What should be the role of our institutions of higher education? To promote good moral character? To bring an end to racism, sexism, economic oppression, and other social ills? To foster diversity and democracy and produce responsible citizens?
In Save the World On Your Own Time, Stanley Fish argues that, however laudable these goals might be, there is but one proper role for the academe in society: to advance bodies of knowledge and to equip students for doing the same. When teachers offer themselves as moralists, political activists, or agents of social change rather than as credentialed experts in a particular subject and the methods used to analyze it, they abdicate their true purpose.
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Save The World On Your Own Time
Now here's a book I can get into. I'll have to add this to my list, along with The Fountainhead and Liberal Fascism.
Isn't Stanley Fish a purveyor of post-modernist mumbo-jumbo?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but he's right in this case.
ReplyDeleteFish has also made some assertions about university finances with which I strongly disagree: see fisking Fish's fishy financial findings
ReplyDeleteYes, Fish is essentially the father of the post-modernist movement in the American university, but he's been quite vocal since he retired about this topic. Give credit where it's due.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Fish also the dupe in the Sokal affair?
ReplyDelete