Defense of debate

I am writing to express my opinion regarding the various current movements, both legislative and grassroots, calling for wholly politically neutral teaching and classroom environments. I believe that these various movements, while well intentioned, are gravely flawed in terms of their likely outcomes. First, no individual, teacher or otherwise, is wholly unbiased. This is a practical impossibility. To threaten punishment for any slip into bias is to threaten punishment for something quite ordinary. Thus, before this issue is discussed any further, it should be obvious even to the issue’s most fervent proponents that only repeated and constant effort, true efforts at propagandization and indoctrination, should be considered.

Second, the system as it is now designed and employed is meant to defend academic independence and the ability of professors to deal in truth. Active limitation of free speech as part of an effort to prevent possible indoctrination fundamentally guarantees that college humanities and social science courses become bastions of indoctrination. If our goal is to guarantee that the educational system does not propagandize, than we must reinforce the educational system’s ability to be a forum for debate — that is to say we must reinforce the educational system’s ability to allow opinion of dissent against popular notions. Authoritarianism, be it leftist or rightist, is founded in the elimination of discourse and disagreement particularly in the classroom.

Third, bias can serve an important role in the teaching of humanities and social sciences. When I teach Adam Smith I defend capitalism like a true believer — yet when I teach Karl Marx I do the same. In doing so it allows me to present the arguments in their most powerful form, creating a pedagogical edifice for my students to pick apart. Students must be challenged if they are ever to accept the possibility that the beliefs their previous education and family life presented them with may have flaws, and just as importantly, students must be challenged if they are to learn to defend those beliefs on an intellectual level. Exposure to bias allows us to grow — either by abandoning old beliefs or by strengthening them.

Fourth, virtually any study of human behavior or belief, be it humanity or social science, is in part or in whole political. In order to understand these subjects we must frequently delve into ideology, or into theories that mirror or seem to be ideology. This simply cannot be helped. Teaching economics, for instance, necessarily means that for extended periods of time we must suspend our questioning of one of the major theories — theories such as capitalism (blatantly liberal) or Marxism (blatantly, well, Marxist). To attempt to suppress politics in the classroom is to suppress the advancement of knowledge.

That said, professors must allow critique and debate. If professors present facts or theories, confirmed or otherwise, that have political implications then they should be willing to allow their students to debate the political content. Insensitivity to the political identities and needs (yes, students, being human beings in a democracy need to be taught about politics and political choices) alienates students and convinces them only of their professors’ arrogance. Furthermore, intentionally biasing one’s lectures, that is to say intentionally seeking to propagandize or indoctrinate their students with a single perspective rather than seeking to provide students with the means to developing their own, independent conclusions is as morally questionable (to say it delicately) as intentionally biasing one’s heuristics against particular individuals, races, ethnicities and so forth. The classroom is a forum for political debate, not pontification.

Does pontification, indoctrination, propagandization happen in the classroom?

Yes, it does. But should our government seek to restrict discussion of political bias and debate in the classroom wholesale? By no means. Universities and colleges should and do monitor their professors, both in terms of peer reviews and student evaluations, to determine whether they are properly using the classroom. This system is imperfect, but the way to free our students from political indoctrination is not by striking out at freedom of speech in any of its forms.

— Eric Drummond Smith is a doctoral student and instructor of political science at The University of Tennessee. He can be reached at esmith22@utk.edu.