From those Wonderful People Who Killed Socrates

48 Historically Speaking · September 2003 From those Wonderful People Who Killed Socrates Barry Strauss Those ofus lucky enough to teach in a university today know that holding a professorshipis notmerelya privilege but a pubUc trust. VirtuaUy every university in the United States, including private universities , depends upon some degree ofpubUc funding. Widiout taxes paid bypeople who do not enjoy the good Ufe ofthe university, few ofus could be professors. Without the tax-free status ofaU universities, few professorial jobs would exist. The pubUc has given us a great gift; the minimum thatwe owe the pubUcin return is to debate die greatissuesin our disciplines. For historians, that means three things. First, itmeans discussingeverythingfrom politics , economics, and diplomacy, to war, revolution , and class struggles, and from ideas, work, and sex, to die family, slavery, and reUgion : inshort, the full spectrumofsubjects that make up die historical experience, ofwhich these arejustasample. Second, itmeansspeaking and writing in a language that educated laypeople might understand. Third, it means presentinganddiscussingeverypoUticalopinion . In short, historians must be universaUsts. Unfortunately, these three great professional desiderata are increasingly absent in today's American university, especially ifit is an elite university. Academic historians breathe ever more rarified air; they pay ever less attention to ideas that are not on the Left or on the so-caUed Left (it not being clear whatis left-wingabouttoday's academic eUtism ); they write in ever more opaque prose; and they pay ever less attention to what an educatedlaypersonmightreasonablyconsider to be the stuffofhistory. (History is the subject of this essay, but other academic disciplines are equaUy ifnot more at fault) I could go on and on aboutmybeefswith current historiographical dogma, but many other people have beat me to the punch. Besides, that'snotmypointThe problemwith academic historyis notthatitis dominated by one set ofideas instead ofanother, die problemis thatitis dominated. Ourjob ashistoriansinuniversitiesisless tojudgewhether, say, socialism is better than classical UberaUsm, than to create an environment in which our students and colleagues can make such ajudgment . As historians, we need to follow the lodestarnotofdogma butofdebate. Weneed, in short, to create a university. But don't we already have universities? Not in the sense that we should. At the eUte level, academic history in America is becoming a place inwhich notmerelyare there few conservatives or RepubUcans, but there are few people who happen not to be persuaded by the trend of the moment. Some history departments are in danger of becoming all but one-party states. Theuniversityis also endangeringitsvery mission. The search for truth requires subjecting ideas to vigorous criticism. Indeed, widiouttestinganidea bymeans ofdie toughestcritique , itis impossible to be surewhether ornotitis true. As a practical matter, an intellectual institution needs to represent a wide varietyofschools ofthought, methodologies, and poUtical opinions in orderto ensure that everytheorybe putto a hard-hittingtest But this cannothappenwhen mostpeople march to the same ideological drumbeat. Itwill donogood toideaUze diepastThe old universitywas far from perfect. EUte history faculties ofold had precious Uttle room for women, Jews, blacks, Latinos, Asians, or openly gaypeople. No one would want to go back to that world. The present generation ofhistorians should be proud ofits achievementswith regard to equaUty. Butweneed to maintain—and expand—the equaUty ofthe newuniversitywithout gettingstuckin an ideological lockstep. How did it happen? There is no need to point a finger, because it didn't happen overnight or through maUce aforethought. There was no conspiracy. Rather, the narrowingofhistorians ' mindshappened through a combination of circumstances. Historians did notlose theirwaybecause theywere bad; they simply forgot to be good. We gave into die'understandable but not admirable desire to hire Uke-minded colleagues; we put the founding of schools of thought ahead of exposing our students and ourselves to the universe ofideas; we forgot the impossibiUty ofknowingthatwe are rightwithoutlistening to those whom we think are wrong. What is to be done? Throw the rascals out? Thatwould onlyreplace one hegemonic discourse—isn'tdiatdie rightphrase?—with another. Rather, we need to bring the rascals back in. Does every eUte history department have a gender theorist? Fine, letit also have a poUtical historian. Does a state-of-the-artprogramstudyracism ? Excellent; letitstudyeconomics as well. Do we teach peace? That is admirable, butwe must also studywar. Whatwe need, in short, is diversity: intellectual diversity as weU as racial...