Another Response To A Letter At Horsefeathers

After I read the letter Edward linked to below, I googled Professor Kozloff, and found his web page, with a link to this letter on it. I also read some of his other papers, and discovered that when he describes the version of education he seems to prefer, he repeatedly invokes philosophers to justify it. (He has the fascinating idea of basing an educational philosophy on Plato, Aristotle, and C.S. Peirce, who, last I checked, didn't have a whole lot in common.) The philosopher he mentioned most often, in the works I read, was Plato, and in particular Plato's myth of the cave. Thus he writes: "The classical role of teacher is to educate students—from the Latin word educare, to lead forth—out of the cave of ignorance and false belief and into the open air where students, using observation and reasoning strategies (inductive and deductive logic) can come to know how things are.  (See Plato, Republic, 29, 514a-521b.)"

I would ordinarily assume, out of courtesy, that Professor Kozloff is not just using Plato ornamentally -- dressing up his pages with him, as though he were a sort of tony festoon -- but that he has actually read the Republic. But I can't, since the letter he has posted is so flatly at odds with Plato generally, and with the myth of the cave in particular, that no one who had actually read and tried to understand Plato, and who agreed with him enough to cite him approvingly, could possibly have written it.

For those of you who don't know the myth of the cave, it goes like this: imagine prisoners in a cave. Behind them is a fire, and between the fire and them a low wall on which people move models of objects about. The prisoners can see only the shadows on the wall, which they take for real objects. If they are freed, they can turn around and see the models themselves, and the fire that illuminates them. If they leave the cave, they can look around at objects in the actual world, once their eyes adjust to the light. Eventually they may come to see the sun itself, though this will always be difficult, since it is so dazzling. What the fire is is the subject of some dispute; for present purposes, any source of false illumination will serve. But there is no mystery about the sun: it is the form of the good, in whose light alone things appear as they truly are.

The passage that a prisoner must make to look on the form of the good is an arduous one. First, he must free himself from his shackles. Then he must reorient himself completely, turning away from everything he has taken to be real, at which point he will be able to see not shadows of models of objects, but the models themselves and the fire that illuminates them. Then he must once again leave behind what he takes to be real and climb out of the cave and into the light, at which point he can see objects, though only because the sun illuminates them. And finally he must train himself to look at the sun.

This difficult journey is, for Plato, the attempt to be good, which, in the Republic, is also described as the attempt to have an ordered soul. The soul, Plato thinks, has three parts: appetite, which has a multitude of objects; the spirited part, which feels anger, the love of honor, and similar passions; and reason, which seeks to know things as they are. Both appetite and the spirited part can present objects as good: if I want something, or if it seems to me required by my anger or my honor, it will seem to me to be good. But only reason can tell me whether these things are in fact good, and it does so by understanding what goodness itself is, what the object I take to be good is, and whether that object is good.

Our souls are correctly ordered if reason governs the other two parts. This is so for several reasons. First, it is reason that discovers the correct nature of objects, including the objects of appetite and passion; and if reason does not govern, our passions are likely to go haring off after the wrong objects altogether. (Think of getting angry and for that reason beating up the first person you see. Only if you stop and ask yourself who really deserves your anger will you be sure of directing it at the right person.) Second, it is reason that discovers the form that our lives as a whole should take, and if it does not govern, we will be likely to lead lives that are deformed and misshapen, since we will give in to passions and appetites that we should not give in to. (If someone cuts you off in traffic and you are tempted to pass him, cut him off, and slam on the brakes, it's not enough to make sure you direct your fury at the right person. This is a form of anger that you should not give in to at all. But only if you stop and think will you recognize that and check yourself.) And when reason rules, it does not harm the other two parts; our anger is not (as it were) better off when we give it free rein and go around beating people up and causing car accidents at will; it is (one might think) better, qua anger, when it is properly directed and exercised than when it is allowed to govern our lives.

For reason to govern, we must not only think when we need to; we must develop the habits of mind and character that allow us to reason correctly, and to act as we think we should. We must develop the habit of thinking clearly, allowing our views to be guided by the world as it is and not by our fears, our desires, or our anger. If we do not, reason will still be governed by passion and appetite. We will go through the motions of thinking, but we will only succeed in creating rationalizations for the actions that passion and appetite suggest. And for that reason we will still be in chains, staring at shadows which we mistake for reality.

This is the view that, according to Professor Kozloff, is the basis for "the classical role of teacher", a role that he aspires to fill: a teacher is one who breaks the student's shackles and helps him or her to develop both the intellect and the character to climb out of the "cave of ignorance and false belief" and see the world as it is, in the light of the form of the good. But in his letter he not only fails to teach; he shows no signs of having begun his own journey out of enslavement.

It is anger, not reason, that leads him to equate "arab-muslims" with those who were responsible for 9/11. And his claim, in his email to Martin, that "when I said arab-muslims, I did not mean ALL--only those who work towards our destruction" is disingenuous. When "our planes and missiles ... begin turning your mosques, your madrasses, your hotels, your government offices, your hideouts, and your neighborhoods into rubble", they will surely not discriminate between those Muslims who aim to destroy us and their children and neighbors. (Our bombs are not that smart, unfortunately.) For this reason there is no way to take the threats he makes as directed only at the guilty. A person who viewed all things in the light of the form of the good would not make such an obvious mistake about the objects of his anger, nor would he be so careless with the ways in which he describes them, especially at a time when those of his fellow citizens who are Arab or Muslim are already the objects of others' misdirected rage.

It is anger, not reason, that advocates the measures he describes in his letters. Reason would ask: which of these measures is in fact appropriate? Is it turning whole neighborhoods into rubble, whoever happens to live there, and however many of them are innocent? And reason would reply: long before you advocate these sorts of measures, you need to ascertain, clearly and calmly, whether there is any other way of achieving your goal. Professor Kozloff writes (in his email to Martin) that "I believe there are times when savage violence is not ONE thing that will work, but may be the only thing that will work"; reason would want to be very, very sure that this is one of those times; and it would also want to be sure that it's worth the cost both to innocent people and to your own soul.

We should also note that Professor Kozloff is willing to harm not just other countries, but ours as well. In his email to Martin, he writes: "Sometimes liberal democratic practices will get you killed." This seems to mean that we should do away with them. Among his particular targets is the first amendment: "We will tell the chancellors of universities either to muzzle or remove anti American professors, whose hatred for their own country we have tolerated only because we place a higher value on freedom of speech. But we will no longer tolerate treason. We will muzzle and remove them." And his criteria for anti-Americanism are apparently quite broad, since anti-Americans include Kerry, Kennedy, Harkin, and Clark. As before, reason would want to be very sure that 'muzzling' and 'removing' people would actually protect us, and that this protection was worth the sacrifice of our Constitution and our fundamental liberties, before reaching anything remotely resembling this conclusion.

It is also anger, not reason, that leads a person to dwell on the details of this imagined destruction in a way that seems to me to verge on the pornographic. To reason, both the fact that someone has embraced the beliefs of, say, Osama bin Laden and the fact that if we cannot capture him, we need to kill him are tragedies. Reason would make absolutely sure that both claims are true, and would then set about trying to capture or kill bin Laden without the slightest joy. It is only anger that would linger on the thought of people with their hands in the air, begging for mercy, and on the further thought that those pleas will be in vain since we have transformed ourselves into the stone-hearted instruments of justice, with obvious relish, and repeat this fantasy, with slightly varied details, over and over.

Finally, it is anger, not reason, that would lead a person to ignore the danger to his own soul that comes of indulging these fantasies and this anger. Professor Kozloff writes (email to Martin): "I am willing to return demonization for demonization", and, as noted, that sometimes only savage violence will work. The idea seems to be that because his enemies have played rough, he gets to do the same. This is a way of thinking that Plato's myth of the cave is aimed squarely against. The person who has left the cave and gazed at the sun will, in Plato's story, eventually return to the cave to help others to free themselves. But she will not be remotely tempted by the idea that since other people get to live in shackles staring at shadows, she should get to do likewise. Virtue is not easy or fun, but it is profoundly in our own interests; and anyone who had once beheld it would find the idea of voluntarily returning to her former state incomprehensible. The idea that it is a restraint which we get to drop as soon as other people start acting badly is the antithesis of Plato's view.

Consider, in addition, whether in this letter Professor Kozloff lives up to the ideal of teaching that he espouses elsewhere. He claims that a teacher should lead his students "out of the cave of ignorance and false belief and into the open air". But in this letter he not only fails to show his readers a way out of that cave; he tries to drag them back, forge new shackles, and convince them that the shadows on the wall are all they really need to pay attention to. And he both ridicules those who disagree with him and insults their moral character. Moreover, by citing an authority whom he has plainly failed to understand, he teaches them by example that ideas are not meant to be taken seriously, to be thought through and struggled with, but little ornaments that give your papers on education an erudite sheen, but that do not require any actual engagement. Hopefully, this letter represents a lapse, rather than his normal practice. If this is what he is usually like, however, he is not a teacher; he is an enemy of thought.

Comments

[carsick]

Kick ass hilzoy (sorry too late to read the whole post - I saw Johnny Lang tonight and...fading quickly - but I got through the abbreviated description of the shadows on the wall).

[martin]

hilzroy nails the anger bit dead on. it was that part that I wanted to verify for certain. and that part came through loud and clear in my continued emails with the professor this evening. 9/11 seems to have lit a fuse in him, as is understandable. but it turned an otherwise apparently reasoning individual into something else entirely. in professor k, it has triggered a conflation of the al qaeda violence against the usa with the israeli/palestinian problem and even the holocaust. somewhere in this one man's tortured views are a key to how the bush team has managed to hijack the psyches of half the american electorate.

[Haven]

It seems many right-wingers romanticize Plato, but always end up channeling Nietzsche.

Rationalism is treated as weak, slow and abstract while the "logic" of primal passions are revered as real and true.

[praktike]

And here I was content to call him names and break the posting rules. Apparently, there is a better way.

[carpeicthus]

Well, Plato and Aristotle are the ones you can read about on the back of cereal boxes, and I think he threw in Peirce just because he admired his petulance.

[Edward]

Truly amazing, hilzoy.

You can get on a visceral level that Professor Kozloff is misdirecting his anger, but to have it laid out so clearly and logically is a gift...thanks.

And thanks to you too Martin, for writing him. I was hesitant to. He scares me. Not because I think he'd harm me, mind you, but because my first dozen or so drafts of the post I wrote included dares to him...he was bringing out the same sort of irrationality in me.

[hilzoy]

Thanks ;)

[hilzoy]

In a moment of folly I sent Professor Kozloff the url to this post. I post his reply without comment:

"As with so many other persons, you completely misunderstood both what the letter said and what it intended. It was a mirror.

The letter was NOT my opinion.

I was NOT advocating ANYTHING in that letter.

The letter was sociological in intent. It was a literary device to get readers to examine their own assumptions.

I have NO hatred of Arabs or Muslims.

I do not advocate killing anyone or burning anything. I do not consider Arabs or Muslims to be roaches. I do not advocate killing people who beg for mercy. I do not advocate muzzling professors. Anyone who knows me, knows the truth of what I just said.

The letter was expressing the feelings and drives of what I see in more and more Americans.

I did not sign my name to it precisely because it did NOT represent my opinion.

When read dispassionately, it should be clear that when the words "arab muslim" were used, they referred to people designated as "our enemies"--NOT to all Arabs and Muslims merely. The letter also made it quite clear that "arab muslims" and "our enemies" were the people (called "you," again and again in the letter) who are engaged in beheading, raping, mutilating, burning, hanging, and bombing.

Further evidence that the letter was a device designed to get people to face their own assumptions and feelings, was that I SAID EXACTLY THAT on websites where it was originally posted. [I did not first put a link to it on the University website.]

For example, I wrote this in the "Comments" section of the Horsefeathers websiste...

"I was writing what I believe will happen if our enemies attack us again."

Again...

"I (boldface) advocated nothing. I (boldface) said what I thought was happening and was going to happen even more if we were attacked again.
"Perhaps instead of attacking me (which is okay if you need a target) why not discuss the issues? For example,

"At what point or under what conditions will citizens begin to form militias to protect themselves?

"When is it a good/bad thing for them to do so?

"Under what conditions will citizens take the law into their own hands, as they say?

"When is this a good/bad thing to do?

"Under what conditions will citizens violate what had been their own moral code (such as not harming noncombatants) in order to protect themselves.

"Under what conditions do ordinary persons begin to see themselves as soldiers?

"These questions are more important than whether I am (or you are) the bigger %$$wit."

The unreasoned responses both of persons who liked and persons who hated the letter (and its writer) show that I was right about how we are replacing democratic discussion with violent rhetoric.

I wish you had written me before you published your false assertions about me. I surely would not have done that to you.

What does that say about you?"

[carsick]

He wrote the letter but others upset reactions to the letter prove his point?
Whose "violent rhetoric"?

I think someone's worried tenure isn't as secure as he once presumed.
What was it Moe was looking for in another thread?
Oh I remember, "a vaguely-plausible rationalization..."

Hmmm

[Edward]

I'm sorry Professor Kozloff, but your letter, as posted on Horsefeathers, was in no way initially qualified as you're doing so now. As a matter of fact, your very first reaction to the applause the letter (unqualified in anyway as "sociological in intent") was initially generating was

It's more than nice to know that my feelings are shared by so many other folks--most of whom have served their nation longer and better than I.

[sidereal]

"The letter was NOT my opinion.

I was NOT advocating ANYTHING in that letter.

The letter was sociological in intent. It was a literary device to get readers to examine their own assumptions."

What a backpedaling load.

I have a profound lack of respect for anyone who would write the tripe he chose to write. Whatever meager shred is left is lost when he can't stand up and admit it in front of his critics, though he's happy to own it in front of his supporters.

[sidereal]

Also, I'm always befuddled by conservatives who endorse Plato. The Republic proves him to be fundamentally a totalitarian, or at least a paternalistic statist, and he should be an anathema.

[bellatrys]

Sidereal, many conservatives *are* authoritarian paternalist statists. (Particularly among the subset Catholic Traditionalist Intellectual.) This is why you find so much Old South hagiography at colleges like Christendom and Thomas More, and the cult of Saint General Franco, Saint Winston Churchill, and SS. Ferdinand & Isabella, along with the cottage industry of Inquisition Denial, and why the SSPX is advocating a "Reconquista" of America. So they know perfectly well what they're doing when they advocate late-Platonic totalitarianism over Socratic individualism.

Hilzoy, beautiful exposition of the Allegory of the Cave.

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