We send our children off to college to become free thinkers, but what they’re actually learning to do is anything but think for themselves.

When I was an undergraduate studying literature, I was always baffled by the number of different ways I could interpret a text. A class of 25 students could all read the same book and then write papers at the end of the semester, each of us building a separate case for what we thought the text meant. I always marveled at the way that 25 minds could read the same thing and come up with 25 completely different takes on what they had read.

It wasn’t until graduate school that I learned of such a thing as literary theory. This, I discovered, was a whole school of thought — constructed by theorists, authors, and philosophers — which provided actual templates for the different ways of interpreting a text. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who had seen and grappled with the myriad ways a single text could be interpreted; these folks had seen it too, and they had provided me with roadmaps on different ways to make sense of what I was reading. It was invaluable tool for me as I trained to become a professor of literature, like a key to unlocking hidden meanings.

I found literary theory to be such a useful tool that I went on to earn my doctorate in that very subject: Comparative Literature and Literary Theory. In order to pass my comprehensive exams for the Ph.D., I had to gain a grasp on over a thousand years of literary theory, spanning the works of ancient to contemporary thinkers. In my academic work, I practiced taking these theories and using them to essentially make texts say different things. In many ways, the academic work I was doing was not unlike that of a lawyer structuring arguments to build a case. A good lawyer can see both sides of any case, building her own arguments and anticipating those of the other side; the literary work that I was doing was hardly different. Applying the correct theoretical apparatus, I learned how to argue that a text was basically saying whatever I wanted it to say.

Applying the correct theoretical apparatus, I learned how to argue that a text was basically saying whatever I wanted it to say.

Having learned to manipulate the ambiguous meaning of texts in this way, I learned another thing about academia. The more bizarre or unique the argument that I or a colleague made, the better; as long as it was theoretically sound and textually supported, it was fairly unassailable. Weird arguments are actually more marketable; nobody is going to publish an article that makes redundant observations. Absolute originality is a requirement for passable scholarship. People have been studying Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, as I was, for over 700 years, and when you’re trying to write a dissertation on a 700 year old text, you still have to find something original to say. You have to write what has not yet been written, contributing to the “academic discourse” on the subject. In many ways, the more absurd or outlandish your argument, the better. It will make your research stand out. This is simply the competitive nature of scholarship: in a publish or perish world, you have to think of something original to say. Your argument’s factuality or plausibility doesn’t matter, but its novelty does. That’s what will win you a degree, publications, and notoriety. Not the actual usefulness — or, in a poststructuralist world, dare I say “correctness” — of your message.

When you’re trying to write a dissertation on a 700 year old text, you still have to find something original to say.

This is the only reason why I once sat through an agonizing presentation by a young professor at a Harvard University conference, who unironically wore a neck scarf and black turtleneck as he lectured on the supposed relationship between contemporary video games and Medieval Italian literature. There was nothing memorable about the presentation other than its utter absurdity. While it was original enough to earn him a spot doing something or other at America’s premier undergraduate institution, the scholarship he presented that day made no valuable contribution to the world whatsoever. All I could do was sit through it in the lecture hall, everyone else in rapt attention, while I stared at them all bewildered. Was I the only sane person in the room witnessing this crazy display, or was I missing the oracle that they all appeared to be worshipping?

The problem is that academia creates and rewards this type of scholarship. The more outlandish, the better. Theory enables it. And the scholarship doesn’t just come out of the field of literature; look at history, cultural studies, gender studies, media studies, sociology, psychology, art history, and philosophy. Anything that doesn’t employ numerical quantifiers is subject to the application of these theories. The whole system rewards this kind of thought at every level: professors, graduate students, and undergraduates. Each group pollenates the others.

Professors teach their pupils while employing their own preferred theoretical apparatus to interpret whatever — history, literature, art, etc.. These pupils then climb the ranks through the academic system and carry these theoretical frameworks off into their own fields of work. High school teachers, writers, reporters, professors, historians, psychologists, activists, politicians, lobbyists, consumers, citizens, voters…whatever these students wind up choosing to do in the world, they bring the lens through which they’ve learned to view and interpret with them. And these lenses are shaped by the academic training that they receive.

Imagine a work of literary theory as a lens. It gives shape to everything I see, and influences how I interpret what I’m seeing. If I’ve only trained myself to interpret literature from a structuralist perspective, and structuralist theory is the lens through which I view literary works, that’s going to directly inform and characterize the scholarship that I produce. The theoretical frameworks that we learn to employ — whether knowingly or unknowingly — become the lenses through which we view not just our scholarship, but the world.

The theoretical frameworks that we learn to employ — whether knowingly or unknowingly — become the lenses through which we view not just our scholarship, but the world.

In the outside world, we generally think of theories as ideas that may or may not be true. A good synonym might be “possibilities.” Inside academia, however, a theory is something much more concrete. It is less a possibility than a paradigm. In a comparative literature program such as the one where I earned my degree, students intentionally confront and engage with all of the most popular theories, checking out the world through different philosophical lenses and seeing how it takes shape. Interpretations are intentional and we are aware of the way in which theory shapes worldview. The relative nature of all things becomes widely apparent.

But this was is in a graduate program that specifically studies literary theory. What happens when you place an undergraduate student in a program with a professor who is teaching cultural studies, or history, or gender studies? The student may be there with one mission: “Teach me about the history of the Civil War,” or “I am here to learn about the history of the feminist movement in the United States.” And that professor’s personal theoretical lens of choice matters. It matters significantly. It falls upon the professor or high school teacher’s shoulders to teach young minds how history happened, or what feminism is, or how slavery worked, and it matters if this professor has a personal leaning towards viewing things from a Marxist perspective, or a post-structuralist perspective, or a postcolonialist perspective.

The student may be there with one mission: “Teach me about the history of the Civil War,” or “I am here to learn about the history of the feminist movement in the United States.” And that professor’s personal theoretical lens of choice matters. It matters significantly.

If a student is unarmed with any knowledge of theory — and most students are, as literary theory is rarely introduced before the graduate level — they do not have the sufficient tools to question or even recognize their professor’s personal theoretical bias. A sixteen year old high school kid can be taught by a social studies teacher that there are 32 gender identities, accepting this as absolute truth rather than knowing how to question their teacher’s poststructuralist resistance to binaries.

A sixteen year old high school kid can be taught by a social studies teacher that there are 32 gender identities, accepting this as absolute truth rather than knowing how to question their teacher’s poststructuralist resistance to binaries.

The current state of affairs in the United States today is such that there is a great deal of conflict caused by the fact that theoretical “lenses” are being exported out of academia, instilled in the minds of students who don’t understand that a theoretical lens becomes a bias when you’re not aware that you’re using it. Twentieth century literary and artistic theory was dominated by three primary movements and their fallout or counter-movements: Marxism, Poststructuralism, and Postcolonialism. These theories are being employed throughout academia without qualification at both the collegiate and high school levels. The academics who populate the media — because let’s face it, you can’t get a job writing for the New York Times if you don’t have some serious academic pedigree — employ these theories freely and without qualification. Their employment is so widespread at this point that their acceptance is a baseline expectation. The same theories that taught academics to question truth are now accepted as being the truth. These aren’t just theories; these filters are being presented to unknowing students as merely the way that that world works.

These are the theories that fuel some of the most virulent conflicts that are simmering in the United States today.

These are the theories that fuel some of the most virulent conflicts that are simmering in the United States today. Binary oppositions are bad (says Poststructuralism), all groups except white males are oppressed (Marxism and Postcolonoalism), big corporations are evil (Marxism again), and capitalism is, too (you guessed it — Marxism). The belief that there is no absolute truth (Poststructuralism) makes all organized religions problematic, and groups begin to polarize. The very institutions that are tasked with teaching liberal arts are providing students with something more akin to indoctrination into accepted academic methodologies. As for students, they have no choice but to ascribe to this; in the pass-or-fail collegiate world, failure to meet professors’ expectations means failure on the transcript.

The very institutions that are tasked with teaching liberal arts are providing students with something more akin to indoctrination into accepted academic methodologies.

Why the persistent popularity of these particular academic movements? Anyone’s guess is as good as another’s. I suspect that it’s due to the demographics of college faculties. A tenured professor who earned his or her doctorate during the revolutionary ‘60s and ‘70s would now be an individual in their early seventies, perhaps still teaching, and certainly having held a great deal of influence throughout such a long career. The era from that professor’s college years until today would’ve spanned infatuations with each of the ideologies I’ve detailed above: the 1960’s embrace of Marxism, the influence of Derrida’s Poststructuralism in the ‘80s, and the Postcolonialism that prevailed in the ‘90s. The graduate students who dissertated during those decades are now also professors, and all of them are currently prevailing upon young minds.

No one is presenting students with truly viable counter-approaches to these systems of thought.

The problem is not only with the professorial propensity to espouse these theories; it’s also that no one is presenting students with truly viable counter-approaches to these systems of thought. The Poststructuralist notion that all meaning is mutable, an idea founded in the study of words as signifiers but which has now been applied broadly across other academic disciplines, is now an expected presupposition in academic circles. And any time that a theory becomes a presupposition, we are shifting dangerously away from balanced discourse. There are no longer two sides left to the story. Academia is an insular world, and it is able to shelter itself from conflicting opinions simply by failing to give them legitimacy. If you disagree with Postcolonialism, you’re not entitled to your opinion; you’re considered to be a bigot. For this reason, stories aren’t being taught with two sides.

I only see two possible solutions to this problem, and they have to work hand in hand. Students need to educate themselves on theory, and they can’t wait until graduate school to have it revealed to them like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Similarly, faculty must remember that their job as educators is not to make their students agree with them or demand that their students come to see the world through their own preferred theoretical lenses. Rather, faculty must remember that they are not activists; they are educators, and their job is to furnish their students with the intellectual tools necessary to make their own decisions, arguments, and conclusions.

With these things in mind, it is my hope that we could move towards a more balanced and open-minded discourse in academia, one which allows for more diverse viewpoints. It is time.