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Moderator hat: Nick, Flyboy did not say "explain yourself". He said that he felt everyone would be grateful if you were to explain yourself. "Try harder", on the other hand, is actually autocratic, and arguably unacceptable, or at least acceptable only as an attempt to start a fight. Your first post was out of sympathy with the Head Shop and the effort Ex put into creating a thread for it - you've been here long enough to have some idea, I hope, of how this sort of one-line beg-for-the-jewels-of-my-knowledge response can come across. While not attempting to dictate, I would invite you to expand first and thus help to avoid any potential perceived abuse of the sorting hat. Any further discussions of who here should try harder and how, please to be directed to "Policy and Help".
So, anyway:
I assume that the writer doesn't have any problem with the University teaching the history of Imperialism or fascism, for example, which is why I'm so interested - is gender studies somehow more immediate, or influential, or pernicious?
The history of Fascism is the first one I thought of with relation to this, or more accurately the history of Nazism. We can take as a given that a certain number of people, flirting with dark power systems aside, actually are attracted to one feature or another of Nazism. There is therefore presumably a statistical risk attached to teaching about Nazism, that somebody in the taught group will decide that this information should not be taken as historical information, but rather as a guide for practical activity.
It's the same logic that makes teaching children how to make pipe bombs, or even a child admitting to knowing how to make a pipe bomb, apparently dangerous - that this may not be used purely for the joy of knowledge, but actually to make pipe bombs. A similar argument in a more physical sense might be held about guns - the person may own their gun for no purpose other than sport, but the gun-control activist can always see another usage, and one that is not only possible but also, to the mind of one who generally expects the worst of guns and gun owners, perfectly probable
Likewise, presumably our fellow with the problem with the teaching of eco-feminism is presumably worried not that it is being taught, but that it is being applied, and thus creating a misandrist world in which men do not get to see their children and so on; the propagation of the information is dangerous because it makes people act on it.
Cailin sees instead a situation where information is simply information - it needs to be disseminated in order to be used as information, to inform responses to situations, but not to be practised. This position assumes the general good sense of the student, especially at university level.
So, is it therefore acceptable to teach university students how to make pipe bombs? I’m thinking probably yes, as the students have to be trusted to deal with the information in a responsible fashion. Is it acceptable for a teacher to teach students that pipe bombs should be made, and that they should then be used against policemen? How about against single mothers?
My reduction is a bit absurdwards here (another and godwintastic example might be the “Why Nazism is Right 101” course), but it’s the kind of confusion that leads on to the idea that ecofeminism should not be taught. Because teaching something has been confused with arguing for something, which again is obfuscated by the rather sketchy understanding of what ecofeminism actually *is*.
Then there’s the idea from ifeminism that certain subjects should not be taught, not because they are iniquitous but because they are badly taught, or possibly they cannot be taught well. The academic élites often deliver a good kicking to the idea of the “Mickey Mouse degree”, which seems to me to be connected to the marketplace – like a Mickey Mouse watch, a Mickey Mouse degree will not impress people; it will not seem proper, and will thus presumably lead to exclusion from the very groves, either of academe or industry, that the degree is supposed to lead on to. In these terms, gender studies is seen as a degree *not worth teaching*, because its quality is low and its market value thus also low; its existence can even persuade people that educators should not be funded, if this (useless/dangerous/useless and dangerous) teaching is the result. The same élites tend to put the boot in on vocational qualifications, but that’s another issue…
And, to bring the marketplace back in a slightly different context, perhaps it can be seen as in some ways a defence. For example, somebody wants to teach a “Why Nazism is Right 101” course. The universities do not go for it because it students would not demand it, in the main, and because the organisations that finance it would be induced not to fund it if it did. Of course, from my vantage point, this is a good effect (arguably) here, but a bad effect when the same vested interests prevent the adoption of courses on Henry Miller, evolution or, indeed, gender studies. So why should students not have the opportunity to be taught why their teacher believes pipe bombs should be used against single mothers or Nazism made the dominant political structure of our time? Perhaps the students should be given the freedom to choose, and their good sense (expressed either in not being unduly swayed (the grove) or not turning up (the market)) trusted. Which brings us back to the potential influence of the teacher, as one who is able to sift, select and present the core data of the field of study.
Would feminist pedagogy be a useful thing to discuss in these terms, or would that be wandering off-beam? |
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