rational and everywhere applicable.” He then goes on tonobserve that World War II “was an educational projectnundertaken to force those who do not accept these principlesnto do so.”nSuch support for political missionizing suggests thatnBloom and those who praise his work are not disinterestednhumanists. Their attacks on the Germans as the enemies ofndemocratic education simply rehash ideas and prejudicesnput forth by John Dewey during both Worid Wars. Deweynrailed at Kant and Hegel as representatives of authoritariannethics and of an antidemocratic political tradition. LikenBloom, Dewey had favored taking German influences outnof the academic curriculum in the name of building his ownnconception of American democracy.nOther recent defenses of the Western humanities curriculumnhave been at least equally tendentious. Both WilliamnBennett and Lynne Gheney, for example, defend thenteaching of Western thinkers in order to put into relief thengenius of Martin Luther King, Jr. Gheney, in a recentnHillsdale speech, deplored the fact that most Americannyouth had never read King’s “Letter From the BirminghamnJail,” which is ranked in order of moral and culturalnimportance with the works of Shakespeare and Dante. ThenGhristian mystic Glement of Alexandria extolled Plato andnhis disciples as “paidagogountes eis Christon,” teachersnleading others to the anointed Savior. In 50 Hours: A CorenCurriculum for College Students, Dr. Gheney proposes hernown educational path to salvific truth. In phrases recallingnthose of her predecessor at NEH, Mr. Bennett, she stressesnthe real “benefits” offered to students by the study of Plato,nDante, Shakespeare, and other Western luminaries: “King’snwork makes this point with particular force. He citednJefferson’s words and Locke’s to argue the cause of civilnrights: he quoted Greek philosophers, British poets, andnGerman theologians.”nNeither Lynne Gheney nor feminist homophiles atnStanford have been the first, to be sure, to treat thenhumanities as a political football. The humanist scholarnIrving Babbitt at the beginning of the century directed thensame charge against Harvard President Gharies WilliamnEliot and at Eliot’s counterpart at Princeton, WoodrownWilson. Both university presidents had linked education ton”public service” while introducing at their institutions a newnemphasis on the administrative sciences. Babbitt complainednthat their policies would turn academic learning from thengoal of ethical self-mastery into an instrument of power.nThe national administration of Woodrow Wilson — whonhoped as an educator to save the young from thralldom tontheir parents’ irrational beliefs — confirmed Babbitt’s worstnfears. It also saw an emerging fateful alliance betweennrepublican government and a rising class of public administrators.nBy the 1990’s it may be impossible to depoliticize thenacademy and the humanistic curriculum as an undergraduatenrite of passage. If the study of philosophy is, asnSocrates states (and as a neo-Platonist I fully agree), “anconcern about death” and the fate of the soul, then bothnLynne Gheney and her opponents are debating aboutnsomething far less important. It is not even the teaching ofnthe humanities that is presently at stake, in a sense thatnwould have been intelligible to an earlier generation, as thentransmission of a specific culture that was deemed fitting forna Western gentieman or lady. Today’s debate centers onnwhich names and phrases are most appropriate for mouthingnat cocktail parties or for defending the welfare state democracyninto which our republic has stumbled. It is a battienbetween the partisans of Sidney Hook and Jesse Jackson, nonlonger one between Athens and Jerusalem or between thenancients and moderns.nIt is frequently asserted that required humanities coursesncan help train our citizens in democratic self-government.nBut, alas, Americans have ceased to govern themselves, evennif they still “participate” in carefully staged electoral eventsnwith the sufferance of public administrators. In the late 19thncentury, at a time when most Americans received only a fewnyears of schooling, communities did look after themselvesnwhile the country abounded in humanities scholars. Nowadays,nas is made clear in To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report onnthe Humanities in Higher Education, published by Bennettnas NEH director in November 1984, the humanities arenseen to promote not self-government but the newer politicalnideal of pluralism. The study of great books is proposed innorder to acquaint us with those “ideas so revolutionary inntheir time yet so taken for granted now” that have becomen”the glue that holds together a pluralistic nation.”nThe study of humanities will go forth in spite of suchnfustian. They will flourish if people study them in earnestnand encourage their children to do so. But they will certainlynnot benefit from being inflicted on the young in a superficialnform, as political dogma. Even now the humanities continuento be seriously pursued at the best Gatholic and Protestantninstitutions of learning and among small, dedicated groupsnelsewhere. This is exactly as it should be. Not everyone isnmeant to be a philosopher or to transmit the wisdom of thenpast. To his discredit, the philosopher Martin Heideggernadvocated a politicized imitation of humanistic educationnduring his involvement with the Third Reich. Some of hisnAmerican critics now urge us to fight Heidegger’s “fascist”nvalues by using his techniques: by making the humanitiesninto the vehicle of a global democratic or feminist egalitariannagenda. Whatever the political goals, reducing philosophicalnlearning to militant ideology is reprehensible.nThere is one battie, however, that conservative academicsnshould be waging at the present time: defending that aspectnof the “German connection” known as Lehrfreiheit. Thenpursuit of research in one’s discipline without ideologicalnharassment is the defining activity of the academic scholar.nIt is also one now being threatened by the therapeutic statenand its terrorist allies on American campuses. In the name ofnsensitivity and victimology, scholarly and social exchangesnhave become suspect activities in major universities. Accordingnto a recently published Garnegie report on higherneducation, over sixty university presidents interviewed favornthe introduction of more extensive restrictions on speakingnand writing among faculties and students. Such restrictionsnare intended to protect the sensitivities of designated victimngroups, particularly blacks, gays, and feminists. The defensenof Lehrfreiheit is a moral cause that all nonpolitical academicsnshould hasten to embrace. It is also one that does notndegrade the humanities.n^>nnnSEPTEMBER 1990/23n