Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education [Paperback]

 

 

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An early sally countering irrational trends in humanities studies, Kimball provides an overview of the impact of "deconstructionism." He sees the humanities in a state of crisis. At issue is the aim of the "new left" to displace the values established by the Enlightenment, replacing them with "politically correct" ideals. These ideals include "feminist studies," multi-cultural values, and various forms of "text analysis" asserting culture drives scholarship. These new ideals have crossed the Atlantic from their home among modern French "philosophes." Kimball argues these ideals have taken root and spread firmly throughout North American universities. They are eroding the traditional aims of universities to teach critical thinking, replacing that with slogans and a political agenda.

Kimball identifies the "Western canon" - the establishment of a hierarchy of valuable works of literature, history, critical studies based on value. That canon is represented by works of what the British refer to as "the Greats." While conceding that the membership of these "Greats" is Eurocentric, he counters that the Enlightenment has been successfully exported around the world. It is not the writers or critics themselves that have been received successfully elsewhere [although that's often the case], but the methods and values from the Enlightenment that have gained ascendancy. In contrast, the new "postmodernist" thrust seeks to abandon not only the people representing the canon, but the very methods of thinking and writing that gave rise to it.

Recognizing that the movement asserts it is making academia more "democratic," Kimball argues that in scholarship, democracy isn't a replacement for merit. Why, he asks, should a student "place Shakespeare on a par with Bugs Bunny"? Characterising the rise of deconstruction as an "intellectual spree" he mourns its nchallenged wide acceptance. He goes on to present numerous examples of the thinking [or lack of it] expressed by its advocates. The items range from magazine editorial policies to convocations of educators planning curricula. Perhaps the most jarring note is his description of the impact of deconstruction on architecture. Although that seems almost humorously self-contradictory, Kimball provides valid examples.

His presentation is passionate, perhaps even alarming to the unwary reader. A strong advocate of traditional Western ideals, Kimball sprinkles the work with his aversion to Marxist tenets. If the book has a serious shortcoming, it is that blatant political orientation. Since this book was published, other surveys have appeared. None have truly replaced this seminal work in examining the pronouncements of those setting the academic agenda today. This book deserves attention and study. The issues have not faded since it was published.

Roger Kimball's work is a refreshing look at the sad state of the Humanities today. Is the book rather one-sided in its views on the 'culture wars'? Yes, but then again one will not get much vigorous debate on the subject in most Humanities departments today-and this is exactly Mr. Kimball's point. Even putting aside the complete contempt for truth these scholars show, if this neglect and subversion of Humanities departments were simply an academic affair, perhaps Mr. Kimball would sound histrionic, but he clearly identifies the real victims-the students. Indeed, the book comes off at points almost conspiratorial, as Mr. Kimball implies that the failed radical fight these scholars fought while students is now being played out for the hearts and minds of contemporary students. Sadly, that argument is not without some merit. The adolescent postures of these scholars that are lauded as arguments by the so-called 'cultural Left' make amusing, if at times frustrating reading for those accustomed to the naive belief that the universities existed for higher learning in pursuit of such feeble contemporary notions such as truth. Mr. Kimball lances the proponents with their own words and ideas, not their backgrounds or politics, something his opponents should take note of.

Roger Kimball's "Tenured Radicals" is a response to a response, revenge against the academy for the academy's revenge against the initiators of the debate, namely Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" and William Bennett's "To Reclaim a Legacy." Kimball could have played a useful role in this debate, since late-1980s academics certainly deserved to critiqued for the broad and unkind brush they used to paint Bennett and Bloom, and for some of the more ridiculous extremes their theories sometimes took them. He opts instead for the easier, less instructive path, though, and "Tenured Radicals" is a half-informed slinging of mud, very little of which sticks.

Bloom and Bennett passionately believed in the legacy they were defending, and their earnestness is evident; Kimball seems rather to relish the opportunity to sting the "elitist academic Left." Castigating institutional figures like Houston Baker for resorting to name-calling rather than real engagement, Kimball himself is guilty of the most unpardonable of rhetorical sins. Unable, via logical argumentation, to truly invalidate the loathed theories, chapters often fade into dismissive sarcasm or rude ad hominems: Louis Althusser's theories can't be right because he later went insane, Kimball argues, and Rosalind Krauss can't be right because she lives in a nicely decorated apartment.

Kimball's prize piece is his rebuke of academics who held to Paul de Man even after it was revealed, in 1987, that de Man had written for a Nazi-friendly Belgian paper during WWII. Much should be made of this crisis, which still plagues academics to this day: When do the younger crimes of a man (or ought we to call them "youthful indiscretions"?) overshadow all the good he does later in his life? Kimball is spot on to point out the waffling of Derrida, Hartmann, and others in this regard. But he is wrong to claim that this invalidates everything they stand for. This would be like judging conservatism solely on the example of Watergate.

But then, Kimball is not interested in fairness, clearly. His prime example of post-structuralist close reading? Geoffrey Hartmann, who had practically an entire book written about how careless a critic he can be (Norris' "Deconstruction: Theory & Practice"). Here, too, Kimball is myopic, since he depicts the academy as an unthinking mass when, in reality, it is a site of constant debate and struggle; post-structuralism ran/runs rampant, yes, but that never means that everyone accepts it uncritically. "Tenured Radicals" doesn't bother to address the debates.

And so, Kimball's final image of Socrates' trial is both laughable and disingenuous. "Tenured Radicals" would have us believe that Kimball speaks, like Socrates, for eternal and unquestionable truths. The fog-thick irony in this moment was clearly lost on Kimball, so I'll help him to understand it. See, people of Kimball's ilk--that is, those who pretend to speak for "culture" or for "decency" everywhere, and who will not countenance their being questioned to any degree--are precisely the Athenians who found Socrates guilty of corrupting the youth of his city and exiled him. Kimball may not believe in the aims of today's "tenured radicals." But he owed them, in the spirit of Socrates at least, a fairer and less blindly partisan assessment.

Readers would do well to avoid Kimball. Read Bloom, and Gerald Graff's "Beyond the Culture Wars" if you really want to see a civil, earnest, and informed debate between a traditionalist and a "tenured radical."

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5.0 out of 5 stars No laughing matter but one can't resist ...
In the introduction to the 3rd edition of this classic analysis, Kimball notes that at the conclusion of the 1990s all the trends he identified in the first edition at the start... Read more

Published on Jan 27 2010 by Pieter

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the Worst Books in Recent Memory
From the acknowledgements page (where Kimball credits both the arriere garde *New Criterion* and the fetid Olin Foundation) to the concluding quotation of fascist sympathizer... Read more

Published on May 3 2004 by cecil

5.0 out of 5 stars African's the origin of civilization
That statement my radically liberal friend was said by non other than the bigot racist known as Louis Farrakhan. Fight the power! Read more

Published on Dec 10 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars There is one truth
Truth is not relative, something is either true or not true.. Either millions died under Stalin and Lenin or they did not. Read more

Published on May 14 2002

1.0 out of 5 stars throw it into a trash can
Clear, witty, but a over-simplified and biased treatment of liberal scholars. Sometimes, the author reveals his ignorance of current philosophical trends. Read more

Published on Sep 7 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars In the vein of Illiberal Education, this book
exposes the intellectual, moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the modern university academy. Populated with Leftist retreads from the 60's and teeming with vapid anti-intellectual... Read more

Published on Aug 30 2001

3.0 out of 5 stars Stupidity you can get your hands on
This book fills a certain void in anti-humanitarian literature by virtue of its clarity and honesty. Read more

Published on Jun 12 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Clintonian Democrats Come From
This book examines, in witty and pellucid prose, the doctrinal assumptions of the radical academics who have controlled the upper echelons of higher education these last twenty... Read more

Published on May 28 2001 by Mary C. Lodwick

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for today.
Absolutely wonderful! I laughed all the way through. This makes a clean sweep of the bilge that passes itself off as literary criticism, or worse, pretends to be philosophy. Read more

Published on Mar 3 2001 by Benjamin Rossen

3.0 out of 5 stars Both Compelling and Too One-Sided . . .
Tenured Radicals is a powerful indictment of what passes for rigor and excellence in the humanities today. Read more

Published on Aug 25 2000 by Frank R. Jackson

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