Higher Education Shifts from Disinterested Inquiry to Ideological Commitment

The shift of many public universities from a commitment to disinterested inquiry to social activism informed by liberationist ideologies is one of the most alarming aspects of contemporary America. These institutions train people entering business and the professions, and their partisanship for the hard left bodes ill for the future of freedom in general, and Christianity in particular. This shift was the topic of a discussion by Bob Osburn, a Senior Fellow with Wilberforce International at the annual L’Abri conference in Rochester Minnesota on February 18.

A term commonly used for this type of ideological commitment is “woke.” Osburn said “it’s that sense of awakening from what … Marx would have called a ‘false consciousness’ … What essentially happens when people become aware of the fact that the world is made up of oppressors and the oppressed and that’s really the only really fundamental social division that matters – when you become aware of that, when that idea kind of fills your consciousness and you begin to recognize which one of those you are – an oppressor or an oppressed person – then you are truly woke. And that becomes the mental framework, the paradigm into which you see all of the rest of life.”

He pointed out that the term “woke” is used primarily by conservatives, in some measure as a pejorative. But the term was introduced by Black Lives Matter about 2015. People who in fact hold to the woke perspective call themselves “progressive.”

Osburn asked what the term “woke” means. A respondent said that “what was once …  a Christian society later became desacralized and now people are trying to give it value again.” Osburn said that this idea is “the right track.” He added that “we had a once Christian centric society that then in light of scientific thought in the twentieth century stripped out Christianity and resulted in a naked public square and a naked university … but now what’s happening with woke public education is that people are seeking to regain some kind of morality that was lost in the naked public university”

Osburn cited George Marsden’s 1994 book, The Soul of the American University. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, American universities were essentially Christian to one degree or another. And so there was a Christian hegemony, a “Protestant Christian hegemony.” People studied classical texts, Latin and Greek, and also Biblical texts. This also included “a strong focus on Christian morality in those universities.” But in the middle of the nineteenth century a few American scholars went to Germany and studied in the German research universities. German society at that time “had already rejected the idea that Christianity had anything to offer in the area of public knowledge.”  When these scholars returned to America, they brought with them an idea of a university very different from the idea of a Christian public university.

Land grant universities, although not directly intended a secularizing influence, contributed to the trend.  The government granted land to start state universities which would focus on agriculture and engineering. This too moved universities away from a focus on Christianity.

Frances Schaeffer’s two story theory of knowledge is helpful in understanding this, Osburn said. This way of approaching knowledge began to be prominent from the time of Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century onward. Ideas about ultimate reality in the “upper story” are held to be beyond confirmation as true. Only claims about phenomenal reality (the “lower story”) can be known. In this theory of knowledge “Kant was actually trying to protect Christian knowledge from the rise of science,” he said. But it in fact diminished the importance of Christianity, focusing attention on the lower story of phenomena. The lower story, where facts can be known but not values, became the basis for public policy.

This secular approach to learning was dominant in the universities and in society in the twentieth century, and was described by Richard John Neuhaus, who wrote The Naked Public Square in 1984. He maintained that this was the character of  twentieth century America, in which only “lower story” phenomenal knowledge is considered to be public knowledge, and the basis for public action. Religion and morality are not tolerated in public, but only private religious belief. And so for universities, organizations like Campus Crusade were tolerated, but were held to be “not relevant” to what the university was doing. Marsden said that in this secularization process “one hegemony replaces the other one.” A prevailing hegemony is characterized by “the desire to control, to determine the future.” Hegemonies want no competitors. There may be disagreement about the details of subjects taught in the universities, but not about the overall prevailing commitment.

 In the twentieth century secular paradigm “reason and research are really replacing revelation.” However, the pursuit of objective truth, which the twentieth century university thought it was pursuing was found to be an illusion, since people “tend to filter everything we see and know through a set of mental paradigms called worldviews.” Here Osburn referred to Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who has attacked the idea that knowledge can be a purely natural phenomenon. Osburn maintained that “no one has been able to refute Plantinga’s work.”

People could not “talk about morality in the naked public university. You could only talk about research and reason.” This results in “social vacuum” in the university. People want “much, much more.” Most people cannot live life “with just very scientific factual talk.” With no value-based interaction life is unsatisfying. “For many of us who are older, this is the education we got.” He also referred to Christian Smith’s The Secular Revolution as a good account of the secularization process.

Asked why he did not call the woke university Marxist, Osburn said he does not call it Marxist because it is not Marxist “in the classic sense.” It is, however, a manifestation of Western Marxism, and neo-Marxism, that focuses on personality and culture.

Osburn said we now live in a postmodern hegemony “where knowledge is sought for the purpose for social activism.” The woke public universities now have purpose statements of social activism. The end of this activism is “erasing all distinctions between oppressors and oppressed.” 

Despite this strong institutional commitment, Osburn estimated that in a typical woke university, perhaps only 6%-10% of the faculty are really woke. But they dominate the ideological commitment of the university.

From a Christian standpoint, the rise of woke ideology is understandable. Osburn said the desire for value-based education comes to us naturally “because we were created in the image of God … who wants us to flourish.” But he said that “we must at all costs resist utopian thinking.” Even Christians sometimes have attempted to realize the Kingdom of God in the here and now, but sin means it is not possible before Jesus returns to earth. Woke students and faculty do not accept this, and want to realize a perfect world now. But what woke ideology actually produces, where it prevails, is “a massive amount of bloodshed.”

One aspect of liberationist thinking in universities is the “emphasis on radical human autonomy.” Schaeffer talked much about radical human autonomy in the 1960s through the early 1980s. In line with this is “a radical exaltation of subjective consciousness.” Everyone must accept everyone else’s subjective reality (an obvious impossibility). But he said those who believe in this radical autonomy maintain that “I have every legal right to demand that you do that.” This at least is an aspiration, but it is fiercely maintained as a moral right. Osburn said that “there are huge sacrifices of knowledge that are being made … and this will lead to no place good.” One result is “cancel culture.”

While it has been generations since Christianity has been dominant in public universities, nevertheless, that background in society provides fuel for the woke revolution. Today’s woke professors and students are in some measure “importing Christian ethics to give valor, and a very warm patina to what they’re teaching and doing.” The Christian background of the nation brings a “concern for the oppressed.”

Osburn said his estimate of 6%-10% of faculty being woke “is going up fast.” This is because once radicals are in hiring positions, they hire only other radicals. However, “almost all of them are in humanities and social sciences.” If the ideology of a candidate is not known, key words used in hiring can filter out those who don’t meet the ideological standard.

How do people arrive at personal commitment to woke ideology? After secularization, a suspicion of “grand stories or metanarratives” gives “a place for morality.” Rationality is transcended by exalting subjective consciousness. All assertions that one makes are really attempts at power. Christian evangelism, for instance, is an attempt to bring other people “under your thumb.”

Because of the concern for power, woke faculty and university bureaucrats seek key positions on boards and committees, and end with enormous power. Osburn said that Nietzsche is the dominant thinker here. He held that once God is rejected, human consciousness, rationality, morality, etc. falls away. All that is left is a power struggle, because clashing forces are what is seen in nature. Power cannot be engaged rationally, it can only be overcome with more force. The woke university, not surprisingly, “will not permit its eclipse.”

A questioner asked why Osburn was being so negative about wokeness when Jesus’ ministry focused on the oppressed. Osburn responded that wokeness appropriates Christian concern for the oppressed, but does so without a moral framework behind this concern; it is merely an exercise in power. Christianity, by contrast, sees the basic division of mankind not as between oppressors and the oppressed, but between the saved and the lost. All of us have rebellion against God embedded in our hearts, but the woke acknowledge neither a holy God, nor sin, and see human aspiration as something to be fulfilled, not corrected.

Another questioner asked why if power is ultimate, non-Christian postmodernists don’t aspire to power. Osburn said that postmodernists are ontological materialists – fundamentally, “they believe that matter is all that there is.” He sees a real contradiction between the concern for the oppressed, imported from Christianity, and the belief that “the only thing that we can get and should pursue is power.” By contrast when Christians address a question of oppression, we should distinguish “between morality as a motivation, and revenge.”

Osburn said that wokeness has already caused some major institutions to violate basic standards of rationality. 80% of students on some campuses are reporting “self-censoring.” Woke ideology even has had “a dramatic influence on Christian institutions.” In fact, virtually every Christian institution has been infected by woke ideologies to some degree, and it is also “roaming wild” through Evangelical churches. In today’s universities, “you want to be seen as a victim.” Osburn remarked that as a white Christian man, he is the worst oppressor in woke ideology.

As a Christian response to woke ideology, Osburn cited Christopher Watkin’s new book Biblical Critical Theory, to say that it is a “mistake” to look to the Exodus as the basic Biblical story. While God is concerned with oppression, the basic Biblical story is its creation-fall-redemption narrative. 

What does the future hold for American higher education? Six scenarios were offered. These include:

1)    Wokeness will dig in. Osburn believes that this “is the most likely scenario right now.” Politics aside, the fact is that “most faculty are temperamentally conservative.” They don’t like change. They are therefore “easy to steamroll.” He said he knows Christian faculty at public universities who do this. “The pressures for ideological conformity are great. You want to be one of the team.” Osburn also said that the number of university administrators is increasing. These people don’t have to be tenured. Many, he said are “highly woke.” Indeed, that may be a reason for hiring them.

2)    De-fund and regulate. “This is the Ron DeSantis strategy.” It is “a very pragmatic outside-in strategy.” University instructors will be restricted in what they can teach. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) units will be shut down. Osburn does not expect this to be widespread, but “it may work in some states.”

3)    Reform from within. Osburn pointed out that former senator Ben Sasse, who is now President of the University of Florida, is implementing this program. Sasse has an eight point program, of which one point is “bust the cartel.”

4)  “Defenestration,” which is the loss of credentialling as necessary access to business and the professions. This would deprive universities of the power to train and determine who enters the leadership occupations. Today, some businesses no longer require a four year degree. This is an alternative greatly feared by university administrators. If this “metastasizes” in various fields “the universities are cooked, as we know them today.” Together with the “dig in” scenario, Osburn thought this scenario was “fairly likely.” In the era of labor shortage, high tech and computers, some businesses are willing to train people in what they need to know for the job.

5)    Christian study centers may provide some alternative to the woke university. These centers not only are a presence in campus life but are endeavoring to influence the ideas and life of the university.

6)    The “pluralistic public university” Osburn believes is the “only legitimately just way for public higher education to proceed in America.” Faculty with different worldviews are hired and allowed. Professors are free to teach what they believe, and the idea of “the marketplace of ideas” is restored.  This type of university would produce “a citizenry who knows how to be responsible citizens in our society.” It is in contrast to the “politics of innocence and oppression” that woke ideology is producing.

Osburn mentioned the National Association of Scholars, Braver Angels, and the University of Austin as organizations advancing a drive for academic freedom.

The power of the contemporary ideologies of the hard left in today’s universities, and the collapse of a unified academic worldview and search for truth on the basis of reason and research has its consequences for Christian higher education. That will be the subject of a subsequent article.

It can be viewed here.