Opinions Galore, but Little Wisdom

By GIL TROY

The Forward, JANUARY 25, 2002

At a recent closed-door meeting of scholars, in an academic setting that out of mercy I shall leave nameless, participants were asked to debate whether there was a "clash of civilizations" in the wake of September 11.

Unfortunately, and quite predictably, the conference showcased the kind of woolly thinking that gives scholars such a bad reputation. Academics, it turns out, are long on opinions, short on wisdom. Too many refuse to let new facts get in the way of their well established, if skewed, worldview. Many academics simply refuse to say "I was wrong" after September 11.

Opening salvoes set the tone for much of the afternoon. One scholar after another pounced on Samuel Huntington's notion (expounded in his book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order") that there is a "clash of civilizations" or that "civilization" is even a useful term when discussing the West and Islam. It took a leftist, pro-Arafat, Middle East expert to point out the obvious: As we sat in a comfortable seminar room explaining away concepts such as "civilization" and "difference," there were many people in the Islamic world who not only believed in a clash of civilizations, but were acting on it.

My colleagues did not practice a blind relativism. They were actually quite judgmental — but in one direction only. We heard a litany of American and Western failures — often wrenched out of context. A religious studies scholar argued that all civilizations contain a strain of barbarism, evidenced by the Crusades and other Western crimes. A multiculturalism expert complained that President Bush's talk of "good" and "evil" made her feel "uncomfortable." And surely, she said, such talk was racist, considering its source.

In fact, the way the organizers framed many of the questions reversed assumptions and blamed the victims of Islamic terror. One of the subsidiary talking points asked: "Is the United States/the West in opposition to Islam?" (Clearly, I watched the wrong television network on September 11. I saw people acting in the name of Islam attacking the West who were applauded by many of their co-religionists.)

Perhaps most disturbing, in a twisted game of projection, Osama bin Laden and his gang became the vehicle for expressing the academics' frustrations with American politics and the modern world. An African historian insisted that this fight was all about "North-South poverty issues," ignoring bin Laden's wealth and his henchmen's overwhelming middle-class backgrounds. An economist lamented the spread of globalization. Similarly, at various points during last semester, I heard all kinds of theories, including one Latin America expert who linked September 11 with the Reagan administration's policies in Central America.

Creative thinking, and a search for root causes, is essential. And if this iconoclasm served a greater good, I would cheer. But all this rhetoric simply substitutes the orthodoxy of politically correct counter-culturalism for the orthodoxy of Bush-Ashcroft patriotism. And, saddest of all, these campus radicals do not even foster an atmosphere of tolerance and free thought. Even as many academics rush to condemn the "chilling effect" of America's newfound "love-it-or-leave-it patriotism," few rethink the formal and informal speech codes they have allowed to fester on campuses for over a decade.

As an American historian, I am particularly embarrassed by my colleagues. At a time when we should be applying our talents to fight this unprecedented threat, too many of us are competing for top billing in The New Republic's "Idiocy Watch." So far, credit for the most memorable statement by an American historian since September 11 goes to Columbia University's Eric Foner. Mr. Foner wrote in the October 4 issue of the London Review of Books: "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House."

By contrast, half a century ago, American academics, and particularly American historians, rushed to help defeat the challenge of Nazism. Many especially distinguished themselves by applying their intelligence in the service of intelligence. In his recent memoir, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., reflects on his generation's approach to crisis, even as he recoils from the popular celebration of his as "the greatest generation." "The generation that fought the Second World War consisted of ordinary folk who, confronted by mortal threats to their country, accepted their duty and performed it laconically, modestly, self-effacingly, without show, without flourish," Mr. Schlesinger writes. "A young naval lieutenant who saw action in the Solomon Islands registered the mood when asked how he had become a war hero. 'It was involuntary,' Jack Kennedy said. 'They sank my boat.'"

This second semester begins, then, not just in a changed world, but also with many of us deeply disappointed with our universities. We need complex explanations, yet we are bombarded with oversimplifications, from the left as well as the right. We need extraordinary responses, yet we get more of the same. We need true intellectual leadership, real inspiration, genuine professorial heroes, yet we are stuck with armchair radicals, excessively negative cynics and clichéd hacks grinding their well-worn axes.

We have no choice, therefore, but to continue to take solace in the sad fact that most moderns ignore academics anyway and that most of the professoriate's politically correct young charges, though temporarily fired up with superficial criticisms, will soon end up in power suits, tethered to desks, enmeshed in corporate bureaucracies, leaving their mentors to search for the next wave of naive but transient protégés.