Thrasymachus, a post-modernist a couple of millennia ahead of his time, denies there is such a thing as justification — there is only motive and cause. There’s only one answer to the question Why should I be just? Swords and spears.
It took 2,400 years, but Thrasymachus has won in the comfort college. When objectivity is scorned, when justification is considered only subjective, when reason and logic are taken to be only the tools of oppression and the province of the oppressor, then all that is left is power.
To ask the reason for something can only mean to ask for the motive or cause. The study of logic has a name for what happens when we confuse the origin of a belief with its truth, or the origin of an argument with its validity. It’s called the genetic fallacy.
The comfort college’s acolytes make the figurative fallacy literal. It is the arguer’s genes that determine truth and validity, not facts or reason. That is why, in the comfort college, testimony has come to substitute for rational argument. When students (and more and more faculty) demand a new policy, their arguments often begin as (and rarely go beyond) accounts of victimization; the account is justification enough.
This ritual institutionalizes the denial of rational justification. It corrupts the healthy multicultural idea, built on Enlightenment universalism and cosmopolitanism, that different perspectives matter, and that what one sees often depends on where one stands — and that we are all better off from listening to those who stand in different places, who see the part of the truth that is blocked from our particular vision. The liberal ideal of the pursuit of knowledge is that by cooperating we all can see and understand better. But identity politicians reject the Enlightenment’s hope of mutual understanding and reason’s path to get us there. In the fragmented comfort college, the only tool is power — the power to enforce the dogma.--Steven Gerrard "The Rise of the Comfort College" Bloomberg, Opinion.[HT Leiterreports]
Yesterday, when I first read this I was prompted to snark. I won't withhold from you my more critical reflections of Gerrard's self-understanding and analysis. But that will not be the main point of this post: what I really want to do is discuss and grasp the sense of "loss" (a word he uses more than once) that Gerrard describes of a college in transition from one regime to another kind of regime. Not to put too fine point on it, this transition is clearly traumatic for some (the ones who feel loss). And maybe their trauma can help us start to reflect on the nature of this transition.
But before I get to that it is notable that Thrasymachus (and since Plato is a leitmotif in Gerrard's two-part essay, I will assume that 'Thrasymachus' refers to the persona in the Republic) is misrepresented. Socrates explicitly marks the fact that Thrasymachus (somewhat originally [348e]) treats injustice as objectively (!) a part of virtue/wisdom. And Thrasymachus has offered a justification for this claim. The status of the justification is complex because it draws on empirical features, but in virtue of treating injustice as properly part of virtue/wisdom, the argument is also normative. Moreover, Thrasymachus alllows that while the content of what is called 'justice' is regime dependent, its structure is regime invariant. (There is a formal sense in which this anticipates Aristotle, but there are also non-trivial differences, including differences in how to express the insight.) And while one easily imagine this being the grounds of ideology critique ('justice' serves the interests of the locally strong), a natural reading of Thrasymachus position is that this state of affairs can be endorsed upon reflection (hence it is properly part of virtue/justice). It's possible, of course, that Thrasymachus' argument is flawed, but it's not because Thrasymachus denies that reasons can be given or that he is a moral nihilist or a caricature post-modernist.*
I mention this not just for minimal historical accuracy, nor to note that this is an instance of a more general phenomenon that those that bewail the fall of civilization and invoke Plato are such odd readers of Plato, but rather that Gerrard slides a bit too quickly from presenting Thrasymachus as the anthithesis of "Enlightenment universalism and cosmopolitanism, [and the idea'] that different perspectives matter" to a critic of objectivity. In some respects Thrasymachus prefigures the (non-trivial) strain in Enlightenment pluralist thought that as a matter of objective fact recognizes differences in institutional and political arrangements and simultaneously acknowledges that they can instantiate common commitments. And while there is plenty of resistance of Enlightenment thinkers to the idea that local might makes right, many do think that (to echo Adam Smith) the law exists to provide the powerful rich nighttime "security."
Once upon a time, those that defended the Enlightenment were proud of the fact that it was thought capable, perhaps uniquely capable, to develop a tradition of internal critique (including critique of critique, etc.)--such that ideology critique became a mainstream feature of it. Gerrard proudly notes that he taught Mill, but he seems to have missed that chapter 2 of Mill's Of Liberty (recall) presents a straightforward account of ideology that generalizes to all societies: "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority." Ideology critique is not something to be ceded to Marxism, but it is a reflexive feature of the liberal strand of the Enlightenment. The tools of ideology critique are immanent in Thrasymachus (and arguably developed in the rest of the Republic). This is no easy matter because there is a genuine threat that any ideology critique can be corrosive. But to echo Socrates (and Spinoza), the excellent things in life are not easy.
Gerrard tells us that his trials started when some faculty at Williams tried to have their institution "sign a national pledge of allegiance to principles of free expression that originated at the University of Chicago, adopted which he calls "the mainstream liberal principles." Now, I don't think these new principles are very liberal (either in the sense of classical liberal or in the modern sense of liberal); I have discussed (early articulations) of those new principles (recall here; here) critically and treated them, agreeing with Jacob T. Levy, unfavorably in light of the (earlier) the University of Chicago statement on freedom of expression and the Kalven Report, "which are much better statements of governing academic principle."
Now Gerrard's own position seems that censorship or event cancellation is a mistake, but rather that "we just have to work to maximize the educational mission of all our events." It is notable that somebody who happily invokes Plato throughout his essay fails to pause at the fact that, at least according to Plato (or Plato's Socrates), the educational mission of students (let's leave maximizing aside), and citizens, requires (extensive) censorship and non-trivial policing of what can enter into a curriculum and course of study. Plato was no liberal and, I am leaving aside his views on political speech. But the very idea of a curriculum presupposes decisions about what viewpoints can and cannot be heard and how the interaction among these decisions can shape a course of study. And while those decisions do not reduce to power, it is peculiar to fail allow that, in practice power enters into them.**
Now, Gerrard inscribes his analysis into a fourfold division (mostly indebted to Frederick Rudolph) of the evolution of colleges: 1. the Christian college; 2. the gentlemen’s college; and 3. the consumer’s college; 4. the comfort college. In Gerrard's schema were transitioning between 3 and 4, and "are on the cusp of this new era." He then makes his most important observation:
The controversies over free speech, safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions and the like are symptoms of this shift. They are currently considered controversies because the colleges are in transition, and many do not realize that the old standards no longer hold. Once the transition is complete, the “correct” side of the controversies will become central to a school’s identity — just as faith was to the Christian college, self-confidence was to the gentlemen’s college, and alumni devotion and achievement were to the consumer’s college.
While no era was homogeneous, I agree with Gerrard that a transition is occurring. {I learned (recall) from Bejan that the concern with microagressions goes back to Hobbes.} That is to say, while a lot of the public writing about the transition is simply a business-model on the intellectual right (I note with amusement that Gerrard published this in Bloomberg!--and I defend markets:)), even a form of virtue signaling (of which I am no critic), the vehemence of the response to the ordinary ebb and flow of american elite campus life does indicate something. One reason I am focusing on Gerrard is that unlike those who turn campus life into click-bait, he recognizes that given the educational mission of a university "insensitivity toward people’s identities should be self-censored, and social pressure to do so is a helpful tool." He is a serious educator.
Now, Gerrard thinks that new (comfort) college devalues "the pursuit of knowledge."+ And he thinks this is indicated, in part, by the willingness of Williams' students to claim that “We hold the truth of discursive and institutional violence to be self-evident.” Presumably the students find this self-evident in the manner that Jefferson (and the other Enlightened Founders) held, against the manifest evidence of their senses--and perhaps also their actions, "that all men are created equal." What that manner is is not easy to articulate and since I am not a student at Williams I wouldn't wish to speak on their behalf.
But the students' statement does point to the costs and harms of the pursuit of knowledge and also the harmful effects of its application. We can study that within the Enlightenment project as a species of inductive risk. Even given the unfavorable gloss offered by Gerrard, the students seems to be asking for the responsible pursuit of knowledge one that recognizes the harms done along the way and is willing to be held accountable for the conditions that make it possible (hence the obligation to Williams College of "reparation and reconciliation to Indigenous peoples").
Let me close with a final note, Gerrard asserts that "Our students are comfortable in their opinions but uncomfortable with their lives, finding their world and the Williams campus a threatening place." He interprets his students as wanting to be comforted and sheltered by the college. I hope he forgives this sentence, but it strikes me that in dealing with genuinely unpleasant disagreements he is so traumatized that he misses a more plausible and also more generous interpretation.++ For the very evidence he presents suggests that at least his more vocal students are eager to confront the very real threats the world poses and to make education and knowledge an engine to try to change them materially and confront them symbolically. I am enough a historian of Enlightenment philosophy to recognize that in so doing these students are children of the very Enlightenment he claims they deride and he wishes to preserve.
For a liberal higher education serves multiple ends. But one of the fundamental ends is to provide individuals and society with the means to confront the many biases of the status quo. The liberal's preference for markets and education also entails a willingness to live with the uncertainty that the past is not reproduced, but challenged. How to educate students to be democratic activists is no easy matter (and I leave to others who have expertise). But a true liberal education, in fact, is committed to the risky (recall) idea that students will take our teachings and surprise us with their uses of it including the inadequacy of our dogmas.
*It's not that there is no strain of post-modernism in sophistry. See Rachel Barney's fascinating paper on Gorgias (the actual historical thinker).
**I think it is a mistake to cancel events, but universities should not invite people to campus who do not contribute to the educational mission of students at all.
+He adds for good measure that "Knowledge, since Plato, has usually been defined as justified true belief." This claim is the target of a very fine (2015) paper by M.A. Antognazza
++Why do I say he's traumatized? At one point he quotes some technocratic document (to be used in searches):
I fully understand that a paragraph like this is maddening. (And I certainly do not wish to justify all the meshuggas of contemporary college life.) But the factual claims made in it are largely true. Moreover, this paragraph is no evidence for the claim that colleges are ''abandoning knowledge and objectivity." On the contrary, taken at face value the paragraph relies on knowledge and aims to make knowledge more objective. I grant that it is possible to read this as an expression of a species of relativism about knowledge(s). But relativism is compatible with a commitment to knowledge and (with effort) to objectivity.
About your '++',
One of the many frustrating parts about the quote is that its authors tie the evaluation of epistemic practice to whether that practice had a role in spreading empire, or conversely, was the victim of empire.
It may be that elevating non-white(?), indigenous, and non-European knowledges is to increase objectivity. But the only mooted reason seems to be that these have been the victim of empire. That doesn't sound like a good reason. At most, we have reason think that empire has perhaps clouded our vision, and lots of good stuff went unnoticed. The jury, on these others, remains out - pending a proper investigation.
(Admittedly, this involves an assumption about what counts as good reason - which necessarily must come from a particular stance. And round and round we go.)
Posted by: ajkreider | 09/13/2019 at 08:58 PM
I don't think the quoted passage is actually making much of an evaluation of the on-white, indigenous, and non-European (etc.) epistemic practices. It's just noticing that they have been displaced by ways of knowing that had advantage of colonial power. That happens to be true. And presumably it is alerting hiring committees not to be prejudiced against these ways of knowing--not to ignore the good stuff.
I recognize that your reading may well be implied by a larger context. So, I am not taking bets.
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 09/15/2019 at 07:21 PM