Post Category → Sketches and Observations

On Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement

The Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 is commonly remembered as a triumph of student activism and constitutional rights. But in retrospect it seems clear to me that the movement’s long-term effects have not been beneficial for the university or for civic discourse more broadly. I now regard it as a mistake.

The university’s original policy – banning the use of campus facilities for partisan political advocacy – was not a form of censorship but rather a principled attempt to preserve the academic mission of the university. The policy didn’t suppress serious political discussion or curtail intellectual freedom. On the contrary, it protected a space for reasoned debate – what might be called academic speech. Faculty and students were always free to discuss controversial issues in the classroom and to argue competing viewpoints. What was prohibited was the use of the university’s institutional resources – its spaces and its imprimatur – for organizing and campaigning in the manner of political parties or pressure groups.

By breaking down this boundary the Free Speech Movement led to the transformation of the university into a sponsor of activism and advocacy, blurring the line between academic inquiry and political mobilization. As a result, universities were increasingly drawn into the partisan conflicts of the day, often at the expense of their core academic purpose.

In hindsight, the university’s initial posture appears not only prudent but wise. It preserved the university as a space where ideas are considered on their merits rather than judged according to their value for partisans. Genuinely deliberative speech – disciplined, informed, and oriented toward understanding – is more endangered now than it was in 1964.

Guest Post by Charles Lewis – Rorty as Thersites: A Bibliographical Note

Abstract: In this note Charles Lewis draws attention to an item missing from bibliographies of Richard Rorty, namely a satirical article published under the pseudonym “Thersites Minor” in the journal MLN. The article illustrates Rorty’s amused interest in the antics of contemporary literary theorists.

There is an item that seems to be absent from current bibliographies of the work of Richard Rorty — namely a short article published in the MLN Comparative Literature issue for 1979. The reason, no doubt, is that it was published under a pseudonym — and indeed an appropriate one given Rorty’s satirical intent. It might be regarded as a scurrilous annex to the essay on Derrida that he had published the year before, one that parodies the tortured style of some of the latest literary theorists.

I have found only two references to the article, both of them apparently oblivious as to its true author. One is in a review of Charles Segal’s book Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ Bacchae, where Carl A. Rubino notes that Segal “chooses a notable series of short texts to head each of his chapters: […] evocative passages culled from Plato, Hölderlin [etc.],” while adding in a footnote:

For a satiric view of ‘liminal quotations’ and other excesses of contemporary criticism, see Thersites Minor, ‘How to be a New [sic] Critic: Metonymic Mumblings or a Generative Grammar [sic] of Apposite Apothegms’ […]. It is a pleasure to report that Segal generally avoids the excesses targeted there.

The article is also included in UC Irvine’s Critical Theory Offprint Collection, MS.C.007 (1939–1994), Box 15, catalogued (amusingly enough) as “Minor, Thersites, undated; Physical Description: 1 item”; on the other hand, three items for “Rorty, Richard” are listed under Box 18.

How do I know that the article is by Rorty? Continue reading →