism assumes that a “common good” exists. It explains away the reality that society is composed of classes (that have inherently conflicting interests) by offering “explanations” of human behavior such as “confusion” and “nostalgia.” To say that “bias” is the problem in curricula is to believe in the possibility of a neutral, un-interested (for the “left”, a multicultural) classroom. But since our socioeconomic system includes two irreconcilable classes, one currently dominating, the other being exploited, no amount of the inclusion of uninterrogated, multicultural or other ideas will challenge the dominant. Every position is an interested position; there is no neutral “common good,” and theories which presuppose the existence of one cover up actual class conflict, and thus serve dominant interests.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a well known African-American theorist, says he is critical of a position that sets a few individuals up as scapegoats, instead of examining a larger picture. He explains that the reason the “cultural left” spends their time disagreeing with Bennett and Bloom is because they are “ ‘feel good’ targets, who, despite our internal differences and contradictions, we all love to hate.” He explains that when things are very difficult, “you look for targets close at hand.” This explanation of the simplistic scapegoating tactics of the left (of which he considers himself a member) does not account for the use of this insufficient tactic (scapegoating). Instead of “examining the larger picture,” an examination which he insists is necessary, he merely explains the use of the tactic as “human nature” and does not examine the larger ideology that allows the left (or anyone else) to use such a tactic such as scapegoating. Hence, he falls into the same practice for which he criticizes others. He does not ask why this particular tactic (scapegoating) is so easily picked up, nor does he see the “larger picture” of ideology and class interest, since his own idealism is linked to the class interest of his liberal humanist theory. (Idealism here means: a theory for which ideas are autonomous and abstracted from their historical, social and economic conditions of possibility.)
However, Gates, like Pratt and other “left” and “right” liberal humanists, also believes that the realm of ideas determines the behaviors of groups and individuals. He explains these ideas as if they supersede and transcend both history and economy. It is simply “human nature” to look for easy answers, and this human nature is abstracted from any specific time or class. But what is the nature of the tactic of “scapegoating?” It understands individuals, in this case Bennett, Bloom and other conservatives, as abstracted away from society and as merely bad, or dangerous in some moral way. Because he is a liberal humanist, when he tries to criticize “scapegoating,” he ends up making a criticism on the same level that scapegoaters do, since they are liberal humanists too. Both Gates and the scapegoaters appeal to an abstract theory of humans to explain the workings of society: because it is “human nature” to look for easy answers, there will “always” be some bad apples who threaten democracy. Debates between two liberal humanist positions always frame the questions and criticism within the same theory (defined above in the second paragraph of this article). If Gates were to truly critique the scapegoaters for abstracting Bennett and Bloom away from their historical conditions of possibility and the class interests that the “right” liberal humanists represent, he would have to account for his own idealism, and own liberal humanist position which also represents the same class interests.
Gates partially responds to the danger of idealism by gesturing to the connection between “the university” and “the streets.” (Gates 91) This gesturing fails, however, to make his abstraction of the university and his theory of pedagogy account for historical specificity and economic relations. His presentation of “the streets” is as abstract and idealized as his theory of pedagogy and the university. For this complex connection that is utterly lacking in his essay, he substitutes: “the relation between our critical postures and the social struggles they reflect upon is far from transparent…it’s a highly mediated one” (Gates 91). This passing remark is supposed to fill the gap between the abstract and the concrete.
While editing The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, Gates’ theory of pedagogy as plurality is put into practice. By creating a plurality of voices, liberals assume they can create a utopian space that will transform the status quo. Instead of interrogating the power relations in this and previous historical periods to discover precisely what the status quo is and what the complex and “highly mediated” relation between this status quo and the university is, they instead settle for this description of reality: white heterosexual men in developed countries are in power; they have been suppressing knowledge of the texts of others and their ideology has devalued these other texts; so, we must stop devaluing “other” texts and must include as many as possible.
This simplifies their argument to some extent, but the consequences of even the most complex liberal arguments are the same as those of the argument outlined above. Take Gerald Graff as a more complex example: he advises us in the title of his essay, and in the opening paragraphs, to “Teach the Conflicts”. This, he says, is both a “practical” and “democratic” pedagogical practice in the face of conflicts that are “here to stay.”(Graff 51)
To say that the conflicts are “here to stay” is a resigned way of saying that change can only be reform, not revolution. This is the classic liberal humanist position. So, to increase the “democracy” of the situation we are “stuck with,” Graff suggests democratic pedagogy, which he insists is not an argument for plurality: “teaching the conflicts” will “bring [conflicts] out in the open, not mush them over.” (Graff 64) This vague language is supposed to clarify the difference between the bringing together of ideas in a pluralistic way, and the bringing together of conflicting ideas in a non-pluralistic way. But since Graff insists that dissent is inevitable, what is the difference between pluralistic teaching and “teaching the conflicts?” Both assume that a curriculum of varied ideas will provide a ‘good’ education equally to one and all. Bringing out these conflicts in the classroom is a way of discussing and negotiating them, thereby supposedly “sufficiently addressing” them. Afterwards, however, the real conflicts in society remain. To set a pedagogical goal of teaching unresolved conflicts is to insure that the dominant position will effectively remain unchallenged.
Pratt, Gates and Graff idealize the positions in the debates they discuss. (That is, they give privilege to consciousness over economy, society and history.) Pratt idealizes people and their interests as well as the university and even pedagogy, and Gates, although making vague attempts to strengthen his essay and make it less idealistic, ends up in the same idealized position on pedagogy as Pratt. Even Graff, who states he is not a pluralist, adheres to a pedagogical theory the consequences of which are as idealistic and pluralistic as Gates’ and Pratt’s. These “failings” are not due to abstract or personal problems, rather they are examples of the function and theory of liberal humanism.
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These “left” essayists position themselves, without exception, in opposition to Allan Bloom, a “right” liberal. Let us briefly examine the assumptions and consequences of Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind to see the supposed points of contention and the real political similarities.
Bloom criticizes the left liberals for their openness that leaves no room for “enemies” or “public good.” (Bloom 26) Bloom goes on to say that students who learn through the pedagogy of the left are without refined prejudices or discriminating tastes, and therefore are empty-minded. (Bloom 43) Bloom wants pedagogues to work for the common good by engendering values which apply to all students. Of course, despite what Bloom claims, the “left” liberal humanists believe themselves to be working for the “common good” just as much as the “right” liberal humanists like Bloom and Rush Limbaugh (author of The Way Things Ought to Be) do. This is a principle of liberal humanism, to “improve” upon the already existing system. Those on the “right” also believe that working for the “public good” is an achievable goal; they assume the “public” is a homogeneous mass for which there is a singular “good”. The “left” believes that it takes into account “difference” and heterogeneity, but in the last analysis, the “left’s” ideal of multiculturalism is just as much a monolith as the “right’s” ideal of “values” and “public good.” Both ideals have the same consequence, that the interests of capital remain protected as the unquestioned “common good.”
Bloom’s theory of pedagogy requires students and teachers to refer to natural laws and reason to discover moral and intellectual truth (ideals as abstracted from history and economy). According to Bloom, this, the best type of education, will produce a subject that understands that now, as in years gone by “[an American] could be whatever they wanted to be or happened to be as long as they recognized that the same applied to all other men and they were willing to support and defend the government that guaranteed that dispensation.” (Bloom 53). In this theory, Bloom brings naturally independent, autonomous subjects into relation with each other through the institution of American government and ideals.
The figure of the capitalist, who is really free to enter into social contracts without coercion, is generalized by liberal humanism and blindly applied to every citizen of America, and often the world. Liberal humanists sweep the heterogeneous relations of capitalism under the rug and insist that, for example, “America is the land of the free.” In reality, an individual can only be completely free under capitalism when they at least own and control the means of their own production (when they are a capitalist). Liberal humanists have taken this very specific (and only) instance of a free class under capitalism from its actual material context, and applied it to all individuals. Moreover they have made it appear as an ideal whose existence they project into the past. (The idealized individual is separate from history.) The capitalist class, however, has become relatively much smaller in comparison to the proletarian class. The proletarian class, too, has a particular relation to the means of production, and it is not a relation of ownership or even freedom. The proletariat has nothing to sell but its own labor power, which it is forced to sell for subsistence. It is this largest class, this most dispossessed class, who the liberal humanists ignore when they make generalizations about liberty and happiness. (“The best things in life are free” is an exemplary liberal humanist phrase.)
Alan Bloom’s idealized view of the function of an individual in America leads him to a highly idealized view of pedagogy. He sees the student as being open and ready to learn anything. This ignores the fact that every individual is in fact an interested subject, living in the world, enmeshed in and positioned by the class struggle. Bloom assumes a neutrality which can not exist under the current social system. (This is the same assumption of neutrality that the “left” liberal humanists make when they insist that there is a “bias” which is at the root of curricula problems. Their ideal neutrality is an impossible goal under the capitalist system which, driven by internal contradictions at its fundamental level, is inherently polarized.)
Bloom believes that he, as a teacher, must communicate the truth to his students, and this will provide a “good” education to one and all equally. He does not recognize the interestedness of his ‘truth.’ He does not examine the historical possibility or the power relations that allow or encourage his ‘truth’ to become popular in the academy. Bloom dismisses such questions as ideologism.
“Left” liberals are similar in that they do not recognize or question the interested positions that they include in a pluralistic curricula. They do allow ideas and positions to be in contestation with each other or play off each other, but they do not critique the ideas and positions or link them with a system that brings them into existence. The left and right ignore the class interests of positions and instead believe that there is a possible “common good” which serves every student equally.
Bloom, and other “right” liberal humanists insist that by using rationality and “natural law” one can discern the truth and transcendent values which will both benefit the common good. “Left” liberal humanists benefit the common good with a “democratic” or multicultural curriculum. Although left liberals are trying to change the status quo to include those people who in the past have been marginalized, while Bloom and right liberals are instead trying to fortify a status quo which, using certain idealistic and interested principles, excludes minorities and achieves a national majority, they both assume a “common good.”
The difference between Bloom’s critique of multiculturalism and the radical critique of multiculturalism is that Bloom and the “right” claim that their “values and truths” benefit all humanity and the left is a source of weakened values and blindness to truth which the left has thrown away to be “fair” or “nice.” (This is how Rush Limbaugh often styles the left’s motivation for pluralism.) In contrast to this, the radical critique of “left” pluralism is also a critique of the “right,” because it is a critique of liberal humanism, a category that subsumes right and left: It is not possible to serve a “common good” through abstract values, whether these values be “traditional American” ones or “relativist, pluralist” ones. In fact, it is not possible to serve the “common good” at all because it does not yet exist.
The “left” liberals, with their insistence on inclusion, don’t challenge the system, and in fact their pedagogy educates eager, willing workers. The “right” liberals, with their balder glorification of America and capitalism, also provide capital with a content proletariat. These theories of pedagogy are taught to students at the highest levels of education, and these students go on to work in the industries of media, blitzing the public with the “left” or “right” liberal humanist message as the moral of every story. All the while, capitalism grinds on and is lubricated by its ideological flunkies.
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