perfidy

The beautiful and talented Erin O'Connor has posted an excerpt from an article she wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education about the flapdoodle down at UNC. The freshman reading this semester is "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, and campus conservatives are concerned that Ehrenreich's propaganda will rot the little heads of freshmen before they have a chance to grow.

A fair point, but I dunno. I agree with O'Connor's conclusion-- that "Nickel and Dimed" isn't the best reading for Freshmen-- though I think it's a decent choice-- but I partly disagree with her reasons why.

When I started college, the entire incoming class had to read Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. I think that was a good choice-- it was a fairly simple book about American media-mindedness that lent itself well to freshman-level exegesis. Even better, we got to watch the Peter Sellers movie. Yeah!!

But the discussion we had wasn't very spirited. It was fine, and a few people got into some pretty good debates over the greater meaning of the book, but I think it could have been a little more fun.

Which is why I'm not sure I agree with the O'Connor or the Conservatives at UNC....I'll give you a minute... go read.

So... O'Connor calls the idea that freshmen should be discussing partisan politics "astounding." I couldn't disagree more. Any freshman class at any college can hold a rousing, if not openly rancorous debate on politics which I guarantee will contain more substance than Hannity and Colmes. Besides, the kids are going to spend the next four years flitting from cause to cause-- why pretend otherwise?-- so why not help to guide their educational experience in a way that might be constructive?

I think Ehrenreich's book is a good choice for freshmen. It's heart-breaking, passionate, and polemical. It's thinly argued, anecdotal, and full of holes. It invites debate and discovery as freshmen brainstorm ways to defend their position. It allows students to take positions and defend them, and I don't think it hurts anything that the discussion is inherently political. Perfect, right?

Well, yeah, except for one thing. The risk the discussion sinking to the mere level of Hannity and Colmes. To me, this would be the biggest reason not to assign Ehrenreich or her ilk. O'Connor puts it well, writing about the Conservative protesters:

The committee's seemingly unimpeachable plea for "greater fairness and balance" in the reading program conceals a less savory jockeying for ideological position.

"It's intellectually dishonest to present only one side," says the group's founder, Michael McKnight. That's true. But couched in that demand for balance is the committee's conservative agenda. The group seeks more balance not because balance is inherently desirable, but because of the committee's interest, as its Web site announces, "in promoting conservative and free market ideas and perspectives on the UNC campus." It is protesting because Nickel and Dimed gives conservative politics a bad rap. As McKnight told The Herald-Sun, "as a Christian, I was offended, and as a conservative I was really offended. It's one thing to disagree with someone's point of view, and it's another thing to ridicule them." Tellingly, McKnight frames his complaint in terms borrowed wholesale from the liberal identity politics that he and his group oppose.

The tacit assumption by both liberals and conservatives that Chapel Hill's summer reading program is more about politics than about reading should give us pause. We ought to be asking what it means to read opinionated works as either a confirmation or negation of identity -- but instead we are fighting endlessly about whose identity gets top billing when readings are assigned.

And that's the problem. As I said above, discussing an easy target like Ehrenreich's book does foment discussion and mixing. But it's not very deep. Popular political debate these days is all surface, surface, surface (and hell, when has it been any different?), and maybe colleges could do a little more to encourage deeper thought. Even popular political writers like P.J. O'Rourke might be an improvement. Even better, actual literature, such as Elie Weisel, the aforementioned Kosinski, Milan Kundera, Zora Neale Hurston, or Toni Morrison might do the trick. Except maybe for Morrison, these authors aren't very hard going, and their work inspires thoughtful discussion from many sides. Moreover, these authors are more, what the hell, collegiate than Ehrenreich and "Nickel and Dimed," and for some student's it's the last elevated thing they'll do for four years. So, I agree with O'Connor's argument (as usual), but I do not share her conviction that a little political heat is a bad thing.

... as for the ostensibly adult people arguing about whether a book can rot the brain, for shame!

[note] Edited to remove gibberish and non sequiturs 9/4/03