The Parroting of Fatuous Political Slogans; or, why can't WestConn students think?

This week, I told one of my classes that if they responded to a reading we are doing in their papers by saying "the characters in this novel symbolize the evils of imperialism," they would be on their way to a very poor grade.

The reaction I got was stunned, silent, and hostile. At first I was confused--why was my statement so controversial? It was only after the class and in the course of some discussions that I realized that many of my students had jumped to the totally illogical conclusion that my statement meant that they had to now write that imperialism was wonderful and just hunky-dory, whereas what I had meant to imply was that the sample statement above is so general that no one could possibly dispute it, and academic papers should not consist of the parroting of conventional wisdom.

This problem epitomizes a frustration that I am having with the general level of critical thinking at WestConn. In the past, I have assumed (correctly to some degree, I think) that most WestConn students can't write critical papers because high schools only teach them facts, and the faculties and contexts needed to question the interpretation of those facts are not taught. But I also think that there's another problem: students are getting the impression that merely repeating a mildly left-of-center line in their papers is an easy avenue to relatively quick success. As long as they write that "We need to understand other cultures" and "need to be tolerant of other people's beliefs", or "we need to reject the bigotry and prejudice that caused the Holocaust, slavery, etc," or that "I learned a lot through my exposure to x person or y event," they'll do well.

Obviously, I think that diversity is a good thing. My point is that, if you ask students why
these things are the case--for example, why "we need to understand other cultures"--you'll either get no answer at all, or you'll engage in a conversation that will be comical in its tautologies and circularities. It will go something like this:

Professor: "What's the most important thing a university can teach us?"
Student: "To accept multiculturalism and learn to understand different points of view."
Professor: "And why is that so important?"
Student: "Because we live in a multicultural society."
Professor: "What do you mean by that?"
Student: "Everyone has a different point of view."

Even the slightest problem with this line of reasoning will stop the average first year WestConn student in their tracks and keep them there.

Professor: "If we have to understand different points of view, how do we choose between them?"
Student: "We should appreciate everyone's culture, not make a choice between them. Each should be valued equally."
Professor: "But what if they conflict with each other?"
Student: "Huh?"
Professor: "European political theory says that individual rights are fundamental, but some African and Asian societies hold that you must think of the good of your family or community first before you think of yourself. Which is correct?"
Student: (Tuned you out 30 seconds ago and is listening to Maroon 5 on his/her ipod)


I've come to understand that the problem here is that the statements made in high school and even college curricula about diversity are so broad and meaningless that their net effect is probably negative. Since the focus of student's minds is on extreme examples, it will be too easy for students to simply disavow bigotry by saying "that's not me. I don't do that." That's why the only time there's really a controversy about racism is when a textbook or teacher tries to implicate students in it. I'm thinking here of the incident at the University of Delaware last week in which the residence life office used a diversity training manual steeped in critical race theory that argued that all white people are implicated in racism. They were eventually reported to FIRE, a group trying to stop the enforcement of liberal political belifs on campus. This is unfortunate, because showing how whiteness is still around and how it gives privileges to all light skinned people is perhaps one of the more valuable lessons students can learn, because then they are implicated.

We have to do a better job teaching students why this stuff matters. If anything, we need to force them to make or read controversial or even offensive arguments so that they can better understand why these arguments are wrong. The problem is that we don't go far enough.

Another prime example of this problem is Banned Books week. Every year, professors trot out in front of the student center and read from books that had been banned--that is to say, at some point of time, in some area of the world. Very few people seem to listen or care, chiefly because these books rarely expound ideas that are banned or censored here. They may have been controversial at some time in the past, and may still be controversial somewhere in the world, but not at WestConn in 2007. If professors really want an honest discussion about censorship, they should stand outside the student center reading hardcore porn or hate speech. But no one's going to do that, because the truth is we don't want to have the real discussion.

That might make our students actually have to think. We wouldn't want that, would we?