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In the absence of such principles, everything becomes a power struggle. There is now a demand for the study of non-Western civilization, nonmale, nonwhite. Aristotle is seen only as a white Western male. So is Karl Marx. My book was written by a white, Western male, which means, in this kind of shorthand, there must be something wrong with it. One knows that the charge of sexism exists, and if you're called a sexist, it's a kind of crime. It's like the old days in the 1950s, when people had to be careful about things that very powerful critics could call Communist. Or, in earlier days, atheist. The universities, not wishing to be separated from the sense of injustice done to women and blacks, are simply giving way and largely accepting such arguments.
Q. As a teacher, how do you cope with such conflicts in your own classroom?
A. I find that a lot of students are just staying away. Perhaps because they have been led to distrust the value of humanities, black students are taking fewer theoretical courses, while many are living within their own separate worlds on campus. But the main problem is in the new mentality. It's harder and harder to get students interested. They would rather talk about "rights" than reflect on the purpose of life itself. Students would rather just be angry. This is not an attitude with which one can have a serious discussion. This is a new kind of thought control.
Q. It often seems that your own disregard and anger toward these dissidents in your midst may be every bit as great as the hostility that you say exists toward your philosophy and teaching. Is your own approach to teaching within a hierarchy of principles seen as equally rigid and uncompromising?
A. The movements, in their radical forms, argue that there isn't a common ground and therefore that the conflict is nonnegotiable. I'm open to serious argumentation. I believe that students who know me well have never thought that I have insisted on anything other than that these books must be taken seriously and that there have to be serious interpretations and confrontations with the philosophers. Without that, the discussion cannot proceed. There is no good reason to read Plato if you know beforehand that he is wrong. Very few great thinkers are likely to reflect exactly what modern or contemporary American factions want to think.
Q. In a sense, you wrote a book for parents, not deans.
A. I have a student going through thousands of reviews for me. He says the most stupid ones are from university administrators. Some of them gave great evidence of not even having read the book.
There's no question I've touched a popular vein. Americans really do believe in the idea of education. Unlike the class systems in Europe, America's educational systems were the means for salvation, not only in making money but in allowing one to become a fully educated human being. That was an ideal with parents. Universities in general have nothing but contempt for that.
Q. One of your critics describes you as the leader of a "new cult of educational fundamentalism."