From the issue dated October 5, 2001
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An Entire Semester of Knowledge in One DayBy SIVA VAIDHYANATHANWhat would you die for, and what would you kill for?" I asked the first class of a new semester,
I ask this question every semester that I teach about globalization, as a way to get my gifted, privileged students to see that other people have made sacrifices -- for better or worse, good or evil -- that have enabled Americans to attain an unbelievably high standard of living. We live so well in this nation because others (not just Americans) have died. And we live so well because others have killed. From that starting point, I hope to get my students to know the price of everything, while seeing the value of everything as well: the labor that went into their sneakers, the fossil fuels that brought them to campus, and the credit system that keeps their closets and cupboards full. That is the only way I know to teach a class on globalization. You are part of the globe, snared in the World Wide Web of humanity, whether you acknowledge it or not. It's been my deep suspicion, and my concern, that Americans -- especially Americans on the liberal side of things -- take their privileges for granted, imagining them to be natural rights. Conflicts in the recent past, justified or not, involved minimal or no sacrifice from the American people at large. And for most Americans, for most of my short life, warfare has been like sports. At least in American sports, we get to see the damage we do to each other's bodies. War has occurred at a distance. Those few, proud American families with members in the military have felt the real threat of combat. But most of us have just moved on with our days while our planes drop smart bombs on cities we can't quite find on a map. By the second class session, the following Thursday after that dark Tuesday, I sensed I did not need to make my case any more. My students understood. It was as if an entire semester of knowledge had come spewing out of their television sets in one day. We had read two excerpts of books that many people will revisit in the coming weeks: Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld. Huntington argues that the world is divided into stable, self-contained, and distinct "civilizations" -- like Confucian, Judeo-Christian, or Muslim -- that differ so much in vocabulary and worldview that "clashes" are inevitable. Barber posits dialectic ideological flows -- one hypermodern and commercially powered, the other traditional and fearful -- that feed off each other. Not only do most nations contain elements of both processes simultaneously, he argues, but even groups and people can exhibit aspects of Jihad and McWorld without contradiction. For instance, a fundamentalist religious group or antiglobalization campaign might use the Internet to organize and communicate across increasingly permeable borders. In previous years, I had had to prod students, generally reluctant to challenge the professoriate or the printed word, to see that both of those explanatory models of the world are attractive yet insufficient -- and that Huntington's is dangerously wrong. This time, the students showed no mercy to the texts. Once someone is forced to recognize the essential interconnectedness of all human beings, one finds it harder to see "clashes" or oppositions as given or necessary. The world of my students was suddenly, painfully, in flux. At least Barber spoke to them of fluidity and change. But my students demanded more contingency. No model of world affairs conjured before September 11 will fit well afterward. We are now on our own. We have to remake our intellectual worlds from scratch. To mistake today's conditions for yesterday's is to tempt failure. That's the sober realization my students were facing. One of the issues in flux today, for example, is patriotism. People who would not have been caught waving a flag in 1968, 1974, or 1991 now proudly display them. So I asked the class: What manner of patriotism are we forging this time? It could be a patriotism of love, embedded in a sense of humanity, one that sees the United States as a democratic beacon, an imperfect process with an articulated ideal. Patriotism of love springs from openness and pluralism, and stretches far beyond the shores of the United States. It could glow with the best energy of the American people and inspire others. Or patriotic fervor could be a patriotism of lust. The class was concerned about the attacks on Arab-Americans in the wake of September 11. About the harassment of U.S. mosques and Arab students, cab drivers, and women wearing traditional Muslim veils. I proposed that there are signs that American passions could flower into a patriotism of solidarity and duty. Americans have lined up by the thousands to give blood and donate work gloves for the efforts in New York. While we prepare for war, the spirit of the heroes of this conflict is already rising from the dust and smoke of the World Trade Center. Finally, I asked my students to think about the differences between patriotism and therapy. Sometimes, we wave a flag or wear a ribbon to feel better about ourselves while others are risking their lives and doing the hard work. There is no duty, no sacrifice attached to therapy. It's all about "healing," so we can get back to our little lives. No patriotism with an explicit goal of some illusive condition called "closure" can lead a nation through troubled times. Most of my students were wary of any kind of patriotism, having grown up seeing the flag as the virtual property of those who could express their belligerent political will no other way. But this trauma has left us all inarticulate, so waving a flag seems all we can do. It can mean much more than provincial jingoism: It can stand for solidarity, fortitude, unity, hope, and sorrow. I usually try to disguise my opinions in the classroom, preferring to ask disquieting questions from multiple points of view. But this time, I was too moved, too shocked, too numb for that. For two of the best years of my life, I lived in a downtown Manhattan apartment with a panoramic view of the skyline. The Twin Towers were my nightlight, my southward compass point, my constant companions. Their given name embodies New York City and its place in the United States: World. Trade. Center. Monuments like that have ways of keeping good people humble. Just weeks ago, I packed up my belongings and left Manhattan for good. Now I live in a quiet, beautiful, safe place called Madison, Wis. I still wear my Yankees cap around town, but I am glad to be here. This lovely town is now my safe Midwestern home. In the days following September 11, though, we were all New Yorkers. Siva Vaidhyanathan is an assistant professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B4
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Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education