Professional Documents
Culture Documents
T H E T E L O S OF T H E U N I V E R S I T Y H I G H E R
John c. McDowell
University ofD ivinity Melbourne
One of the most significant sets of concerns for public life in the
contemporary West is the nature oftheological education, made more intense
by the controversies sparked over practices of spiritual formation in pub-
lie primary schooling in Australia. The underlying performances of power
necessitate deep soul-searching over matters regarding the authority of the
teacher, the relation o ^scripture teachers and publically educated teachers,
the transfiguration of reason, and the embrace of an expansive religious edu-
cation. However, what is at present largely slipping from the political agenda
and public consciousness is the larger question of what is educating about
our public education. More precisely, what is our education for? Even more
specifically for this article, what is the end or telos of higher education? And
that leads me into considering some recent work on higher education.
In t r o d u c t i o n
3 O n the term multiversity, see Clark Kerr, Godkin Lectures, 5th ed (Cambridge, M A
Harvard U niversity ?ress, 2001), 14
4 Carl A Raschke, The D igital R evolution a n d the C om ing o f the Postm odern University
(L ondon Routledge, 2002), vu
5 Raschke, The D igital R evolution, vil, V1U He claim s that [d] 1g 1tal learning IS the true
b u lw a rk o f a global dem ocracy (x)
6 The reader w ill, o f course, recognize the analogical nature o f the allusion to docetism in
this regard
7 N eil Postm an, The E nd o fE d u ca tio n Redefining the Value o f School (N ew York Vintage
Books, 1995), 46
8 Postm an, The E nd ofE ducation, 192
222 Colloquium 4 7 /2 2 0 1 5
philosophy, which is given expression in how the technology makes people
use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies
the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and
intellectual tendencies it disregards.
Postman is equally concerned with the nature and practice of
schooling, but his analysis offers a markedly different set of problems for
consideration and they suggest that the egregious difficulties he at the level
of the generative and not merely the expressive. The first, and pre-eminent,
thing this article will do is consider the kind of crisis higher education is,
arguably, in. The article will identify a set of operating assumptions and
policies which entail that it becomes difficult to give an account of what
is educative about higher learning institutions. As cultural and educa-
tional theorist H enry Giroux argues, in the corporatized university, increas-
ingly the norm under the late m odern economy, educational leadership is
stripped of its ethical and political obligations and is redefined primarily as
a matter of management, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.10
A second layer of analysis would have to address the implications of this
for consideration of Christian accounts of the agency of God, although this
article will largely leave this dimension to the briefest set of suggestions. It
would be all too easy to address this in an intellectually impoverished way
by appealing to higher education providers to introduce courses on theol-
ogy, that is, to contest Fichte with Kant and to end up with Humboldts Ber-
lin model.11 While this could secure the discipline of Theologys place in the
m odern university, it would leave untouched the ideological difficulties of
which we need to be aware. It is already to assume and work from within the
crisis rather than contest it, and to distract from substantial issues of what is
occurring in the moral devisioning of higher education. Certainly it is im-
portant not to go as far as John Milbank and proclaim that the university
is only educative insofar as it is Christian, but only because Milbanks the-
ological voice requires a good deal of the honesty of the post-Christendom
12 See Dnald M acK innon, Philosophy an d the Burden o f Theological H onesty, ed John c
M cD ow ell (L ondon ^ T C i a r k , 2 0 I I ) , 1 -9 Joh lba w r te s ,u ess other d1$c111nes
are explicitly ordered to th eo lo g y (assum ing that this m eans participation in G od s self-
know ledge, as m the A ugustinian tradition) th ey are objectively and dem onstrably null
and void, altogether lacking in truth, w hich to have any m eaning m ust involve som e
sort o f adequatio (for m ere coherence can only concern the coherence o f conventions
or appearances) John M ilbank, The Future o fL o ve Essays in Political Theology (Eugene
Cascade, 2009), 306
13 D avid F Ford, Christian W isdom D esiring G od a n d Learning in Love (Cam bridge
Cam bridge U niversity Fress, 2007), 345
14 N eil Postm an, Conscientious O bjections Stirring u p Trouble abou t Language, Technology,
an d E d u ca tio n (N ew York. V intage book s, 1992), 22
15 Raschke, The D igital Revolution, 4
16 Raschke, The D igital R evolution, X
17 D uncan B Forrester, Christian Justice a n d Public Policy (Cambridge Cam bridge
University Press, 1997), 160 Charles M athew es speaks o f the fluidity and increasing
m arketization o f our occupations, our relationships, and even our id en tities Charles
M athewes, A Theology ofP ublic Life (Cam bridge Cam bridge U niversity Press, 2007), 2
ThePublic Relevance ofTheology, trans. Margaret Kohl (M inneapolis: Fortress Fress, 1999),
7. Cf. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. John W ilkinson (N ew York: Vintage
Books, 1964); F e o d o r w A dorno and M ax Horkheim er, D ialectic o f E nlightenm ent,
trans. John C um m ing (London: Verso, 1997). A ccording to Faolo Freire, [njeoliberal
doctrine seeks to lim it education to technological practice. Currently, education is no
longer understood as formative, but sim ply as training. Faolo Freire, D aring to D ream:
Toward a Pedagogy o fth e Unfinished, trans. Alexandre K. Oliveira (Boulder: Paradigm
Fublishers, 2007), 4.
27 See, for instance, Terry Eagletons dam ning critique o fh ig h e r education, The Slow Death
o f the University, The Chronicle o f Higher Education (6 April 2015), http://m .chronicle.
c o m /a r tic le /^ e -^ o w -D e a th of-the/228991 (accessed April 2 4 ,2 0 1 5 ).
28 Fostm an speaks o f teachers as error detectors w ho hope to extend the intelligence o f
students by helping them reduce the m istakes in their know ledge and skills. Postm an, The
End o f Education, 120; cf. Postm an, C onscientious Objections, 87.
29 See F e o d o r A dorno, The Culture Industry, trans. j. M. Bernstein (London: Routledge,
1991), 99.
30 Rolfe, The University in Dissent, 55.
31 O n April 20, 2015, Les Field, the D eputy V ice-C hancellor Research, addressed the
o p e n ^ g o fth e D eans and D nectors n f Graduate Research conference held on the cam pus
o f at the U niversity o f N ew South W ales He spoke o fth e current A ustralian governm ent
mantra being one o f higher educations serving industry, the nations job creation and
technological innovation It IS this that has increasingly shaped the allocation o f research
funding A little later he spoke o fth e grow ing gap in the ratio o f students to staff, arguing
that there IS a financial need for increasing bum s on seats, albeit he did recognize that
fo is requires the sector to ask w hat universities are for ?oint 2 5 o f the U niversity o f
N ew castle, N S W s N ew D irections Strategic Plan 2 0 1 3 -2 0 1 5 explains the im portance to
fois university o ft h e need to [A m plem ent a strategic business planning m od el that uses
market, industry and com m u nity analysis to inform institutional decision-m ak ing on foe
retention, abolition introduction o f undergraduate and postgraduate program s N ew
D irections Strategic Plan 2 0 1 3 -2 0 1 5 (Callaghan, N SW U niversity N ew castle, 2012), 4
32 Rolfe, The University in D issent, 101, Russell cited in Roberts, Religion, Theology a n d the
H um an Sciences, 88
33 See M ary W arnock, Universities K now ing O ur M inds W h at the G overnm ent Should do
A b o u t Higher Education (L ondon Chatto and W indus, 1989), 43
34 A lasdair M acIntyre argues that nnly from the university can the w ider society learn
h o w to condu ct its ow n debates, practical or theoretical, in a rationally defensible
way. A lasdair M acIntyre, Three R ival Versions / M oral Enquiry: E ncyclopaedia,
Genealogy, a n d Tradition (London: D uckw orth, 1990), 222. Yet, [i]t is ^ e c is e ly because
universities have n ot been such places [where intellectu al argum ent, debate and rational
disagreem ent can take place in a c o m m u n ity o f contested discourses] and have in fact
organized enqu iry through institution s and genres w ell d esigned to prevent th em and
protect th em from being such places that the official responses o f both the appointed
leaders and the w orking m em bers o fu n iv e rsity com m u n ities to their recent critics have
been so lam en tab le
35 In M cD ow ell, W hat A thens has to do w ith Jerusalem, I refer to a Times Higher
E ducation article that had b een entitled w ith the question: W hy D o A cadem ics Fiddle
as the W orld Burns?
36 Rolfe, The University in D issent, 8.
37 D ouglas H ague, B eyond Universities: A N ew R epublic / the Intellect (London: Institute
o f E con om ic Affairs, 1989), 59, cited in R oberts, Religion, Theology a n d the H um an
Sciences, 9 8 -9 9 .
38 T im othy L Gorringe, Capital a n d the Kingdom: Theological Ethics an d Economic O rder
(Maryknoll: Orbis Rooks, 1994), 71.
39 C. F. Lamoignon, cited in Elie Kedourie, Perestroika in the Universities (London: Institute o f
E conom ic Affairs, 1989), 17, and Roberts, Religion, Theology and the H um an Sciences, 93.
45 Rolfe, The University in D issent, 21. Cf. Zygm unt Bauman, Intim ations o f P ostm odernity
(London: Routledge, 1992), 183.
46 Claims to being radical theologies are ironic given the discursive reduction to power
involved in practices o f discussion that give up on sober analysis, conversational hospitality,
and that resort instead to anti-virtuous name calling, simplistic sloganeering, m ud-slinging
sound hites, and the argumentative bluff o f the quick and trivializing dismissal. A violent
politics o f speech is the order o f the day that revels in reviling others, and that enacts a self-
confident rejection o f others through its exhibition o f a narcissistic glorification o f its ow n
voice (even if it hedges its ow n articulation with self-ironization). A ccordingly it becom es
itself reducible to a discursive solipsism ironically, and unwittingly, and is thereby unable
to encounter otherness. It casts an Archim edean eye over all things. The difficulty lies not
even in w hat it says, but in the shape o f its saying. This self-proclaim ed ^ t-m e ta p h y s ic a l
approach becom es a form o f m onocracy and an excuse for self-assertive self-securing
dressed up as a form o f deconstruction as it patrols the self-defined gateways o fth e culturally
speakable. As David Bentley Hart observes, [cjritique is never merely doubt, but always
a vantage (and advantage); it is always already principled, already dependent upon firm
metaphysical assum ptions, already a transcendental surveillance that has determ ined in
advance the lim its o f every storys credibility. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty ofth e Infinite:
The Aesthetics ofC hristian Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 7.
47 See Rolfe, The University in Dissent, 24. Roberts writes that the free-ranging intellectual
apostolate o f such a great but not flawless figure as D onald M acK innon has becom e a
functional im possibility in contem porary British [and, we w ould add, Australian] higher
education. Roberts, Religion, Theology an d the H um an Sciences, 87. Intensive courses
take little tim e, and the offering o f com pressed degree program m es only reduce the tim e
available for thought. As A dorno and H orkheim er declare o fth e tem porally com pressed
products o fth e culture industry, sustained thought is out o fth e question if the spectator
is not to m iss the relentless rush o f facts. Even though the effort required for his response
is sem i-autom atic, no scope is left for the im agination. A dorno and Horkheim er, The
D ialectic o f Enlightenment, 127.
48 Ellen T. Charry writes: Theolnglans find them selves talking am ong them selves, with
both the w ider academ y and the churches having turned off their hearing aids. Ellen T.
Charry, To W hat End Knowedge? The A cadem ic C aptivity o f Theology, in Theology in
the Service o fth e Church: Essays in H onor o f Thomas w. Gillespie, ed. W illiam M. A lston
(Crand Rapids: Eerdm ans, 2000), 7 3 -8 7 (at 73).
49 This voice m ust be distinguished sharply from a sim ple p essim istic one. M y articles
analysis offers critical observations on the ontological ground on w hich judgm ents about
w hat the m od ern university is for take shape.
50 C iroux, Public Spaces, Private Lives, 7 -8 .
51 N icholas Lash, Holiness, speech an d Silence: Reflections on the Question o fG o d (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2004), 5 1 -7 3 .
56 D enys Turner, D oin g T heology in the University, in Fields ofFaith: Theology and Religious
Studies fo r the Twenty-First Century, ed. D avid F. Ford, Ben Q uash and Janet SoslUee
(Cambridge: Cam bridge U niversity Fress, 2005), 2 5 -3 8 (at 35); Alasdair M aelntyre,
God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective H istory o f th e Catholic Philosophical Tradition
(Lanham: R ow m an and Littlefield, 2009), 17. M aelntyre claims that the m ost prestigious
C atholic universities often m im ic the structures and goals o fth e m ost prestigious secular
universities and do so w ith little sense o f som ethin g having gone seriously am iss (179).
57 See T im othy Fitzgerald, The Ideology / Religious Studies (Cxford: Oxford U niversity
Fress, 2000).
58 1 plan at som e juncture to provide a critical analysis o fth e brief and trouhled history o fth e
study o f G e o lo g y and Religious Studies at the University o f Newcastle, N SW as a case study.
59 John H enry N ew m an, The Idea o fa University (N ew York: Chelsea H ouse, 1983), 19.
60 Roberts, Religion, Theology and the H um an Sciences, 92.
6 See, for exam ple, Giroux, Public Spaces, Private Lives, xi. In this regard, D avid Robertsons
perspective appears distinctly naive in its optim ism : H igher education w ill becom e the
principal m eans o f achieving personal prosperity, but it w ill also be the m eans by w hich
m ore people w orld-w ide gain access to social justice. D avid Robertson, Students as
Consum ers: The Individualization o f C om petitive Advantage, in H igher Education Re-
Form ed, ed. Peter Scott (London: Falmer Press, 2000), 7 8 -9 4 (at 93).
62 Cited in Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, a n d the Cross: Reappropriating the A ton em en t
Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 25.
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