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A Reply to John Searle and Other Traditionalists

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A Reply to John Searle and Other Traditionalists Personal Perspective A Reply to John Searle and Other Traditionalists Robert Greenleaf Brice In an article entitled Traditionalists education. The threat comes in many dif- were the very reasons people were denied & Their Challengers,1 John Searle says ferent forms; Searle lists seven: an education. there is “supposed to be a major debate” “Encourag[ing] self-definition by eth- 1. Too much emphasis is placed on sub- in the universities as to whether liberal groups and culture. This comes at the nicity, race, gender, or class,” says Searle, education should be replaced with mul- expense of “standard” interpretations of “has not been part of the theory of what the ticulturalism.2 He finds this debate “puz- history, social/political movements, etc. university was trying to do.”7 But Searle zling,” “disappointing,” even “depressing.” either overlooks or simply ignores the fact 2. There is the threat that if we accept By dividing academia into two groups, the that “encouragement of self-definition” all cultures as equal we shall slip into so-called “defenders of the tradition” and “cultural relativism.” may be necessary in places where simply their “challengers,” Searle says he hopes teaching information is not enough.8 In to “expose some common core assump- 3. The belief that every culture must be Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks re- tions of each side…by stating naïvely, the represented. counts how she “lost her love of school” traditionalists’ view of higher education 4. Education is political. It is an attempt when encouragement of self-definition was and equally naïvely, the most obvious of to make students share the same political removed. the challengers’ objections to it.”3 Despite views as those of the instructor. School changed utterly with racial inte- such claims to offer an even-handed ap- 5. Challengers have no objective standards. gration. Gone was the messianic zeal to proach to the debate, Searle unfairly and (Another threat posed by relativism.) transform our minds and beings that had inaccurately represents challengers’ as- characterized teachers and their peda- sumptions. 6. In the academy, a marriage exists gogical practices in our all-Black schools. between left-wing politics and anti-ra- Like other traditionalists, Searle Knowledge was suddenly about informa- tionalism. believes something will be lost if changes tion only. It had no relation to how one are made to the canon. A “standard” will And finally, lived, behaved. It was no longer connected to anti-racist struggle. Bussed to White be lowered, or worse—eliminated, if we 7. The belief that Western civilization is schools, we soon learned that obedience, make adjustments here. According to the oppressive. and not a zealous will to learn, was what traditionalists, there is a “body of works of was expected of us. Too much eagerness philosophy, literature, history, and art that I’d like to consider many of these as- to learn could easily be seen as a threat goes from the Greeks right up to the present sumptions/threats in some detail and show to white authority…Now, we were mainly day…[w]e call this the Western intellectual where traditionalists like Searle are in taught by White teachers whose lessons tradition.”4 The debate turns on an objection error. reinforced racist stereotypes. For Black to this “tradition”; challengers argue that it children, education was no longer about the practice of freedom. Realizing this, I is too restrictive, too exclusive, and not open Subgroup Matters lost my love of school.9 to new membership. When you look closely 1. The subgroup into which you were at the canon, you immediately notice that born—your ethnic, racial, class, and gen- Searle also overlooks the obvious fact it is comprised of almost nothing but dead, der background—matters enormously; it that “encouragement of self-definition” White, European males. is important for education.6 was never promoted in the universities For all his “best efforts,”5 Searle because an implicit framework was al- Searle is correct, challengers do presents the challengers’ position in such ready in place. Historically, students who believe the subgroup you were born a weak way that no sane person would attended the academy were predominantly into matters, it may even “matter enor- accept it. While some errors are more White males; their encouragement, if they mously,” but only to the extent that it has egregious than others, Searle’s list of chal- needed any, was simply by being around previously been excluded from discussion lengers’ assumptions expose a misplaced other White males. and consideration. Searle succeeds in dis- belief that he and other traditionalists By dismissing the “encouragement of torting the challengers’ assumption here share: challengers pose a threat to higher self-definition” approach to education in by not fully explaining why it matters. It favor of what hooks calls the “information- matters because not every group has had based” approach, Searle fails to appreciate Robert Greenleaf Brice is a professor the same opportunity at an education. It how this serves to reinforce dominate/ in the Department of Philosophy matters because historically, your ethnic, at Loyola University, submissive roles that have plagued us for racial, class, and/or gender background 10 New Orleans, Louisiana. centuries. Students from minority groups WINTER 2008 37 Personal Perspective (ethnic, racial, class, and gender) have This same principle applies when we look Representativeness been told time and time again, implicitly to cultures and their moral framework. 3. When it comes to selecting what you and explicitly, that they are not worthy “There is,” as Isaiah Berlin says, “a should read, representativeness is obvi- of education. Sometimes, and in some world of objective values,” but these values ously crucial. In a multicultural educa- places, “encouragement of self-definition” are distinct from absolute values. Absolute tional democracy, every culture must be is necessary. values are embodied in the Platonic notion represented.19 that there is something called “The Truth” Relativism which is changeless, eternal. This Platonic This is simply an inaccurate and dis- Truth is not simply a product of 17th cen- torted view of what challengers hold. Inac- 2. All cultures are equal. tury rationalism; enlightened thinkers of curate, because challengers do not insist 5. No such things as objective standards. the 18th century fomented this thought too. that “every culture” be represented—this As Berlin explains: is obviously impossible. Distorted, because I’ve grouped these two assumptions traditionalists have confused the issues together because Searle makes a similar The empiricists of the eighteenth cen- challengers are actually grappling with distortion in both. Challengers, he says, as- tury, impressed by the vast new realms here; challengers attempt to overcome 11 of knowledge opened by the natural sci- sume that all cultures are morally equal. racism and cultural bias by showing re- ences…asked themselves why the same Closely aligned with this assumption is a methods should not succeed in establish- spect for others and, in turn, underscoring 12 20 disregard for objectivity. Both assump- ing similar irrefutable laws in the realms similar human values. 13 tions point to a form of relativism. The of human affairs. With the new methods Just as we find with citizens in a idea is that we can never be certain about discovered by natural science, order could pluralist society, a classroom must also be anything so it is wrong to take a stand on be introduced into the social sphere as well- based on the belief that all students, re- an issue, especially a moral one. Values uniformities could be observed, hypotheses gardless of cultural background, share the and objectives are nothing but expressions formulated and tested by experiment; laws same need to develop tolerance, respect, could be based on them, and then laws in of taste, or the conventions of a society, cul- and cross-cultural understanding. John specific regions of experience could be seen ture, or subculture. What some individu- to be entailed by wider laws; and these in Dewey proposed a principle of education als regard as “right” others will regard as turn to be entailed by still wider laws, and based on two democratic ideals: (1) various “wrong.” With no independent or external so on upwards, until a great harmonious points of shared common interest and (2) standpoint for saying that one position is system, connected by unbreakable logical freer interaction among social groups.21 In better than another, moral standards are links and capable of being formulated in order to facilitate these ideals, challengers just what one particular culture holds at precise—that is mathematical terms, could have proposed including writers not tradi- 16 one particular time; these standards can be established. tionally received in the canon—non-tradi- easily change. Traditionalists believe in what Stuart tional writers that are capable of reaching Although terribly distorted, there is a Hampshire has called the “doctrine of beyond their own ethnic identities towards kernel of truth to what Searle says. Chal- moral harmony,”17 a single harmonious a higher understanding of what it means lengers do assume moral standards and scheme of morality. Similar to the 18th to be fully human. theories can (and do) change. There is a century empiricists’ view, the idea is that With the following counterfactual, plasticity associated with norms, customs, as we acquire more knowledge, as we im- Searle tries to make a point about the rules; they are not absolute. But because prove our reasoning, we will eventually be composition and representation of faculty something is not absolute does not mean able to agree on a single set of moral rules members. Imagine we find out that Plato we slip into what Richard Rorty has called and principles.
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