Anxieties Among the Educators
(Contlised from Preceding Page) 6) We do not know how roany TO EVALUATE Lazarfeld's find- a faculty, the legislator and judge fresh perspectives. It uncovers un-
2) The civil rights of all citizens, social scientists were disloyal to I mings about worry and caution, of what knowledge is most valu- suspected possibilities. One can-
including social' scientists, were the United States in thought or we need perspective on the task of able. There are inescapable po- not foresee when it will undermine
threatened by McCarthyism (as by deed. colleges in societies such as our litical implications in such choices. even the most sacred of existing
any movement that makes loose own conceptions. It is this freedom
accusations of treason). The ca- HOWEVER we Interpret 'their The colleges are expected to con- WHEN the college undertakes from the historically immediate
reers of some social scientists were findings, Lazarsfeld and Thie- serve, present, and extend that the functions of a university, that imaginative rationality pro-
seriously injured by McCarthyism. lens do document the presence o knowledge which leads to the most these political implications in- vides.
Some college administrators could . valid understanding of the world crease. Like other idealsIt is an ever-
have been more effective than they anxieties of serious proportions.and the self. From the importance The functions of a university do lasting critic and solvent of the
were in protecting their faculties We cannot ignore the fact that of that task the colleges derive not inhere simply in the granting presently actual in which it is im-
from these injuries. almost a fifth of the social sci- their support. From their perform- of graduate or professional de- perfectly represented. In this set-
3) Many social scientists were entists in America's colleges ance of that task they also reap grees. A university is an institu- ting we can appreciate the im-
worried about the relation of their thought their college's administra- distrust. tion in which the knowledge most portance for the society as well
political views to their careers. We tion had a "political file or dossier It is true, but too simple, to say significant for human affairs is, in as the scholar of loose accusa-
do not know how important they on every faculty member." Over a that the colleges are distrusted Whitehead's words,, "lighted up tions of disloyalty. (And let us
found these fears or how justified fourth wondered if some political just because they are entrusted with imagination." be clear that while, as we shall
they were holding them. We do opinion they had expressed would with impressionable young minds. A university promotes, as he see, social scientists are likely to
not know the extent to which these harm their academic careers. Over We have seen, first, that there says, "the imaginative considers- be liberals, it is highly improbable
fears were products of McCarthy- a third had considered the possi- is some public distrust of all spe- tion of the various general prin- that more than an infinitesimal
ism. bility that someone at an institu- cialists. Second, the faculty of a ciples" underlying knowing in fraction are traitors or sympathe-
4) Over 20 per cent of the social tion to which they were thinking college does work which is in- general and the bringing of order tic to totalitarianism, whether
scientists were cautious. We do not of moving had made inquiries con- herently subversive of custom. into particular bodies of knowl- Russian or otherwise.)
know if cautiousness was stimu- cerning the professor's political Since a faculty cannot teach every- edge. "Its students thus pass into
lated by the national political views, thing, it must select that which is their period of . . . apprenticeship THE POSSIBILITY to which the
situation, by McCarthyism in par- If such anxieties were not pro- worthy of preservation; discard or with their imaginations . .,. prar- society must, for its own sake,
ticular, or by local political condi- ducts of McCarthyism, if they are put into dead storage that which tised in connecting details with be alert, is that loyal scholars,
tions. We also do not know how a fairly normal situation in aca- is of lesser significance. Since all general principles. The routine fearful of political attacks, will
justified these teachers were in demic affairs, their presence is that is known cannot be the sub- then receives its meaning, and fail to present and extend the very
their cautiousness. even more alarming. Moreover, we ject of a faculty's limited resources also illuminates the principles knowledge demanded for the solu-
) The practices of college ad- need not consider whether these for research, it must decide what which give it that meaning," tion of the society's long-range
ministrators can lower the likeli- anxieties are justified to appreciate is worthy of continued investiga- Imaginative learning is, by defi- problems.
hood of cautiousness, if not of their deleterious effects on in- tion. nition, concerned with novelty. It We do not know that this hap-
'orry. tellectual freedom. Choices of this order make of views what is already known in;pened in the McCarthyite period.
S----- --------.------ - -- - - - - - --We do know that m'ny professors
had worries of a kind that should
give our society concern for its
own welfare. Major western so-
cieties value both college and uni-
versity in the faith that the
danger they offer to custom will
SPR IN G SA LE Iadvance the public welfare. The
rapidly changing requirements of
industrial civilization has justified
this belief that an uncritical ac-
ceptance of the customary, wheth-
W ORLD FAMOUS HIGH FIDELITY ac-so tcnlgy ed
er in values or technology, leads
It is unlikely that social scl-
entists in a free society will be
among the more conservative of
its citizens. The character of their
professional commission requires
them to see social arrangements
in a provisional light. They must
view the actual against the back-
ground of the potential and must
understand the meaning of social
practices that most people do not
question.
Lazarsfeld finds that almost
two-thirds of the social scientists
who voted in 1952 (only 10 per
W A M ND NEEDLE 'P"cent did not vote) supported Stev-
enson. The more distinguished the
respondent, the more likely it is
---_-_- that he voted Democratic.
AN EARLIER study of a national
sample had shown that com-
N w O nui munity leaders were more likel
OW n Iythan other citizens to feel that
Ri .persons accused of Communism
and admitted Communists should
not lose their jobs on that ground
alone.
DIA MON D SA PP H IR E Lazarsfeld shows that social ds-
entists and community leaders are
DIA MOND/ INATION r31.00 similar in this respect when the
situation is one in which the
loyalty of college teachers, clerks
in stores or a worker in defense
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These differences between social
scientists and community leaders
" Bring in your old needle or its code number. should not, however. be overem-
phasized. It would be more relevant
to compare the professors with na-
tional than with local leaders, and
to ask questions which distinguish
among situations in which the ac-
cused admits to treason, or to
sympathy with Soviet imperialism,
totalitarian government, violent
means of social change, or govern-
ment ownership of the means of
production. Such questions might
reveal even less difference between
RECORD D EPA RTM ENTcommunity leaders and social sci-
entists than now appears.
HERE, at any rate, we have the
State Street at setting in which questions of
academic freedom arise.
How can we, on the one hand,
(Continued on Next Page)
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