At the beginning of Arthur Miller’s quintessentially American play “Death of a Salesman,” Willy Loman and his teenage boys Happy and Biff have fun mocking next-door neighbor Bernard, the quintessential nerd. To Willy, Bernard is “anemic,” a bookworm, a non-athlete: a loser. When Willy encounters him several years later, however, Bernard is an attorney who’s about to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Willy’s sons, meanwhile, have become a kleptomaniac drifter/dropout and a philandering compulsive liar, respectively. “Why? How?” a deflated and clueless Willy asks.
Education, of course, the very thing that Willy held in such disdain. The question today, it seems, especially in the politicultural arena, is why education is still seen in much the same light that Loman cast it. How is it that in many minds teachers are seen as enemy subversives and the pinnacles of higher education are derided as “elitist”? What lies behind such a strong strain of anti-intellectualism, and why does it thrive in some quarters of our country?
First, the faux populism sweeping the “Real America” has brought to the fore a new strain of anti-intellectuals whose mascot is the bogeyman. A quick glance at the signs and talking points of this group — socialism, nazism, fascism, elitism — suggests that a vast conspiracy is taking place to undermine America and American values. But blind fear has often been the weapon of those who can’t articulate their frustration, and “isms” — even if you’re not sure what they are — certainly convey that amorphous dread of evil domination. This faux populism has as its megaphone, ironically, two multimillionaire media elites, who, though anti-intellectuals themselves, are nonetheless pretty foxy when it comes to playing populist. And of course, when you can’t use words, a thousand pictures will do. One bright spot here: The Hitler moustaches are getting more realistic. (But wait; wasn’t he a populist?)
Second is the sneaking suspicion that teachers and their unions and their ivory towers and their covert liberalism are a cabal formed to indoctrinate and brainwash students. To what end? Why, uh, now, let me think. Yes, that’s it. To let them think, which, as everyone knows, is code for liberal. Why? Well, when you think, your free your thoughts, liberate your mind, and thus liberalize your perspective, which is dangerous and unsettling if you fear doing so.
Yes, teachers ask questions, challenge assumptions, stimulate discussion, encourage critical analysis. Sometimes they even play devil’s advocate. I suppose that could be considered scarily subversive to some, but effective education has always been, in the best sense of the word, subversive in its attempt to undermine ignorance. How terribly liberal of it.
Finally comes the current pejorative form of the word “elite,” which, when joined to “liberal,” evidently transforms one into something like an articulate, highly educated anti-Christ. Time was when someone from the middle class who studied and worked hard, excelled in college and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School would have been celebrated and not vilified as “elite.”
Reminds me of another famous Ivy League graduate — an upper crust Yalie whose erudition and elocution was also much revered. That would be William F. Buckley, father of modern conservatism. Weird, huh?
But if you want to find the real elites, don’t look at education, look at salary, specifically the Midas- sized salary and bonuses of the Wall Street bankers who are more than happy to let the anti-elite rabble do the grunt work to keep their deregulation pals in power. These are the paragons of arrogance.
In the last act of “Death of a Salesman,” Willy kills himself so Biff can collect the insurance money and thus, he believes, get “ahead” of Bernard. But even Biff rejects this idea, realizing now that his father had the “wrong dreams.” And so begins his education.
Mark Moe (brktrt_80231@yahoo.com) is a retired English teacher.
