20100522.1255

I have struggled with beginning this post.

The reading I have been doing over the past couple of weeks has largely concerned itself with the profession of teaching (in order of increasing specificity, in the humanities, languages, literatures in languages, and English). Much of it laments the perceived lack of faith in or regard for such teaching, and some of it (several articles in Profession 2008, for example) addresses ways in which those lacks can be addressed and possibly rectified.

At the root of discussions of such lacks is this: academic work in the humanities is seen as detrimental to the various sorts of fiber of the United States and, in a larger context, the world. It is seen as destructive to the concept of truth, morally relativistic and therefore permissive and even encouraging of perversity, and regarding as anathema the institutions which allow it to flourish. (This is in addition to the general removal from "reality" in academia at large; those in the sciences, however, get to claim that their work speaks to immediate practical concerns, which insulates them from some of the critiques of irrelevance that those in the humanities suffer.) And there is a motion among a great many people to rein in such tendencies.

Because of my vocation in the academic humanities, I am perforce among the targets of such animosity as I note above. And I am, I think understandably, not entirely pleased that such "rhetoric" as "All academics hate America" gets levied at me.

I was born in the United States and have lived all of my life here. Doing so has afforded me great opportunity, among which has been the chance to be able to pursue my love of English language and literature and to share my love (and hard-won understanding) of it with my students. And that opportunity has been funded, in part, by federal aid programs; I am very much mindful of what I have gained from living in the United States, and I am very much appreciative of it.

But that does not mean that I believe this country which has given rise to me is perfect. It is a human endeavor, and as such, it is subject to error. And why, if I see an error, should I not point it out, that it might be at least examined (acknowledging that it may well be that correcting any individual error causes problems that are worse than the error corrected)? Is it not the purpose of the First Amendment to protect such criticism? And if it is so, can I be faulted for exercising the rights which my own parents enlisted to defend and for the preservation of which soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines continue to fight, suffer, and die?

Is it not an insult to them to not employ and enjoy that which their sacrifices have purchased on behalf of us all?

And the ideas that 1) such examination and critique are somehow "unpatriotic," and 2) that a humanities department--of which English is one--is somehow detrimental to the moral fiber and character of the nation, are fallacious. The United States Military Academy, cited by Forbes as "America's Best College," maintains a department of English and philosophy, and said department has among its stated objectives the intellectual inquiry and examination of cultures other than mainstream American that are so often decried. The United States Naval Academy seems to endorse a similar view, as does the United States Air Force Academy (look for "English").

The United States military views such as necessary to the training of its cadets and midshipmen. And the graduates of the service academies often become the officers at the highest levels of the military, among the most venerated of our citizens. And if they are encouraged--and even required--to take on such inquiry, can we truly say that doing so is un-American?