Scholars as activists? Beware . . .

by Cliopatria

For someone who has been as involved in hands-on learning as much as I have (South Africa, Northern Ireland/Ireland, Israel, and so forth) I am pretty ambivalent about scholar-activism. Or at least I think that activism should be very circumscribed. I say all of this because we are about to enter the next phase of the NEH seminar, a service learning project in Caretta, West Virginia, home of Big Creek People in Action,a nonprofit service organization in McDowell County. This was one of the draws for me when I applied to be a part of this institute, but I also am wary about how or if this is the sort of thing I should take back to my students.

Let me explain. It is obvious that I am not averse to expressing my opinion. However in the classroom I think it is a different ballgame. In my writing I have not only the right, but the responsibility, especially in a forum such as this one, to express my opinions forthrightly and assertively. In front of students, however, the rules are different. Of course I am not neutral, but I do aim for a level of objectivity. Several of my colleagues here like to use the air scare quotation marks when they say the word “objective” which seems rather condescending. Few historians would deny that true objectivity is unattainable, and indeed in our outcomes we have no qualms with our subjectivity. But if the ends are not objective, that does not mean that the means are not – in our writing we weigh evidence. If there is evidence that we do not like we cannot simply ignore it. If the evidence we hope to find is not there we cannot make it up (Are you reading this Michael Bellisles?). For good scholars, our reading of the evidence informs our opinions, not vice versa. That is also Tom’s and Steve’s and my approach with Rebunk as well as with other things that we write outside of the stuff that fills out our vitas. (OK, I confess, Rebunk has a line on the vita too. Sue me.) I also take this approach into the classroom. Historical figures, right and left, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, all get the same treatment. I am not the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan. My students would be unlikely to know this. This does not mean that some value judgments don’t seep out – I make my admiration for civil rights activists clearly known. I am not afraid to say that Stalin was an evil bastard. But these sins, if that is what they are, are a far cry from cramming an agenda down their throats. I do not believe in using history as an extended metaphor to push students in any particular way. On Election Day I tell them to vote, reminding them that at least some of them can leave the booth knowing they cancelled out my vote that day.

But what does this all have to do either with the NEH seminar or activist scholarship? A great deal. It relates to the NEH seminar because a number of my colleagues are proudly activists, and this enters their work in ways subtle and not so. Further, today we had Emory & Henry College political scientist Stephen L. Fisher visit us to talk about his edited collection Fighting Back in Appalachia: Traditions of Resistance and Change. The essays, written by both scholars and activists, explore a series of issues related to community activism in Appalachia. As with all endeavors of this kind, some of the essays work better than others do, but on the whole it is a worthwhile book. Professor Fisher is an ardent activist. He has done a great deal of work for social justice issues. And he unabashedly believes that he needs to encourage his students to do the same. I am still uncomfortable with this, but I was more impressed with him than I expected to be. We had a nice conversation during a break and he conveyed to me that his classroom is open for debate, that he does not lecture, and that he wants students to pursue their own course. I think he somewhat underestimates what a chilling effect knowing the political beliefs of ones professor and having to confront them in class can have, but I left impressed nonetheless with his passion and earnestness and intelligence.

Still, I am a bit wary of this approach. Maybe it is because I am so opinionated that if I opened the floodgates I’d be afraid that I would create an unfair environment. But beyond that, I am wary because “activism” is not an anodyne concept. One is not simply an activist, one is an activist for something. And if this seeps into the classroom, indeed if it is at the heart of the course, what of those students whose politics are not the same as yours? This is an especially acute problem at smaller schools. If you are in the political science department at, say, Michigan State, it is pretty easy to avoid a professor and still be a Poli-Sci major. At Emory & Henry, however, this is unlikely to be an option. The poli-sci department, which appears to be excellent (Professor Fisher has won a national college teacher of the year award) has five professors. Given leaves and topic interests and the nature of small colleges, how easy would it be for a student to avoid one professor’s classes? And what if more than one is an activist? This does not seem to be the friendliest atmosphere for, say, a libertarian, or someone who opposes service learning, or a conservative who believes in right to work laws. I would not agree with these students, but I am not certain I have the right to force my views down their throat. And if I did, I would have to understand their discomfort.

Again, I am wrestling with this. I have taken groups of students to do community service work in Ireland and peace work in Belfast. But they signed on to the program knowing this was what they were going to do – this is a far cry from including it in a class at a college where students take courses for an array of reasons. I have certainly engaged in what most people would consider to be activism that has informed my writing and teaching. But it has not been something that has been at the heart of my classes.

My favorite historian, C. Vann Woodward, was also not a believer in activist scholarship. Ironically, his scholarship, despite his intentions, may have done more to impact history than the work of just about any other disciple of Clio’s art. He wrote historical briefs (with John Hope Franklin) for the Brown case. Although he did not engage in a great deal of civil rights activism, he did meet the marchers in Montgomery who had taken the long, bold (and early on bloodily aborted,) walk from Selma for voting rights. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, he pointed out Woodward’s presence and called the historian’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow “The historical bible of the civil rights movement.” If my writing ever has an impact, I would prefer for it to be this way, or through activism that I do separate from the classroom, and not as the result of a strange, uncomfortable, and potentially coercive, no matter how well intended, marriage between the classroom and my fallible sense of politics.

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More Comments:

Van L. Hayhow - 7/1/2004

There is nothing in your post I would disagree with. The only modification I would think about is that almost all perspectives have something to offer. But the English professor mentioned in the post on the MO-POs conference who reacted audibly with disdain to the notion that a book could be written objectively is probably not going to be part of our discussion (not because we would exclude him) because he would not make the effort since he doesn't apparently believe its possible.

Oscar Chamberlain - 7/1/2004

“My point is yes, obviously, there is something known as truth, and objective analysis is the best way to get there."

And what is truth? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

More seriously, I think that striving for objectivity is the best way to get close to the truth. However, I think any truths we find are inherently limited, if for no other reason than the individual human has a finite set of facts and perspectives from which to observe and analyze the past.

I realize the reference to perspectives brings up the "all perspectives are equal" concern. I do reject that. However, I think that statement is sometimes confused with a far more valid assertion: that all perspectives have something to show us.

To pursue the visual analogy for a moment visual images of a desert will reveal different things according to the viewer’s location (in the middle, on a mountain at the edge, from a satellite) and according to the technology used (the eye, a film camera, a video tape, a camera that senses infrared light).

No one perspective has everything. Some perspectives provide more information than others, but combining the perspectives is the only way to approach the full "truth" of that desert.

Of course, a historical event is more difficult. Many aspects of the event are closed to us (most particularly the mental landscapes of the actors) while other facts may be lost to time. It is not always easy to even set the parameters of the event.

This is why having many perspectives among historians is so important. No one of us is likely to be so good that he or she can claim to have understood the totality of an event, a trend, a cause, or whatever. But the more ways we look at the past, the closer we can get to the heart of the matter and, therefore, the closer we get to the impossible goal of an "objective" truth.

Van L. Hayhow - 7/1/2004

Prof. Luker:
Thank you for your response. I guess my original post was not as clear as I hoped. Yes, our perspectives and sources of information may be different. But the more we work at it, the better our perspective is. My post was directed at those that say any objectivity is impossible and that there is no such thing as truth. Most, but not all of these people seem to be English Professors who analyse an author's work, not on what is said but by its purported realtionship to power. Huh? Elsewhere on this website, there have been posts about historians arguing pro and con about whether or not there is something as truth. My point is yes, obviously, there is someting known as truth, and objective analysis is the best way to get there.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/30/2004

Van, There's an unarticulated qualifier in the claim that objectivity is impossible: "absolute". Absolute objectivity is impossible. It's impossible for two reasons: 1) we never know all the facts and all of their relationships to each other; and 2) even if we did, we still remain subjects looking at "facts" and my vantage point is not the same as yours and who is to say that mine is more or less comprehensive or objective than yours?

Charles V. Mutschler - 6/29/2004

Well-spoken, counsellor. "It [objectivity] takes work, and practice, but it can be done." I am in agreement with you. Personally, I think the argument that no one can escape the context of his own times is not very convincing, because it discourages the historian from trying to understand the people and events being studied in the context of *their* times, rahter than the author's own.

Charles V. Mutschler

Van L. Hayhow - 6/24/2004

One thing I have never been clear on is why so many historians (and even more English professors) seem to think that objectivity is impossible. I am an attorney, and if I can't look at a matter objectively, a client may make a bad deal and wind up bankrupt, or turn down a plea bargain and wind up doing three times as much time. It takes work, and practice, but it can be done.

Arnold Shcherban - 6/20/2004

In my opinion torture would be practically justified only in one scenario: there is a strong and credible evidence(not the opinion) the imminent and immediate threat to the lifes of minimum thousands of people exist, there is little time left, the torturer(s) are confident the tortured-to-be possess infomation essential for finding and eliminating the threat and the
number of tortured folks doesn't exceed, say, a dozen or
two.
If, however, even under this scenario the mistakes have been made, the wrongly tortured(whether they are US itizens or foreigners) must be publicly exonerated, apologized to, and financially compensated with millions of dollars each.

Derek Charles Catsam - 6/18/2004

Thanks Charles. That means a great deal to the three of us. We'll miss the mark and will show our intemperance at times, but I hope on the whole it ends up on a lot of folks' bookmark lists.
dc

Charles V. Mutschler - 6/18/2004

Professor Catsam,

I think you have nicely made the point that we wrestled with earlier on this list about objectivity. In an absolute sense, it isn't obtainable, but as a process, and as a practice in the classroom, it is always the best course of action. As you note in your post, the fact is that if the professor makes his political and social philosophy known in the classroom, there is always a chilling effect, and self censorship or ostracism of other students becomes an issue amongst the students.

I think you are correct in noting that convervatives, libertarians, and others with differing views might find a progressive social activiist professor to be stifling their views if he is too forward with his own values in the classroom. (This would, of course, apply equally to a conservative activist) Since all people, of all political and philosophical beliefs pay taxes to support public universities, in a public university it seems especially inappropriate to use the lecturn as a bully pulpit for one's own social views.

Thanks for a thoughtful and worthwhile post. Rebunk seems to assay out to a higher grade of commentary than most blogs. Keep up the good work.

Charles V. Mutschler

Derek Charles Catsam - 6/17/2004

Hold to established way. Especially on stuff that isn't even history as politics, but plain old contemporary politics. I agree with you on torture, but there are those (your student included) who disagree with you. That said, were this a South African history class, say (or Chilean, or a lot of others, but I do not know Chile as well) I think youmight be able totalk about the state use of torture and what it means and how it worked and such. But even there, it probably would be best not to draw explicit ties. I think we are better than torture,and I think goodnesswillwin out on this issue. No need to preach in the classroom, though no harm in playing devil's advocate -- you can convey the other side without conveying it as your side. Giving all sides means occasionally giving yours. They just should not know that it is yours,and you should be able to restate the student's case in a discussion.
dc

Oscar Chamberlain - 6/17/2004

I often struggle with whether or how to express my opinions in a class. I'm pretty good, I think, about not taking contemporary politics into classes where they are irrelevant. My World to 1500 students are safe.

It's much harder in courses that cover contemporary American or World history. My general approach is to let them know that when we get to my life time that I am a participant as well as a historian. I discuss some things that I did and believed, but I make that in the form of a warning, that no matter how hard I try to be objective I may slip from time to time.

Then, in practice, I make sure that I express the best arguments against those positions as well as the arguments supporting them. I think this works fairly well, as in most classes I have some students expressing contrary views.

However, I am really wondering how I'm going to deal with the attempts of this administration to legitimize torture as a proper tool for some interrogations. When it came up this Spring--mostly though not always in a course online discussion area--I attempted to be objective.

However, I was appalled at the students who do not simply support torture in a sort of "ticking bomb" hypothetical way but consider it as a logical part of the current war. One in particular expressed this with considerable eloquence and with reasons that, apart from morality, had a considered logic to them.

(For those in the audience who might be suspicious, I did not consider lowering his grade. His comments met my criteria. They were carefully worded and founded on fact. Besides, grading as a form of censorship is abhorrent to me.)

So, as it becomes more and more obvious that the Administration's views are quite similar to that student's, do I have a moral obligation to make clear how horrid that is? Or should I hold to my established way of doing things?