West on the West

[Kishkumen]

I am a fan of Cornel West, partly because he is the sort of person of principle who withstands ideological pressure to conform. Here is his Washington Post letter on the catastrophe of Howard University shuttering its Classics department:

Upon learning to read while enslaved, Frederick Douglass began his great journey of emancipation, as such journeys always begin, in the mind. Defying unjust laws, he read in secret, empowered by the wisdom of contemporaries and classics alike to think as a free man. Douglass risked mockery, abuse, beating and even death to study the likes of Socrates, Cato and Cicero.

Long after Douglass’s encounters with these ancient thinkers, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be similarly galvanized by his reading in the classics as a young seminarian — he mentions Socrates three times in his 1963 “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

Yet today, one of America’s greatest Black institutions, Howard University, is diminishing the light of wisdom and truth that inspired Douglass, King and countless other freedom fighters. Amid a move for educational “prioritization,” Howard University is dissolving its classics department. Tenured faculty will be dispersed to other departments, where their courses can still be taught. But the university has sent a disturbing message by abolishing the department.

Academia’s continual campaign to disregard or neglect the classics is a sign of spiritual decay, moral decline and a deep intellectual narrowness running amok in American culture. Those who commit this terrible act treat Western civilization as either irrelevant and not worthy of prioritization or as harmful and worthy only of condemnation.

Sadly, in our culture’s conception, the crimes of the West have become so central that it’s hard to keep track of the best of the West. We must be vigilant and draw the distinction between Western civilization and philosophy on the one hand, and Western crimes on the other. The crimes spring from certain philosophies and certain aspects of the civilization, not all of them.

The Western canon is, more than anything, a conversation among great thinkers over generations that grows richer the more we add our own voices and the excellence of voices from Africa, Asia, Latin America and everywhere else in the world. We should never cancel voices in this conversation, whether that voice is Homer or students at Howard University. For this is no ordinary discussion.
The Western canon is an extended dialogue among the crème de la crème of our civilization about the most fundamental questions. It is about asking “What kind of creatures are we?” no matter what context we find ourselves in. It is about living more intensely, more critically, more compassionately. It is about learning to attend to the things that matter and turning our attention away from what is superficial.

Howard University is not removing its classics department in isolation. This is the result of a massive failure across the nation in “schooling,” which is now nothing more than the acquisition of skills, the acquisition of labels and the acquisition of jargon. Schooling is not education. Education draws out the uniqueness of people to be all that they can be in the light of their irreducible singularity. It is the maturation and cultivation of spiritually intact and morally equipped human beings.

The removal of the classics is a sign that we, as a culture, have embraced from the youngest age utilitarian schooling at the expense of soul-forming education. To end this spiritual catastrophe, we must restore true education, mobilizing all of the intellectual and moral resources we can to create human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue.

Students must be challenged: Can they face texts from the greatest thinkers that force them to radically call into question their presuppositions? Can they come to terms with the antecedent conditions and circumstances they live in but didn’t create? Can they confront the fact that human existence is not easily divided into good and evil, but filled with complexity, nuance and ambiguity?
This classical approach is united to the Black experience. It recognizes that the end and aim of education is really the anthem of Black people, which is to lift every voice. That means to find your voice, not an echo or an imitation of others. But you can’t find your voice without being grounded in tradition, grounded in legacies, grounded in heritages.

As German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer emphasized in the past century, traditions are inescapable and unavoidable. It is a question not of whether you are going to work in a tradition, but which one. Even the choice of no tradition leaves people ignorantly beholden within a language they didn’t create and frameworks they don’t understand.

Engaging with the classics and with our civilizational heritage is the means to finding our true voice. It is how we become our full selves, spiritually free and morally great.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

If I’m guessing correctly from the article the university has come to the conclusion that the classics, whatever they’re teaching at HU, doesn't represent the Black experience, whatever that means for Black people born and raised in the West. I don’t really understand the implications of a HBU taking this action, but I’m fairly certain the intent is to develop a more afro-centric curriculum?

Anyway, what are your thoughts and feelings on the matter Kishkumen since this is your world? What impacts do you think this will have on HU students and maybe by extension academia? Like, will more universities follow suit, and if so what does that do to our Western culture?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

If I’m guessing correctly from the article the university has come to the conclusion that the classics, whatever they’re teaching at HU, doesn't represent the Black experience, whatever that means for Black people born and raised in the West. I don’t really understand the implications of a HBU taking this action, but I’m fairly certain the intent is to develop a more afro-centric curriculum?

Anyway, what are your thoughts and feelings on the matter Kishkumen since this is your world? What impacts do you think this will have on HU students and maybe by extension academia? Like, will more universities follow suit, and if so what does that do to our Western culture?

- Doc

After poking around a little, it sounds like the decision was about dollars and not so much about ideology. It was a small department that didn’t offer a major.

I agree with West, though. He seems more concerned that it’s a symptom of universities being turned into trade schools than culture wars.

[Kishkumen]

Actually this is very much about both the culture wars AND financial priorities. The culture wars have hit Classics hard. One casualty was the ancient language requirement in Princeton’s Classics BA major. There is a lot of intense leftist handwringing about the evils of Western civilization and White supremacism in Classics. The whole section of West’s letter that talked about balancing the contributions of Western civilization against its crimes—which West sees as coming out in favor of the contributions—was squarely aimed at those leftist extremists who think Western civilization must be excluded and dismantled to right the wrongs. This extremist position is, of course, historically selective in the extreme and ultimately destructive.

Right now Classics is its own worst enemy, and the most extreme leftists are calling the shots. I would not be surprised if Classics only survives in more conservative private schools 30 years from now. Right now the entire discipline is on life support, and a lot of the harm is self-inflicted.

[Res Ipsa]

Actually this is very much about both the culture wars AND financial priorities. The culture wars have hit Classics hard. One casualty was the ancient language requirement in Princeton’s Classics BA major. There is a lot of intense leftist handwringing about the evils of Western civilization and White supremacism in Classics. The whole section of West’s letter that talked about balancing the contributions of Western civilization against its crimes—which West sees as coming out in favor of the contributions—was squarely aimed at those leftist extremists who think Western civilization must be excluded and dismantled to right the wrongs. This extremist position is, of course, historically selective in the extreme and ultimately destructive.

Right now Classics is its own worst enemy, and the most extreme leftists are calling the shots. I would not be surprised if Classics only survives in more conservative private schools 30 years from now. Right now the entire discipline is on life support, and a lot of the harm is self-inflicted.

I stand (gratefully) corrected.

[ajax18]

Well most Greek philosophers did own slaves. And if I remember right, you had to reach a certain proficiency in mathematics before you could move on to philosophy in ancient Greek society. I doubt such a program is going to work out for a place like Howard University, where the idea of right and wrong answers to a mathematical problem are viewed as an example of systemic white supremacy and evidence of anti black racial discrimination by the faculty.

[canpakes]

Well most Greek philosophers did own slaves. And if I remember right, you had to reach a certain proficiency in mathematics before you could move on to philosophy in ancient Greek society. I doubt such a program is going to work out for a place like Howard University, where the idea of right and wrong answers to a mathematical problem are viewed as an example of systemic white supremacy and evidence of anti black racial discrimination by the faculty.

This isn’t a Howard U issue. What you’re referring to is an approach looked at by some Oregon and Seattle school districts. How did you manage to conflate that with a University on the other side of the country?

And, you already know that your statement about the program you’re referencing isn’t true, because the subject has been discussed in depth in threads months ago.

There is no attempt to assert that the idea of right and wrong answers to a mathematical problem are viewed as an example of systemic white supremacy. Rather, the approach you’re referencing refers to incorporating multiple ways of getting to the right answer, by including methods outside of traditional Western approaches, if that benefits students. In other words, there’s a reimagining of process.

Per the publication:

“There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning.”

See page 38, or 66, or many others in this document:

https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/up ... TRIDE1.pdf

[ajax18]

And mathematics scores have disparate outcomes between races on standardized tests. Therefore such scores must be racist and therefore must be outlawed by the sovereign antiracism government bureaucracy.

[Kishkumen]

While I agree with you canpakes, there are those on the left who do decry “Western” logic and other standard approaches to problem solving and the organization of knowledge as being inherently bad and, basically, everything they stand against (heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacist). Now, I happen to agree that there are problems in these areas, but I do not agree that philosophy, science, and historical knowledge should be dismantled in order to embrace some other, allegedly more virtuous forms and methods. The irony is that the entire discussion at its core is highly Western, even on the so called “anti-Western” side. Marxism represents the global triumph of the West. Now we see the West cannibalizing itself, facilitated by a strange amnesia.

[ajax18]

I've heard that humanities professors were also penalizing students for not turning in their paper on time. This has also had a disparate impact upon African American students and therefore must be stopped.

But the good news is that Democrats will likely find a compromise on their $5 trillion spending proposal that will include free community college for all students majoring in lesbian dance theory.