Having a Voice

I have had laryngitis for over a week now. From what I understand, this is not life-threatening. It is, however, a bit frustrating and inconvenient for someone who's occupation is so closely tied up with speaking. Every time someone asks me how I am doing, I assure them that I am "doing better." I hope by now it's true.

I have always had this thing about having a voice. Not so much in terms of my current condition but in terms of having the right or the means to be heard. I am not sure where this comes from really. But it's something that I have carried most of my life. I even wrote my dissertation on it.

We hear about equality and access but a lot of this is really just talk. There are so many gates and doors...tables guarded by invisible fences. We see this most readily in politics and money-circles but it goes well beyond that. The place that I learned the most about all this was the academy. Higher Education trumpets itself as the noble storehouse of free speech and open dialogue but, in fact, it is one of the most prestigious clubs in the world.

The table of knowledge and even discourse about knowledge is an exclusive place. Sadly, it has gotten to the point where the only way that one can find a seat is to sign-off on everything that the establishment has declared sacred. This is really not all that surprising. Seats of power typically operate under similar constraints. But the irony here is that education is suppose to be about expanding the reach of human knowledge. The rise of the Modern University was largely a response to the Church's failure to listen as well as to speak.

So what happens when the Academy becomes a sealed up can of tuna? Where does the world turn for new ideas when the only ideas that are allowed to reach the table are old and stale? Where might we find the kind of knowledge that might actually break through the choking ideologies of our time?

Curiously, the answer must come from the outside--from the very people who have been essentially written-off by the Academy. Right? Because once the filters have been refined to the point of allowing only like-minded people at the table, the game is essentially over. When dialogue only goes in one direction, truth becomes awfully hard to sustain.

The Church learned this lesson several hundred years ago when it made the decision to listen only to its own voice. In so doing, the Church lost credibility--not only with the larger world but with many of its own adherents. In a way, the Church became imprisoned by its own pride. It was at that point that the Church sort of passed the responsibility for Truth to the University. The Academy has been trusted with the role as harbinger of knowledge for some time. That responsibility, however, is waning.

People are realizing that there are questions that the familiar answers don't necessarily fit. Some are beginning to speak up--disagreeing with long-standing assumptions introduced and then strengthened by the confident voice of the Higher Education. Of course, these are harder to hear--the questions and alternative answers. These voices are out there. They may not hold the official stamp of the door and the gate and the sacred table. But they are voices nonetheless.

This is quite a thing to see--the university becoming the very thing that it once stood against.