Picking My Epistemological Battles
I should begin by acknowledging up front that I find myself on the more curmudgeonly end of the professorial spectrum. I’m more than happy to lament the sorry state of … students’ preparation for college, student feedback forms and grade inflation, Credentialism and job markets, administrative overreach and too tentative administrations, &c., &c. (In fact, the opportunity to complain is one of the attractions of co-writing this blog!) I often say that my dream job would be in the Religion Department at the University of Vermont … in 1973. (I’d say 1873, but Religion was still theological then, and I don’t particularly want to learn antique Greek.)
Which is to say that it really, really annoys me whenever I’m forced to confront evidence that I just might be part of the problem.
I need to back up a bit. I don’t think I’m unusual among academics in that I occasionally get fairly invested in a topic for a little while, and then move on to something else. Besides, it’s nice to have something to google when you sit down to work, before you’re ready to actually work. For the past few months, one of the things I’ve been keeping an eye on is the Ohio state legislature. Two stories in particular…
The first involves a controversial bill regarding ectopic pregnancies, Ohio HB413. Actually, in my opinion, there hasn’t been nearly enough controversy about this one. I’m fairly confident that anyone reading this blog will be, on average, better informed about the biological facts of reproduction than the authors of this bill, but as a simplistic summary: except in very rare circumstances, ectopic pregnancies are not going to result in a baby. Rather, they present a significant health risk for the woman, and in fact are potentially life-threatening. Fortunately, there are reliable, relatively safe treatments. In the case of this law, doctors performing these procedures are required to attempt some procedure to re-implant the embryo. Small problem … this procedure doesn’t exist. This bill also describes a brand-new crime that is potentially punishable by death: “aggravated abortion murder.” In effect, doctors who try to save the lives of their patients could be given the death penalty for failing to exceed the limits of medical science, to protect a potential human being who wouldn’t survive.
The second bill is called the Student Religious Liberties Act, Ohio HB428. One key passage (emphases added):
"No school district board of education … shall prohibit a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments. Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work."
On a personal note, I’ve worked hard to help my students negotiate the line between studying religion as an academic subject, and studying religion religiously. Both are legitimate activities, and in my personal opinion, rewarding. But these are very different things, and learning that difference is a really important part of the anthropology of religion – if, for no other reason, it would seem antithetical to be both acting religiously and applying cultural relativism. Do I penalize students for expressing religious views when appropriate? Of course not. Have I penalized students for submitting work that doesn’t meet the requirements of an assignment, and which doesn’t demonstrate competence at what I’m trying to teach? Of course. Would I be violating this bill?
Here’s where an element of hypocrisy creeps in. I’ve been thinking about these bills a lot lately … but I haven’t discussed them with my students. I’ve felt perfectly comfortable discussing them with other instructors – well, to be honest, this was less constructive conversation than ‘bitching.’ I’ve been teaching introductory classes in anthropology and sociology, and I always look for examples of news items and current events to bring into class, both to hone their analytical skills, and to emphasize the relevance of their studies to the ‘real world.’ I even make it a point to say things like, “the goal of this class isn’t for you to become a professional ----ologist, but to see the world differently – to watch the news and understand it differently, find new questions to ask.” But I find myself shying away from these examples. Why? It’s not uncommon for me to use a law or court case to help them isolate specific patterns of behavior, recognize patterns in rhetoric, even fine-tune their definitions of things like “religion.” I’m working now on a lecture about Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover School District.
Part of it, I suspect, is that Kitzmiller is safely in the past; Constitutional debates are comfortably abstract. These bills, in contrast, are part of the current election cycle – and a particularly toxic cycle at that. I’m careful to avoid discussions of my own views as much as possible. My goal is to get them to think for themselves, not to agree with me. This means I need to keep my own emotional distance from the issues, and these ones just hit too many buttons.
So, I took the coward’s way out, and stuck to preaching to the choir of other adjuncts. I firmly believe that these two bills are excellent case studies for students wrestling with issues that are fundamental to their coursework with me. HB428 would force them to think deeply about religious protections in the US, and the distinctions between academic and non-academic thought – as well as the perceived values of each. Once I’ve given myself a little time to think about how to approach it, I suspect I’ll work that one into the curriculum next semester.
But HB413? That one’s a little harder. The “extreme nature and seemingly outlandish wording” brought it even to Snopes’ attention – it’s just so ridiculous. If our students are going to have any hope of recognizing ludicrous arguments in politics, of developing any kind of standard for evidence – and, crucially, hypothesizing on what might motivate anyone to take such extreme positions – they need examples on both sides of the line. But here’s my concern: will the students be able to suspend judgment long enough to follow the implications through to the end? Or will they either 1) get stuck on an initial, dismissive reaction, or 2) get stuck on what might appear to be a professor making fun of a particular party? Maybe that one’s best kept in the staff room for now.
