An apology, with context
Trigger warning: If my recent comment in an email to department chairs about ideologues offended you, then you may want to rethink reading this post.
I’ll start with an apology for letting my sarcasm off the customary tight leash in my comment about ideologues and normal people. I was (sincerely) trying to make a serious point with a little humor, and if that offended you or raised eyebrows, I am sorry.
As is often the case with me, I see an opportunity in this situation for reflection, so, in that spirit, let’s talk about context.
We’re dealing with a challenge that, in my experience, compares only to the AIDS epidemic. I’m old enough to have lived through that terrible moment, standing by as people I love — so full of life and promise — slowly surrendered. Watching their suffering was made all the more painful by others, mostly normal straight people, who would “reassure” me by framing their suffering with observations like, “This is what those perverts deserve.” Thankfully, we’ve come some way out of that period — but not far enough.
We’re responding not just to a virus, but to suffering, which is, and will necessarily be, both physical and emotional. I am thankful (and very proud) that by far the majority of the people I’ve worked with in the last several weeks are genuinely committed to the welfare of our students and to our calling as liberal arts scholars and professors. I could tell a great many stories of self-sacrifice and generosity shining in the dark, as we prepare for the challenges ahead, and I’m grateful that you’ve let me be a part of those stories, one way or another.
I’m still close enough to the days I practiced psychoanalytic psychotherapy to interpret humor — including my own — as a compensatory mechanism, sort of a ward against anxiety and even anger. So I’d like to share three brief anecdotes that, I hope, will contextualize my sarcasm.
First, as we learned that we would transition to online instruction, a prof informed me that this would be a disaster. This person went on to tell me that he had the most stringent attendance policy in the division and failed more students than almost anyone else. The disaster, you may ask? He feared not being able to apply this attendance policy in an online environment and thereby lessen rigor — by keeping students. This tested the strength of my leash, and I could only respond that there might be a difference between the excellences of our disciplines and merely showing up.
The second anecdote involves a somewhat lengthy explanation I received about why the college’s decision to move instruction online is a gross violation of academic freedom. “How were you planning to have class, in this pandemic?” I asked. The answer, as I understood it, was that “the administration” should have given professors the right to decide to hold their classes on a campus, come what may. The leash strained, and I wondered aloud whether the principle of academic freedom protects holding unpopular viruses on the same level as opinions.
We have many challenges moving our courses online, and one of them is the obvious need for accountability. We have tools that might help us — like Respondus, among others. In a third interaction, I was encouraging flexibility with students who don’t have access to technology, like a webcam. The majority of the people I was encouraging embraced the need to be flexible and even give students the benefit of the doubt in these trying times — a benefit no doubt we, as professors will also want. But one comment did stand out: If they don’t have the right technology, they should not be in college. Again, I sensed my leash, already weakened, giving way, and I couldn’t help myself: Should having the right tech for your assignments be the criterion for access to education and a path to a different future?
Of course, these stories can and should be subject to the interpretive strategies we know how to apply—being liberal arts scholars and all. And I’ll be the first to admit that there are layers to be plumbed. Perhaps none of these people are actually as rigid and dogmatic as they appear. Perhaps they, too, are motivated by anxiety, and are clinging to what is familiar. I get it.
But I also get that embracing a principle at the expense of humaneness is a dark path — and not a path I want to walk. It’s not a path that I want to see intersect with our students. And it’s not a path I want to see harm you.
When I was a student, we had a word for people so enchanted by a principle that it eclipsed their appreciation of all other human goods. I’ll bet you can guess what it is. Of course, I know that ideology has other meanings and uses, and perhaps it’s an intellectual failure on my part that I can’t seem to exorcise the right demons. But I don’t believe any principle gives us the right to forego all other human goods, especially compassion.
So, does that make me a relativist? No, and in part 2, I’ll explain why. Meanwhile, I apologize again.
I’m looking for a stronger leash.
