hellothere, that works well although there is a part of me that now wants to change "Authority" to a word that starts with "S" just for the fun of having monothiests make submissions to an organisation with those initials.

I had not thought of the suggestion as facist, maybe a bit "nanny state" - I'd prefer to decide the merits or otherwise of theologies and ideologies for myself. Maybe slap an AO or MA rating on the lot of them and let adults make up their own mind. Still there is something to be said for fines against those who repeatedly make unsubstainated claims about Theological and Ideological Trustworthiness (in the plural) - the money could go to prop up mental health units as they seek to undo the damage done by some of those theologies and ideologies (woops I did not substantiate that claim).

PK, as an IT graduate I missed most of the "ism" teaching as well. I can only recall one bad grade which I considered to be a result of having expressed a contrary view to a lecturer in matters political -my only 4 :( so sad. I did not feel the need with most lecturers to conform to their view points on matters idological or political, it really was a non issue in most subjects.

R0bert

Much of the content of this article is almost identical to (though somewhat better argued than) the atrocious piece of rubbish by Kev Donnelly last week, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4422. It even references Kev's SCEGS/Othello anecdote.

Melleuish claims that we are experiencing the “academisation of society”. I think he's got the bull by the foot, what we're getting is the CORPORATISATION of education. Thus we get educational outcomes, performance measures, benchmarking etc etc. Individuality is sacrificed on the altar of KPIs and standardisation.

I'm all for a dose of humanism and joy as an antidote to all this, but where do you fit that on the graph of output measures? As for the "bureaucratic dullness of the academy"; universities should be abolished if the weight of their administrative structures squash the minds therein. Universities are elitist (in the true sense of the word), they should be places that encourage independent thought. If those thoughts don't reflect the values of some people outside the institution, then tough luck.

onemack: That's a shame. I can understand where you're coming from, but maybe you just needed to play the game and adopt a "the means justify the ends" approach, and later reveal your true colours. I'm sure that's what the current crop of cretins did. A return to sanity will probably require such an approach.

PK: I found that like your B.Sc., my B.A. was surprisingly free from all the stereotypes of the Arts. Maybe it was just the departments I was involved in. I don't remember anything being discussed from a feminist, Marxist or post-modernist perspective in Classics. It seemed pretty traditional. History could have fallen into all that, but I did medieval history and we had this weird, intensely Catholic crew teaching that, so it was differently strange. Psychology was just a complete basket case and the academic staff seemed to be more openly concerned with their own inferiority complexes about being considered a "real science" than in getting into any "ism". Finally, the philosophy department at the University of Melbourne is notoriously conservative (in fact, it's so conservative that there's now a school of continental philosophy -- which didn't exist when I did my honours less than a decade ago -- in an attempt to balance out the heavily analytic nature of the department). One of our tutors (who was also the lecturer, and also a bigwig in Australian bioethics) in a political philosophy honours subject practically took the proverbial out of a politics honours student in our class for suggesting the term "violence" be broadened to describe the deep structures of our society. The department was really conservative. Maybe I was just lucky, but I actually didn't encounter any of these "isms" until after I finished my undergraduate studies, when I was more able to see through such bs.

As to the education faculty at U.M., I did encounter a few nutters in the teaching staff, though they tended to be just nutters of the "spelling isn't important" variety more than the "workers of the world unite" variety.

Maybe I was just lucky.

"Why not really hold teachers, academics, politicians and journalists to account?"

Attack the teacher's union, and you are accused of bashing teachers, attack teh academics and they shield themselves in a cloak of gobbledygook, and journalists only comment on it when their children are forced to study it, and, even then, only the Australia has the balls to consistantly attack it whenever possible.

Good article.

Perhaps this may not contribute anything to the debate but it is just a thought of mine:

I have had teachers (I am a English lit student) ask questions such as "Do you think _____ is a Marxist?" "Do you think there is a touch of feminism?" etc., and I find it very confusing. In the first place, not many people know what these terms mean and they aren't exactly explained very clearly in most cases I have been privy to. But I have also had more teachers who want to know what we personally get from the literature itself and who want us to explore why we interpret the literature in the ways we choose to. While they do touch on all these philosophies, rarely do they "ram it down our throat" as such - I find I am allowed to think for myself and if I am not, I do it anyway.

Perhaps it would be better to try to formulate one's own understanding of the text without influence and then perhaps once one has done that, attempt to see if it fits in with any other kind of philosophical standpoint, deterministic or otherwise and then perhaps figure out why one does see the text as such. Perhaps that would be a better method of analysis for students to learn to use. It is a method that helped me throughout my course and I feel I have a much deeper understanding of Literature and a greater passion for it because of it.

This is a very strong article and supports the continuing criticism of how education has been captivated by ideology. In the process we have lost the work of art and how that informs us of our humanity.

There is one nuance about postmodernism that should be addressed. The practice of theology has suffered under the modern regime in which only that which can be seen, touched and measured is thought to be true. Postmodernism, although parts of it are guilty of denying any kind of truth, opens the door to theology being practiced outside of the modern paradigm. That is, its is free to do its work using a rationality suited to its subject matter. Thus, for example, myth is not necessarily a dirty word but may be a means of conveying truth. The strange world of the bible is observed on its own terms and not in the terms imposed by modernism. Alasdair Macintyre has pointed out that there is more than one kind of rationality. We do not use the rationality of the chemistry lab when we read the metaphysical poets.

As for theology being open to rational enquiry, bring it on. However, if you bring the rationality of natural science to bear then all you will get is cynical refutation.