Article: Conspiracy Theories 101
By Stanley Fish
The New York Times
Sunday July, 23, 2006
KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.
Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled ''Islam: Religion and Culture,'' acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government. The predictable uproar ensued, and the equally predictable battle lines were drawn between those who disagree about what the doctrine of academic freedom does and does not allow.
Mr. Barrett's critics argue that academic freedom has limits and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and fantasies. Mr. Barrett's supporters (most of whom are not partisans of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular. (This was the position taken by the university's provost, Patrick Farrell, when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett would be retained: ''We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.'')
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor's speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.
Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material others consider trivial -- golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever -- I should get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content -- a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny -- but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: ''When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?'' The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn't think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.
But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach astrology -- not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands astrology.
The distinction I am making -- between studying astrology and proselytizing for it -- is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration ''not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events.''
Is the fact of this group's growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group's arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.
Provost Farrell doesn't quite see it that way, because he is too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his ''unconventional'' ideas and ''personal opinions'' with readings ''representing a variety of viewpoints.''
But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance.
There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side. Of course the instructor who presides over such a survey is likely to be a partisan of one position or the other -- after all, who doesn't have an opinion on the Iraq war? -- but it is part of a teacher's job to set personal conviction aside for the hour or two when a class is in session and allow the techniques and protocols of academic research full sway.
This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After all, we require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters. And while its exercise may not always be total, it is both important and possible to make the effort.
Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is not ''Do you hold these views?'' (he can hold any views he likes) or ''Do you proclaim them in public?'' (he has that right no less that the rest of us) or even ''Do you surround them with the views of others?''
Rather, the question should be: ''Do you separate yourself from your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of Wisconsin and teach subject matter -- whatever it is -- rather than urge political action?'' If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the ''wrong'' things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for indoctrination.
The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that it outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in: on the one hand, faculty members who shout ''academic freedom'' and mean by it an instructor's right to say or advocate anything at all with impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout ''not on our dime'' and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas they can and cannot bring into the classroom.
All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught -- no list of interdicted ideas or topics -- there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.
The New York Times
Sunday July, 23, 2006
KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.
Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled ''Islam: Religion and Culture,'' acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government. The predictable uproar ensued, and the equally predictable battle lines were drawn between those who disagree about what the doctrine of academic freedom does and does not allow.
Mr. Barrett's critics argue that academic freedom has limits and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and fantasies. Mr. Barrett's supporters (most of whom are not partisans of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular. (This was the position taken by the university's provost, Patrick Farrell, when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett would be retained: ''We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.'')
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor's speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.
Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material others consider trivial -- golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever -- I should get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content -- a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny -- but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: ''When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?'' The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn't think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.
But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach astrology -- not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands astrology.
The distinction I am making -- between studying astrology and proselytizing for it -- is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration ''not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events.''
Is the fact of this group's growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group's arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.
Provost Farrell doesn't quite see it that way, because he is too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his ''unconventional'' ideas and ''personal opinions'' with readings ''representing a variety of viewpoints.''
But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance.
There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side. Of course the instructor who presides over such a survey is likely to be a partisan of one position or the other -- after all, who doesn't have an opinion on the Iraq war? -- but it is part of a teacher's job to set personal conviction aside for the hour or two when a class is in session and allow the techniques and protocols of academic research full sway.
This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After all, we require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters. And while its exercise may not always be total, it is both important and possible to make the effort.
Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is not ''Do you hold these views?'' (he can hold any views he likes) or ''Do you proclaim them in public?'' (he has that right no less that the rest of us) or even ''Do you surround them with the views of others?''
Rather, the question should be: ''Do you separate yourself from your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of Wisconsin and teach subject matter -- whatever it is -- rather than urge political action?'' If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the ''wrong'' things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for indoctrination.
The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that it outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in: on the one hand, faculty members who shout ''academic freedom'' and mean by it an instructor's right to say or advocate anything at all with impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout ''not on our dime'' and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas they can and cannot bring into the classroom.
All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught -- no list of interdicted ideas or topics -- there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.
7 Comments:
fantastic piece of writeup.
Hand-lickers of power talking about academic freedom?
Excellent article.
I'm pretty sure not too many faculty understand or want to understand the distinction between academic freedom and indoctrination. Students should not be subjected to political propaganda from either side of the divide. As is mentioned in the article, it is equally wrong to agitate for a balance of opinion on the campus (although a balance is better than a lopsided liberalism). The classroom is for learning and that means presenting many views without endorsing. Of course, outside the classroom is a different isssue and we should talk again. Still on the campus but outside the classroom it is still good for our young people that we encourage diversity of thought and opinion but we should except advocacy also. But, under no circumstance inside the classroom.
Stanley Fish makes an interesting but generally bad argument in this piece, I think. The best professors have open points of view and generally advocate them, as well, largely because it is the honest thing to do and honesty, academic and otherwise, is the highest value, for good reason, in a university setting.
Paul Peterson and Chester Finn openly study and advocate for school vouchers and charter schools and I think that is a fine thing and makes them good professors for doing so openly. Of course the university experience should be an experience where students and other faculty are also afforded that same freedom to believe and advocate for things they believe in, though the pedagogical issues can be resolved, better, with in-house discussions than with threats of firing or actual firing which are generally partisan efforts cloaked in concern for academic fairness.
The Academic Bill of Rights and David's Dangerous Professors are just two of the most famous examples of such dishonest arguments about academic freedom that really have nothing to do with freedom. Stanley Fish is somewhat more honest, but still makes a bad argument, generally, about both the limits of free speech on campuses. Fish just kind of wades in the dirty, dishonest waters of using partisan differences to cloak discussions of academic fairness that far from live up to the ideals of freedom of thought, speech, study, and engagement. And Fish's discussion of "outflanking" clearly outs him as a strategic thinker on this issue more than an honest discussant. The only people who care about flanking and outflanking are political hacks like David Horowitz and James Carville, not honest discussants in important conversations. I know it's hard for some folks to believe, but political strategy is not honest intellectual discussion. Quite the opposite, it is propaganda and manipulation. By definition it is the opposite of honest political discussion. And should be treated as such.
By the way, just a side note. Interestingly and refreshingly, a persuasive speech outing the dishonesty of the Academic Bill of Rights campaign won the American Forensics Association's National Championship in 2005 (I believe...I just had a week's worth of discussions with the writer of that speech this last week).
I don't know why dishonest discussants in debates about academic freedom think that they should be taken more seriously than they should. Stanley Fish is clearly more honest than David Horowitz on this issue. But neither of them, in the least, stand for the highest ideals of academic freedom of thought, speech, study, etc.
And if David wants to stand for academic freedom, he might start by making honest public arguments.
Keep in mind that our esteemed author, Stanley Fish, was the chief apologist for the Sokal hoax (if you're unfamiliar, look up those keywords and be prepared to laugh.) At the time, he had the audacity to label Sokal as the agent of inchoate "right-wing" influences (a big laugh: Sokal is actually a materialist Marxist.)
Yet here this same Fish is now pushing for Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights." Quite frankly, the rantings of the looniest backwater 9/11 conspiracy theorist or the astrology section of this month's _Cosmopolitan_ magazine is more on-target than the postmodern crapola that Fish and his ilk have inflicted on young minds over the years.
Additionally, can we have a little ethnic disclosure, please? Here, again, we have another Marxist who has conveniently become a "neoconservative in persuasion", yet only a decade ago was hurling around "right-wing" as though it was some sort of disease. It's almost as if ideology is really just a cloak to advance some sort of more fundamental tribal agenda, but I can't seem to put my finger on it. Can anyone help?
Settle down, excited little neocons.
Idiots who believe that politics can be separated from the classroom are no different from idiots who think "objectivity" can exist in journalism.
Dr. Fish has revealed himself to be one of these idiots. Academic freedom is NOT only about "the right to study." Anybody who is a serious academic knows that academic practice is about research and discussion. Those who are interested in the pursuit of knowledge understand that rigorous science requires examination and debate. This is what peer review is about.
The main reason why Stanley Fish doesn't agree with this view of academic freedom is that he has never been a serious academic. Cultural studies is a serious field of knowledge and a brutal arena. (It certainly scares the crap out of Horowitz whether he admits it or not.) Unfortunately, Stan Fish has been in the business of sloganeering and secular sermonizing (uninterestingly, to boot). Instead of embracing debate and contest, he's favored avoidance and slight-of-hand (sound familiar, Horowitz?). While others have attempted to chart the complexities of culture in postmodernity, Fish has always really been the ASTROLOGER of postmodernity. Cultural studies can finally cast off this embarassing charlatan. There has never been a text for Dr. Fish, because he stopped reading decades ago.
You can have him, Horowitz. He truly belongs with you and your, uh, academic research. "Impartial" academics (and "objective" journalists) unite!
Oh, and I'm so sure a Horowitz lecture is always a model of impartiality.
Stanley Fish does not have the tenure to publicly entertain the idea that 9/11 might have been an inside job. To do that might jeopardize, ruin his career or discredit him amongst his social network.
It comes down to beliefs. If one belief is more popular in America it is largely because of the average Joe’s internalization of information disseminated by the media. Why are the 9/11 conspiracies so unpopular? Perhaps some people don’t like to ever consider the possibility that they might have been duped once again by their own “elected” government. Perhaps they just like to receive their biweekly paycheck and go on with their white picket fence lives. Perhaps the inquiry findings are 100% true and should never be challenged, in the interest of national security.
The problem is that there is worldwide resentment on the Internet and by Non-US media as to why there has never been (probably will never be) an open forum in Washington that would dare entertain the idea that 9/11 was an inside job. (Please prove otherwise if there has been.)
Why the Air Force stood down that day? Who gave the orders to ground Canadian and US fighter jets (NATO)? These questions will never be answered. Were there bombs inside the building? Was it structural failure? All the evidence was destroyed. Therefore it is unlikely either position will ever be proved. Who is making billions of dollars and record profits since 9/11? This we can prove. Whose friends are those? This we can also prove.
Inside jobs at the highest level are impossible? Empirical evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the doctrine is that absolute power leads to corruption, absolutely. Isn’t that a subject that is discussed in normal classroom? Seems to me like excellent material for debate…
Nobody was ever killed during those in-class discussions. No countries were ruined in those discussions. The same cannot be said for the decisions and ideas that the President endorses.
Everyone is part of a group or association, directly or indirectly i.e. democrat, republican, liberal, conservative etc…recycling programs, fuel efficient vehicles… We all believe in something, we need something to believe in, most fundamentally God or no God.
The notion that a professor’s view should be discarded simply because of his association with a certain group would mean that Colleges and Universities would never be able to find anyone to teach.
A view that is largely disseminated by the media does not mean it is truth, especially since it is distributed by media networks owned by the same elites (friends and business partners) who are recording records profits in exchange for human life and global instability.
To question and challenge the unknown is the fabric mankind and made possible through freedom of ideas. It is the same freedom that is allowing students to draw their own conclusions based on teachings they receive in classrooms. Academics or not, all Americans are paying for the wars. The least the American society deserves is a generation that will have the opportunity to have a classroom exchange on alternate views of the 9/11 inquiry.
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