Dear Gopi,
Russell Jacoby’s (2013) essay is interesting. One of the more interesting aspects of the essay is that it appears in the book review section of New Republic. It’s not a review of Fish, though. It’s more like a follow-up to books that Jacoby himself published – The Last Intellectuals: American Culture In The Age Of Academe (1987) and Dogmatic Wisdom (1994).
As you wrote, it’s possible to reflect on these issues fruitfully without agreeing on any specific point that Jacoby raises. I’m responding to place the debate in its larger context.
These ideas and ideas of a similar nature have been at the heart of Western debates on the university for centuries. Adam Smith (1976 [1776]: 282-337) published an analysis of the education system of his own day in The Wealth of Nations. He offered a stinging critique of British universities.
A century ago, Thorstein Veblen’s (1957 [1918]) Higher Learning in America asked about the proper goals and management of universities. At the other end of the 20th century, Allan Bloom’s (2012 [1987]) Closing of the American Mind engendered similar debates. (Those who wish to read the Veblen or Bloom will find links to copyright-free PDF editions in the reference list.)
Along the way, there have been numerous studies of academic careers and their relation to the intellectual life of North America and the larger world. See, for example, Theodore Caplow and Reece McGee’s (1958) The Academic Marketplace, Richard Mandell’s (1977) Professor Game, or parts of Lewis Coser’s (1965) Men of Ideas or Coser’s (1984) Refugee Scholars in America.
Jacoby’s complaint is that we once had public intellectuals who have been replaced by academic careerists. But public intellectuals, like independent composers in 18th-century and 19th Europe, depend on a cultural and economic context that no longer exists. In a similar way, Coser (1965: 19-45) writes of the economic and social context that supported public intellectuals in 18th-century London. Daniel Boorstin’s (1983: 386-400) account of the Royal Society and early scientific journals shows how public science emerged in similar conditions. This took place in contrast to the universities for the many of the reasons that Smith criticized Oxford.
The economic conditions that make it impossible for most thinkers to hope for a career as serious public intellectuals make university jobs available to some who might once have held such roles. Scott McLemee (2007) offers a reasonably nuanced description of these issues in a reflection on Jacoby’s (1987) book. If you are curious about the lives that public intellectuals might once have aspired to create, a memoir by Norman Podhoretz (1969) offers a nice picture of life among urban intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s. That world essentially vanished by the 1970s
It’s difficult entirely to agree with Jacoby’s article – or to disagree with it. The issues are deeper and far more nuanced that Jacoby suggests. He doesn’t address the causes of his discontent so much as the symptoms.
I do disagree on a few specific points concerning Stanley Fish. Fish has at least two careers, and Jacoby treats them as one and the same. Stanley Fish the scholar is a major figure in Milton studies, literary theory, and legal interpretation. This is a quite different kind of fellow than Stanley Fish the public intellectual and columnist, a writer who is sometimes as blunt and self-serving as Jacoby claims – but not always.
Fish is a columnist for the New York Times – like Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, David Brooks, and Charles Blow – and that gives him a fine pulpit for his gospel. For this and other reasons, Fish has earned a status as public intellectual that transcends any of the kudos or career perks to which he might have aspired as a professor or dean. But Fish the scholar is no minor figure. Jacoby may not like the views that Fish offers on academic life. Even so, he should not belittle Fish’s genuine academic contributions.
That aside, it’s not a bad article. The debate, however, is ancient. It dates back to the criticism that adherents of Socrates and Plato made against the sophists and rhetors who taught debating skills for money. They were the academic careerists of their day, 2,500 years ago.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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References
Bloom, Allan. 2012 [1987]. The Closing of the American Mind. How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. Foreword by Saul Bellow. Afterword by Andrew Ferguson. 25th Anniversary Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987 edition available in PDF at: http://ia600309.us.archive.org/27/items/ClosingOfTheAmericanMind/ClosingOfTheAmericanMind.pdf
Boorstin, Daniel. 1983. The Discoverers. New York: Random House.
Caplow, Theodore and Reece McGee. 1958. The Academic Marketplace.
New York: Basic Books.
Coser, Lewis. 1965. Men of Ideas. A Sociologist’s View. New York: The Free Press.
Coser, Lewis. 1984. Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jacoby, Russell. 1987. The Last Intellectuals American Culture In The Age Of Academe. New York: Basic Books.
Jacoby, Russell. 1994. Dogmatic Wisdom. New York: Doubleday.
Jacoby, Russell. 2013. “Stanley Fish Turned Careerism Into a Philosophy.” The New Republic. August 21, 2013. Available at URL:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114224/stanley-fish-careerism
Mandell, Richard D. 1977. The Professor Game. What Really Goes on in the Multi-Billion Dollar Education Industry? New York: Doubleday.
McLemee, Scott. 2007. “After the Last Intellectual.” Bookforum. Sept-Nov 2007. Available at URL:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_03/833
Podhoretz, Norman. 1969. Making It. New York: Bantam Books.
Smith, Adam. 1976 [1776] An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited and with an introduction, notes, marginal summary and index by Edwin Cannan. With a new preface by George J. Stigler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Available at URL: [6th ed., Vol 1]:
http://ia600608.us.archive.org/20/items/cihm_48300/cihm_48300.pdf
[6th ed., Vol 2]
http://ia600605.us.archive.org/0/items/cihm_48301/cihm_48301.pdf
[7th ed., Vol 3]
http://ia600209.us.archive.org/1/items/inquiryintonatur03smit/inquiryintonatur03smit_bw.pdf
Veblen, Thorstein. 1957 [1918]. Higher Learning in America, a Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities By Business Men. New York: Hill and Wang. 1918 edition available at URL: http://ia600308.us.archive.org/1/items/higherlearningin00vebluoft/higherlearningin00vebluoft.pdf
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Gopi Kannabiran wrote:
—snip—
found this essay provocative.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114224/stanley-fish-careerism
It is not directly related to design but I believe it might be of interest to some here since it is about the Western academic enterprise, politics, and philosophy.
While I do not agree with everything expressed in the essay, I found that it raised some extremely important issues which tend to remain back grounded otherwise .
—snip—
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