Bruce Bawer: The victims’ revolution (Deel 1)

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Ek het oor 'n boek deur Robert Paul Wolff verslag gedoen waarin hy uit 'n linkse, spesifiek kommunistiese, perspektief oor die Amerikaanse universiteitswese skryf (SêNet 25 en 26 Jul) en ook oor 'n boek deur Ben Shapiro wat dieselfde uit 'n regse oogpunt doen (SêNet 15 Okt). Die punt wat laasgenoemde stel, is dat regse menings deurgaans helvuur ontlok, terwyl linkse uitlatings dikwels kritiekloos geduld word, asof hulle onskadelik is. In werklikheid is dit moeilik om aan 'n ideologie te dink wat meer skadelik as marxisme is.

In hierdie opsig het SêNet nogal geblyk 'n mikrokosmos te wees, want Wolff se opvattings het geen giftige kommentaar ontlok nie, terwyl Shapiro se menings met opmerkings soos die volgende verdoem is: "regse drek", "rightwing nut job" en "gekkegrens". Daar is selfs aangehaal uit 'n resensie wat Shapiro se boek slegsê; iets wat 'n mens doen as jy nie self die boek gelees en 'n eie opinie gevorm het nie. Dit is 'n les wat uit my skrywe oor Ingrid Winterbach se jongste boek (SêNet 22 Okt) geleer kan word: Al is al die resensies stroopsoet komplimente kan die lees van 'n boek 'n mens verplig om (onbevooroordeeld) 'n heeltemal ander mening te huldig.

Voordat ek die twee boeke genoem in die eerste paragraaf hierbo bespreek het, het ek oor Allan Bloom (1930-1992) se topverkoper oor dieselfde onderwerp, en daarby 'n klassieke werk, geskryf: The Closing of the American Mind (SêNet 7.12.2011). Ek het onlangs Saul Bellow (1915-2005) se voorwoord by daardie boek deels aangehaal (SêNet 10 deser).

Bloom: "The imperative to promote equality, stamp out racism, sexism and elitism ... as well as war, is overriding for a man who can define no other interest worthy of defending" (p 314). "The deepest intellectual weakness of democracy is its lack of taste or gift for the theoretical life" (p 252). Vandaar die hedendaagse dogma dat die universiteit nie 'n ivoortoring mag wees en studente bloot geestelik vorm nie; dat die universiteit diensbaar aan die samelewing moet wees, bv deur naas onderrig en navorsing ook gemeenskapsdiens te doen. Wat in werklikheid nodig is, is "better education for the best people" (p 49). Een van die maniere waarop dit gedoen kan word, is ingevolge die Great Books Program wat mense soos Robert Hutchins (1899-1977) en Mortimer Adler (1902-2001) aan universiteite soos Chicago en Columbia ingestel het.

Sedert die verskyning van Bloom se boek in 1987 het die situasie aan universiteite in veral Amerika verder versleg; ook in Suid-Afrika, maar soms in ander opsigte. Bruce Bawer spreek hierdie veral Amerikaanse verskynsel aan in sy boek, The Victims' Revolution: The rise of identity studies and the closing of the liberal mind (New York: Broadside/HarperCollins, 2012, 400p; Amazon Kindle $11.99). By Bawer vind 'n mens dieselfde rasionele ewewig as by Bloom. Die teks is gegrond op eerstehandse waarneming en deeglike navorsing. Om die wind dadelik uit die seile van die twee SêNetters te neem wat Shapiro se boek so heftig gekritiseer het, moet ek byvoeg dat Bawer homoseksueel is; dus soos wat Bloom ook was.

Wat die universiteit aan sy studente bied, moet op 'n kern gegrondves wees wat geestelike diepte het. Daardie diepte hoef nie noodwendig in teologie of in die bestudering van die klassieke (die Griekse en Latynse taal en letterkunde) gevind te word soos tydens die Middeleeue en lank daarna nie, hoewel gedeeltelike begronding daarin steeds nie skadelik hoef te wees nie (SêNet 4 Feb).

Dit behoort vir die student te gaan om kennismaking met die beste wat deur mense gedink en daarna gerekordeer is. Die student moet geleer word om 'n strategie te hê waarvolgens hy hierdie idees kan sif en aanpas om daaruit 'n eie wêreld- en lewensbeskouing te ontwikkel wat as riglyn in sy lewe funksioneer. Die gehalte en verskeidenheid van die idees waarmee die student kennis maak, is van deurslaggewende belang; nie die feit dat daardie idees meesal van dooie, wit, Westerse mans afkomstig is nie. Dit moet in die eerste plek gaan om geestelike vorming; dus om toerusting vir die volwasse lewe. Daarna kan voorbereiding vir 'n beroepsrigting of 'n spesifieke beroep volg.

Sedert die 19de en veral 20ste eeu het die universiteit se vakaanbod uit die humaniora, sosiale en natuurwetenskappe, asook (beroeps)toepassings hiervan, bestaan. Die noodsaaklike kern ter geestelike vorming, opvoeding en beskawing van die student is al hoe meer verwater. Vanweë veral die burgerregtebeweging in die VSA in die jare sestig, het 'n verdere element ter verdunning van akademiese gehalte by universiteite ingetree, naamlik die opname van identiteitstudies (Black Studies, Women's Studies, Gay Studies, ens) in die leergange. In die Westerse samelewing is liberalisme gegrond op individualisme al hoe meer deur groepbelange (bv etniese kultuur en identiteit) verdring.

"The most disastrous byproduct of the civil rights movement was multiculturalism, a philosophy that teaches, as [Arthur] Schlesinger [The Disuniting of America (1998/2012)] put it, 'that America is not a nation of individuals at all but a nation of groups'" (Kindle 62). Dit kom neer op "a betrayal of true liberalism" (69). Schlesinger "warned his fellow liberals that the looming cult of victimhood, while posing as a liberal crusade, was actually an anti-liberal virus that threatened to destroy the very foundations of American democracy ... what the new academic groupthink really represented was nothing less than the closing of the liberal mind" (76).

"Bloom argued liberal education had been founded on a belief in rationality and objective truth, in vigorous and free inquiry, and in the importance of encountering the great ideas and the great books; now, however, the university - and, in turn, the culture as a whole - was increasingly under the sway of relativistic thinking and rigid political ideas that represented, ultimately, a menace to American democracy. One result of this relativism is identity studies. The problem, to be sure, is not simply a pathological fixation on group identity, but a preoccupation with the historical grievances of certain groups, combined with a virulent hostility to America, which is consistently cast as the prime villain in the histories of these groups and the world at large" (96). [In die Suid-Afrikaanse universiteitswese en breër samelewing is daardie "rigid political ideas" deesdae demokrasie (een mens, een stem), etniese en kulturele relativering en gelykverklaring, diversiteit, multikulturaliteit, gedwonge rasse-integrasie en inklusiwiteit.]

Bawer noem hierdie veranderings in die universiteitswese "toxic changes" (107). Dit is veral die humaniora en sosiale wetenskappe wat skade ly, want identiteitstudies is nie tot eenjarige vakke beperk nie, maar verhef tot hoofvakke in die aanvangsgraad en daarna tot nagraadse studie uitgebrei, sodat doktorsgrade hierin verwerf kan word. Pleks daarvan dat 'n student in vakke soos geskiedenis, sielkunde of sosiologie breë perspektief op sy groep/toestand/probleem kry, bv as swarte, vrou of homoseksueel, is daar deesdae die geleentheid om dadelik en eng in sy/haar gekose identiteitstudie (of selfs meer as een) te spesialiseer.

Oor Amerikaanse universiteitstudente skryf Bawer: "It's clear that their familiarity with history, literature, philosophy, or any other traditional field of learning is at best rudimentary. What they have is ideology and the jagon to go with it. And they have the arrogance of innocents who really have no clue how little they know" (135). "They've been trained to parrot jargon, to regurgitate bullet points about Western imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism - and to think that this is what it means to be educated" (138). "They're prisoners of a mind-set and jargon that make it but impossible for them to say anything fresh or insightful about their experiences and observations. They've been trained to reduce the rich complexities and ambiguities of human life to simple formulas about oppressors and oppressed, capitalists and workers, Western imperialists and their non-Western victims ... Nor do they realize how American-centric they are: despite their rote anti-American rhetoric" (142).

Afgesien van die ontkenning van objektiewe waarheid word daar op die rug van postmodernisme vir verwerping uitgesonder "the universality of such values as individual liberty and to believe that 'there are no barbarians, only different forms of civilized man'" (240). Insgelyks word gestremdes nie as "disabled" beskou nie, maar as "differently abled" of "handicapable" (650). Die negatiewe gevolge hou nie daar op, want die gesindheid wat in identiteitstudies gekweek word, deursuur die universiteit en die samelewing, bv "legitimate criticism of a black or female candidate can be discounted as 'racist' or 'sexist' instead of being addressed on its merits" (104).

Anthony Kronman het in Education's End (2007) twee stadiums in die geskiedenis van Amerikaanse universiteite (Harvard was eerste, in 1640) onderskei. Eerstens was daar die "age of piety" met sy fokus op "Greek and Roman classics and on instruction in the Christian faith, the goal being to provide a 'moral and spiritual education' that would illuminate for students the meaning and purpose of human life" (247). Tweedens, na die Amerikaanse Burgeroorlog (1861-1865) volg die "'age of secular humanism,' when the larger questions about the meaning of human life ... became the special province of the humanities - namely 'literature, philosophy, history, classics, and the fine arts'" (247). Dit was "a golden age during which humanities departments were not simply focused on 'the transmission of knowledge' but were also forums 'for the exploration of life's mystery and meaning through the careful but critical reading of the great works of literary and philosophical imagination that we have inherited from the past'"(250).

Daarna was daar twee verdere groot veranderings in die studie-aanbod van universiteite. Eerstens, sedert die 1880's het die sosiale wetenskappe (sosiologie, ekonomie, volkekunde, staatsleer, sielkunde) hulle plekke naas die humaniora en die natuurwetenskappe op die kampusse ingeneem. As wetenskappe word daar in hierdie sosiale dissiplines na groter objektiwiteit as in die humaniora gestreef. Tweedens, in die 1960's, "mainly in response to student activism," was daar in die humaniora die neiging of weg te beweeg van fundamentele besinning oor die diepste vrae van die lewe en van menswees. Geestelike vervlakking en buitensporige subjektiwiteit het ingetree. "The humanities questioned the very notion of human nature and replace it with the assumption - influenced by such postmodernists as the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) - that our thoughts about human behavior, our statements about the nature of man, and in fact all ideas of whatever kind are nothing more or less than assertions of power" (260). 'n Gewilde plaasvervanger vir deeglike besinning oor idees/begrippe is om al die onwelkomes tot "sosiale konstrukte" te verklaar. Naas Foucault is Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Paulo Freire (1921-1997) en Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) baie invloedryk in hierdie geledere, wat meesal sterk marxisties ingebed is.

"As the traditional modes of contemplating the meaning of life were abandoned ... they were replaced by New Left politics and by a relativistic, nihilistic mode of thought that denied the very reality of aesthetic merit and objective truth. The very values that the humanities had previously exalted were now disparaged as weapons in a ongoing struggle by straight white Western males to retain power, preserve oppression, and keep capitalist, imperialist, and colonial systems in place. Once the humanities had been concerned with the true, the good, and the beautiful; now they were preoccupied with an evil triumvirate of isms - colonialism, imperialism, capitalism - and with a three-headed monster of victimhood: class, race, and gender oppression. Once, the purpose of the humanities had been to introduce students to the glories of Western civilization, thought, and art - to enhance students' respect, even reverence, for the cultural heritage of the West; now the humanities sought to unmask the West as a perpetrator of injustice around the globe" (271).

Slagoffergroepe het hulleself een na die ander geïdentifiseer en op die voorgrond gedwing. "After blacks came women and Latinos, then gays, transsexuals, the disabled, the overweight, and so forth. These and other self-identified victim groups are now the subjects of their own academic fields, which may be said to straddle the humanities and social sciences ... The words race, gender, and class, the holy trinity of humanities studies in our time, are especially crucial in these identity studies disciplines" (578). 'n Mens kan meerdere slagofferstatusse hê, bv as jy swart en terselfdertyd 'n vrou, lesbies, gestremd en oorgewig is. Dit word "intersectionality" genoem (592). Dit is waarom "identity studies ... tend to blend into one another" (655). "In the academy, members of supposed victim groups enjoy considerable privilege. And the more 'oppessed' you supposedly are, the more privilege you receive" (635).

In hierdie skrywe en in dié van 4 Februarie kon ek nie meer as agtergrond skets nie. Ek het gepoog om aan te dui wat die universiteit histories was en wat aanleiding tot identiteitstudies gegee het. Ek het nou nog net Bawer se voorwoord en eerste hoofstuk gedek. In my volgende skrywe (hopelik môre) sal ek baie oorsigtelik aandag aan die verskillende identiteitstudies gee: Women's/Gender Studies, Black/African-American Studies, Queer/Gay/Lesbian Studies, Chicano Studies, Disability/Crip [Cripple] Studies en Fat Studies. 'n Onrusbarende verskynsel is dat van hierdie identiteitstudies al hoe meer hulle weg na ons plaaslike universiteite vind.

Johannes Comestor

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