In Praise of Dissenters and Aginers


Here’s a bit of advice from Fredrick Manfred:

“Let’s start a cult in which we make heroes out of such ornery cusses as we may still have around—out of our lone wolves, go-it-aloners, dissenters, hermits, screwballs, aginers.  Such a fad, the fad of the ornery cuss or the oddball, might save us.  It is still a truth that the health of a society can be measured by the size and the vigor of its minority group.

“In fact, I’d like to recommend that every village and town go out of its way to make sure it still has an ornery cuss in its midst.  At least one.  And should any village discover it doesn’t have an honorable dissenter around, I’d like to suggest that the mayor declare a state of emergency until such a citizen can be found.”

A small college is a village, so a college ought also to have its dissenters and aginers.  Especially in the faculty and student body.  Among administrators it is considered treason to go against authority.  Administrators think of a college as a business and they seem to believe that the business that is free from dissension is likely to be successful. (Though I understand that some of the really successful business actually encourage a culture of dissent.) Most administrators, however, want peace and the appearance of harmony because they are always marketing their college, and peace and harmony are attractive to most buyers while disruption is off-putting.

But education often happens best when dissenters suddenly appear, when division occurs, when authority or the status quo is challenged.  When a few students challenge a professor’s position, dozing students suddenly wake up.  When a few faculty members challenge an administration’s position, suddenly people have to support their positions with genuine arguments measured against an institutional statement of purpose.  (Unless the challengers and the statement of purpose are simply ignored.)

When a Dordt College student challenges a glib and indefensible position on healthcare by a Republican candidate for president in a Republican dominated county, and the candidate cannot believe that Dordt students could think such un-Republican thoughts, then it is clear that the candidate knows little about education—or democracy.  Though apparently he knows quite a bit about Dordt since, according to rumor, the student felt so alone in his political stance that he considered leaving Dordt.  And that’s a scary thing—that a college has a reputation for being so homogeneous, so cloyingly uniform that outsiders are shocked when a contrary voice is heard.

In my mind, this dissenting student ought to be Dordt’s student of the year—if there is such an award and, of course, there shouldn’t be.  Dordt desperately needs students who provoke other students to examine their (often) unexamined lives.  Even more it needs faculty to rile up students and to remind administrators that Dordt is first of all an academic institution, not a business.  It needs administrators who challenge each other and feel free to disagree.  A Christian college needs some Old Testament prophets.

Oh, I’m just getting started.  More another time.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 2, 2012 at 4:11 PM

    Dave--I like your thoughts on dissenion and education. I enthusiastically agree. Although I didn't always love to have a student raise his or her hand and completely disagree with me, I tried to remind myself that this was the purpose of class: to discuss and understand. That cannot be done thoroughly unless multiple view points are involved. College should still be a learning experience--when students challenge professors or administrators it is another learning opportunity for that student and the class. If that student's thoughts are squashed it shows the class that their opinions do not matter. Of course there are exceptions--the manner in which the student addresses the professor or administrator is important. But all in all, I look forward to hearing the rest of your thoughts. Emily Kramer

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  2. John RJuly 6, 2012 at 9:50 AM

    Well said, Dave. Thanks! It takes guts to be a contrarian, to go against the flow especially in the presence of one's peers and superiors, in a classroom for instance. My own education in taking the second take in a class, in life, came 1)from reading/living in Mark Twain's books (and having teachers ask what I was laughing about when I did--a not subtle form of punishment)and, in grade school from observing who did not laugh when, to the amusement of almost all, some student or other was ridiculed by our teacher. You, I recall, did not laugh on those occasions. So thanks again.

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