Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning
Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning
Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning
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<strong>Agent</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Democracy</strong><br />
It is in <strong>and</strong> through the academy that knowledge gets its stamp<br />
<strong>of</strong> approval; <strong>and</strong> in our continuing hangover from positivism,<br />
“opinion” <strong>and</strong> even “judgment” are deemed the lesser cousins<br />
<strong>of</strong> knowledge <strong>and</strong> certitude. The<br />
“Ultimately isn’t that<br />
why people come together<br />
—not because they see<br />
themselves as budding<br />
epistemologists trying to<br />
discover ‘the truth’ but<br />
rather as political beings<br />
trying to discover a better<br />
way <strong>of</strong> living with others?”<br />
(“Getting the Public’s Intelligence,”<br />
HEX, 2004.)<br />
academy, as an ally to the public,<br />
can take a lead in changing this<br />
l<strong>and</strong>scape. The humanities, as<br />
Prenshaw notes, are natural allies.<br />
But also are the natural sciences,<br />
as Scott Peters has found, in respecting<br />
the wisdom that a public<br />
can bring to even the most technological<br />
issues.<br />
Whatever the means, the<br />
model <strong>of</strong> “allies” I think is worth<br />
exploring. It avoids the old hierarchical<br />
relationship between expert<br />
<strong>and</strong> public. It suggests that each<br />
party has its own work to do. It<br />
allows <strong>for</strong> each to do its own work<br />
fully without pretending to be doing the work <strong>of</strong> the other party.<br />
The academy can be an ally to the public, during both the times<br />
when it is little more than a phantom <strong>and</strong> during the times when<br />
it has something to say. During these latter times, when public judgment<br />
<strong>and</strong> will are being articulated but no one is listening, academic<br />
allies can serve as translators <strong>and</strong> representatives <strong>of</strong> public<br />
judgment, ever mindful to how any attempt at representation carries<br />
much responsibility to be faithful to the original, to try to let it<br />
speak, even if this is never quite fully possible.<br />
During the <strong>for</strong>mer times, when the public is little more than a<br />
phantom, the job <strong>of</strong> the public scholar is much like the job <strong>of</strong> the<br />
public journalist who, as the late Cole Campbell noted, does not<br />
merely in<strong>for</strong>m the public but serves as an asset in helping the public<br />
<strong>for</strong>m itself. “Rather than settle <strong>for</strong> transmitting expert or elite knowledge,”<br />
Campbell writes, the aim <strong>of</strong> the public journalist will be:<br />
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