The Point of Contention

It has become routine to see colleges across the United States subject to anti-Western sentiments from its students. Complaints and controversy usually surround the “Western Civilization” courses, the required humanities classes normally filled with biblical and Greco-Roman texts. Protests to these courses point towards a suppression of minority and historically disadvantaged voices within the curriculum, and the debate has been raging since about the 1980’s. The first challenge to the status quo was at Stanford in 1987, as students protested against both the curriculum and the texts themselves curriculum for being too racially and culturally homogenous and exclusive. Their desire was to eliminate the canon itself, and thus eliminate the exclusion it perpetuates. This sentiment has extended to colleges such as Reed, as recently as 2017, where students held a year-long in class protest and attempted to provide a supplementary syllabus with texts not included in the curriculum. The crux of this debate, and the cause for an affront from angry students, can be traced back to a heavily influential 1982 article written by Gilbert Allardyce that suggests these Western Civilization courses are both a recent invention and the result of an early 20th century American wartime effort to convince soldiers of their “Western” heritage, prompting them to fight.

Who’s Right?

The Allardyce thesis has prompted many students to outright reject a Core Curriculum founded on the “Great Books” of Western history, under the belief that such courses provide a reductionist view of world history. Yet, the thesis itself appears to be reductionist–if not plain wrong–in its swift denial of Western history and its values. Stanley Kurtz’s The Lost History of Western Civilization reveals a more comprehensive insight into the history of these courses. The reality is apparent: Western Civilization has been taught in America even prior to the Revolution. The conflict, then, is not a result of government propaganda, but rather the globalizing, multicultural gaze more modern academics are merely keen on casting upon history. This increasingly cosmopolitan lens of history deems real traditions and real values as invented and imaginary. Thus, these same traditions and values appear just as easily wished away as they were “constructed.” Indeed, the very notion of American exceptionalism that followed the Revolutionary War could not have been possible without an understanding of Western values, because such was a natural extension of these very values. In fact, it would be mistaken to view the more modern, “multicultural” view that the Allardyce thesis contends as entirely distinct from the history of Western Civilization. If anything, it is only a logical extension. The desire for a more diverse account of history would not be possible without the socio-historical values birthed from the very texts that are currently under fire. It is contradictory.  

And it appears that when the Western canon is dismembered and unwisely infiltrated with only superficially “diverse” texts, nobody wins. The Stanford protests were successful in dismantling and rearranging the curriculum, but the changes made resulted in 72 percent student dissatisfaction five years later. The problem? Although there were more diverse texts themselves added to the syllabus, their correlation with any broader theme or purpose was missing. The result is student disinterest in a curriculum that has turned against itself by prioritizing the identity of these texts rather than their content. 

What Can be Done?

In casting a shadow of doubt over the fundamental value of Western Civ courses, the complex and multifaceted nature of “Western” culture can often appear as “monochrome and monolithic,” as described by the president of St. John’s college, an institution grounded in the “Great Books” tradition. Students’ desire for a more culturally diverse and thus inclusive curriculum must be met by serious initiative on behalf of both students and faculty to properly integrate old and new works with visible purpose–not merely towards an end of diversification itself. This course of action helps avoid the mistakes made at Stanford, by adhering to some notion of consistency, as described by Colgate student Matthew Sgueglia. If students desire a more far-reaching examination of other cultures and values, then the very idea of cultures and values cannot be deemed imaginary to begin with. This entails that both professors and students be actively committed to engaging with new texts in an insightful, consistent way, so as to avoid tokenizing them as superficial, last-second additions without any real examination of their content and relation to broader human themes. The tradition of Western Civ courses is as real as the ideas and values they attempt to convey. Just as with the humanities as a whole, they are meant to function as the starting point where thinking itself can begin. The rebellion against these courses may indicate that they have been working all along.

DEAN KARDAS is a part of Colgate University’s Class of 2024, originally from Newtown, PA. His intended major is Computer Science/Mathematics, but he also bears a passion for philosophy and literature.