Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Intellectual Engagement

Abstract

On May 16, 2003, only fifteen days after President Bush landed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to announce a “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Stanley Fish published yet another polemical piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Aptly titled “Aim Low,” Fish’s essay called for focusing on skills and disciplinary competence as the central mission of higher education. Teaching moral and civic responsibility, in Fish’s view, is not only a bad idea, it is unworkable (n. pag.). This essay complemented an earlier piece that was equally controversial, entitled “Save the World on Your Own Time,” where he stated unequivocally, “[M]y assertion is that it is immoral for academics or for academic institutions to proclaim moral views” (n. pag). Fish’s claims would likely have been divisive regardless of the context within which they appeared, but it is fair to say that their publication in the midst of debates about the morality of the war in Iraq, the curtailing of civil rights in a post-9/11 United States, and the chilling atmosphere on university campuses caused by the USA PATRIOT Act and other legislation served to exacerbate the ongoing debates about the role of politics, social critique, and intellectual engagement in classrooms.