[csaa-forum] Ring wing academic attacks humanities.

[Warwick Mules]

Yes, but Melleuish has 'misdiagnosed' the problem. He argues that the lack of critical thought in the humanities is due to an entrenched left wing intellegentsia imposing a certain kind of conformism on cirrucula. He's made these kinds of claims many times in the past. 

However, the real threat to critical and open debate and discussion in humanities comes from the kind re-orientation that the current Australian government is imposing on universities, towards brute dollar value thinking and the shift from the formation of students as subjects to be educated, to clients or customers to be serviced.

The result is a slow strangulation of critical thinking and debate in all of the humanities, as the bottom line becomes one based on numbers and outputs, rather than the achievement of scholarly aims. In this environment, critique is not actually dispensed with; rather it is encouraged, but only insofar as it can be 'managed'  to meet 'quality' aims. What we end up with is a slide into ersatz education in the humanities where the pretence of critical engagement takes place; where postgrad research is dominated by quick turn around of students and a resultant lowering of standards and expectations, and team activities based on the writing of research grant applications; and where undergraduate education is designed to ensure failure rates are minimised, as opposed to ensuring everyone has an opportunity to rise to the challenge of a given idea, set of issues or textual and rhetorical complexity.

All of this of course is a direct result of the corporatisation of universities to bring them into line with other publicly funded institutions in western democracies governed by the new imperatives of global capital, and the deregulation of the state. 

Unlike Melluish, whose short sighted arguments are centred around his personal need to adopt a high moral tone in the  the 'history wars' debate, I suggest we need a broader, more globally engaged understanding of the problems facing critical thinking and debate in the humanities, as a problem that is systemically, discursively and ideologically factored into the way humanities is conducted in the contemporary university context.

If the shift into educational consumerism is irreversible, then there is no point in harking  back to a golden era, when critical debate and thinking flourished, as an answer to the problem. Rather, what we need to do is to engage with the shift into consumer education, to 'go with it' while submitting it to rigorous critical reflection at the same time, as a symptom of a broader transformation in economic, social, communicative, technolgical and cultural factors along a number of lines. 

I argue that we need to re-invoke Enlightenment values in the spirit of a post-rational (not anti-rational), and post-humanistic (not anti-humanistic) appraisal and critique of the contemporary world, and this needs to be part of all the things we do in the humanities and its associated disciplines.

Chs


Warwick Mules

Humanities
CQU

-----Original Message-----
From:	csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au on behalf of langley timmy
Sent:	Mon 20-Dec-04 9:41 AM
To:	CSAA discussion list
Cc:	
Subject:	[csaa-forum] Ring wing academic attacks humanities.

 Hi all,
there is an article in today’s australian (online) by
Gregory Melleuish titled ‘So much for liberal
education’. 

it's another right wing attack on the humanities. this
time by an academic. Melleuish has written right wing
articles to the australian before. 

as i said before, it was no coincidence that graeme’s
excellent article in the asutralian last week was
placed opposite to an anti-humanities article
reprinted from the economist. Melleuish quotes from
that article, and uses it as the foundation to his
argument.

a number of things come to mind:
these attacks are not limited to right wing media
commentators. bolt, as annoying as he is, is only a
small tic in a wider problem: this dog’s only getting
dirtier and the tics are spreading.

i think Melleuish is far more damaging than bolt.
Bolt’s readership is not, I would suggest, howard and
nelson. 
As an academic his arguments hold more weight, even
though they just as absurd. Actually, they are more
absurd, at least bolt does some (extremely minor)
research.

Read article here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11735853%5E7583,00.html

some absurd elements (and there are many) of the
article:
‘We require such a multiplicity of conversations
because the ideas that humans produce are as various
as human nature and the circumstances in which people
find themselves. To reduce that multiplicity to a
singularity is to reduce our appreciation of the human
condition to a very narrow focus.’

what? this sounds like something i wrote as an
undergraduate: trying to impress, making no sense,
having little knowledge.

simplistic assertions based on no empirical evidence:
‘No surveys have been conducted, but any sustained
contact with the humanities and social sciences in
Australian universities brings one face to face with a
stultifying conformity that is soon quite
mind-numbing. There is the obligatory Howard bashing,
anti-Americanism and belief in the depraved past of
both Australia and Western civilisation. Academics in
these areas are possibly the only group in the
country, outside doctors' wives, where Green voters
are in a majority. ‘

the assertion begins with a caveat: there is no
survey, however as an academic Melleuish is in
‘sustained contact’ with humanities academics.  

assertion: humanities are homogeneous:
‘intellectual conformism of academics in the
humanities and social sciences and their unwillingness
to concede the moral legitimacy of those with whom
they disagree. The history wars can be understood in
these terms.’

Melleuish ties this argument back to one aspect of the
history wars, which keith windshuttle wrote a book
about: the humanities are ‘killing history’ with fancy
French theories.

assertion: (extreme neo-conservative) right wing think
tanks such as ipa and cis offer diversity to
intellectual life in Australia.
‘There are only a small number of think tanks such as
the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute
of Public Affairs and an equally small number of
private universities. More think tanks and private
universities would provide a counter to the conformity
of the public university.’
there are many more, i just too frustrated to think
straight. i'll put my thoughts together later.
cheers tim



	
	
		
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