Coexistence on the Campus

...Coexistence on the Campus Remembering the Answers: Essays on the American Student Revolt By Nathan Glazer Basic Books 311 pp $7 95 Reviewed by Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Professor of Law, Cornell University Besides the valuable insights it affords into the causes of campus turmoil in the 1960s, Remembering the Answers offers a measure of the social and educational philosophy of one of America's most distinguished scholars The 14 essays gathered in this volume were written for special audiences and special occasions (only the Introduction is new), resulting in some unevenness of quality and some repetition But anyone who reads the entire book will have no regrets For here is surely a case where the whole is more than its parts Nathan Glazer's spirit and verve, his intelligence and courage, find full expression m the variety of this collection Glazer sees--rightly, I think--no warrant for glossing over Leftist outrages on the campuses He condemns the radicals' apparent passion for humiliating all those who do not support them, their search for needless confrontation, their repudiation of negotiation and discussion, and their hatred of authority--except, of course, that wielded by themselves As Glazer observes, exploitation of the university--not reformation--is the radical students' objective Their demands for free speech, free teaching and free research are merely a tactical ruse, an effort to spawn new radicals "from the process that follows the putting forward of such demands violence by the revolutionaries, counterviolence by the authorities, radicalization therefore of the bystanders [liberal students and faculty], and the further 'building of the Movement' " Aided and abetted by faculty camp-followers and submissive administrators, extremists work to transform the university into a battleground for achieving their own political ends The tragedy is that their designs were not frustrated at the outset, instead, Glazer laments, radical students "were given an open field and all possible facilities for spreading their view of the world," a view "deficient in logic, based on ignorance and passion, and one in which a free university could not possibly operate " Clearly, the university is not detached from the concerns of the society that supports it, and that it is intended to serve We depend upon the university to provide our specialists--scientists, doctors, economists--and, Glazer writes, "to maintain and develop the traditions and reality of critical and creative thought" Indeed, with our social problems becoming increasingly complex, there is an ever greater need for trained intelligence--minds that are receptive and retentive, yet still inquisitive and restless At the same time, in very significant ways that are perhaps vital to the execution of its essential functions, the university remains independent, to consider its annihilation a treatment of what are basically societal ills makes no sense An analogy with the Supreme Court comes to mind The money for its operation is voted by the Congress, were Congress to refuse to appropriate funds, the Justices would have to close shop Moreover, the Court must defer to the Executive branch for the enforcement of its decisions In short, no institution of government could be more dependent upon the other two branches than is the Supreme Court But this does not prevent the Court from sitting in judgment on the conduct of Congress or the President, and it often decides against the government Men can transcend the forces on which they depend, day after day, in classroom after classroom and in book after book, university scholars vindicate their claim of intellectual and academic freedom It should be plain to students who have paid monstrous fees out of university funds to listen to Communist, Trotskyist or Black Panther demagogues that no place is as free as the campus This is not to deny that institutional inequities exist Glazer mentions several that must be remedied the dominant role of departments, within departments, the dominance of a narrow professionalism and academicism, the neglect of undergraduate education, the failure to incorporate contemporary issues into the curriculum, the unwillingness to confront the failings of the classroom and examination systems Any professor can supply his own bill of particulars But, as Justice Holmes noted, every machine has its friction And the fact is that many professors, who have given their years and their hearts to the art of teaching, have found opportunities to introduce reforms I can testify that at my own institution--long before radical students started to attack us--we spent countless hours searching for new and better ways to serve our students and community, and we made many important changes In a world where values are constantly competing for acceptance, we must not sacrifice any one view to the absolutist claims of another This, it seems to me, is the underlying--and largely unexpressed--message of Remembering the Answers Glazer can sympathize (who that is battle-scarred would not9) with the temptation to throw all one has into the good fight, in the illusion that there is a single great chance in a lifetime and that, once taken, further sacrifice will not be necessary But he believes that contending values can coexist harmoniously if people take the "partial view," as he calls his pluralistic philosophy It is from this perspective that he writes "Fight against our policy in Vietnam, but remember that the democratic process is also a value, long fought for, easily damaged Fight against the war in Vietnam, but the university must preserve some distance from society, some freedom and independence Fight for racial equality, but even when weighed against this paramount goal, there [is] some merit m the democratic process and academic freedom " At several points in the book Glazer speculates whether he is a conservative, radical, or liberal Although his concern inspired a recent major feature story m the New York Times, this sort of label-searching is to me no better than sloganeering by men of lesser breed It creates and supports what Bacon called Idols of the Marketplace words that force and overrule the understanding, contribute to confusion and, as Bacon said, lead men into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies" Infinitely more profound and useful is Glazer's clear and forceful statement of his position, as in the following passage "For I have made some commitments that an orderly democracy is better than government by the violent outbursts of the most committed, that the university embodies values that transcend the given characteristics of a society or the specific disasters of an administration, that the faults of our society, grave as they are, do not require, indeed would m no way be advanced by, the destruction of those fragile institutions which have been developed over centuries to transmit and expand knowledge These are strongly held commitments, so strongly that my first reaction to student disruption is to consider how the disrupters can be isolated and weakened, how their influence, which is now enormous among students, can be reduced, how discussion among them can be encouraged, and how they can be finally removed from a community they wish to destroy " These are still imperative commitments and objectives Considerable harm has already come to the ideals of a democratic society, to the legitimate claims of a democratic government, and to the integrity of the university, it may take many years to assess the damage But Nathan Glazer would, I am sure, fully agree with the Talmudic precept, "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the whole work, but neither are you free to desist from it...