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Olive branches and battles royale
The Chronicle of Higher Education has conducted a highly necessary and revealing social experiment: Last month, CHE issued lunch invitations to Michael Berube and David Horowitz, with the idea of bringing together two personalities who have come to stand somewhat metonymically for the two sides of the debate about ideological bias in academe. Berube and Horowitz had never met, though they have written about one another quite pointedly quite a bit. The resulting conversation is an interesting instance of two men who have come to be regarded as academe's versions of arch nemeses discovering that they just might have some common ground.
Handled with a delightfully light touch by moderator Thomas Bartlett, who makes sure we know which interlocutor fidgets, which is calm, and what they had for lunch, the discussion transcript can be read without a subscription here.
An excerpt:
Horowitz: You have more experience with students than I do. I'm amazed. I have these Republican kids who sign up -- the reason I'm at Ball State is this kid signed up for a peace-studies course and thought he was going to learn about war and peace, and it turned out to be this guy recruiting people to his anti-military, nonviolent movement. I think the culture has been eroded.Berube: Don't you find from the students you're talking to that they're not fooled by this? Let me ask: What actual effect does this have?
Horowitz: What you were saying earlier is part of my speech. The kids who suffer the most are the liberal kids because they don't get challenged. The conservative kids, if they open their mouths, they gotta know how to defend themselves. They're the kids who learn a lot . So to me it's the--
Berube: That's what I'm saying; it's not good for liberals ...
Horowitz: Well, maybe we'll start a movement together when this is over. It's the integrity of the academic process to the radicals conducting their radicalism, but just not in the classroom...
An awful lot can happen when people simply sit down and talk. It would be nice to see more such conversations. Who knows how much common ground there might really be between people who have been cast--or who have cast themselves--as virulently opposed?
Posted by acta online at December 5, 2006 10:05 AM
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Comments
I talked with Horowitz when he visited the university where I work. Though prepared to be sympathetic, at the end I felt he's not a guy I especially want to meet again.
Posted by: anonymous guy at December 5, 2006 08:32 PM
I don't know. I'd rather have lunch with a fidgety guy who plays with the sugar packs than a "calm" guy who gestures at me with a morsel of half-eaten bread.
Posted by: anonymous gal at December 6, 2006 12:12 AM
WHO'S ZOOMIN' WHO?
Not sure which is more farcical and absurd:
(1) a gub-mint worker pontificating about the chattering masses on the public dime, or
(2) a lonely Jonah-like voice trying to convince the public that faculty ought to let students have their own opinions without being made the butt of faculty jokes, smirks, or sarcasm.
This comedy would be laughable if the U.S. weren't being overtaken as a world leader by Asia and Germany.
Mr. Berube is world-class as a typist -- what have his students accomplished? Where are they? Where's the money for the Distinguished Berube Chair on Critical Commentary?
Posted by: B.D. at December 6, 2006 09:12 AM
Anon gal, personally, I am not eager to dine with either of them and not particularly interested in what either has to say. I've not met Mr. Berube, though.
B.D.: re U.S. being overtaken. China, perhaps, but Germany? What do you have in mind?
Posted by: anonymous guy at December 6, 2006 05:33 PM