Multiculturalism's failure to sustain the minds of students with anything more nourishing than the intellectual equivalent of junk food comprises a significant part of the betrayal many members of Generation X feel towards the baby boomers who preceded them. The terms and icons most frequently associated with Generation X, from angry rock lyrics to sloppy “grunge” dress, connote a curious combination of angst and apathy—towards both their own futures and the causes for which the earlier generation agitated. This mix of emotions is curious because one would not expect truly apathetic people to feel anxiety about anything. Much of Generation X's angst may be attributed to the “presence of absence” it feels—students intuit that something is missing, but have not been taught quite enough to realize what that might be. Generation X may not know who Caliban and Prospero are, but it has the ineffable feeling that perhaps it should.
Most of the time, however, apathy reigns. For undergraduates out of step with the campus zeitgeist, the more common reaction to multiculturalism is cognitive nihilism: Because the multiculturalists are wrong, it appears that nobody is right. Since Stanford and the universities for which it is a model have made education and multiculturalism practically equivalent, the rebellion against multiculturalism becomes a revolt against learning itself—there seems little point to the whole endeavor when university studies involve little more than indoctrination in the multicultural agenda and a parroting of the party line. If multiculturalists are right to say that the inanities of Group Comm or Lee Iacocca's “Car Buyer Bill of Rights” are the most important things to study, then there really would be nothing significant to learn. And this conclusion is reached by a significant number of students (many of whom we knew) who have had enough of multicultural education; for these students, the danger is not that they will become disciples of multiculturalism, but that they will get turned off the life of the mind forever.
While critics of the 1960s often accuse that turbulent decade's youth of being nihilistic, the moniker more aptly describes much of our generation. Now as then, 1960s-style activists at least believe in multicultural causes—even if, sometimes, multiculturalism represents nothing more than what is trendy. Generation X, by and large, has rejected even multiculturalism, sometimes because its members keenly sense the essential emptiness, but usually because they simply are uninspired by waning ideas. Of course, a number of young radicals do agitate for multiculturalism, but these students really are the last products of the previous era, yearning for the days when social activism will again become popular and widespread, often sharing more in common with their faculty and administrative backers than with their apathetic peers. While many members of Generation X view multiculturalism coolly, however, they simultaneously have failed to restore or embrace the tradition multiculturalism supplanted. Like Cesaire's Caliban, who asks to be called “X” because he has been stripped of his identity, “Generation X” has been labelled as such because it neither possesses a distinctive identity nor can even remember when it had one. It is the deracinated result of multicultural upheaval.
Nihilism is not really an alternative to multiculturalism, however; it is merely the culmination of a confused and often destructive body of ideas. If our generation is to find the meaning it seeks, it must look outside the multicultural wasteland. A truth which transcends the conventions of multiculturalism, if it exists at all, must be embedded in the only set of perspectives rejected a priori—in the ideals and values of Western civilization. At a minimum, the following would seem certain: The most powerful critique of the radical ideology that animates the multicultural state has been made by Western thinkers—economists, historians, philosophers, writers. The most comprehensive alternative to the current crisis will be found not in far-away lands and distant cultures, but right here at home, in the traditions and intellectual currents that have shaped our own world. Before this study has been conducted properly, Generation X will rightfully feel betrayed by its elders.
Notes
1. R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., “Students’ Rights Trampled at Stanford University,” The Stanford Review, January 4, 1993.
2. David Sacks attended the class and took lecture notes. See David Sacks, “The Cutting Edge of Multiculturalism,” The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 1992. Professor Jackson responded in a letter to the Journal, in which he defended the course as a “very important scholarly interest.” Professor Jackson wrote: “Black hair in America is a huge issue, encompassing themes from economics, cultural history, aesthetics, fashion and, obviously, ethnic identity. Black hair deserves legitimate scholarly attention because it has been such a presence in the personal and collective quest of blacks for a place in American society.” See Kennell Jackson Jr., “Unsnarling the Black Hair Issue,” The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 1992.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Harper's Magazine reprinted much of the course syllabus. See “Fades, Braids, and Grades,” Harper's Magazine, October 1992.
6. Sacks, supra note 2.
7. “Generation X” is named after Douglas Coupland's novel by that name.
8. Gail Mahood, “Summary of Findings and Perspectives on Stanford's Transcript and Grading Policies,” Committee on Academic Appraisal and Achievement (C-AAA) March 29, 1993. See also Martin Anderson, “Academic currency's devaluation,” The Dallas Morning News, June 4, 1993.
9. Ibid. (Percentages of letter grades are calculated from the overall grade distribution, which also includes nonletter grades.)
10. Ibid.
11. Carol Jouzaitis, “Easy College A's Become Rampant; Critics: Excellence Gets Lost,” The Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1994.
12. Mahood, supra note 8.
13. Vivien Wang, “Universities grapple with grade inflation,” The Stanford Daily, May 11, 1994. According to The Daily, by 1992–93 the percentage of A's had grown to 51 percent.
14. Jouzaitis, supra note 11. The Chicago Tribune interviewed Eric Bannasch, a 20-year-old from Sarasota, Florida. Bannasch was considering repeating a physics class in which he received a low grade: “I don't want to take it again,” said the sophomore engineering major, “but I feel pressure to because no one else will have a C on their transcript. It will bring my grade-point [average] down.”
15. Mahood, supra note 8.
16. John Krumboltz and Nel Noddings, “Questionnaire's bias leads to inaccurate survey results,” The Stanford Daily, April 9, 1993.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Suzanne Alexander, “Trophy Transcript Hunters Are Finding Professors Have Become an Easy Mark,” The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1993.
20. Lisa Koven, “Frosh English focuses less on basics, more on service projects,” The Stanford Review, November 16, 1992.
21. Ibid.
22. In her Fall 1991 Freshman English class, for instance, Professor Susan Wyle handed out a list of nonprofit groups for which students could write newsletter articles. (The authors obtained these syllabi, as well as many others, from a student in the class.) These groups are all left-liberal causes: The Hunger and Homeless Action Coalition of San Mateo County, which works “towards long-range solutions to the problem of homelessness through public education and advocacy”; The Homeless Agency Project (HAP) of the Bar Association of San Francisco, which exists in part “to educate the homeless community (and their advocates) of the protections offered by disability statutes”; Ellipse Peninsula AIDS Service, “a not-for-profit agency committed to helping individuals who are HIV infected, their family members, loved ones and friends”; Bay Area Action, which “works locally to achieve the Earth Day ‘Agenda for the Green Decade’”; Mid-Peninsula Citizens for Fair Housing, which, upon complaint, “may dispatch trained volunteer ‘testers’ to gather evidence of illegal discrimination”; and The Environmental Protection Division of the City of Palo Alto, which “educates” the public about “environmental issues.”
23. Koven, supra note 20.
24. Ibid.
25. Interviews with Jaso
n Sugarman (class of 1994), who was a senior when he took the class in Winter 1994, and Nathan Linn (class of 1993), who was a senior when he took the class in Winter 1993. David Sacks also kept a daily log of class activities when he took the class in Winter 1993.
26. Stanford University, Courses and Degrees, 1993–94.
27. Interviews, supra note 25.
28. Ibid.
29. David Sacks, Group Communications Daily Log, January 5, 1993.
30. Roberta Chavez, “Murals reflect culture, conflict,” The Stanford Daily, April 20, 1992.
31. David Sacks, Group Communications Daily Log, January 19, 1993.
32. Interviews, supra note 25.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid Linn, Sugarman, and Sacks all observed instances where participants became so upset during the course of the discussions that they fled the room.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid For the most part, upper-class students dare not suggest any negative adjectives about the lower classes. Linn noted that during one upper-middle-class intragroup discussion, however, one person indicated that he thought members of the lower classes might be “dirty.” Even this observation was too heterodox. In the subsequent intergroup discussion, another upper-middle-class person confessed that someone had had this horrible thought: She had been so traumatized, she told the class, that she “almost had to leave the room.”
37. Ibid.
38. “Peace Studies,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1992.
39. David Sacks took the class in Spring 1992. These prescriptions can also be found in the lecture notes, which are transcribed and distributed by a service of the student government.
40. “Peace Studies” Class Reader, Spring 1992.
41. Ibid.
42. Syllabus, supra note 38.
43. James MacGregor Burns and Stewart Burns, A People's Charter: The Pursuit of Rights in America (New York: Knopf, 1991).
44. Interviews with Michael Newman (class of 1992) and Christopher Aguas (class of 1992). David Sacks took the class in Winter 1994.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Interview with John Abbott (class of 1992).
48. Jack Guerrero, “Bearing the PC Crucifix: ‘Religions in America,’” The Stanford Review, April 25, 1994.
49. Minal Hajratwala, “Sexuality, Feminism, Ethnicity: The Makings of My Bisexuality,” Aurora, May 1991.
50. Education classes 246 A, B, C, and D offer “Secondary Teaching and Multicultural Education Practicum.” See Courses and Degrees, supra note 26.
51. Susan Jackson, “Effects of Gulf War felt in the classroom,” The Stanford Daily, April 9, 1991.
52. David Goldberger, “Social Movements of the 1960s in California,” Course Syllabus, March 31, 1994.
53. Solveig Pederson, “Pop culture gaining legitimacy as supplement to course material,” The Stanford Daily, February 1, 1993.
54. Walter Lammi, “Nietzsche, the Apaches, and Stanford: The Hidden Agenda of Education for Difference,” Academic Questions, Summer 1991.
55. Ibid.
56. Interview with Michael Petras (class of 1997). The class also explored “the paradox central to Western-Anglo-male cultural phenomena,” announced Professor Castle—a supposed fascination with lesbianism (an “important trope in Western culture”) but an overt rejection of homosexuality.
57. Terry Castle, “Representing Sappho: Readings in the Literature of Lesbianism,” Course Syllabus, March 29, 1994.
58. Adam Ross, ‘“How tasty were my French sisters?’ Lesbianism and politics in cross-cultural feminism,” The Stanford Review, April 19, 1993. Adam Ross, “Gay issues permeate curriculum; Sexuality politics and gender at issue in comp lit class,” The Stanford Review, April 19, 1993. Matt Hulse, “History and Politics of Sexual Orientation,” The Stanford Review, February 7, 1994.
59. Kris McNeil, “The ‘ethic of rebelling': New seminars examine counterculture literature,” The Stanford Daily, February 8, 1993.
60. Richard Castanon, “Dialogue tutorials might compromise academic goals,” The Stanford Review, January 25, 1993.
61. Ibid.
62. Jay Grossman, “Representing Sexualities: Whitman to AIDS,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1994.
63. Courses and Degrees, supra note 26.
64. Interview with Jill Morganbesser (class of 1992).
65. Ibid.
66. Diane Curtis, “Stanford Now Requiring Ethnic, Sex Role Studies,” The San Francisco Chronicle, December 13, 1990.
67. Ibid.
68. Romesh Ratnesar, “Reform nothing new to undergraduate education,” The Stanford Daily, November 1, 1993.
69. Matthew Meskell, “Say What…African American Vernacular English class puts a new spin on linguistics,” The Stanford Review, January 25, 1993.
70. Ibid.
71. Jennifer Bryson, “Expansion of feminism draws fire,” The Stanford Review, April 1989.
72. Ibid.
73. See Stanford University, A Woman's Guide to Stanford, 1993–94. Stanford distributes the guide to new female students each year. The book explains: “For centuries, women in Western cultures have been excluded from academic life. Precious few women have been given the opportunity to pursue intellectual interests, and thus the founding fathers of academia were just that: fathers. The bias that results from this male domination is evident throughout academia. Even supposedly scientific and unbiased subjects such as biology and psychology have long been based on male thought and male subjects, to the exclusion of women's experiences.”
74. Carol Delaney, “Creation/Procreation,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1994.
75. Purina Manekar, “Gender and Nationalism,” Course Syllabus, March 30, 1994.
76. Penelope Eckert, “Language and Gender,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1994.
77. Ibid.
78. Susan Krieger, “Women and Organizations,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1994.
79. Ibid.
80. Joan Fujimura, “Gender and Science,” Course Syllabus, Spring 1994.
81. Bryson, supra note 71.
82. Susan Griffin, “The Politics of Rape,” in Made From This Earth: An Anthology of Writing (New York: Harper & Row, 1983).
83. Alison Jaggar and Paula Rothenberg, eds., Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Men and Women (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984).
84. The Boston Women's Health Book Collective, The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book By and For Women (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).
85. Betty Harragan, Games Mother Never Taught You (New York: Warner Books, 1981).
86. Karen Ho, “New Course Requirements Approved,” The Stanford Review, June 3, 1991.
87. Geoff Goldman, “Few support DR proposal,” The Stanford Daily, November 29, 1990.
88. “Diverse Strategies to Boost Minority Professoriate Under Way at Stanford,” Stanford University News Service, September 16, 1988.
89. Robert L. Jamieson Jr., “Gay couple bequeaths scholarship for homosexual students,” The Stanford Daily, February 28, 1991.
90. David Sacks, “Departments Paid Bonuses for Minority Hiring; Affirmative Action Vital to Perpetuation of Multiculturalism, Says OMD,” The Stanford Review, November 4, 1991.
91. “Keep the Spirit,” The Stanford Daily, May 24, 1988.
92. Maryellen Driscoll, “Innovative academics gets mixed reviews,” The Stanford Daily, February 14, 1989.
93. Ibid. The Stanford Daily explained that a controversy arose in Fall 1988 over a SWOPSI course entitled “Animal Rights or Wrongs: a case for animal rights.” Some faculty, particularly from the Biological Sciences Department, “objected not to the topic of the course but to its slanted presentation by its instructors, who were both local animal rights activists.”
94. Ibid.
95. Stephen Russell, “Fem 110 may violate Title IX,” The Stanford Review, January 19, 1993.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid.
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br /> 100. Joel Shurkin, “International ‘terrorists’ are less violent than their predecessors, researcher says,” Campus Report, February 10, 1988.
101. David Gress, “‘Talking “Terrorism”’ at Stanford,” The Stanford Review, April 1988.
102. Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43 no. 6, July 1991. Most of the speakers had never before written articles for a law journal, and the Stanford Law Review's staff spent more than two years cleaning up essays—putting citations in the proper format, working with a quarrelsome group of people, and even trying to find cites to support wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a result, publication of the issue was delayed until January 1994.
105. Angela Davis, “Keynote Address: Third National Conference on Women of Color and the Law,” Stanford Law Review, July 1991.
106. Sharon Parker, “Understanding Coalition,” Stanford Law Review, July 1991. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Cleaning Up/Kept Down: A Historical Perspective on Racial Inequality in ‘Women's Work,’” Stanford Law Review, July 1991.
107. Huanani-Kay Trask, “Coalition-Building Between Natives and Non-Natives,” Stanford Law Review, July 1991.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid.
111. Mari Matsuda, “Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition,” Stanford Law Review, July 1991.
112 Brant Schelor, et. al., “Abstract: One Slice or Two? Gender Discrepancies in Pizza Consumption.” Professor Laura Carstenson handed out the paper on the first day of Psychology of Gender in Spring 1994.
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