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What's Left of the Campus Left?
Thursday, May 11, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time
What a bizarre time this is for intellectual life in America, writes Todd Gitlin, in the May 5 Chronicle Review. David Horowitz warns that "dangerous" academic leftists have taken over higher education to pursue their political agenda; meanwhile, liberals have little or no influence on a White House that ignores research that interferes with its agenda, and organized labor is in shambles.
Dissenting intellectuals might help by studying public ignorance, the history of off-campus politics, or their own ignorance of the American mainstream, Mr. Gitlin writes. Instead, they spend their energies blaming the triumph of conservatism on their fellow leftists -- for being too bourgeois, say, or too wrapped up in cultural theory.
What is the proper role of the academic left? Should leftists academics, as Mr. Gitlin argues, contribute more iideas about taxes, education, trade, employment, investment, foreign policy, and security from jihadistsi? What do recent criticisms, such as those of Eric Lott and Timothy Brennan, say about the state of leftist politics?
» The Self-Inflicted Wounds of the Academic Left (5/5/2006)
Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University and the author, most recently, of The Intellectuals and the Flag (Columbia University Press).
Liz McMillen (Moderator):
I'm Liz McMillen, and I will be hosting today's chat with Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia U., and a prominent critic and leader of the New Left.
"The academic left is nowhere today. It matters more to David Horowitz than to anyone else. The reason is that its faith-based politics has crashed and burned."
That's how Todd summed up the state of the academic left a couple of weeks ago in a widely quoted article in The Chronicle Review. Judging by the response, Todd hit a nerve with his analysis. We have quite a few questions already, so let's get started with the discussion.
Question from John K. Wilson, collegefreedom.org:
Prof. Gitlin: we all know the academic left is a failure, but you seem to think the reason is that it's too far left (or sectarian left). But maybe the problem is that it's too "academic": You get tenure for writing obscure books and journal articles, not for writing op-eds and books for a popular audience. Do you perceive a bias in the Ph.D. and hiring and tenure process against public intellectuals, and what can be done to change it?
Todd Gitlin:
I agree (and in fact argue in my recent book, The Intellectuals and the Flag) that academic writing inhibits useful communication of all kinds, including the political. That said, and having no objection whatsoever to op-ed pieces, I think it's reasonable to give Ph. D.'s principally for sustained intellectual work, i. e., books, and I'd like to see that work written well, even if published in specialized journals. Obscurantism ought not to be a qualification for hiring--to the contrary. Narrow professionalism is a poor substitute for intellectual contributions, to which accessibility ought surely not to be any impediment. But too many people mean too many things by "public intellectuals." The mere fact of appearing in public media (themselves degenerate in so many ways) is obviously no qualifier for a job. (By the way, if you're interested, I have a piece on "The Necessity of Public Intellectuals," in an upcoming issue of Raritan.)
Question from Liz McMillen:
In an article for The New Republic responding to your piece, Lee Siegel said, "Gitlin writes as if the academic left could make a political difference if it came around to his social-democratic ideals. But the left has never made a political difference; it can only make a cultural difference, as it did during Vietnam."
What's your response to his idea that the academic left is politically powerless?
Todd Gitlin:
As an iron law, "the left has never made a political difference" is overstated. The antiwar movement, including what was the academic left during the Vietnam years, checked various war moves by the Johnson and Nixon adminstrations--hardly to be dismissed as a "cultural movement." (Siegel says he admires my book, The Sixties, for which relief much thanks, but he doesn't recall my reminders there about the restraining effects of various antiwar mobilizations.) Earlier, arguably, the campus-based movement against nuclear weapons and the unrestrained arms race had some impact on the Kennedy administration's turn to detente in 1963. Even in the '80s, campus movements for South African divestment and against Reagan's Central American policies had some effects. On-campus feminist and gay movements (not necessarily in their "theoretical" manifestations) have probably worked in favor of the status of women and gays in the larger society.
I've never argued and never would argue that today's academic left would be stunningly powerful were it only social-democratic. But why be reconciled to utter powerlessness even if you think it possible, even likely? A sensible academic left could help--both intellectually and politically. Intellectually in three ways: 1. Reversing the undeserved prestige of bad "conservative" ideas (the supply-side fetish, deregulation-as-solution-to-all-problems, social Darwinism, intelligent design, attacks on reproductive rights, racism-is-over, etc.). 2. Connecting the dots of world events, underscoring relations among environment, energy, inequality, trade, etc. 3. Helping develop a big picture of American society, identifying zones of flux and levers of change. Practically: Imparting energies to promising political efforts--off campus, where the big power is.
Question from Norman Levitt, Rutgers:
Isn't it a bit late in the day to be discussing this phenomenon, which certainly was a major aspect of the academic scene twenty or twenty five years ago. One thinks, for instance, of the bizarre behavior of many prominent "left" academics in the aftermath of the exposure of Paul de Man as a WW II collaborator and something of a scoundrel throughout his life. What the incident should have told us was that academic-left culture had become a hermetic and self-referential cult which, in effect, had conscously or unconsciously sealed itself off from meaningful political action.
Todd Gitlin:
I was asked to review the books and I reviewed them. I began my piece by noting how bizarre it is that, given the beating reason has taken in American public life for the past several years, Professors Lott and Brennan published their books taking "boomer liberals" and other miscreants to task. His question should go to them.
Question from Evan Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Do you worry that you are perhaps unwittingly providing the right ammo to rekindle the campus PC-scare of the 1980s and 90s?
Todd Gitlin:
The voice of discretion always whispers this seductive little melody: "Loose lips sink the left." It's seductive for a reason: There is always an unscrupulous force of darkness coiled to take advantage. I hear the whisper and reject it. For two reasons, practical and principled: 1. Practical: The right has plenty of material. If Wade Churchill did not exist, would not David Horowitz invent him? 2. Principled: More important, intellectual life would grind to a halt if everyone who thinks bit his or her tongue for fear that the bad guys are listening. Professors Lott and Brennan publish their books arguing that some left-of-center professors, including me, are wrong. The Chronicle asks me to read them and say what I think. If I respond dishonestly, I convict myself of intellectual unseriousness. So I respond honestly.
Question from David V. Skocik, former prof. at small college:
My question, though rhetorical, reflects the perception of a great many people, both degreed and not, who have become disallusioned with academe. Why do people who, for the most part, have never practiced what they teach, live in a world of lifetime job security shared only with Supreme Court justices and popes, and who, never having had to defend the freedoms they take for granted, and tend to believe that despots are honorable but misunderstood people, believe they know more than, as Teddy Roosevelt said, the bloodied man in ring?
Todd Gitlin:
First of all, a majority of college teachers do not have lifetime job security. Second, all of us defend freedom by practicing it, or ought to. Third, if by "the bloodied man in the ring" you mean Dick Cheney, perhaps you are asking why he just defended the dictator of Kazakhstan.
Question from Craig -- Virginia:
Why shouldn't "the proper role" of the academic left be to practice what they preach? Open the doors to their own cocooned departments. Hire people who don't think exactly as they do. What a concept! Sounds like tolerance. What are they afraid of?
Todd Gitlin:
Sounds like Craig has swallowed David Horowitz's nonsensical claims about academic prejudice. Please see elaborate refutations of these claims at http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=7&Itemid=34.
Liz McMillen (Moderator):
We're about at the halfway mark, so please keep sending in your questions.
Question from Peter S., former English instructor, SUNY Potsdam:
The summary of Mr. Gitlin's article on the Chronicle's website says: "Leftists in academe spend too much time attacking "heretics" within their ranks... and too little time articulating a persuasive vision of a more just world."
In The Disapperaing Liberal Intellectual, Eric Lott makes the case that "boomer liberals" such as Todd Gitlin, Richard Rorty, and others spend too much time attacking the radical left.
Lott suggests that these attacks have been counterproductive to the stated goal of many liberal writers: to get the necessary electoral heft and to drive the right wing from power. He argues that by holding the left at arm's length, by marginalizing them as unrealistic radicals who need to learn moderation, that liberal intellectuals smoothed the way for the centrist conservatism of the Clinton years and the reactionary statism of the Bush administration.
Here's my question: "Instead of marginalizing the left, shouldn't "boomer liberals" challenge themselves to find common cause with those on the same side of the political spectrum?
Todd Gitlin:
The author doesn't write the Chronicle's summary. That said, you don't properly fathom the weirdness of Eric Lott's book. He displays not the slightest interest in "getting electoral heft," but rather concocts a spurious analysis blaming "boomer liberals" for "nation-love" and "political complacency with a relatively youthful face" that inhibit an uprising in behalf of his purist causes. I maintain that this view is phantasmagorical. For someone so sure of his revolutionary project, it's curious, isn't it, that Professor Lott offers not the slightest evidence that, absent his nemeses, the young revolutionaries would be going about the right insurgency. Bless the students who want to improve the world, but I haven't observed throngs of them poised for real-world action until their enthusiasm is doused by these movement-busters.
There were, however, many excellent political efforts in 2004 and I hope for more this fall. I'm also partial to the policy work of the Roosevelt Institution (rooseveltinstitution.org), on whose advisory board I sit (stand?). As for me, I'm on the board of Greenpeace USA, and spend the bulk of my time outside the classroom writing and speaking directly about politics. I encourage other like-minded instructors to do so as well. This is a citizenly duty and it is urgent.
Question from Michael Pyshnov, retired.:
Is it not true that the Left shrank because some half of it became neo-conservatives? A rumor has it that neo-conservatives are former Trotskyists. A serious difference in the ranks of the Left appeared when "feminazis" were born and challenged their teachers with the issue of legitimacy of Israeli occupation, and the traditional Left (Horowitz is an example) ran to defend Israel that was much closer to their heart than any "issues". Apparently, it is impossible to continue the leftist tradition without running into the big trouble with this one issue.
Todd Gitlin:
It is not rumor but fact that several neo-conservatives are former Trotskyists--including, crucially, the "godfather" of the neocons, Irving Kristol. I'm not sure I grasp the rest of this comment.
Question from Evan Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Following some of the reaction to your essay over the past week or so I have been struck by a particular criticism, leveled most articulately by Lee Siegel in The New Republic. He argues that your treatment of Lott - in which you charge him with "left-wing heresy sniffing," with "hunting for enemies within" - is hypocritical because you yourself are guilty of hunting for enemies within.
Todd Gitlin:
This would be a telling charge if it were true. If my argument were as incoherent as Professor Lott's, I could fairly be shackled to him in the dock for Torquemada tactics. Professor Lott has an absurd overestimate of the significance of his baneful "boomer liberals." I disagree. If I see bad arguments in the academy, it's my intellectual responsibility to answer them--not because there are "enemies within" or because they are stupendously powerful (as I argue in the review, they aren't), but because their thinking is sloppy.
Question from Alison Hayford, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada:
I have two questions:
Isn't one problem a kind of loss of history--that newer generations who might see themselves as progressive or on the left don't really know what older folks did in their day? It seems to me that a lot of the internal beating up of the left involves this--for example, younger feminists scolding 1960s feminists for not dealing with issues of race and class, which I at least think is not warranted by the historical record.
My second question relates to the nature of institutions. It seems to be fairly difficult for people to move back and forth between academic and non-academic worlds, perhaps more than in the past. In Saskatchewan, which once upon a time pioneered such things as publicly funded medicare and a professional civil service, it was not uncommon for people to spend some time working for government, then return to universities, then go back to public policy making...This tempered both public policy making and academic debates, and had some good effects on both spheres. It doesn't seem to happen as much any more, not only here, but all over, with a few high level exceptions.
Todd Gitlin:
1. Ignorance of history is a perennial obstacle to knowledge and informed discussion. One reason to engage the current debate is to open up knowledge of what a "left" can be--even on a university campus.
2. Good point. In the U. S., at any rate, the shutdown of traffic from the academy to government is partly a by-product of anti-intellectualism in government. In many European countries, academic life is also aerated by public broadcasting, which is more hospitable to intellectuals than is the U. S. brand.
Question from Liz McMillen, CHE:
Your article dealt with the kinds of critiques coming from the left that you find especially damaging. Can you mention some academics who you admire and who you think offer a model of the pragmatically engaged critic?
Todd Gitlin:
There are many. For openers, strictly confining myself to the left, in no particular order, and confining myself strictly to contemporary issues, I think highly of ongoing commentary on public issues by the sociologists Christopher Jencks, Jerome Karabel, and Kristin Luker, the political scientist Andrew Hacker, the economists James K. Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, and Paul Krugman, the historians Lisa McGirr, Sean Wilentz, Eric Foner and Michael Kazin.
Question from James D, from an Arab university:
1. How can you debate at all with people who believe that "crimes committed by liberal capitalism" outweigh those of Stalinism? Is there some Gulag archipelago that has escaped the world's attention? It would seem that the more basic problem in American academia is the inability to think at all. My question: how can we boomer liberals (first time I ever heard of this label but what the hey) communicate reasonably in such an atmosphere?
2. How can these flaming radicals you reviewed in your article call themselves "professors"? Isn't the university a basically bourgeois institution?
Todd Gitlin:
1. Fear not: the view you quote is a rara avis even in the notorious American university.
2. You'll have to ask the flamers. But (note, a small point) universities preexist the modern bourgeoisie. "Bourgeois institution" is one of those terms substituting for thought and long ready for the trash.
Question from Jasper, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee:
The right seems to get political energy from self-policing, while the left's attempts to enforce purity render it politically ineffectual. Why is that? And do you see any mirroring between what the left is doing in the academy and what happened to Democrats in 2004 or might happen in 2008? For instance, I can see the liberal-left breaking apart over who supported the war last.
Todd Gitlin:
Interesting. The right's political energy may well derive from their quarter-century-long familiarity with political power, even if said experience coexists with a paranoia (cf. Horowitz) concerning one of the few institutions they haven't controlled during this period. I'm not sure what you mean about 2004. There was a considerable outpouring of liberal academics (along with many others) in swing states, whatever their hesitations about Kerry. It's likely to happen again. But I agree with you that the sectarian temper is a flame that never quite goes away.
Question from Liz McMillen:
Can you reflect on whether the right has stripped away the mantle of human rights and internationalism that has historically been a trait of the left. For example, the debate over what to do about the genocide in Darfur - carried out in the shadow of Iraq - highlights some of these anti-interventionist tendencies that have taken hold in some precincts of the left.
Todd Gitlin:
I don't know for a fact that the Darfur debate is being carried by the right, but if so, good for them. (Surely those on the left who reserve their opprobrium for the U. S. and find it beneath them to mobilize against an Arab-perpetrated slaughter are eligible for a massive rethink.) One of the awful things about the invasion of Iraq is that it set back the case for humanitarian intervention made by many on the left in the '90s, especially with respect to Bosnia and Kosovo (and against the then-fashionable isolationism of the right). All the political tendencies ought to be rethinking their foreign policies. If I may put in a plug for blogging colleagues, there are excellent debates taking place at TPMcafe.com.
Question from Roger, assistant professor, Urban Research University:
Is it not a major problem that academics, left or right, have reified themselves into their respective disciplines which prevents the public from: 1)knowing the value of academics' work, and 2)benefiting from this work? With the U.S.'s notorious history of anti-intellectualism and with the saturation of "pund-idiotry" in the media, shouldn't academics try to bridge the gap better between themselves and the public/media?
Todd Gitlin:
Hyperspecialization is a huge trouble in the academy, and yes, it does contribute mightily to the self-crippling of academics. Pundidiocy cheapens the currency of ideas. Ideas can be difficult--sometimes, not always, must be difficult--but it would behoove academics to undertake the intellectual discipline of stating difficult ideas in the clearest possible language.
Liz McMillen (Moderator):
That's all the time we have today -- thanks to Todd Gitlin for chatting with us and for his thoughtful answers to our questions.
Todd Gitlin:
Thanks to all for their comments. I'm glad the piece stimulated some discussion, much of it intelligent. A tip of the hat to the Chronicle and its Review for demonstrating that this sort of idea-based discussion is feasible and even engaging.