Modern Age - Summer 2014 - 11

THE CRISIS IN THE MODERN UNIVERSITY

traditional restraints of religion and family,
they appear to be creating a small model of
the utopian Society they crave-a sacred
sanctuary of sorts-that can then inspire a
much broader utopian transformation. All of
Society-not just the campus sanctuary-
may then be united within "the last true
church." Thus, the "Reason in Action" that
Booth and his university-based cosecularists have been worshipping in their campus
sanctuaries inevitably turns out to be not
merely political but relentlessly ideological
and utopian.

O

f course, the fragmentation of the
university can make the ecclesiology
of the "last true church" a bit unwieldy. At
times, ordinary Americans might even give
thanks when bureaucratic gridlock prevents
campus ideologues from pressing their quasireligious utopian crusade as zealously as they
might wish. Some physics and math departments, for instance, are simply too absorbed
in the study of quasars and group symmetries to devote their energies to compliance
with the latest dogmas on ethnic diversity
in faculty hiring. On the other hand, the
hyper-specialization of the fragmented university often allows campus zealots to pursue
their utopian goals without the embarrassment that might result if all their colleagues
subjected those goals to critical scrutiny.
Still, it does happen, from time to time,
that an honest professor challenges the ideological fantasies that his Society-worshipping
colleagues are investing with quasi-religious
significance. Defying considerable opposition within his discipline, Chace, for
instance, has dared to assert that the "waters
of ideology" have so washed away the integrity of the typical English department that
only a "resurgence of toughmindedness" will
ever allow it "to find its right place again in
the academy."18 And it is greatly to Booth's

credit that he worried about "the rising warfare of fanatical sects and schisms" within
academe,"19 and that he expressed deep dismay at some of the "simply appalling" and
"strange and destructive" forms of scholarship that had emerged even in his lifetime in
theory-mad English departments.20 But then
he was hopelessly naive not to have expected
all kinds of wild quasi-religious enthusiasm
to break loose in his "last true church."
At times, the challenge to campus ideologues comes from scientists willing to bring
empirical research to bear on their utopian
claims. In 2000, for instance, an intrepid
biologist intruded into the ideologically
charged pages of the American Sociological
Review long enough to adduce evidence that
"the underlying sex-dimorphism of biological
predispositions" would always block utopian
gender engineering.21 For his temerity, this
interloper was exposed the following year to
the fury of not one, not two, but three hostile professorial inquisitors, defenders of the
true faith, a faith that teaches that Society
can make of men and women whatever it
wishes to make of them.22
But whether facing a maverick English
professor or a skeptical scientist, the inquisitors for the new campus-based faith in Society can deploy a powerful new theology to
suppress the heresy. Bearing the name "social
constructivism," this new surrogate theology endows Society with almost limitless
powers. Now widely accepted in university
English, humanities, philosophy, and social
science departments, social constructivism
defines all of "reality" as whatever "we bring
forth in a community of observers" as the
"praxis of living" enmeshes us in "the happening of being human, in the languaging
of language."23 Social-constructivist "truth"
rests on nothing more than "consensus
among [those] who find [a] proposition
credible."24
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Modern Age - Summer 2014

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