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Home > Alcott Center for Educational Research >Of "Narratives and Nonsense"

Of "Narratives and Nonsense"; A fundamental misunderstanding in the area of self-regulating schools


    by John Kersey 

    William L. Anderson's paper "Narratives and Nonsense" (LewRockwell.com) puts its finger on one of modern academia's most pervasive problems, and one which is spreading from the traditional campuses into wider public discourse.  

    Definitions
    A definition of the concept of "narratives" as it is formulated within Marxist literary theory is offered by Wikipedia:

    In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative (sometimes master- or grand narrative) "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience" (Stephens). The prefix meta means "beyond" and is here used to mean "about", and a narrative is a story. Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other 'little stories' within totalizing schemas.

    This concept of metanarrative has been applied beyond literature to encompass a Marxist worldview that now dominates the arts and humanities on many campuses, and is carried forward into non-academic discussion, being applied especially to the interpretation of historical events and thus to contemporary current affairs, social and cultural developments. Anderson explains, 

    "The answer lies in the modern application of academic Marxism, for while Marx and his Labor Theory of Value have long been discredited among economists, the Marxian "narrative" and the "polylogism" of which Ludwig von Mises writes in Human Action have become the polestar of higher education. One cannot understand what is happening in disciplines such as literature, English, history, sociology, and the gaggle of "identity studies" (such as African American Studies, Womens’ Studies, Queer Studies, and the like) that are dominating much of the academic curriculum, unless one understands the Marxist mindset, with its emphasis upon "narratives" and power.

    People who are skeptical about this particular direction in which academe is headed call it "political correctness," and that is not far off the mark, even though those on the academic left who first coined that term now are angry whenever someone throws it back at them. Indeed, if politics is about the usurpation of raw power by those in "authority," then "political correctness" is an excellent term to describe what is happening, for modern academe is geared at increasing the power of the state to impose a way of life that all of what one might call "natural law" rejects. The belief is that the political process can be marshaled in a manner in which those in power can force people to do what they never would do otherwise and even change the very face of nature itself."

    Application to the academic environment
    Many of the contemporary developments within the legislative and other external frameworks in which higher education operates can be understood within this context. Above all, the intolerance of genuine diversity and competition from ideologically dissimilar viewpoints can be seen as extensions of the marshalling of the political process and the quelling of potential avenues of dissent and criticism. Those avenues are already evident in the aggressive way in which public sector institutions have sought to shut out private sector (read: libertarian or right-wing) approaches to higher education delivery. Not merely this, as ACTA explains, this Marxist, politically correct approach has become enshrined within the accreditation agencies: 

    Missouri State University student Emily Brooker had no idea what an uproar she was about to cause. The School of Social Work student objected in the fall of 2005 about a letter she’d been asked to sign at school. The letter endorsed a matter of public policy with which she did not agree, and she thought that being asked to sign it—by a professor no less—was inappropriate. What’s worse, when Brooker refused, she was accused of violating tenets of the social work program’s “Standards and Essential Functions for Social Work Education” relating to diversity, interpersonal skills, and professional behavior and subjected to a two-hour disciplinary hearing. Faculty ordered her to write a paper describing how she would “lessen the gap” between her personal beliefs and what professional ethics purportedly required. She was also required to sign a special contract in order to continue in the program. 

After Brooker filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit, senior MSU administrators became aware of the matter and called for an external review. Investigators found evidence of “bullying” toward students and deemed the overall learning environment “toxic.” The review also said:  

Many students and faculty stated a fear of voicing differing opinions from the instructor or colleague.

It appears that faculty have no history of intellectual discussion/debate. Rather, differing opinions are taken personally and often result in inappropriate discourse. 

There is an atmosphere where the Code of Ethics is used in order to coerce students into certain belief systems regarding social work practice and the social work profession. This represents a distorted use of the Social Work Code of Ethics in that the Code of Ethics articulates that social workers should respect the values and beliefs of others. 

MSU’s president said that the review documented “as negative a review of an academic program as I have ever seen.” He put all tenure and hiring decisions for the school on hold and speculated that an impending accrediting review might have to be delayed as, one newspaper reported, “the school couldn’t earn [it] in its current state.” 

What he did not say was more troubling, however. MSU is accredited not by one, but by two accrediting associations. North Central accredited the institution as a whole in 2005. Meanwhile, the MSU School of Social Work has programmatic accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Far from solving the problem, accreditors were part of it. CSWE in fact requires all accredited programs to ensure that students “understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination and apply strategies of advocacy and social change that advance social and economic justice.” According to CSWE standards, MSU’s School of Social Work was doing its job. This is just one of many cases across the country where an accrediting agency’s politicized perspective is corrupting education.
[Source: "Why Accreditation Doesn't Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It", ACTA Policy Paper, July 2007, available here.]

    "The facts don't matter"
    As Anderson explains further, within the context of narrative, individual facts that do not fit do not matter and can simply be ignored as inconvenient.

    "By now, readers are wondering why I am comparing the intellectuals and China to the Duke Lacrosse Case. After all, one involved the starvation and murder of millions of innocent people, and the other was a false rape charge in which those accused did not spend a day in prison.

    My point, however, is not to compare the enormity of Mao’s crimes with what Nifong and his supporters did. Instead, my larger point is that these two things flow from the same mindset: the "narrative" is everything. In the case of China, the "narrative" was that socialism protects and feeds "the poor," so anything done in the name of socialism is good, and if there are problems, they must be due either to the remnants of Trotsky’s supporters or to capitalist propaganda, since socialism by definition cannot oppress the poor.

    That socialism goes against human nature and natural law itself is irrelevant; the "narrative" is what matters, not outcomes. Likewise, in the Duke case, it was the "narrative" that drove the stories, not the facts, especially since it is linear-thinking, White Oppressive Eurocentric Males that drive logic and "natural law."

    Thus, as Newsweek’s Evan Thomas told American Journalism Review’s Rachael Smolkin, "The narrative was correct, but the facts were wrong."

    This approach is not merely wrong, it is actively dangerous. It leads to a position where dissidents are discredited and even exterminated (see Anderson's comments on China), and where contrary opinions are dismissed out of hand. In place of Blackstone's formulation, as put by Benjamin Franklin, "that it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer", we instead get the socialist "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." 

  • "When there is a "narrative" to protect, however, truth is whatever the intellectuals want it to be. No doubt, there were plenty of people in this country fawning over Mao when he was declaring that seeds are "happiest when growing together," and figured that Trotsky’s descendants or capitalist running dogs must have sabotaged the crops. After all, Mao was operating according to the "correct narrative," so he must have been right.

    It never occurs to the intellectuals that the "narratives" generally are nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that. My religion professor, who always was preaching "social justice" in class, was perfectly happy to see the lives of millions of people snuffed out in order to create a "politically correct" world."

  • Implications for self-regulating schools
    Thus it goes within the world of the higher education marketplace as well. Those who subscribe to this nonsense follow a narrative that tells them that education outside the narrow ideological confines of the accreditation agencies is thence de facto illegitimate and to be destroyed. Not merely this, but any such self-regulating institution that is provably legitimate is conceived as oppressive to them. One might say, to paraphrase Anderson, "How dare that self-regulating school not be a diploma mill! That violates the narrative! The narrative cannot be wrong!" 

This is shown in practice by the quoted reaction of Alan Contreras, Administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization (which we have discussed here) to the recent Supreme Court ruling that the State of Texas cannot regulate religious schools,

“Any employer must now assume that unaccredited seminary degrees issued in Texas are diploma-mill degrees unless the school can prove otherwise, and accept the potential liability of hiring such a person.”

Such a statement reveals a worrying misunderstanding of the fundamental legal principle of innocent until proven guilty. In the socialist worldview, the "usual suspects" are automatically guilty, and referring again to Anderson, they may be deemed "guilty" even when they are provably innocent of the accusation in question. These attitudes are no basis upon which to build an educational system, much less a society.

    Let us also consider in this context the connection between "narratives" and straw men. A common attack upon the holder of an unaccredited doctorate is "your dissertation isn't listed by UMI". This ignores the fact (well-known to the accuser) that UMI now only accepts the dissertations of accredited institutions, but even then, accredited universities only put forward those dissertations which they consider to be representative of their institution. Thus there are both unaccredited and accredited doctors whose dissertations are not listed by UMI - and such non-listing does not necessarily mean anything with regard to the quality of the work concerned. The contrary argument is meaningless, yet it is still made.
     
    Using authoritarian "narratives" to ride roughshod over contrary positions in this way is alien to both Christian and Jewish principle, and to natural law. For we learn in Genesis,

     And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?  Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?  That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?  And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 

    And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?  And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

    And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there.  And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake.  And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there.  And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there.  And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there.  And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. 

    And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there.  And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.
    Genesis 18:23-32