Selective Perspectives: Do we need to change Western Civ Requirements?
“We are witnessing a self-wounding nihilism,” says Michael Poliakoff of Forbes magazine in his 2020 article. Many people like Michael Poliakoff(older white people of various establishments) tirelessly defend Western Civilization courses. Poliakoff praises movements to maintain classical studies for students to, “understand our origins.”
Now, to whom does “our” refer? Poliakoff makes his case that Western Civilization is “a heritage common to all,” citing one quote by W.E.B. Du Bois. However, I would argue that the opposite is true. While these traditional texts have great value, to argue for the mandatory teaching of these texts and only these texts is a purposeful exclusion which I believe can foster white supremacy under the guise of intellectualism.
Consequences of Eurocentrism in Academia
Most American early childhood schooling does not tackle race issues properly, nor does it venture outside of eurocentric tendencies. The issues in the curricula from which many Americans grow up learning contribute to students’ feelings of white superiority.
Children’s Book on Africa vs. Children’s Book on Ancient Greece
White supremacy is fostered in academia. The white perspective is extremely centralized in education. White people of European descent have always been able to feel a sense of representation in our school curricula. We are told that these people who supposedly look like us truly had the best and brightest thoughts in history. I did not know about Mesopotamia until 6th grade–before then, it hadn’t even occurred to me that there were advanced civilizations outside of Greece, Rome, and Egypt. A lot of our media also assumes the people from these places to have had white features or skin, which is not always the norm for Mediterraneans and North Africans. Few would venture to explicitly state that it is because of race that the “others”(the non-Western Civilizations) are “not advanced,” but that is still the resulting message. I learned that Africa(the continent as a whole) was a primitive jungle, but Ancient Greece had palaces and philosophers. Somehow, learning about the Ancient Egyptian civilization was so separated from learning about the rest of the Africans to the point where I have seen peers question whether or not Egypt is even in Africa(it is)!
White people are left with the illusion that we were the only ones with advanced knowledge and abilities. Students of color do not often get to read about their ancestors in the same way, admiring people who looked like them for their intellectual contributions. In some cases, they may be forced to applaud people who would have colonized or enslaved them. This brings us back to the question about Poliakoff’s quote: to whom does “our” refer? Western Civ as it is right now simply is not about everyone, it is about praising the white, colonizing man. If the interest of higher education is broadening perspectives, how could the perspectives of the outsiders to Western Civilization not be just as important to include, if not more?
Going Forward
On a Stanford student-led left wing site for sharing opinions, Ravi Veriah Jaques writes that Western Civilization does have valuable teachings and should absolutely be required “to understand almost all post-colonial states.” He also suggests that there be a required non-Western Civ course. However, higher education has already empowered fleets of tenured old white men who are determined to keep their ears shut to other perspectives, and may refuse to teach the course in a way that is critical of the greats. The issue then is not only about which class is taught, but who is teaching it.
I am not of the opinion that Western Civ has to go completely. However, I think that the course needs a broad reimagining, a much more critical view to prevent eurocentric world views. I think professors should encourage students to look more critically upon the arguments and works of these ancient figures, and I think that, as Jaques mentions, a mandatory course to go with Western Civ that provides students with broader perspectives is necessary. To dismiss the anti-Western Civ movement as a woke, performative witch hunt is to dismiss entire communities of students with valid complaints about white patriarchal establishments in higher education.
GRETCHEN MUELLER is a freshman at Colgate University. She is from Columbus, OH and has not yet declared a major.
