Part THREE — § 2

The secret proposal to establish a “Department of Writing Studies” by partitioning the English Department at SUNY-Albany and removing its research Ph.D. has been supported by corporatist elements in the University as a means for carrying out this shift in the university from a place of critique-al knowledges to one of useful practices that are pro-business. The retrograde project of turning the university into a quasi-business corporation is carried out by the agency of a reactionary group who sees its interests protected in protecting the interests of business ("the wave of the future") by undermining critique-al knowledges and diminishing critique-al space in the university. A "Department of Writing Studies," in other words, is the space in which the historically produced interests of the Group as a structure of power constrains critique-al knowledges by valorizing entrepreneurial individualism in the name of the humanities as a mode of self-writing and a site for the circulation of “experiential” narratives. The Group's interests coincide with those of the pro-business entrepreneurial forces — and both act to marginalize the sites of critique-al thinking in the humanities. This is a repetition on a smaller scale, of course, of the ways in which such conservative ideologues as Lynne Cheney, Hilton Kramer, and Roger Kimball support the pro-business moves to marginalize critique-al humanities by discrediting progressive pedagogues as “tenured radicals” and progressive knowledges as modes of “fundamentalism."

It is not only the Cheney-Kimball axis that uses the charge of “fundamentalism” to erase any resistance to the free market and consumer society. In fact, for the oligarchy in power in the English Department at SUNY-Albany, the term “fundamentalism” (like “idealism") has become a “rescue” word. Anytime they encounter a radical resistance—to the old knowledges that they profess, to the unequal labor relations that dominate the Department, to the rewards and awards that have little basis in work and instead are the effect of their “networking” — they reject that resistance as “fundamentalism." There is of course an “un-said” in this “coding” of resistance to the ruling elite as “fundamentalism." “Fundamentalism” casts the material inequalities among citizens in vaguely religious terms and suggests that any opposition to the status quo is a form of religious “fanaticism." Since the “fanatic” is, in the popular imaginary, associated with the “other," this ideological defense of the dominant class and power relations is not only xenophobic but also racist. If resistance without compromise to dominant power and to a workplace in which the “savagery of the market” prevails and “corporate theft” passes as “vision," as Zaidi puts it, is considered “fundamentalism," then I want to pause and ask: what is wrong with fundamentalism? If the objection is “epistemological” — that fundamentalism is a species of “essentialism” — then opposing “fundamentalism” is itself a form of “fundamentalism” since to say categorically and “fundamentally” that all forms of fundamentalism are wrong is itself a mode of fundamentalism. The non-fundamentalist (as opposed to the anti-fundamentalist) has to “tolerate” all versions of truth including “fundamentalism." Whereas the anti-fundamentalist cannot critique fundamentalism by any “argument” that does not itself eventually become “fundamentalist” since to reject fundamentalism requires a “fundamental” belief and a belief in the “fundamental”: the “fundamental” belief that “fundamentalism” is false. All anti-fundamentalist arguments are therefore subject to the very objection that anti-fundamentalism makes to fundamentalism.

If the objection is “ethical” that fundamentalism is wrong because it imposes a “must” — a categorical imperative — and thus does not “tolerate” any other views, then anti-fundamentalism is equally unethical because it too is founded on a “must”: it states that there “must” not be “fundamentalism." The non-fundamentalist, on the other hand, (unlike an anti-fundamentalist) is one who accepts fundamentalism as one of the possible versions of ethical practice and as such cannot be opposed to it.

To take a “pragmatic” view and say that in “real life” one is faced with degrees of consequences and not such “radical” choices, however, is not so much a coherent response to the problem as an evasion by appealing to the complexities of “real life." Such a pragmatic appeal is, in actuality, a surreptitious legitimating of “opportunism." Opportunistic equivocations are finally political equivocations aimed at finding excuses not to become engaged in the struggle for social change. They are, to be more precise, equivocations that in the name of epistemological subtlety, moral and ethical ambiguities and individual freedom of choice, legitimate the status quo by refusing to oppose the status quo. The charge of “fundamentalism," in short, is used to discredit any “decided” opposition to that which exists: to accept what is as what ought to exist. It is used to intimidate any questioning of “is” as a species a totalitarian “must," forgetting that there is “always already” a “must” in what is: a “must” that is enforced with all the violence of the state and its ideological state apparatuses — including the dominant philosophy which is only a thinly disguised propaganda for “pragmatism."

The objections of the privileged to fundamentalism, in other words, are not so much “epistemological” or “ethical” (although they are commonly represented as “epistemological” objections to essentialism and ethical critiques of the “must") as they are “political." The objections are, in the end, defenses of the status quo; they naturalize the way things are by “showing” that all attempts to transform the existing power system are “fundamentally” (by their root premises) ungrounded. In other words, the charge of “fundamentalism” made against oppositional intellectuals has become a rehearsed response to change: anyone who struggles to change the system by questioning the root terms of the system is seen as a “fundamentalist”: a totalitarian obstructionist. The only anti-fundamentalist way to work for change is to accept the terms of the system and pragmatically work “within the system." The rejection of transformative theory as “fundamentalism” is a rejection of a historical “outside," but this rejection is, itself, a “fundamentalist” assumption. The “American Revolution” — and its democratic “pluralism” to which the anti-fundamentalist appeals — is itself based on a mode of “fundamentalism”: “No taxation without representation." This is a “fundamentalist” view; it does not tolerate varying degrees of consequences: “some taxation without representation." It is a categorical (not a hypothetical) imperative: it affirms universally, without exception, the democratic principle that public funds cannot be spent without public debate and public consent. In other words, there is no radical change (e.g. the American Revolution) that is not “fundamentalist," and there is no anti-fundamentalism that is not a defense of the status quo and its class politics. If “fundamentalism” is a move that has no epistemological basis and is based on a religious faith, so is the rejection of fundamentalism. This is so because the epistemological criticism of fundamentalism is based on anti-foundationalism: that there is no way to establish the truth of the fundamental since all our knowledges are heavily mediated (by language and other media). If the truth of fundamentalism, according to its critics, cannot be verified and thus all fundamentalisms are based on faith, it is equally the case that the truth of the rejection of fundamentalism cannot be established either. In other words the skepticism that denies fundamentalism its truth also reflexively denies any anti-fundamentalist truth. For the critics of fundamentalism, then, uncertainty invades both fundamentalism and its opposition. The one who rejects fundamentalism as a religious rather than a rational case, is himself/herself acting religiously: asserting, by faith, the untruth of fundamentalism without having any access to the truth of untruthfulness, the certainty that is needed to reject fundamentalism.

The anti-fundamentalist defense of the class politics of the status quo is clear: after rejecting radical change (as fundamentalist) what remains is a pragmatic acceptance of the existing power structure and a working within the system: the ethics of going along to get along. In other words, the answer to my question: “what is wrong with fundamentalism?" — it becomes clear after one has seen through the initial epistemological and ethical mystifications — is that it is wrong because it seeks root changes in the system. What is wrong with “fundamentalism” is that it rejects the existing system in its totality and searches for a new beginning — a new beginning that will bring about a new social order in which the privileged will not be able to keep their privileges.

Although it is represented as an epistemological-ethical objection, the rejection of radical change as fundamentalism is a defense of the pro-business forces in the university — forces that are "fundamentally” opposed to critique. Business and the free market depend on (the ideology of) the total freedom of desire of the individual. This ideology of (free) individual desire(ing) — and consumption — is the project of a retrograde approach to the humanities that claims an individual's uniqueness is guaranteed by the seeming uniqueness of his experience which cannot be explained by any theory since theory is seen as a form of "fundamental” explanation. Business supports this retrograde view of the humanities as an expression of individual experiences and is in turn supported by it. Radical collectivity — which is rejected as a mode of “fundamentalism” — is a resistance to the tyranny of the desire for consumption.

The overlapping lines of interest of the Group and the pro-business university administration are, of course, historically produced, and both are in a relation of antagonism with progressive forces that attempt to open up a more inclusive social space and workplace in which some do not exploit others. These overlapping interests are economic, but the economic and labor issues are deflected by the use of a culturalist vocabulary that misrepresents the opposition to these interests as a “cultural” crisis of values and clash of personalities.

I repeat what I have stated all along: there has been no (cultural) “crisis” (of “values"/"personalities") in the English Department, and, therefore, there has been no justification to spend public funds to hire consultants to review the Department. The Department has been functioning quite normally as it goes through a process of change and adjustment to the active world of contemporary research and scholarship. The conflicts in the Department have been the outcome of labor inequalities. To rectify this does not require consultants, rather there is the need to institute democratic processes in the Department: assigning equal courseloads to faculty; opening access to graduate courses to all faculty; changing part-time, adjunct positions into full-time, permanent positions; providing full funding for at least four years for all graduate students, and rotating committee membership and administrative duties. There is no “crisis" in the sense used by the Group: there is a class contestation in the Department.[1]

Any university department that has been kept isolated from the contesting world of original scholarship by a small Group in power will indeed experience discomfort and differences as it encounters the new knowledges and new realities. While the English Department at Albany, until just recently, has been kept largely isolated from the poststructuralist revolution in the humanities,[2] this revolution has changed the thinking, teaching and writing of the humanities all over the world. It is, therefore, to be expected that under the new regime of knowledge required by a research degree (the Ph.D.), changes need to be made. These changes are taking place in the Department on two related levels: on the level of knowledge and on the level of labor relations.

New knowledges, which for quite a long time have been denied an ACTIVE part in the Department — from critical theory to New Americanism, from Materialist Feminism to Postcolonial Discourse and New Historicism, from the discourses of Marxism to research in such areas as the “body," “desire," “ethics," queer theory, performance theory, psychoanalytic theory — are now being introduced in an active way into the curriculum.[3] These new knowledges, as might be expected, are changing the topography of knowing in the Department. The Group, who has for a long time resisted the new knowledges, regards the introduction of new knowledges as a “crisis," representing it as a matter of “personal” and “emotional” conflicts and, in doing so, conceals the material roots of struggle in the workplace.

The administrative coup d'état, which was carried out “because” there was a “crisis," is actually prepared for in a telling part of the Vice-President's May 7, 1996 text, a part that further marks her partisanship when she discusses what she calls the “leadership of the Department” (1). “I want to take this opportunity," she declares, “to review the institution's policies and practice regarding the appointment of Department Chairs” (1). There is no explanation for the sudden need for a “review” of the existing policies concerning "the appointment of Department Chairs” other than the fact that the candidate of the Group had lost the election. One is led to ask the question: would the Vice-President have undertaken such a review had the candidate of the Group won? Certainly no review of appointment procedures had been undertaken the previous year when the tensions in the Department were just as high, if not higher, at the election of the Group's candidate as Interim Chair (the candidate of the Group was the sole candidate and some faculty members questioned the validity of the procedures at the time). The Vice-President's May 7 text anticipates what is to come. “While it is customary," the Vice-President states, “for Departments to advance candidates for this position through the applicable school or College Dean, the final decision is made by the Vice-President..." (2). A procedural move, in other words, is being introduced to prepare for overturning democratic principles. The question is: which of the two — a technical procedure or the fundamental principle of democratic self-governance — has priority for this administration? What does the administration stand for: bureaucratic proceduralism or the commitment to democratic participation?

Any bureaucrat can (when he/she so desires) justify his/her arbitrary acts by invoking some technicality, amendment, code or procedure. The test of whether a procedural move is invoked to obstruct justice and democracy or not requires examining the history of the practice. What is the history of administrative appeals to such a procedure: how often has it been invoked to block an act? In short, what is the ratio of the use of such a procedure in the history of the institution? Is it used as a matter of course: does the Vice-President always review the institution's policy on chair appointments whenever she receives the names of a new candidate from ALL departments? If not, why now? Why on this particular occasion when the candidate of the power elite in the University has lost by a landslide in the English Department? How many times has the Vice-President of Academic Affairs NOT appointed the majority elected chair in a Department? Helen Elam in her June 10, 1996 letter to President Hitchcock writes,

a small power clique that has been holding sway in departmental and university affairs...was defeated when Professor Cable won the chair's election by a landslide. A landslide is an unusual occurrence in the history of this department, yet she obviously had the full confidence of two thirds of the department. So what happened? This small power clique, who had secretly moved to partition the English department at the same time that signatories of this document were also department officers, managed to get the administration to set aside a democratic election in order to maintain whatever hold they can on power.

Dr. Genshaft's clearcut statement to the department was that officers serve at the pleasure of the administrators. But then why go through the charade of elections? If elections do not mean anything, or can be undone by administrators, or can be set aside when the results are not to the liking of a small power group, why have them at all? This was the first time in my nineteen years here when there was hope for a new spirit, for a change, for a more open department, and this was precisely the point at which the administration decided to clamp down and make such change impossible by putting the department into receivership. If ever there had been any cause for putting the department under receivership, this was the least justified time (2).