[PEN-L:6815] Re: Re: Old "foggies"/"fogeys"

["Michael Keaney" <M.Keaney@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 14, 1999, 2:42 pm, Tom Walker wrote:

>>Michael Keaney wrote:
>>
>>>One possible advantage accruing from present circumstances - more an
>>>unintended side effect - is that the so-called old fogeys preserve what
>>>remains of heterodox teaching and research.
>>
>>On the other hand:
>>
>>"As with other marginal groups, a certain handful of [heterodox old fogeys]
>>are accorded higher status that they may perform a species of cultural
>>policing over the rest. . . Such exceptions are generally obliged to make
>>ritual, and often comic, statements of deference to justify their elevation."
>>
>>I've paraphrased from Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1969), substituting
>>"heterodox old fogeys" for "women". By definition, a "heterodoxy" offers a
>>critique of the arbitrary selection and privileging of some discourses
>>(orthodoxy) over others. But no critical discourse has the right to exempt
>>itself from its own critique. So we may suppose that certain heterodox
>>positions are "more orthodox" -- that is to say, more _deferential_ to the
>>orthodoxy -- than others. And, we might suppose that it is those "less
>>hetero" heterodoxies that are allowed by the orthodox to represent
>>heterodoxy. Thus the "advantage" of preserving an old fogey heterodoxy must
>>not be assumed to accrue to heteroxy per se. Quite the contrary.

I am not exempting  critical discourse from its own critique. Far from it -
assuming the existence of a significant number of heterodox old fogeys in
positions of relative power and influence, especially with regard to course
development and delivery, doctoral supervision and faculty appointment, then
these would have a lot of answering to do as regards the shrinking
opportunities for heterodox study in American and British universities.
Similarly, what about the recruitment opportunities for heterodox
youngsters? Those who espouse greater disciplinary or intellectual pluralism
do not seem to have had much impact regarding the nurturance of the
provision of alternative perspectives. This observation becomes a criticism
when it refers to those who could have made a difference.

All of which is to say that my original point was that recruitment policies
focusing primarily or significantly on the race, class or gender of
applicants/candidates should also recognise the intellectual individuality
of these individuals. Otherwise we can be as politically correct and as
reflective of wider social composition as could be possible while the very
ideology we would all indict as at least culpable in the legitimation and
prolongation of our societal and international woes would be further
propagated at the expense of any critical perspective. And then where would
that leave us?

Michael

Michael Keaney
Department of Economics
Glasgow Caledonian University
70 Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 0BA
Scotland, U.K.