The Seminar's Role in Electoral Politics
The seminar format is respected in academia and is strikingly similar to many events in society. Why do we have such trouble incorporating it into electoral politics?
As I write this in mid-August, the election is in a bit of a lull following several tumultuous weeks. A presidential assassination almost succeeded and, in a first for the USA, a major party candidate dropped out of the race after already securing the nomination. While it is too early to make predictions about the outcome, many researchers are writing articles to help the public understand the phenomena we’re seeing.
The recent resurgence of debates over academic freedom following this Spring’s student protests, coupled with the strong feelings academics have about politics, have led many to question academia’s role in society. Mandating a definition of antisemitism for colleges and universities is just one example. Some cite law, some morality, some history, and some pedagogy. I want to contribute to this debate by discussing a rarely considered source of campus democracy: the seminar.
Academic freedom
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) provides a legal primer on academic freedom here. The case law is fascinating and detailed. In brief, academic freedom is recognized as a right under both the first amendment and contract law. Courts have affirmed the importance of academics speaking openly about their research and views without fear of reprisal, even when doing so provides reasonable criticisms of their superiors. Teachers, in return, must avoid indoctrinating students by emphasizing critical thinking. Restrictions are invoked when professors are public employees and the speech is part of their official duties, when speech disrupts the learning environment, or when speech is not a matter of public concern.
Accurately defining these terms is not easy, and people have written multiple articles defining them. When academic freedom is debated in public, the need for definitions may be ignored. Articles focus on current events like political statements, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and Black Lives Matter. Many articles explore the history of academic freedom, providing perspectives on what academic freedom should or should not look like. People on every side feel illegally harassed and demand that authorities step in. This puts college administrations in the difficult position of determining where to draw the line, knowing that any decision will be condemned.
These public debates often focus on finding a legal basis for one’s views. When determining the role academics should have in the public sphere, and in the election, there is another role to consider.
Democracy and seminars
Democracy is not equivalent to democratic laws. Theorists throughout the 20th and 21st century have driven that point home many times, though the essence of democracy is debated. Some say it is a mindset, some a lifestyle, some a place for collaboration, and some an assumption of equality. Similarly, democratic discussion is not the same as sharing your views. Democratic discussion requires exchange, listening to criticisms and responding to them thoughtfully. Democracy is interactive, collaborative, and critical in a way that supports growth. Disagreement is the starting point while personal or social insights are the outcome. Most importantly, democracy needs participation from the people composing it. When only our representatives do the work, we have a republic at best and an oligarchy at worst.
I’ve heard many intellectuals praise the seminar room as a paradigm of constructive dialogue. I imagine most readers of this Substack have experienced this. No ideas are off the table; everyone participates; ideas are explored from multiple perspectives; when disagreements happen, participants examine the reasons for them; all parties walk away with a better understanding of the topic. At their best, seminars introduce you to new ideas that shape your thinking.
There were times I pondered the ideas from a seminar for days. If I argued a point and didn’t have a good response to an objection, I would search academic publications for insight. Sometimes I constructed a response, other times I changed my views (though in so doing, I often found a new position which I then shared in the seminar). One of my favorite seminar stories comes from my senior year of college, when I was studying race theory with several of my friends under the guidance of a new professor at Earlham College. During the first or second week of classes, we began talking about the lack of genetic evidence for race. My mother, a geneticist, knew I was taking the class on race and mentioned to me earlier how there is no genetic basis for racial categories. Eager to learn more about race theory, I repeated this in class. The teacher, pleased to have an opportunity to further discussion, asked me to bring in some biology literature that we could study in the next class. Pleasantly surprised, I did so, reading the papers several times before class so that I could present them. It was one of the first times I felt like a researcher, not just a student.
It is not hard to find stories from others who loved their seminars. One of the most common reasons people love their seminars is because they encounter new and useful ideas. Even people who hated their seminar appreciate learning new ideas even as they found the ‘competitive and egotistical atmosphere’ toxic.
Seminars easily connect to democracy. The description of democracy as “interactive, collaborative, and critical in a way that supports growth” applies just as well to seminars as to democratic dialogue. The main difference is that seminars often feature the professor as a facilitator, while democracies traditionally have leaders and public figures shaping the discourse.
Is it possible to replicate the seminar experience in public?
Public intellectuals and elections
Public intellectuals are generally defined as individuals who become well-known to society through their commentary and contemporary issues. They do laudable work informing people about myths, facts, analyses, and interpretations. They simplify the difficult language and nuanced ideas of academia into comprehensible truths. As Sabrina D. Misirhiralall says in Religious Studies Scholars as Public Intellectuals, public intellectuals help others “find their own individual purpose and fulfill their own duty in this world.” Yet this model is not without flaws. Studies show that anti-intellectualism is present throughout society, caused by many factors. The hubris and detachment that many see in intellectuals are key.
Considering how similar the seminar experience is to democracy, it is disappointing to see so little of it outside academia. Most public intellectuals engage the world through certainties, not questions, as a survey of their social media accounts shows. Political leaders are often worse. They often speak in poorly cited certainties, and sometimes lack any evidence. Mass media can fix this somewhat, but without media literacy (or, in my analogy, the equivalent of a seminar facilitator) people see the landscape as confusing and disorienting. Better to use the news sources you already trust than to try and navigate a sea of conflicting facts and perspectives in search of the truth—if it even exists (this is a documented phenomenon).
Is it possible to bring the seminar experience to the public? I’m not sure, but if so it will not be in the way scholars encountered seminars. Our massive population makes any facilitated discussion very difficult. Additionally, those who appreciate seminars may be self-selected, so any attempt to use them with the public will alienate some.
Yet there is some hope. Public intellectualism has never been about convincing everyone. It’s about sharing the resources of academia with those who can’t easily access them. As there are many who wanted to go to college but never got a chance, being able to understand the value of seminar-like practices may interest them. Public intellectuals should model the things they do in class for the public. Rather than changing their minds in private after reading good arguments, let public intellectuals do so in public. Engage their interlocutors with questions and thoughtful arguments, not brief rejoinders. Encourage disagreement but use it as a way to create growth. Use media platforms to publicize views they disagree with, then walk their followers through some of the evidence that makes them disagree. Finally, encourage participation, even from people that may not be well-informed and be willing to admit when they make a mistake or change their mind. (While some public intellectuals admit error publicly, it is rarely accompanied by a deconstruction of how that error was made.)
This is not to say that there isn’t a place for the sort of rigorous debate that many people like. One can be a participant sometimes and be a facilitator at other times, just as scholars are in academia (e.g., writing articles vs. editing them). I would encourage elected leaders to do the same. Cultivating discussion may be frustrating, as most humans love to share their ideas, argue their point, and correct misunderstandings. I’ve been there many times. But when we let our passion overwhelm our goal of improving understanding, we become unthinking functionaries in a social environment that harms democracy.
Practicing What I Preach
Though I don’t consider myself a public intellectual, much of what I write uses academic resources. So far, this piece is exactly like those I’m criticizing: certain about its conclusions, citing research that may be difficult to interpret, and only explaining alternative views when critiquing them.
Setting aside my argument for this position, let me explain how I arrived at it. I used to believe that the traditional public intellectual paradigm was healthy. I was inspired by intellectual-activists like Eric Alterman, Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Michel Foucault, Antoni Negri, and more. While I don’t believe it unhealthy now, I do find it insufficient. I’ve carried out political discussions with people across the political spectrum. I used the arguments I heard from experts, repeating the facts they cited. Rarely—if ever—did I change anyone’s mind. However, my interlocutors did model my behavior. They cited unconvincing facts and displayed certainty. My most memorable example of this was when, after I pointed out the logical fallacies in someone’s argument, they stated “Your argument has fallacies too” without any evidence. As psychology studies show, humans are more rationalizing than rational. Neurology shows we are influenced in decision-making by many things outside our control. Finally, pedagogical modeling (teaching by showing how something is done) is highly recommended by teachers, researchers, and school districts.
Putting this together made me believe that without modeling the “how” of critical thinking, demonstrating the importance of engaging all positions as one would in a seminar, and creating social spaces where it is good to express uncertainty, healthy political discussion will be inhibited.
While this shows the reasoning process behind my argument above, I can also raise questions about my position. By asking public intellectuals to reason publicly and in dialogue with opponents, will that make it harder for people to determine what is true? Uncertainty is not a quality desired in leaders, including thought leaders. If my suggestions are tried, will the resulting discussion accurately reflect the seminar experience? The population may be too big to make this workable. Finally, as this idea is advocating a change in culture, not law, it relies on people’s willingness to implement it. Does this make it just another idealistic impossibility that will be forgotten among all the other ones found online?
Sharing my incomplete responses to these questions would signal that I am dismissing the questions rather than using them to challenge my belief that my suggestion is a good idea. I need to spend time considering them. Similarly, I hope my public challenges to my idea indicate that I am not done considering it, and that I intend to interact with others as I investigate it. This manner of covering important events is not unknown. Shows like Amanpour and Co., written dialogues between newspaper columnists (e.g., Gail Collins’ and Bret Stephens’ co-authored articles in The Washington Post), and personal conversations I’ve witnessed in public embrace the seminar method. Here is a great example of people opposed on Israel/Gaza using a similar tactic.
Unless I find evidence convincing me otherwise, I hope more public debate will incorporate similar practices. We should have a discussion, not a series of lectures.