there are several levels at which i can say that this argument is -- and i
have no better way to term this -- a bunch of crap. to call it
crypto-racist (at least in an american context) would be accurate but
would likely run the risk of seeming reactionary. while the hero john leo
was made all a-queasy from his experience of touring campuses and hearing
that universities are on a symbolic level paying lipservice to the reality
of a society which is not homogenous, these gestures are in the
institutional sense rather meaningless. which is to say that mr. leo has
little to fear from the semblance of a male-bashing white-hating
deconstructionist revolution, because no such revolution has occurred.
universities are still very much arenas for the promulgation of values
that in any sense must be called traditional. what must be called into
question, however, is the quiet way in which the lines are drawn here --
to say that "parents" are realizing that the university teaches values
that are not "their" own appears to make great assumptions about who these
parents are and what their values are. a similar leap is made by mr. sorfa
who asks about why "we" should pay money for films that question the way
in which "we" have made them. perhaps it is time for "us" to step back and
realize that the notion of a homogeous audience (parents, film-viewers) is
flawed from the get-go and that there is no place for a triumphalist
return to "our" values. certainly, can we not celebrate or at least
tolerate cultural productions that question our values from time to
time?
Kamran Rastegar
Columbia University
On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, david sorfa wrote:
> While exploring the PhilosophyNews website I came across an article by
> John Leo: "We Need New, Undamaged Colleges"
> (<http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=041599&ID=s561838&cat=>),
> in which the author laments the dangerous effects of deconstruction and feminism on the
> youth of America. Leo writes: "Because of deconstruction and the broader postmodern
> movement, everything can be toppled. This is exactly what the West-bashing multiculturalists
> and male-bashing campus feminists wanted to hear." He goes on to decribe his experiences
> while touring various colleges with his daughter: "The college tour is obviously awkward for
> parents who realize that the modern American university is rooted in a new value system
> quite antagonistic to their own. 'We are like a warrior caste that sends its children away to be
> raised by pacifist monks,' says Norman Podhoretz, the critic and editor".
>
> In an odd way this seems to echo attitudes about popular cinema: why
> should we pay hard-earned money to watch films that disagree with the
> way in which we earned that money in the place?
>
> David Sorfa
> ------------------------------------------------
> Communications and Image Studies/Film Studies
> School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts
> Rutherford College
> University of Kent at Canterbury
> CT2 7NX
> United Kingdom
>
> http://www.geocities.com/athens/9604
>
> silence - exile - cunning
>
>
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