Academic Contrarians

Recently Dr. Thomas Keene sought to explain to MDJ readers why academics sometimes resort to Marxist rhetoric when trying to exert influence. His goal was to defuse the controversy that arose when it was discovered Dr. Timothy Chandler, the soon-to-be provost of Kennesaw State University, had coauthored an article with Marxist overtones.
Professor Keene’s point was that academics are by nature “contrartians.” They regularly oppose the conventional wisdom and in the process advance social knowledge to the benefit of all. This, in essence, was all Dr. Chandler was doing.
Dr. Keene began by observing that he himself has been a contrarian ever since he was a small child and that this stance produces a valuable independence of thought. Indeed, when imported into the marketplace of ideas sponsored by our universities, it creates an intellectual tension that sorts the good ideas from the bad.
Sadly, this is not necessarily true. Tom Keene is himself an outstanding example of what he preaches. A committed scholar, a fair-minded human being, and an intellectually honest commentator on the social scene, he has been invaluable in maintaining the high academic standards of KSU. And yet, he is an exception, rather than the rule.
As almost everyone knows—but few academics admit—universities are hotbeds of left-wing activism. Neo-Marxism is virtually a religion in the humanities and social sciences, with almost no faculty members openly willing to express conservative views lest their careers be irreparably damaged.
Thus, as I have previously noted, in my own discipline of sociology the ratio of liberals to conservatives is thirty-to-one. This means that liberals have no need to defend their views. Their opinions represent the conventional wisdom and therefore seem self-evident.
Put another way, on campuses nation-wide, neo-Marxists have no need to be contrary. They can—and do—conform to the standards set by their peers. Far from exercising an independence of thought, most merely parrot what they were taught by their own professors and what they hear from their colleagues.
Within the university setting, it is neo-conservatives such as myself who must be the contrarians. It is we who need the courage to tell our colleagues they are wrong, even though we are greatly outnumbered. They, on the other hand, can complacently sit back and assume that we are deluded fools who may one day come to our senses. In other words, they do not have to take our contributions seriously—hence few do.
To illustrate, I have on countless occasions offered to debate my colleagues on a host of issues. To date, however, I have never been taken up on a single challenge. Frequently dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned, it is understood that there is no penalty for refusing to take me on.
Returning to Dr. Chandler article, I must first admit to not having read it in its entirety, consequently I am not sure its tenor was fundamentally Marxist. Nor have I met Dr. Chandler personally, hence I cannot vouch for his underlying beliefs. Here I can only comment on the reception his writings were apt to receive from the academic community.
One thing is certain, they would not have been perceived as contrarian. Nor would they have provoked innovative thought. Quite the reverse, they were likely interpreted as just another restatement of what the vast majority of academics believe. If they made hardly a ripple, it was because they were dropped into waters already roiling with neo-Marxist proposals.
This said, I am not sure what sort of provost Dr. Chandler will make. Even if he is the sort of ideologue many MDJ readers fear, it is unlikely that he will push the university farther to the left. The neo-Marxist hegemony is currently set in stone. Its foundations are so strong and broad that for the time being they are unshakable.
But there is some good news. There are genuine contrarians among us, and as Dr. Keene suggests, they are capable of improving social conditions. He is simply wrong as to where they can be found. —I submit this column as a case in point.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University