She Said/He Said ...

by Cliopatria

I suspect with a wink of her eye in Tim Burke's direction, Erin O'Connor at Critical Mass took a swing yesterday at Arthur Schlesinger's appeal to free speech rights in an address at Swarthmore. She posed the question:"if an argument for free speech is made on a campus that does not itself enjoy free speech, is there anyone there to hear it?" There were some 700 people in the audience, but of course that wasn't O'Connor's point. Her point was that Swarthmore itself has a code constraining freedom of speech. Today at Easily Distracted, Tim takes up O'Connor's challenge in"Thanks for Playing," a defense of his institution's limited constraints on speech. Its carefully crafted codes protect both institutional liability and individual rights, he argues. Noting FIRE's designation of Swarthmore as a"red light" district, Erin replies that Burke makes his defense of speech constraints at his institution sound like a defense of free speech.

Where were such people when I left graduate school, expecting to participate in tough, high-minded debate with faculty colleagues about the great issues of the day? Instead, I recall a French department chairperson rather much too loudly passing gas while a Religious Studies professor ranted on at nauseating length about not having an opinion about the matter under discussion. Fleeing that faculty meeting, I returned to my office, only to find the Biology department's alcoholic chairperson passed out in the stairwell. My wife didn't even object when I brought him in through the back of the house and stretched him out on the livingroom floor to dry out before taking him to the hospital.

My point is that this is a fairly rare opportunity to hear two keen intellects engaged in tough, respectful debate about a central issue in contemporary American academic life. It is too rare an opportunity to miss.

Update: Burke on"The Argument Clinic"; and O'Connor on"More and More Speech About Speech".
Further Update: And the debate continues at Critical Mass and Easily Distracted.

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Oscar Chamberlain - 2/19/2004

As Martha says to George in the play's last line.

I've never thought Albee's play a particularly accurate picture of acadmic life--and I sure as hell would not want to work anyplace where it was accurate.

In fact, I do see debates break out sometime, good debates. Last spring on email, a colleage sent out a statement on how to teach in time of war. Some agreed with it. Others found it lacking because it assumed that the anti-war position was inevitably right. Still others discussed the sense of fear they felt in dissenting from the war and how that led them to emphasize protection for the anti-war position.

It was non-polemical, respectful, and I think everyone made a signficant point that others respected, even when they disagreed. I actually stripped names from the debate--and asked permission from all involved--and passed copies out in my World Class to begin a discussion on how to handle the war in class.

This was touchy because students from the campus had been called up, something both supporters and opponents of the war were well aware of. They actually came up with some pretty good ground rules that we followed.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/18/2004

Yes, of course, I've seen "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" -- tho it's been so long ago that I don't recall all the details and hadn't recalled that the young prof was a biologist.
On your second point, I have elsewhere argued that stereotypes have their sting precisely because they have a grain of truth in them. If they didn't, they would not hurt and we would not recognize them as stereotypes.
Other employment areas, such as medics, are apparently more prone to drug abuse because of ready access to drugs.

Grant W Jones - 2/18/2004

Oh my, Well is a drunk, passed out liberal academic more intelligent than a sober conservative at the Heritage? Seriously, I'm just kidding around. But have you seen the movie with Richard Burton and Liz Taylor? The young professor is a biologist and Richard Burton plays ,wait for it, a burnt out historian. So your post just struck that image in my memory banks.

Some stereotypes have a grain of truth, and America is Drunk Country. Generally speaking it seems that some employment areas are more prone to alcohol abuse than others, I hope academia isn't one of them.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/18/2004

I'm not sure how you mean this. I refer to one alcoholic in my post. I wouldn't generalize from this single example to "alcoholic academics." Some academics are generously compensated. Many academics live on quite modest means.

Grant W Jones - 2/18/2004

Yep, these alcoholic academics need a wage increase.