So far, so good, but if neocomrade T. Kavulla is far more moderate and subtle than a Pipesovitch or a Kramerides, yet she can nevertheless be moderately and subtly mistaken, as in fact she (mostly) is. In addition to its moderation and subtlelty, her error is admirably "conservative" in the sense that word used to bear before the Creative Destruction wreckin' crew grabbed it. Hers is a very traditional sort of mistake, for, to quote chapter and verse, she takes essentially the same view of Harvard College in 2007 as George Ticknor took on his return from Göttingen in 1817: she wants the joint to be no more than a high school, yet also a very good high school. Though the substance of the two views is identical, yet the erroneousness of them is rather different, Professor Ticknor's error being even more subtle than Neocomrade Kavulla's subtlety. But let's see how TK puts the 2007 case for "Harvard Square High School" before attempting further dissection. You need to read the whole thing, Mr. Bones, but let me try to pick out some high points:
| Outside the realm of extracurricular panels, there is the question of coursework. Or, rather, there’s not the question, at least for most students. Add Islam and Muslim society to the long list of subjects, from Shakespeare to American history, which Ivy Leaguers from Yale to Princeton to Harvard can avoid ever encountering in their academic careers. Despite a pretense toward “internationalism,” this new pedagogy manifests itself only in small bits. In Harvard’s latest curricular review, it is claimed to be a “serious commitment” to our “global society” that the university requires its students to take one year of a foreign language. Not enough to have a conversation or read a newspaper, mind you, but perhaps graduates will be able to order falafel at their nearest Lebanese restaurant. Islam and the Middle East have a surprisingly low profile in most universities’ core curricula. |
That's enough to start with. The neocomrade happens to be seriously underinformed about Harvard, where of course the received uninnovated paedagogy that she moans about is as old as the hills, or anyway as old as Mount Eliot. President Eliot (1834-1926) reigned from 1869 to 1909. A quickie on-line biography accuses him of the following offenses, correctly enough as far as the indictment goes:
| Several notable reforms were introduced in the college: the elective system was extended, the curriculum was enriched through the addition of new courses, written examinations were required, the faculty was enlarged, and strict student discipline was relaxed in favor of flexible regulations. |
I'm not sure off-hand when the Harvards first began having their doubts about Eliotism, although it was probably in the man's own lifetime, maybe even in his presidency. Doubts have continued ever since quite a long time ago, and yet Eliotism has never been dislodged to this day, the nondislodgement being precisely what the neocomrade (temperately) complains of. Even assuming Eliotism was not fully instantiated umtil the very day its discoverer or inventor resigned, there has been nearly a hundred years of it by now. To call Eliotism "part of the essence of Harvard" would seem warranted as long as one does not push "essence" very hard philosophically. Neocomrade T. Kavulla appears to believe that some globalized or pseudoglobalist "this new pedagogy" will replace Eliotism eventually, but not quite quickly enough to suit her taste. Myself, I wouldn't be surprised if Eliotism is still good for another century or more. It is very deeply engrained in and around ZipCode 02138. The Prussian-graduate-school university, considered more generally, has already outlasted Prussia and perhaps it may outlive Travis Kavulla as well. Who knows? Time must tell.
The NRO lady (?) obviously thinks Eliotism -- and the idea(l) of a Prussian graduate-school university -- damn well shouldn't keep on outliving anybody and would do well to perish at once! That's a distinct question from whether it actually will outlive, and a more important one -- perhaps. T. Kavulla herself notices that she may be at odds with other Party neocomrades to some extent about these matters:
| [W]e really do live in that much-prophesied global, interconnected world: [w]hat happens to a mosque, especially one in Iraq, may well impact us or our cause. And, for as long a time as that is true, understanding cultures outside our own will be one of the foremost intellectual necessities. This sounds flaky in the extreme to a good many conservatives. Their suspicion is well-placed — a true understanding of another culture is very different from the “understanding” fostered in higher education. To “understand” is rarely about obtaining specific knowledge about a foreign culture through patient study; usually, to “understand” is to indulge in self-guilt about our own society. |
Though she lapses into merest Rio Limbaugh tripe and baloney and solecism at the end there, it is more useful to notice how she reaffirms the "Harvard Square High School" counteridea(l) against Mount Eliot and the former Prussia with her "obtaining specific knowledge," and how her attempted rebuke is yet somehow not much unlike the Eliot-Prussian product itself. (Let's see, Mr. Bones, a journalist would say "ironic," what shall we bloggers and the Muses say better? "Picturesque," maybe, or "quaint"?)
"[F]or as long a time as that is true" almost suggests that this Big Party neocomrade wants a "Harvard Square Vocational High School," or a sort of toney-er West Point, where potential usefulness for Long Wars and Kiddie Krusades dictates the whole curriculum. 'Tis picturesque/quaint to reflect, Mr. Bones, that although one might have expected Prussia to succumb to exactly that GOP-like solicitation from Mars and Mammon, Prussia never did, and her idea(l) of a graduate-school university might almost have been designed expressly to frustrate Mars and Mammon, at least in the short term. In the long term, of course, it is notorious that "basic research" and "pure science" quite often repay and far more than repay the investments of militarists and monopolizers, though not often reliably and exactly as scheduled. (St. Ike's pre-censorship "military-industrial-academic complex" was nothing if not an insight!)
Still, the real difficulty about Party neocomrade Travis Kavulla is ethical rather than military or industrial or academic. TK displaces responsibilities so recklessly that her own dearest ideobuddies might well say "Sounds flaky!" Harvard College is a private corporation. Maybe it ought to be a public utility, either "for the duration" of militant extremist GOP Kiddie Krusadin' or forever, but as a matter of fact it simply ain't. TK has every right to bark and bellow at the President and Fellows about what they are to teach and exactly how they must teach it, but they have quite as much right to ignore her exogenous noises as she has to attempt to obtrude herself and scold. 'Tis Liberty Hall all around, O gentlebeings! "Still a free country" both ways, don't you know?
On the positive side of NRO/GOP responsibility displacement, to learn the rudiments of Islám would seem to me to be a duty incumbent upon every Greater Texan subject nowadays, and by no means an enterprise for the age 17-21 cohort alone, let alone only the "university" slice, or, even more narrowly, the "Ivy League university" subslice of that cohort. Not even "Harvard Square High School" is for everybody, whereas it really is for everybody, in a mere Jefferson-Jackson democracy, to watch Little Brother and Big Management with unenchanted eye and try to know enough background about their bombin's and shootin's and invadin's and aggressin's to be able to muster up a decently warrantable opinion about whether one cares to be avowedly implicated in all their Big Management Party's bloody incompetent jazz or not. This is undoubtedly fard ‘ayn as far as I can make out, and not to be delegated to any mere supposed kifáya in Harvard Yard, or anywhere else.
All of which even to mention is pure naked politics on my account, of course. But that's the point: I would not ever dream of hectoring Harvard to inculcate my politics, whereas Party neocomrade T. Kavulla evidently cherishes some such aspiration. So what is to be said, really, after we say "Confound her politics, frustrate her knavish tricks"? One might, rather spoofishly, go on to hope that President and Fellows attempt to make sure that nobody with any distinct notion about Islám (one way or the other) is never vouchsafed a Harvard diploma ever again, but that's only spoofery, after all. To hope that P&F will never vouchsafe, or refuse to vouchsafe, because of a candidate's Islám knowledge or Islám attitudes (one way or the other) might be more to the point, except that Eliotism and Prussian graduate-schoolism are still so firmly entrenched at 02138 that such an occasion is most unlikely to arise any decade soon.
"Wherefore we mun singen, Deo gratias!" surely, Mr. Bones, as against a T. Kavulla, though like many other Harvards we continue to occasionally wonder whether even Eliotism is quite the whole answer. In any case, though, we're not to be dragooned by nitwits, are we?
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