Harvard's Trumpian Blues: Can It Renew Itself?

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
File photo of Harvard University

In a convoluted, zigzagged, sometimes nice, at times vicious but mostly serendipitous way, I have been the beneficiary of the western university system. Admittedly, a broad term, the 'western university system' may not be an entirely accurate one. Would, for example, most European and Scandinavian universities – dead end ideological, and academically stultifying universities be co-eval with American universities? (I recall my time with a Danish university where I went against its ideological moorings and set to write my thesis on American foreign policy, with a slant for America as a potential force for good, the program co-ordinator, out of pique and ignorance called me a 'Muslim terrorist'!.) If then there is a western university system, worth its name, it is the Anglo- Saxon universities with American ones topping the list.

How have I been a beneficiary of the western universities I attended? Reductively and roughly, the education in these unis has helped me cultivate and develop critical thinking skills, expansive mental vistas and horizons, ability to hold different and different ideas in my mind, appreciate these, yet hold my own, tolerance of opposing points of views and ability to see the world in a different(salubrious)light. This, most would agree, in both normative and ideal terms should constitute the end(s) of education. The rest- skill(s), analytical ability, and so on- are merely corollaries- albeit important ones. But maybe the overall credit accrues mostly to me and some outstanding scholars and teachers I met and interacted with: I may have been a pupil whose orientation was 'naturally' oriented toward curiosity determined learning of a non- utilitarian learning. By way of a digression, this- non utilitarian learning – has been and is my special privilege. In this sense then, I may have been an outlier in a university system that, over time, privileged money (through international students), and a strictly narrow utilitarian focus- with vocational courses and an assembly line of one year degree programs as the 'cash cows' for these. To be sure, I paid prices for my non utilitarian approach toward learning- especially and poignantly in Australia, but all in all the experience(s) have been decidedly enriching.

So, if the western university system disavowed its 'core functions' of disinterested, non-partisan enquiry, the quest for vigorous scholarly pursuits, non -ideological scholarship and allied themes, what did it morph into? Client oriented (read clients of international students), ideological, money determined, bastions where the quest for learning and scholasticism became residual detritus to the, 'core functions and competences of the firm'(to employ business parlance). Even this may, for the sake of hypothesis may be justified but the consequences were deleterious: the universities became arenas where dominant ideologies did not countenance alternate points of view (in fact, these were viciously excluded- conservative views being a case in point), client-students became arbiters of academics' careers and trajectories thereof, mono-focal thinking became almost normative, group think echo chamber thinking became prominent, viciously subtle exclusion jostled with cancel culture and labelling and so on. All in all, then the western university system emblematized by American universities became either pale husks of their former selves or in some cases went contra the nature of universities- that is citadels of learning and as repositories of competing ideas.

On this, comes American president, Donald Trump's disruptive and 'insurgent' sledgehammer. (The latest in the saga of smashing shibboleths is Harvard university. With varying intensities, the indelicacies postulated in this essay had come to define this great and hallowed institution as well). Now, the approach taken by Mr. Trump corresponds to his style: stake an extreme position, hit hard, make a given institution, or individual untenable and get it(him/her) where Mr. Trump wants them to be. Shorn of lip gloss, fake niceties and other fake accoutrements, this approach has worked eminently for Mr. Trump. And this is what the 47^th president of the US is doing with Harvard. While the disruption engendered by Mr. Trump is likely- at the end of the saga- will have traction and intended effects, but the risk is that of 'unintended consequences.'

To hark back to my experiences with the western university system, I would like to think my cognitive and intellectual universe became more dynamic, better and nuanced. In this sense, as an ideal type, the western university can be a force for good in the world- with a determined focus on dispassionate learning, vigorous scholasticism, tolerance of different points of view (which should however not turn into bullying slanging matches), nuanced sophisticated thinking and so on. It can be if there is reversion to the ideal of learning by western universities but not to these institutions being mere money spinners employing their brand equity for the same. Harvard university- a hallowed and a venerable institution – that has past glory affixed to its brand , pedagogy and scholasticism – should set the 'new gold standard'. IF this – imbibing what the western university's raison d'etre is among Mr. Trump's major aims, then it may not be an insalubrious one. While there is, to use a very indecorous and poor phrase, always some 'collateral damage' in sanguine disruption, the hope is that Mr. Trump's shake up does not lead to burn out of students and that Harvard as the bell weather institution of the world becomes what it was: a bastion of non -ideological learning and robust scholasticism that reflects the best of America!

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