LISTEN, MY CHILDREN, and you shall hear the tale of two
university administrators. It is a story about what you are allowed
to say in universities today—or, more particularly, about what you
are not allowed to say. But I promise a happy ending.
A couple years ago, James J. O’Donnell was elected president of
the American Philological Association (APA), the professional
organization for academic classicists. At the end of his term,
January 2004, he delivered the customary presidential address at
the association’s annual meeting. The genre is conventional, with
an Aristotelian beginning, middle, and end: nostalgic reminiscences
followed by a scholarly discussion and, finally, a prediction or
encouraging word. O’Donnell’s address was wittier and better
delivered than most, but followed the usual structure. He
reminisced about his first APA meeting and then surveyed recent
developments in his field of Late Antiquity. His suggestions for
the future were a little unusual, however:
The traditional study of “classics” as a domain of
study depends on a narrative…. We all know the story and use it
and refer to it every day, and everybody else knows the story. The
chain bookstores use the story to arrange their shelves, and we
depend on it when we try to explain to strangers what we do. It’s a
good story: Greeks, then Romans, then the Middle Ages—and somebody
else is responsible for the Middle Ages…. The message from Late
Antique scholarship to the classical disciplines today is that the
old story won’t work any longer…. Dealing with the failure of
that traditional narrative to sustain itself will be a central
task, I believe, for classicists as well as Late Antiquers of the
next generation.
The message was clear. The story of the West is false, and
honest classicists will stop teaching it. It’s a bit difficult,
however, to see what exactly classicists would then do for a
living. Strangely, other scholars of Late Antiquity — the renowned
Peter Brown, for instance — do not seem to have noticed that
recent research has disproved the importance of the Greeks. In
fact, O’Donnell’s notion of a falsified story of the West is not a
dispassionate conclusion of scholarly inquiry; rather, it is a
presumption of postmodernism, which denounces all “meta-narratives”
as inventions told to oppress and mislead. And just as every child
with a hammer thinks all the world is a nail, so O’Donnell with his
handy deconstructionist tool proved eager to apply his efforts to
other “meta-narratives” as well.
Roman Catholicism, like “classics,” relies on its own grand
narrative. Jesus made Peter head of the Church (Matthew 16:18).
Peter was martyred in Rome on the site of the current St. Peter’s
basilica. His successor, Clement, wrote a letter to the
Corinthians, which shows that the authority of the Bishop of Rome
was already recognized in the first century A.D. This authority
became theologically decisive during the great Christological
debates of the fourth century. O’Donnell would have none of this,
as he told his APA audience:
The “papacy” was created as a kind of avatar of Roman
religious authority chiefly in the fifth and sixth centuries and
spawned its own authorized narrative, the Liber pontificialis…to
legitimate the line back to Peter…. The pseudo-Clementine
Recognitiones purport to tell the story of the first pope Clement,
who met and knew Peter while still in the east and eventually
succeeded him in Rome. The account hasn’t a prayer of being true,
but it was as influential as only a historical novel can be in
shaping consciousness and reassuring the uncertain.
I could quote more, but I’ll refrain. Oh, and one more thing.
O’Donnell was recently appointed provost of Georgetown University,
a Catholic university in Washington, D.C. The good news, obviously,
is that when a person has scholarly and administrative gifts, he is
not denied a position simply because he believes that the founding
story of the academic institution that employs him is false: in
fact, “hasn’t a prayer of being true.” Welcome to the brave new
world of academic tolerance!
WHILE O’DONNELL WAS ASSUMING the mantle of provost of Georgetown,
another Catholic academic administrator had a different experience.
Thomas Lindsay was provost of the University of Dallas, where he
had filled many administrative posts. A new president was coming
aboard and Lindsay figured that the new leader would want his own
team, so he began to look for employment elsewhere. There were
several good posts that seemed suitable to such a successful and
experienced administrator. In fact, he was attracted by offers from
two eastern schools, St. Joseph’s in Pennsylvania and Seton Hall in
New Jersey. He decided to take the offer from St. Joe’s.
But then a problem arose. Someone at St. Joe’s discovered that
Lindsay was a member of the National Association of Scholars and,
what is more, had written articles for the NAS journal, Academic
Questions, questioning affirmative action. The entire story is
worth telling, and Lindsay tells it well. I can’t resist, however,
mentioning that one objection to his appointment was the fear that
someone who questions affirmative action could not be “fair” to
minority students. George Orwell would have been amused. Once upon
a time, in a different country where I used to live, judging people
on the basis of their accomplishments, without taking their race or
ethnicity into account, was what being “fair” meant. That was then,
as they say.
I PROMISED A HAPPY ENDING. Today, Tom Lindsay is provost at Seton
Hall, as Jim O’Donnell is provost at Georgetown. Still, ponder our
tale. Georgetown had no problem with an administrator who rejects
the historical narrative that is the foundation of the Church which
built Georgetown and all the other Catholic schools and
universities. Without belief in the antiquity and validity of the
narrative behind the “papacy,” there would be no Georgetown (or
Notre Dame, or St. Joseph’s). There would still be Harvard and
Princeton, but not, however, Georgetown. If, however, you question
a Johnny-come-lately notion like affirmative action, which forms no
part of the intellectual and ethical tradition of any Christian
denomination, you may be and, in one case, actually were found to
be, unsuitable for employment at a Catholic university.
Americans used to be proud of the diversity of their educational
institutions, which were founded by many different private, public,
and denominational sources. In today’s academy, however, they are
all, or most of them, dominated by the same liberal mindset. This
mindset is cut off from tradition, hostile to intellectual
diversity, trapped in a presentist prison. Any questioning of its
untested notions is interpreted to mean that the questioner lacks
basic moral virtues, like fairness. I could tell parallel stories
about other public, private, and denominational schools, in most of
which there is no Seton Hall to provide a happy ending.
What can we do in this topsy-turvy world? Let me borrow a
suggestion from someone who is unlikely to be found a suitable role
model for a provost of a Catholic (or any other) university in the
United States, Joseph de Maistre: We do not need a
counter-revolution; we need the opposite of a revolution. We need
to take seriously again the historical traditions that actually
created the major institutions, educational and otherwise, of our
nation. We also need to learn to view the fads of the past two
generations with the same dismissive skepticism we now boast of
when we face our most long-lived and creative traditions. This is
the challenge we all face, whatever our denominational commitments,
in Anno Domini 2005, as we used to say.
