Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1989 The discourse of crisis and the struggle for cultural authority: the politics of humanities education in the last twentieth century Nancy L. Warehime Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Other Education Commons, Other History Commons, and the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons Recommended Citation Warehime, Nancy L., "The discourse of crisis and the struggle for cultural authority: the politics of humanities education in the last twentieth century " (1989). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 11173. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/11173 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. 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University Microfiims International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 Nortli Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 0014068 The discourse of crisis and the struggle for cultural authority: The politics of humanities education in the late twentieth century Warehime, Nancy L., Ph.D. Iowa State University, 1989 UMI SOON.ZeebRd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106 The discourse of crisis and the struggle for cultural authority: The policies of humanities education In the late twentieth century by Nancy L. Warehlme A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department: Professional Studies In Education Major: Education (Historical, Philosophical, and Comparative Studies in Education) Signature was redacted for privacy. Signature was redacted for privacy. In Charg Signature was redacted for privacy. For the/Major Department^ Signature was redacted for privacy. For the Graduate College Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1989 Copyright © Nancy L. Warehlme, 1989. All rights reserved. il TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 2 1. THE CONSERVATIVE DISCOURSE OF CRISIS IN THE 1980S 13 1.1. Introduction 13 1.2. Walter Jackson Bate 14 1.3. William Bennett 17 1.4. Lynne Cheney 22 1.5. The Educational Philosophy Shared by Bate, Bennett, and Cheney 24 1.6. Analysis: Allan Bloom's The Closing Of The American Mind (Part One) 28 1.7. Analysis: The Closing Of The American Mind (Part Two) 37 1.8. Analysis: The Closing Of The American Mind (Part Three) 41 1.9. What Does Allain Bloom Want? 50 2. "WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?" SOME RESPONSES TO ALLAN BLOOM'S DISCOURSE OF CRISIS 53 2.1. Martha Nussbaum 53 2.2. A Confirmation of Nussbaum's Critique: The Work of Kosuke Koyama 56 2.3. Richard Rorty 62 2.4. Benjamin Barber 66 2.5. Barber's Concept of Democracy and Contemporary French Philosophy: Some Common Themes 69 2.6. Stanley Aronowitz 72 2.7. A Critique of Technocratic Rationality 84 2.8. What Knowledge is of Most Worth? The Multiplicity of Modern Consciousness 86 3. THE CRISIS OF THE HUMANITIES: A CONSEQUENCE OF PRAGMATISM? 90 3.1. Introduction 90 3.2. Rorty's Revival of Pragmatism 91 ill Page 3.3. Analysis: "Hermeneutlcs, General Studies, and Teaching" 93 3.4. Analysis: "Solidarity or Objectivity?" 101 3.5. Analysis: "The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy" .. 108 3.6. Analysis: Contingency tronv. and solidarity 114 3.7. Richard Rorty: Rebel or Metamorphosed Neoconservatlye? (A Comparison with Camus) 127 "WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE HERE?" SOME RESPONSES TO RICHARD RORTY'S LIBERAL PRAGMATISM 132 4.1. Introduction 132 4.2. Cornel West 134 4.3. Richard Bernstein 140 4.4. Nancy Fraser 142 4.5. Frank Lentrlcchla 148 4.6. Henry Glroux 151 4.7. Rorty and Camus on Human Nature and Utopia: A Contrast 153 PROPHETIC PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATION FOR CREATIVE DEMOCRACY 164 5.1. Introduction 164 5.2. Cornel West: The Prophetic Tradition 164 5.3. Prophesy Dellyerancel: Sources and Tasks of Afro-American Critical Thought 166 5.4. Plato's Republic and Gramscl's Theory of Cultural Hegemony 172 5.5. Prophetic Discourse: A Language of Critique and a Language of Hope 175 5.6. A Prophetic Unmasking of Platonist Hegemonic Culture: Martin Luther King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" .... 177 5.7. West's Genealogy of Racism: A Confirmation of Gramscl's Theory 178 5.8. Cultural Hegemony and Humanities Education 183 5.9. What, Then, Is To Be Done? Prophetic Pragmatism, Traditions of Resistance, and Democracy 186 5.10. Education for Creative Democracy: A Possibility in Today's University? 189 AFTERWORD 196 iv Page 7, BIBLIOGRAPHY 202 8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 210 1 A society's culture . consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members. -- Clifford Geertz (An Interpretation of Cultures 11) Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same. -- Robert Hutchlns ("General Education 90) Every relationship of "hegemony" is necessarily an educational relationship. -- Antonio Gramscl (350) Universality is when we take shit forever, with smiles on our faces. -- Sam Greenlee ("Strategies for Change") 2 INTRODUCTION Repeatedly throughout this decade the message has been announced: the humanities are In crisis. The discourse or rhetoric of crisis has come from a variety of diverse sources, from the political Left as well as the Right, from academic humanists, administrators, bureaucrats, and the popular press.^ For students of twentieth century educational history, much of the discourse seems reminiscent of the 1930s, when John Dewey and Robert Hutchlns and their respective disciples debated in often heated terms the appropriate content and character of liberal education! But anyone with even passing familiarity with the views of these two giant North American educational philosophers recognizes that neither man won the day. On one hand, the growing emphasis on science has resulted in academic programs in which the humanities--the core of Hutchlns' liberal arts vision--are Increasingly marginalized. On the other hand, charges of ethnocentricism, racism, and sexism haunt the traditional liberal arts curriculum, which is castigated for its DEWH (Dead European White Male) bias (Bill Moyers). Thus it appears that the "barriers of class, race, and national territory" which Dewey ^For perhaps the most recent and representative example of this discourse, please see the Summer 1989 (LXIX:3) edition of the Phi Kappa Phi Journal, National Forum. The summer Issue Includes essays by several Individuals discussed in my dissertation and is devoted in Its entirety to the debates surrounding national culture, cultural literacy, and literary canons. wanted broken down in the interest of genuine democracy are still firmly entrenched (Democracy and Education 87). For the humanities, this means having been nudged from a central position in the undergraduate general education curricula while also being torn from within by radical disagreements over their content and character. Perceived in this light, what Hutchins described in 1953 as "the conflict in education" seems bound to have developed into "crisis" sooner or later. One need not search at great length to gather documentary evidence of the humanities' crisis. Controversial attempts abound nationwide to revise and reform undergraduate curricula. A multitude of committees, commissions, and free-lance experts have devoted endless hours and issued scores of reports for the purpose of defining what's wrong with liberal education. And most of these reports point to the "lack [of] meaningful coherence, cohesion, and continuity" in the humanities (West, Hermeneutics. "Introduction" 67). The crisis is even reflected in the financial