February 1: I suppose I should talk about the State of the Union address, but alas, I didn't see it. I'm at the point where I don't find political speeches by either party all that interesting or enlightening. I heard the speech last night went through 30 drafts, no doubt some parts tested in focus groups, run by PR experts, designed less to inform or raise debate, and instead to sell and try to affect public opinion. Political discourse in this country has turned into either sound bites, or emotional 'them vs. us' rhetoric with talking heads yelling past each other on the TV generating more heat than light. So, despite being a political scientist, I didn't really feel it worth devoting an hour of my time last night to watching a predictable speech (or the equally predictable democratic response). Why bother?
It is troubling that political discourse has sunk so low, while the US is facing some of its most severe crises in history. Besides the Iraq and now Iran threats (both economic due to oil, and political/military), and the news that scientists think we may have 'crossed the point of no return' on global warming, there remains economic vulnerability due to budget deficits and the very serious current accounts deficit, and the problems are immense.
Rather than have Republicans and Democrats decide to allow their differences to be settled in a manner that allows both vigorous debate but also respect for each other's position, you get talk radio calling liberals "traitors" and the left calling for the impeachment of President Bush and politicizing even judicial appointments. Both sides seem to have created their own little world and are fighting jihads against each other. That's less true in Maine, where our Congressional delegation is part of the moderates that do still manage to hold off the extremes, but in general the public mood nation wide is not conducive to solving serious problems.
In one class we discussed whether or not the public was better served when there were just three network news broadcasts and 80% of the people got their evening news from Walter Cronkite than now, with numerous 24 hour stations, blogs, on line news, etc. I think the current situation is better for people who really seek out news stories and try to investigate and learn about issues. But the cable news channels focus on sensationalism and ratings, and embrace bias rather than try to avoid it. At least in the days of the "big three" there was a strong sense of journalistic ethics that took seriously the gateway function of the news media. Now, in the cacophony of sources the emotional and sensationalist ones dominate. That's what the public wants, emotion is more powerful than reason.
So we don't debate seriously the Iraq war, we choose sides and stick to our choice in an us-them battle defined less by the issue and evidence and more by the partisanship. This seems true for issues across the board. I don't think the American people are really that way yet, but our political discourse is veering in that direction. For a great power, involved in numerous challenges, this could be very dangerous. Humans, as I often note, tend to learn things the hard way. We're good at avoiding problems until they get too large to avoid. If people don't wake up, I have a sense historians will look at the early 21st century as the time of the decline of America's "empire," and we can only hope it's a relatively painless fall.
The fundamental problem is simple: in a democracy you need a political discourse that is tolerant of diverse views, and conducive to compromise. Walter Lippmann noted that democracy was a way to find truth, as real debates allow a polity to reflect on choices and decisions, self-correcting over time. If this basic democratic political culture or perhaps "democratic ethic" is lost, then a democracy becomes dysfunctional and even one as old and tested as ours could be threatened.
February 2: I can't motivate myself to really think about Iraq and the war right now. I've written so much, most of it still valid, and while I promised last month to develop my "strategy" for how to turn around this failed policy, I'm not going to do that today because it's just seems like I'm repeating myself and I need to get inspired to be more original and creative. So I'll keep pushing that off.
Instead, I was thinking this morning as I drove in to work about the nature of The West. What is The West? The "easy" answer is that The West is a loosely defined culture containing Europe and North America, and depending on who you ask, at least some aspects of Latin American culture. The West is wealthy, stable, relatively peaceful within, and dominates the world in terms of its political and economic ideology, and its culture of materialism. The West is about freedom, rational thought, and a dualist way to consider reality (good/evil, body/mind, etc.) The West has become dominate through conquest, from Alexander the Great through Rome, European colonialism, and now American neo-imperialism.
A lyric from the Canadian band Rush captures a kind of dualism within the psyche of The West "It's the motor of the western world, driven off to every extreme/pure as a lover's desire, evil as a muderer's dream." We want to rationally pursue "the good" and desire to understand and act ethically; yet we rationalize our evil by espousing a noble purpose or moral mission. This was true of Rome, which never fought an aggressive war according to its Senate -- Rome defined all its wars as defensive, or with a goal of creating a kind of Cosmopolity that would bring reason and community to human kind. Alexander wanted to spread Greek ideals (Rome ultimately did), the European colonizers wanted to spread "civilization" and the US, of course, claims to be spreading democracy and markets. A lot of people get killed, sweat shops and exploitation is endured, but all for this noble end that we never really quite reach.
And, of course, while capitalism and democracy dominate western political-economic ideals, it is also true that Marxism is a western ideology, using the basic economic theories of Adam Smith along with a philosophical method borrowed from the Idealist Hegel and made materialist by Marx. Besides the holocaust, The West gave the ideology that has rationalized mass murder and totalitarianism by governments both within and outside The West.
How do we understand and contextualize what The West is. By "understand and contextualize" I mean how would we consider The West if we were observers from another world, or explaining The West in some future history class. How can we detach ourselves enough to get a sense of this cultural world we are not only a part of, but which is centered around the culture we take for granted?
The West traces its roots to Greece on the one hand (some philosopher somewhere once said all of western philosophy is a footnote to Plato; at the very least, the Greeks set the main questions and framework) and Israel on the other (Christianity has dominated the West, and is really a sect or offshoot of Judaism). In a sense these two traditions joined during the period of the Roman Empire under the Christian banner, and for a long time religion and philosophy were united. Then around 1600 The West entered a new phase, the "modern" phase, which has given us the particulars of the world we have. Perhaps we can't understand what The West is unless we see it as a "culture" that has been over 2500 years in the making.
I meant for this to be a one entry reflection on the west, but I've only touched on the issues. This also fits into some of the subjects that we're talking about in the course "The First Modern Decade," so I'll continue this line of writing in the days to come. But now I gotta get ready for "American Foreign Policy."
February 6: The recent case of violence and unrest over caricatures with a negative depiction of the prophet Muhammad can easily be misread, I think. First, there is the old "dog that didn't bite" aspect of the case -- actual violence and unrest is relatively rare across the Islamic world, but of course what gets covered is drama. People should refrain from jumping too quickly to a conclusion that Islam itself is incompatible with western liberalism, that's too glib a conclusion. Second, I doubt if the reaction would be this intense if not for the case of the Iraq war, and policies by the US which have exacerbated the tension between the two cultures. This is the kind of thing I had in mind when I said that America's policies were actually helping those who wanted a culture war between the West and Islam -- the Islamic extremists -- by emotionalizing the climate and create a climate favorable to the extremists.
I think the case also shows the changed nature of international relations. How could something in a libertarian Danish newspaper cause such unrest? Why would it matter so much? Besides the fact that we've helped emotionalize the climate in the last couple years, the interdependence championed by neo-liberal ideology as creating conditions conducive to peaceful cooperation over competition clearly has a dark side. Interdependence may make it rational to cooperate; it doesn't make it inevitable. In fact, it increases potential clash points and increases vulnerability on all sides. It also expands what impacts international politics; it's not just nations and governments. It is not just powerful corporations and economic actors. It includes potentially anything a paper publishes, a blogger writes, or a soldier photographs. From Abu Ghraib to the 'cartoon scandal,' world politics has clearly entered a brave new world.
What to make of this? Push aside either the Islamophobe 'see they hate freedom' reaction, or the sensitive 'we should respect their religion' reaction. Neither is accurate. The former plays into the mentality that the extremists want to promote because they yearn for conflict and cultural clash, the latter ignores the fundamental importance of freedom of expression in any true democracy. We can't accept the reaction as legitimate, nor can we use it as an excuse to enhance the divisions. Instead, this shows the kind of problem that needs to be met head on.
First, I think the West (as PM Rasmussen has done) needs to make clear that freedom means being able to do things others find offensive. Indeed, challenging tradition and the conventional wisdom in ways which are perceived as offensive has been important to the very development of modern thought; publishing this cartoons was not "wrong," and we should resist pressure to self-censor, and must do all we can to protect those who exercise free speech. Second, there needs to be a kind of transnational dialogue that reaches beyond traditional governmental interaction and explores the challenges posed by "post-modern" globalized politics. Right now two things stand in the way of effective dialogue: the emotion caused by the war in Iraq and the crisis with Iran, and the repressive nature of governments in the Mideast who do not want their publics to be part of any such dialogue.
A culture war does nobody any good. The West cannot "win" against Islam because of oil, and the fact that there is no definition of what "victory" would be. While one might imagine that the Islamic extremists could "win" by driving the West out of the region and causing some kind of global recession, ultimately their ideals could push the region into major conflict, a kind of civil war of the modern vs. the traditional. Ultimately, the extremists cannot prevail, without the emotionalism of anti-western hype they won't be able to avoid opposition from within. The good news is that most people are not in the extremist camp in either the West or the Islamic world, most people want a good life and to find a way to get along. The bad news is that emotion, fear, and anger can help extremists control the agenda for at least a little while, and that's enough to do real damage to long term stability. This issue here will die down, but what it represents is real, and cannot be left to fester. Unless we can figure out something other than violence (either from us or against the West) to deal with the cultural differences and chart a course of dialogue and mutual respect, things could get very ugly down the line.
February 7: It's a bit surreal watching the US try to come to grips with the Iranian issue. On the one hand, it's clearly dangerous when a demagogic leader pursues weapons of mass destruction, talks in apocalyptical terms about the state of the world, and appears unwilling to yield to international pressure one iota. (Of course, some could argue that Ahmadinejad is not the only leader who fits that description). But it's not an easy case. Iran could easily and significantly rachet up pressure on the US in Iraq by unleashing a Shi'ite insurgency. Iran is also a large country, not easily defeated in a military conflict. A minimal strike might fail, or might in fact be used by Iranian hardliners to justify their increased hold on power.
Perhaps some in Washington believe that "fixing" Iran will make it easier to create what they want in Iraq. They are upset, no doubt, that the Iraqi Shi'ites are friendly to Iran, and perhaps believe a changed Iranian regime will make the Iraqi government more malleable. But that could be a very dangerous assumption. Iran could not only boycott selling oil, but might be able to close off the Persian Gulf. Things could easily go out of control. Is it all bluffing, or is there a consensus in the White House that Iran must be brought into line whatever means necessary? What would that mean for the overstreched US military? Of course, the Iranian hardliners probably wouldn't have come to power without the Iraq war. This takes on the appearance of a something that spirals deeper out of control the more we do to try to reign things in.
That's all for today -- I'm too busy to give this the time it deserves right now, but I do need to address not just the proper strategy for Iraq, but for the region. Decisions made in the coming months are as momentous as those made back in early 2003, with consequences potentially even greater than those of going to war with Iraq.
February 9: Events in the Mideast have been taken ominous turns lately. Clashes between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Afghanistan, the Taliban undertaking new tactics like suicide bombing, outrage against the West over cartoons, war mongering against Iran, Hamas winning in Palestine, and of course last year's victory of a religious fanatic in Iran's Presidential election all point in a rather disturbing direction. And, of course, the spark that ignited all of this took place in March 2003 when the United States, against advice from experts of the region and the international community, decided to depose Saddam and try to remake Mideast politics by putting a democracy in place in Iraq.
It's hard, one might argue, to fault that goal. Democracy is needed in the Mideast, states ruled like Saudi Arabia, Saddam's Iraq, or even Egypt and Jordan simply aren't viable in the long run as globalization spreads. Yet instability, an inevitable side effect of change, would be dangerous to the world's oil supply and America's ally Israel. Why not use American power and "guide" the transformation, gaining a foothold in Iraq, and make some major changes that can yield a peaceful stable region? The temptation was great, and it is certainly understandable. While the profit motive surely moved some like Perle and Cheney, I believe that a kind of Wilsonian idealism was present in the President's choice. If we could bring peace and democracy to the Mideast, he'd be remembered as one of the greatest Presidents ever. And if the US had the power to do that, all it needed was the will. President Bush had the will.
Alas, it was a fantasy. Wilson couldn't make the world "safe for democracy" with WWI, Kennedy's "Grand Design" ended in Vietnam, and now hawkish liberalism has lead to a dangerous clash of cultures which has been widened by the emotion caused by violence, extremism and war. I've many times noted the error (rather common in great powers) to over-estimate the ability of military power to shape political ends. When that fails, fiascos result. But I have also hoped that there was a way to rather easily extricate ourselves before things got out of control -- to leave Iraq, open dialogue with Iran, and emphasize our real interests rather than vast plans to re-shape the region. Unfortunately, the situation is getting ever more complex, and an effective 'exit strategy,' possible a year ago, is much harder to visualize today.
The New York Times reports today that insurgent attacks continue to increase (and have been steadily increasing over time), suggesting that there is not real improvement in Iraq. Sabotage continues to stymie oil production, corruption remains immense, and it is imminently clear that the US will not have a stable democratic pro-American state from which to transform the region.
It's important now to recognize that the danger is not just the US in Iraq for a long period of time. It's not even the dangers inherent in a clash with Iran as discussed on Wednesday. The danger is that we could be moving towards what Huntington called a "clash of civilizations," a West vs. Islamic world struggle that will not be won militarily, and which would be far more dangerous for the West than the Islamic world. That clash has to be avoided; it is not something we can "win." That reality has to be grasped. If not, dark days could be ahead.
February 10: What is amazing in the current Administration is the power grab of the Bush Presidency to the point that they wish to simply ignore laws passed by Congress if they determine it necessary. Not only that, but now it comes out that Vice President Cheney authorized the leaking of classified information -- in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Palme -- in order to try to put personal pressure on a credit of the Administration. Not only that, but Cheney knew that the critic was right in debunking a story already proven wrong about an alleged attempt by Saddam Hussein to get uranium from Niger. This, at least, is the claim of I. Lewis Libby, indicted in the Palme case, and it is unlikely he'd claim that if it were not true, he's too loyal to the Cheney.
If this were a real war it might be less troubling. If we were at war with Nazi Germany, or engaged in a clearly delineated conflict, it would be easier to say that the constitution does allow the executive extraordinary powers in extraordinary times. But who, exactly, are we at war with? Terrorists? Well, the west has been "at war" with terrorists for decades. The fact 9-11 was more deadly than other attacks really didn't alter the picture. Not only that, but terrorism is a strategy that has been around for centuries, and will be around for as long as one can envision. If the President says that as long as there are groups out there that want to launch a terrorist attack against the US then he has extraordinary powers, he has in essence declared a 'permanent war' whereby a massive power shift occurs from both the Legislative and Judicial branches of government to the Executive branch.
Is the Iraq war the war he's talking about? Well, we defeated the Iraq military and now are fighting against an insurgency. It's hard to see how that would rise to justify the kind of acts being taken. Moreover, those who wanted that war have been proven wrong about everything they anticipated before they war. They thought there would be WMD, that Iraqis would welcome the US as liberators, we'd be popular, Iraq would develop a secular pro-western government, recognize Israel, and be a base of operations for the US to pressure the region. They thought Iraqi oil profits would pay for reconstruction, and that the war would be a major success. Instead, it's been a flop.
This all is troubling to many Republicans. They know that in 2008 the next President, who would inherent such powers should they not be curtailed before then, may not be Republican, and may not share their agenda. A shift in power to the Executive ultimately harms the legislative branch and both political parties. It not only gives the party of the President more power, but the person of the President much more authority. The American system often finds Presidents independent of party programs and politics, and thus American politics would be more focused on personal leadership and power, a more authoritarian system than the strict checks and balances we now count on.
Historically, power grabs have almost always been based on fear -- give the leader more power because he will protect you and bring order to the situation. Clearly fear has been a motive here. There may be a kind of groupthink going on too, the administration feels under siege due to low poll numbers, failures in Iraq, scandals and bad headlines, and is in hunker down mode, not wanting to start down the slippery slope of giving in and losing an aura of invincibility. That may work as long as Republicans decide to stay loyal to the President. But after the 2006 elections there will either be a Democratic Congress (in one or both houses), or the Republicans will remain in power, but be looking to 2008 and the post-Bush era. In either case, I think the Legislative Branch will have to exercise its check and balance power. Otherwise, our Republic will have been weakened in a fundamental manner.
February 13: Tomorrow I'm going to write about the honors course I'll be teaching in the fall: The Clash of Civilizations? Islam and the West. I'm excited about that course, as well as the honors course I'm co-teaching now with Mellisa Clawson from Early Childhood Education on "Children and War."
But today I want to discuss my thoughts about last week in the course "The First Modern Decade: 1900-1910," which I'm co-teaching with Sarah Maline from Art History and Steve Pane from Music. On Friday Steve performed a public concert with three sonatas from 1905: Three Page Sonata by Charles Ives, From the Streets, January 10, 1905 by Leos Janacek, and Fifth Piano Sonata by Alexander Scriabin. I was unable to see the public concert (which I heard went great), but Steve performed the pieces in class last week, with Meghan Dzyak doing a multi-media presentation about the music. So in today's blog I want to think about my reaction to those pieces and what they mean to me, recognizing my lack of musical knowledge and understanding.
The three pieces reflected different kinds of music and different facets of the dilemmas of modernism. I enjoyed the Ives piece, which Steve described as being a 'head trip,' more an intellectual bit of abstract composing than the romantic story in the Janacek piece. Ives also was breaking with tradition to try to create a true American sound. My favorite was the mystical "at the edge of tonality" piece by Scriabin, which seemed to incorporate a meshing of the intellectual abstraction exhibited by Ives, and the romantic emotion exhibited by Janacek.
It seems to me that the challenge of modernism is to somehow re-connect reason and rationality of the head with the emotion and sense of meaning associated with the heart. Before modernism, this was done by the Christian Church. Philosophy and theology were partners, not rivals. Neo-Pythagoreans like Kepler saw God's mystical sense of meaning in math and numbers, and even those less mystical, like Galileo saw themselves as exploring deeper truths. But from early on, a tension started to emerge. By 1789 French enlightenment thinkers were anti-clerical, and atheism was promoted as being more in line with reason than belief in particular religious myths.
But if you give up a sense of meaning and spirit (a more mystical term for emotion), then can reason and rationality truly replace it? And where best than in the worlds of art and music can one explore this kind of question. Scriabin, it seems, offers one possibility: a kind of mystical sense of union and divinity that one tries to achieve through music or expression could evoke a sense of meaning greater than the mundane world, but not in denial of reason and rational thought. The year Scriabin wrote this was the same year Einstein was publishing papers which would change how we view the world. Whereas in 1894 Michelson (who proved there was no cosmic ether permeating all of space) said that all great discoveries of physics had been made. But suddenly the clockwork rational universe was torn apart by a completely new way of seeing reality, which, combined with later developments in quantum physics, would yield a bizarre, uncertain and absolutely weird notion of reality (luckily we don't have to deal with these implications to act in the world in everyday life).
I was thinking about that as I listened to Steve play Scriabin. The floating notes on the edge of tonality felt like quantum probabilities, there but not there, suspended in space and time which themselves are illusions. But what does that all mean? Was Scriabin just in a world of fantasy seeking meaning because he wanted meaning in a world where there is none? How can modern thinkers like all of us contemplate what lies beyond reason and rational thought. How can we judge or make sense of meaning which cannot be known or analyzed? Perhaps the only way is not to think of it, and simply get lost in the music of a genius like Scriabin.
February 16: Something has been going around and around in my mind, and I need to blog about it today. For the last year or so I've been pre-occupied with quantum mechanics and relativity (admittedly non-mathematical thoughts -- I couldn't grasp the math). I've been fascinated by the idea that a photon is everywhere all the time, and that "particles" are really waves, or ripples in the fabric of space-time. I don't pretend to have more than very general non-scientific surface knowledge of all of this, but nonetheless its inspired me to think seriously about the nature of reality and our world. I've come to some really strange conclusions on what this all means, and have been thinking it over bit by bit and now want to lay out where I'm at. This is my current, constantly changing interpretation of the nature of reality.
Space/time is an illusion (I'm not wholly comfortable with using this word, but it's the best I can think of) created by a source outside space/time whose attributes we cannot describe in space-time terms. Moreover, space/time is a unified whole, completely deterministic. However, quantum mechanics means that every possible actualization of space-time has been determined. This isn't the 'many worlds' theory where there is a physical universe for every quantum probability, I see it more like a computer game where the program already has determined the result of every strategy or choice, but only one version is on the screen at any given time. In other words, I interpret the probabilistic nature of the quantum world as representing latent actualizations of "reality," but not randomness. Simply, everything that can happen in space time has a kind of existence; since space-time is an illusion the notion that these different probable outcomes being "real" is non-sensical, they are as real as the actualization of reality we experience. But our experience is all that creates any one person's particular world.
Consciousness is the connection of the source to space/time (which it created, presumably in order to have experience). Our experience of difference (identity, difference, subjectivity) reflect different perspectives, but do not mean we are different entities -- we're all part of this non-temporal non-corporeal source whose essential existence is outside space-time. (Outside space-time is a nonsensical notion, but linguistically that's the best way I can think of to put it). The determinism of space/time actually provides us with free will; all choices have determined outcomes, but we only make one choice and then follow that path. The unchosen paths still have determined outcomes, and since space-time is an illusion, all we perceive is our experience of the paths we take (which of course intersect with other paths, other people are simply experiencing space-time from different perspectives).
But what can we know about the source? How can we imagine something outside space/time, indescribable in terms we are used to? And why would it (and since we are aspects or perspectives of the source experiencing space/time, we are it) create this kind of world for this kind of experience?
One answer could be that any kind of conscious source or entity would be compelled to try to experience in different ways. Most likely, space-time is only one of many avenues for experience, there could be a myriad of different types of experience beyond space-time.
If this is the case (and of course, this is obviously very speculative, even playful), then the drive to experience might be a fundamental attribute of the source (or of being, if one prefers -- source may be a bad word). In fact, one could question whether or not trying to figure this out is a good thing -- if the source (meaning each of us at a fundamental level) chose to blind us from the true essential nature of existence in order to experience, should we not simply experience in the context we've somehow chosen or created? Of course, it could be an "insane" source, one whose drive to experience has led to a fragmentation of its consciousness to the point that we are adrift in a myriad of diverse perspectives. In such a case, the goal might be to somehow re-discover the unity of being.
I also think that while the language I'm using sounds dualist (there is a 'world' which is really illusion, and we have a 'soul' or 'consciousness' which is really part of the source), I actually lean more towards seeing it as a monist notion since space/time is simply a mechanism to allow the experience of perspective, but not something truly separate from the source (illusion is a bad word, really).
The only clue we have is consciousness; if we are each part of the source, perceiving this context in various ways, then we contain within ourselves some clue to the nature of being. One question needs to be answered though, and it is a tough one: why does anything exist at all? I'm not talking about why space-time exists, but the source itself. And by "why," I mean how could any kind of existence even be possible? Our minds are so locked into space-time notions of causality and time that we cannot even approach this issue sensibly. Yet without answering that question, the most fundamental questions cannot truly be approached. Playful speculative attempts to deal with the mystery of existence are all we are capable of doing.
I think that's enough for today. Tomorrow I may try to continue this (and if I don't get a chance to blog tomorrow, it may be another week before I do since next week is spring break!) How is any kind of existence possible? Hmmmm.
February 23: Although this is "spring break" week (the first spring break of the semester -- the next is in April) and I usually don't blog during breaks, I have to report on the exciting and exhilarating APSA (American Political Science Association) Teaching and Learning Conference held in Washington DC. I presented a piece on my transformed International Relations course (to be offered in the fall) in the assessment track. I want to write a bit about the conference and the importance the APSA is placing on teaching and learning, as well as a little about assessment. Academics have tended to fear or deride assessment, especially assessment of academic programs or student learning. However, assessment is here -- state legislatures, parents, the public and accreditation agencies demand it -- and it actually can be a very good thing.
First on the conference itself. The APSA historically has been more focused on research, but a number of faculty members from smaller liberal arts undergraduate education oriented schools have convinced the organization to take the teaching aspect more seriously, including support on the scholarship of teaching. For many faculty members its a challenge; rethinking assignments, and recognizing that the goal is not just to develop political scientists, but to help all students learn to think for themselves. That includes logic, reasoning, recognition of bias in themselves and others, and the ability to express clearly and fairly their ideas in a multitude of settings (written, web page, public presentation, etc.) What they learn about the international system or foreign policy may fade, but if they have developed the ability to be analytical, critical and reflective in their thinking, that helps them develop independent minds. That also means faculty members have to be clear that one thing they do not expect is for students to share their opinion, unless they've reached it themselves through rational analysis of the evidence.
Second, assessment. It is really hard to get faculty members to go beyond grades and exams to not only assess students, but also to assess their own performance. Many see it as a threat -- the data probably won't be used to help us, but can be used to punish. Others see it as unnecessary -- I know what I'm doing is good, why should I as a professional have to prove it? Yet, the reality is that assessment is here, and we are not immune to that. Moreover, it would be arrogant to think we shouldn't provide evidence that we really are effective -- we demand evidence and analysis from our students, shouldn't we be willing to submit ourselves and our work to such standards? We allow our research to be peer reviewed and analyzed, why should our teaching be somehow sacrosanct? I am a firm believer in academic freedom: we need to be free to teach and express ourselves as we see fit, that is the academic tradition. But at the same time, shouldn't we also be willing to demonstrate that what we do works? Shouldn't we want to know if what we are doing is working, shouldn't we want to change what we are doing if the evidence suggests that our approach hasn't been effective?
The best people to design assessment tools are faculty members themselves. I don't mean that in a way of saying "let's figure out how to show we're good" -- we don't want to fudge the data. Rather, we know our objectives, we know what we want students to learn, we know what constitutes critical, independent, analytical thought. We should know how to design methods of measuring that, methods that can yield data both to ourselves in terms of improving our courses, and to outside sources who demand accountability. Moreover, if we don't control the process and develop the means, it will be done to us by outsiders who may not really understand or care about what we do. There are already "off the shelf" assessment tools some administrators are forcing upon faculty members across the country, tools that likely don't fit well with the kinds of things being done. So let's embrace assessment, define it, develop tools, and be up front with the message: "we care about what we do, we want to know if we're doing it well, we want to make improvements where we can, and we want to show those to whom we are accountable -- taxpayers, tuition paying students, parents, and the public -- that their universities are effective.
Next issue: Iraq. Things have gotten worse than at any point in the last three years there as the country veers into civil war. I'll have more to say about that next week. I do think Bush is right to not want to discriminate against companies in Port protection just because they are from the Mideast. The whole thing reeks of political grandstanding (from both parties) and the kind of anti-Muslim anti-Arab sentiment that only helps the extremists. So, admittedly with limited knowledge, this is one issue I think the President is right about (I also don't really have any problem with his Supreme Court choices, including Harriet Myers). But on the issue I disagree with him the most upon -- the war in Iraq -- I'll have more to say next week. Ciao!