CHAPTER 3

THE FUNDAMENTALISTTENDENCIES OF THE

NEW CURRICULARISTS

Rick A. Breault

Despite claims of inclusiveness and having moved beyond absolutes, criticshave observed that postmodern, reconceptualist, and critical theorists canbe as fundamentalist in enacting their beliefs as the political and religiousconsei"vatives they critique. This article uses scholarship on religious funda-mentalism to demonstrate where there are indeed the same tendenciesamong the "new curricularists." I conclude by suggesting Rorty's notion ofthe liberal ironist as one way of moving toward a more genuinely inclusiveconversation.

Adherents of postmodern, reconceptualist, and critical (p/r/c) curriculumthought—a group Hlebowitsh (1999) referred to as "the new curricular-ists"—^would have us believe that they have moved beyond intolerant, elit-ist, either/or and dogmatic assumptions indicative of political and religiousconsei"vatives (Menand, 2005; Natoli & Hutcheon, 1993). However, as uni-versities gathered clusters of postmodern, reconceptualist scholars, andthose scholars gained—to borrow Menand's term—"disciples" (p. 11), the

Cumctdum and Teaching DialogueVolume 12, Numbers 1 & 2, 2009-2010, pp. 37-51Copyright © 2009 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form resei-ved. 37

38 R. A.. BREAULT

same beliefs that freed thinkers from one dogma trapped them insideanother of their own making (Dewey, 1938/1998; Pallas, 2001). Neitherreligious fundamentalists nor the new curricularists hold core beliefs thatresult from inquiiy, or what Dewey called warranted assertions. The pointsat which each begin their cultural critique is unquestioned, providingframeworks from which analysis is carried out and not the subject of anal-ysis. If advocates of a belief system cannot require empirical data or anexternal source of those beliefs or will not consider a serious inquiiy intothe wariantability of their basic assertions then they are, in effect, relyingon little more than faith. When that occurs Bergson (1935) cautioned thatstrength of faith often manifests itself not so much in the moving of moun-tains as in not seeing mountains to move. Or, as Hoffer (1951/1980) noted:

It is the tnie believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" to facts thatdo not deseive to he either seen or heard which is the source of hisunequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nordisheartetied by obstacle nor baflled by contiadictions because he deniestheir existence, (p. 83)

HYPOCRISY AND IRRELEVANCE

The Right, especially its religious contingent, is usually clear as to what itwill and will not tolerate and what it claims as authority. The Right invitesnearly eveiyone into their campground, as long as they are willing tosleep under the same tent following the established house rules. In con-trast, new curricularists invite eveiyone into their campground andencourage them to use whatever tent they bring. In reality, despite thatrhetoric of inclusivity and the honoring of all voices, new curricularistscan be eveiy bit the fundamentalist evangelicals. As a result, they give theappearance of hypocrisy or, as Haack (1998) suggests, their own brand ofideological and moral superiority in writing

radical feminists, multicultittalists, sociologists of knowledge, literary theo-rists ... ptofess to have seen thtough what the test of us take for granted. It'sall an illusion, they tell us: honest inqttiry is really neither possible tiordesirable.... Those of us who are still taken in, they say, doti't have a clearview of things, (p. 1)

The nature of some p/r/c thinking makes it an easy target for scrutiny.Postmodernism's emphasis on deconstruction and the separation of thetext from the intentions and identity of the author could be construed asgiving authors permission to live a life contraiy to the kind they espouse inwriting without accountability. Or, at a time when anyone in education is

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 39

expected to show positive results from schooling, the reconceptualist callfor the separation of theory from practice (Pinar, 1992) may result in thelegitimate problem of having "played the theoretical card so often at sucha level of abstraction that we have vacated the empirical space and left itopen for neoliberals and neoconsei-vatives to occupy" (Apple, 2001, p. 33).

T\\(¿ Journal of Curriculum Theorizing {/CT), a flagship journal for recon-ceptualist curriculum scholars, is one manifestation of this phenomenon./CT is a well-done, provocative publication and seized an importantpurpose in the early days of reconceptualist curriculum theoiy when fewoutlets for radical scholarship were available. While its editorial statementencourages articles "that challenge disciplinary, genre, and textual bound-aries" (Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2010) there appears to have beenlittle effort to challenge its own boundaries:

It is facile and inescapably anti-intellectual, for instance, to ignore a newthinker, simply refuse to respond, and by so ignoring her, attempt to dispelher. One safeguards the status quo, and consewes one's energy, by refusingto engage with another, (pp. 8-9)

Thirty years later, a reading of the journal's contents leads to the ques-tion, "Whose boundaries are being challenged}" For example, in what apositivist might call a random convenience sample of fifteen issues oi/CTpublished between 1980 and 2005, no article challenged the core assump-tions of reconceptualist theoiy. Only one article even made a statementthat might challenge reconceptualist boundaries, "recently I re-read theTyler rationale, and I felt a bit guilty. I increasingly believe that the lock-step rigidity and the detached rationality so often attributed to it are thework of those who haven't read the book for a long while" (Schubert &Lopez Schubert, 1982, p. 101). One question seems obvious. Does ajour-nai have any obligation to cballenge its most fundamental boundaries?This is no small matter. If the lack of critique is the result of editorialintention then the line between Pinar's (1979) caution tbat, "One safe-guards the status quo, and consei-ves one's energy, by refusing to engagewith another" (p. 9) and fundamentalist Christian historian, George Dol-lar's (1973) warning to fellow fundamentalists that, "the 'killing force' ofmodern evangelism is the spirit of inclusivism" is much thinner than itappears (p. 194).

IF IT LOOKS LIKE FUNDAMENTALISM ...

Mine is not the first critique to refer to the fundamentalist or religious char-acteristics of the Left. Gitlin (2006), for example, refers to the responses ofboth the Right and the Left to the events of 9/11 as "two Manichaeisms

40 R. A.. BREAULT

squared off. Both were faith based, inclined to be impervious toward evi-dence, and tilted toward moral absolutism" (p. 137). Or, there is JamesLewis (2007), who, writing for American Thinker, criticized Leftist funda-mentalism for "Sneering at religious people for being religious" (http://www.americanthinker.com). As with any such metaphors and analogies Iam always led to wonder whether the comparison is just an easy handle tograb for the dramatic effect, does the comparison still stand if it is subjectedto closer scrutiny, or do metaphors mean anything at all (Davidson, 1984).So, while this began as a sort of intellectual stress test ofthe fundamentalistmetaphor, the similarities and differences I found also led to a closer lookat the implications for educational reform in an era where clashing funda-mentalisms seem to offer little hope for the future.

Some General Tendencies

North American Protestant fundamentalists "no longer perceive them-selves as reeling under the corrosive effects of secular life" (Martin & ScottAppleby, 1991, p. ix). Like critical theorists who moved on from theirmore deterministic reproduction conflict theory roots, "they perceivethemselves as fighting back, and doing so rather successfully" (p. ix).Moreover, both critical and fundamentalist activists believe they must nur-ture a critical awareness in potential and existing believers if the forces ofthe world are to be overcome. For the Christian fundamentalist it meanstrying to "expose eveiy affirmation and attitude not found in the Bible"(Dollar, 1973, p. 235). For the p/r/c fundamentalist critical awarenessinvolves deconstructing corporate hegemony or oppressive metanarra-tives. A closer comparison reveals still more striking similarities.

Ammerman (1991) described North American Protestant fundamen-talism as having four central features—evangelism, separatism, inerrancy,and premillennialism. It is in relation to the first three features that p/r/ctheory is most closely analogous with religious fundamentalism.

Inerrancy

A belief in the inerrancy of scripture might seem the least likely featureof p/r/c theoiy. However, consider this scene recently witnessed during akeynote address at a prominent national conference in which a notedfeminist scholar was speaking about gender equity. During the discussionthe speaker was asked how literature showing that schools might be failingboys more seriously than girls fits within her studies of gender equity.Nearly every head in the room turned to look at the person, many heads

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 41

shook disapprovingly or impatiently. The speaker's only response: "I'mnot familiar with that literature." Her curt response led me to recall whatthe artist, Alice Neel, once obsei'ved: "You know, it's veiy hard to maintaina theoiy in the face of life that comes crashing about you" (as cited inBrown, 1998, p. 75). One might say that the de facto doctrinal orthodoxyof the educational Left has led them to become what the Old Testamentprophets would have called a "stiff-necked people."

Inerrancy does not refer only to the infallibility of a written text. Itcan also be inherent in a belief system by its very nature. While theremight not be a single document that p/r/c adherents would claim as"scripture," there are conceptual understandings that are taken as iner-rant, even when they are contraiy to evidence. For instance, Kort (1996)argues that because much of the narrative of postmodernism is basedon the status and role of systems and communities for determiningvalue and significance that are nontextual, they cannot be brought intoquestion. "But," he cautions, "a theoiy of acceptance that does not pro-vide for its own interrogation is a simple act of identity—or voice-war-ranting" (p. 86). When critique of one's own theoretical community islimited primarily to refinements in language or extent, the basic tenetsof that community appear inerrant. The aforementioned speaker exem-plifies what Rorty (1989) might have described as the tendency tobelieve that the language one uses is an accurate description of whatthe world is in itself instead of seeing it as a product of time and chanceand, thus, open to interrogation.

Believing your theoretical foundation to be inerrant can also take theform of ignoring or wishing away evidence to the contraiy. In the early1800s, Princeton theologians took an unwavering stand for the absoluteinerrancy of the Bible, risking the whole Christian faith upon the possibil-ity of one proved error. In the end they decided to cover themselves bysuggesting that Christianity does not depend on inerrancy but that "theverities of our faith would remain historically proven to us ... even had weno Bible" (Warfield, 1948, p. 211). The keynote speaker, rather than chal-lenge the orthodoxy of her position, chose to ignore questions aboutinequity towards boys in school. To paraphrase the Princeton theologians,"The study of inequity in schools is one of the female gender even if theultimate consequences are often more serious for boys." Other examplesof clinging to the inerrancy of core p/r/c beliefs are evident in statementssuch as, "Ainerica is as racist as it has ever been," "Western vs. non-Western patterns of thinking," "Colonization by the West is responsiblefor most violent tendencies and ethnic unrest in Africa and Central andSouth America." These statements ignore glaring differences in racialinequality between the early 1900s and today, the wide and conflictingvarieties of thought throughout the Western world (Darnton, 2004), and

42 R. A.. BREAULT

recent anthropological and archeological evidence that depicts violentterritorial wars, human sacrifice, and slavery in those regions long beforethe intervention of European imperialism (Wilford, 2002).

Separatism

Todd Gitlin (2006) recently warned that a hardening of theoretical cat-egories had led to a "fundamentalist Left" that "is not only morally andstrategically mistaken" but is also "misguided and unhelpful in a distinc-tive way; it negates politics in favor of theology. It takes refuge in the mar-gins, displaying its clean hands, and recuses itself" (p. 153). To the extentthat he is correct, this tendency might have resulted from a second featurep/r/c advocates share with their religious counterparts—the need for "uni-formity of belief within its ranks and a separation from others whosebeliefs and lives are suspect" (Ammerman, 1991, p. 8).

Nowhere is p/r/c's fundamentalism and its potential for hypocrisy moreclear than in the purity of thought among its acolytes. Consider this inci-dent from another meeting of scholars whose membership emphasizesinclusiveness and honoring diverse and marginalized voices. The meetingtook place shortly after September 11, 2001. Within the group was ateacher/graduate student and her spouse, a fireman. Among the discus-sion topics was the jingoistic display of flags and the observation that "nothinking person" [quoting one of the group members] would agree withthe wave of patriotism and government response. The teacher, nervously,and almost tearfully, defended her display of a flag, her husband's mili-tary background, and other such "jingoistic" behaviors. Only silence fol-lowed from the group. In a later conversation with the fireman I askedwhat he thought of the earlier discussion. He said that he did not thinkthat his perspective would have been welcome within "that group."

That incident and the group's inability to respond to the teacher'sobviously impassioned self-defense embodied what Rorty (1998) hadearly described as "a spectatorial, disgusted, mocking Left rather than aLeft which dreams of achieving our country" (p. 35). Apparently, the limi-tations of their ideology enabled them to understand the display of theflag after 9/11 only as simple-minded nationalism or militaristic chestthumping instead of as "an affirmation of fellowship with an injured andresolute people" (Gidin, 2006, p. 129).

Ammerman (1991) speculates that the fundamentalists' insistence onseparation and opposition to the world around them is not surprisingsince the movement was born in conflict and relegated to the margins ofNorth American religion by those then in power. This is not unlike thehistoiy of the reconceptualist movement, which also developed on the

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 43

margins of curriculum theory. Now, even though religious fundamental-ists have developed into a powerful political and religious force in themainstream of American culture and p/r/c theoiy dominates much of theacademic curriculum world, both have retained their insularity.

New curricularists profess a commitment to the honoring of the Other,to border crossings, and to the inclusions of all voices. In practice, it oftenseems as though a sort of conversion to the true faith is needed before anyborder can be crossed or voice heard. One incident at an institution whereI formally taught was recounted to me by a female doctoral student andverified by other class members. During a curriculum theory class one, aninner city teacher made a comment about the importance of teacherexpectations in the classroom. The professor (also female) respondedwith, in the words of the students, "a half hour tirade" about how theteacher was wrong and that there is no place for that oppressive, control-ling language.

In listening to the anecdotes of graduate students and colleagues, it isnot uncommon to hear examples of how p/r/c believers emphasize theneed to maintain a comfortable compliance to "right" thinking or, insome cases, even enforce the rules of inclusion. While intellectuals want todeny the fact, they are always in the business of using force in the form ofasserting some point of view because, "Eveiy educational system is a polit-ical means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discoursewith the knowledge and power it carries with it" (Foucault, 1972, p. 227).

P/R/C's tendency towards separatism is also evident in what the Amishmight recognize as "shunning" or a sort of ideological cleansing. Considertwo more incidents from academia. In the first, a graduate of a prominentdoctoral program in curriculum shared her perspective that she had con-sistently felt silenced in discussion groups led by a well-known critical edu-cator because, despite her identity as an African American woman, she didnot accept the premises of critical race theoiy. The second was shared by acolleague who sewed on a search committee at a major Midwesternresearch university. The position required experience with at-risk, minoritypopulations and the applicant being discussed met all the basic scholarlyqualifications and had extensive, successful experiences in social sei"viceagencies sei"ving minority populations in urban settings. Still, the candi-date was rejected because the social sei-vice agencies for which s/he workedwere sponsored by a consei'vative evangelical denomination and, accord-ing to the search committee, "that doesn't count."

The first incident is an example of what F"bucault (1984) termed a reli-gious model of polemic or, "not an answer at all; but a straightfoi-wardattempt to silence with rebuke" (Seals, 1998, p. 65). The second repre-sented a faculty that sought to unite its interests and establish organizedreligious institutions as an enemy who upholds opposed interests and must

44 R. A.. BREAULT

be fought to the point of defeat or surrender. In so doing, the p/r/c positioncan remain unhindered by the ideological challenge that might result if itis shown that a belief in an absolute power can motivate tolerance of diver-sity and meaningful and empowering work among the poor.

Evangelism

One of the most important features of religious fundamentalism is thebelievers' commitment to bring the whole world to faith in Christ beforehe returns to Earth (Dollar, 1973). New curricularists also evangelize butlean toward a more condescending discourse of redemption and salva-tion. In contrast to an approach that says, "I've been saved and I want youto be saved too," reconceptualist and critical missionaries often use anapproach that sounds more like, "I am enlightened. Let me lead you outofyour ignorance."

Evangelistic tendencies, as well as an emphasis on doctrinal purity,begin in graduate school. Many, if not most, research institutions requirethat graduate education be a full-time experience. Previous teaching expe-rience is not required. Thus, we have the combination of often young, inex-perienced and impressionable students with a streak of rebellion in them;immersion in the monastic setting of a research university; and the men-torship of ti\ie believers who have a professional stake in developing anorder of their own, acolytes who will continue to spread the word—prefer-ably by citing their major professor in future publications.

In religious conversion, the potential believer is also open and suscep-tible to a radical new message, except in this case, they are often in des-perate need of direction, affirmation, or acceptance; they have reached alow point in their lives. New religious converts also find themselves insomewhat cloistered, reinforcing, and invigorating environments. Theconvert is usually brought immediately into a congregation of tnie believ-ers who spend many hours in intensely emotional, supportive, personallydemanding worship and prayer, sheltered temporarily from the distrac-tions of the world. Finally, much of fundamentalist conversion to andmaintenance of faith is based on the charismatic preaching and personal-ity ofthe evangelist.

Written evidence of this tendency can be found in the evangelical writ-ing of the new believers—dissertations. A brief search of dissertationswritten in recent years by students of some of the most well-known p/r/cscholars provided some interesting langtiage of proselytization. It shouldbe noted that the following examples were drawn only from abstractsavailable in dissertation databases. As a result, there is a risk of misrepre-senting the dissertations as a whole. Therefore, I have not cited specific

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 45

dissertations. It is particular statements I want to emphasize and not a cri-tique of the authors' actual scholarship.

One trend that emerged from the dissertation review was an adherenceto orthodoxy. Of the 28 studies identified in the initial search, noneappeared to depart from or critique, the p/r/c analytical framework forwhich their advisors are known. Like religious devotion, numerous state-ments within the abstracts indicated that devotion was based largely onfaith or the assumption of truth in ideological assumptions. Drawingagain on Menand (2005):

The profession is not reproducing itself so much as cloning itself ... thereappears to be little change in dissertation topics in the last ten years. Every-one seems to be writing the same dissertation, and with a tool kit that hasnot altered much since around 1990. (p. 13)

This adherence can be seen whenever the author trusted in one ofseveral closely related analytical frameworks to provide whatever truthcould be gained about a situation. Even though doctoral candidatesclaimed to attempt to "liberate our minds and souls from hegemonicideological domination" or to "escape my ... critical realist tendencies" orto think "against myself as researcher," wherever a guiding analyticframework was mentioned, that framework's ideological hegemonyreflected only slight differences in emphasis—poststructuralism, criticaldeconstrtiction, border theoiy, postmodern theoiy, and so on. Faith inorthodox beliefs was also evident in the assumptions and conclusions of thestudies. Having faith in one's beliefs is not, in itself, a negative trait and isprerequisite to commitment to and passion for professional endeavors.However, it runs contraiy to certain scholarly commitments and standardsif that faith predetermines not only the direction of your research but alsoits findings.

• Ultimately, I ... strongly believe that the poststiaicturalist/psychoan-alytic (post) critical turn is an exciting and useful place to explore inthe study of teacher education.

• [The study begins with a statement about the imposition of a new,repressive neo-liberal, market logic regime in Chile and ends as fol-lows.] I conclude that although the reform is designed followingmodels of progressive/constiiictivist pedagogical practices it hasbeen formulated to ... reinforce the regressive and anti-democraticneo-liberal model of schooling.

Faith and orthodoxy also formed the foundation of an even more poten-tially troubling fundamentalist tendency that undermines the stated prem-

46 R. A.. BREAULT

ises of p/r/c theories—a message of moral superiority and fallen humannature reminiscent of early missionaries and present-day evangelists.

• Teachers take on the role of subject, and the students remain theobject of the educational process ... this kind of education rendersmany students voiceless, marginalized and "underprepared"....They do "know," but they do not know how or why they know ...

• Only when we have exposed our knowing for its problematicassumptions, will we be able to move toward beliefs and practicesthat support more holistic and ecologically sustainable ways oflife.

Statements like those reflect a stance that says, "I am enlightened, youare not. The schools and their teachers have fallen from grace and are inneed of salvation." That language is usually associated more with groupsconsidered aligned with the Right than with theoretical positions thatclaim to be inclusive and accepting of groups on their own terms.

A third rhetorical tendency that resembles religious fundamentalism isthat when you have a strong faith in what you believe to be a superior andnecessary state for humanity and confront a world that you see as bynature fallen and separated from that ideal state, the mandate to prosely-tize and save the unbelievers soon follows. Critical theory becomes criticalpedagogy. Conscientization leads to salvation.

• ... given that White piesei-vice student teachers do not think aboutwhiteness, they must be exposed to a critical curriculum for decon-structing whiteness....

• ... I attempt to provide biology educators, as well as would-bereformers, with a seldom-seen view of academic biology. This isdone to unsettle the status quo, and to initiate processes of seekingout spaces for change.

• ... contemporary education has so stagnated that it has lost itscapacity to be a force for social change in a world plagued by socialcruelties and injustice ... this study heuristically employs the keyconcepts of liberation theology in liberating curricular and peda-gogical notions and practices from their anchorage in individualis-tic, consumeristic culture ....

WHERE THE COMPARISONS FAIL

Despite the comparison suggested above, religious fundamentalism andpostmodern, reconceptualist, and critical theories do not have much com-

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 47

mon in their core essence. But these core differences might be more trou-bling than the common features.

Although p/r/c thought rhetorically emphasizes individual agency andtiiisting in the ability of the oppressed to liberate themselves, religiousfundamentalists might actually have more faith in the individual than docritical theorists. Religious fundamentalists believe that individual believ-ers (or nonbelievers) can and should approach the Scriptures and evenGod on their own, without the mediation of interpreters or a hierarchicalclerical structure. The p/r/c community is more selective. The obtusenature of much ofthat community's writing makes it nearly impossible forthe uninitiated reader to approach the sacred texts on their own. It is alsogenerally not possible to enter the formal community unless one hasreceived the prerequisite degrees and, in the case of becoming a facultymember in the most influential communities, the right degree from theright places, with the right amount and type of publications.

AN ALTERNATIVE ANALOGY

Despite their commitment to separatism and Holy Scripture, religiousfundamentalists do, for the most part, leave their enclaves after Sundaymorning and live within the world as tradespersons, teachers, athletes,and other typical occupations. Many p/r/c true believers seldom leavetheir enclaves, resembling more closely, medieval, monastic. Catholicscholasticism.

Faii"weather (1970) described medieval theologians as

men who lived and studied and taught and prayed in the intellectual cen-ters of a rapidly developing society, in the monastic and cathedral schools ofthe eleventh atid twelfth centtiries ... and the tmiversities of the thirteenthand fourteenth centuries, (p. 18)

How different is this from how teachers and more "practical" scholars mustperceive those new curricularists who spend their lives in universitycommunities that are often located in the physical isolation of Midwesterncornfields or neo-classical, ivy-covered enclaves amid urban blight andwriting in an often inaccessible language. Meanwhile, all around thesesheltered communities, the work of feeding the poor, creating jobs and jobskills for the unemployed, sheltering and empowering the abused andoppressed is being done by community churches, social sei-vice agencies,and individual teachers who neither know nor care about the differencebetween Foucaldian indiscipline and Hegelian dialectic. Writing only to

48 R. A.. BREAULT

and for each other has chained them in a Platonic cave of their ownmaking.

The warning implied is that if those who adhere to postmodern, criti-cal positions slip into a kind of monastic fundamentalism, they riskbecoming irrelevant. Boyd (2006) raised this possibility in criticizing hiscolleagues in the humanities for acting as if the sciences have nothing tooffer to the study and critique of culture. This, in spite of the fact that inthe four decades since the beginning of the antifoundationalist move-ment, "science and technology have altered the status quo far more radi-cally than anything literature professors have managed" (p. 20). Thepostmodern and critical perspectives still have an important role to playin challenging the status quo and unexamined hegemonic influences, butonly if its adherents avoid dogmatic, parochial perspectives that keepthem from acknowledging the positive changes that have and might stilloccur.

FINDING A UTOPIAN PATH

While working on the final draft of this article I watched a televisionbroadcast of The Godfather. This time the powerful images in the finalscenes of the film stioick me at a new level. In his role as godfather duringthe baptism of his sister's baby, Michael Corleone renounces "the deviland all his works." As the baptism continues we see the carrying out of themurder of the Corleone family's enemies—all ordered by Michael, whountil recently had been dedicated to getting out of the crime business andmaking the family legitimate. At the very moment he was renouncing thework of the devil, he was facilitating its implementation. We see his emo-tion-less face as the disparate events are occurring but we do not know ifMichael is aware of his transformation or if he has just let events roll overhim as a result of his newly found power. Perhaps that is what has hap-pened to the more radical branches of curriculum studies. Not only has p/r/c theory become legitimate in academic circles, it is now the dominanttheoretical position, pushing traditional approaches to the margins itonce occupied. In the process, by writing a new grand narrative, maybewe have become that which we fought. Are we renouncing the works ofthe devil in our words, only to carry them out through our actions? If so,what is to be done? For those who, like myself, acknowledge the impor-tance of the critque offered by postmodern, reconceptualist and criticaltheorists but cannot accept their fundamentalisms and seemingly endlesstendency to "reply to consensus truculence with rejectionist truculence"(Gitlin, 2006).

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 49

Rorty's ( 1989) comparison of writers on autonomy and writers on jus-tice is much the same as the comparison of two sorts of fundamentalismthat I offer here. What each sees as irreconcilable differences, Rorty saw asthe relation between two kinds of tools—"as little in need of synthesis asare paintbnashes and crowbars" (p. xiv). Both are right, but there is noway to make both speak a single language. There is no need to unite themin a single comprehensive philosophical outlook. Instead, he suggeststhat a more productive role to take is that of the liberal ironist, a role thatalso has potential to lead to more constructive school reform.

This perspective is liberal in that holds that ciiielty is the worst thing wedo (Rorty, 1989, p. xv). The person who holds this perspective is an ironistin that "she has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabularyshe currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies,vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered"(p. 73). Ironists are "never quite able to take themselves seriously becausealways aware that the terms in which they describe themselves are subjectto change, always aware of the contingency and fragility of their finalvocabularies" (pp. 73-74). As a result, it is all but impossible for the liberalironist to take a narrowly fundamentalist perspective and more likely forthat person to be open to constructively engaging a broader constituencyconcerned about the future of our schools. There is no reason to believethat what Rorty claims about the tendency of the individual ironist couldnot hold true for a more collective attempt at school reform—one that afundamentalist perspective of any sort cannot hope to achieve alone.

What we [ironists] want to know is whether to adopt those images—to re-create ourselves, in whole or in part, in these people's image. We go aboutanswering this question by experimenting with the vocabularies which thesepeople concocted. We redescribe ourselves, our situation, our past, in thoseterms and compare the results with alternative redescriptions which use thevocabularies of alternative figures. We ironists hope, by this continual rede-scription, to tnake the best selves for ourselves that we can. (p. 80)

One result of that continual redescription is the possibility of a liberalUtopia. For Dewey (1986), utopia was a place without schools but, morerealistically, we might work toward a place where Utopian schools arecontinually realized and new ones envisioned through a process of imagi-nation rather than the more common avenues of reflection and inquiiy.For Rorty (1989), the human solidarity needed to bring about a Utopianvision is created by

increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humilia-tion of other, unfamiliar sorts of people.... This process of coming to seeother human beings as "one of us" rather than as "them" is a matter of

50 R. A.. BREAULT

detailed description of what unfamiliar people are like and a ledescriptionof what we ourselves are like. (p. xvi)

This, according to Rorty, is best accomplished through the use of "ethnog-raphy, the journalist's report, the comic book, the docudrama, and, espe-cially, the novel" and not theoiy (p. xvi).

What this means for the p/r/c fundamentalists and their fellow travelersis that they must honor their own processes of reading, listening to, andhonoring the personal narratives and dramatic accounts of those they havemarginalized by virtue of offensive religious or political perspectives.Then, the next step in creating a new, liberal ironist perspective on schoolchange is to act on the p/r/c commitment to inclusiveness and agency byinviting those they have marginalized to a conversation in which they donot attempt to find some shared metavocabulaiy for school reform—which is not possible—but, instead, search for new "narratives which con-nect the present with the past, on the one hand, and with Utopian futures,on the other" (Rorty, 1989, p. xvi).

REFERENCES

Ainmerman, N. T. (1991). North American protestant fundamentalism. In M.E.Marty & R.S. Appleby (Eds.), Eundamentalisms observed (pp. 1-65). Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Apple, M. W (2001). Educating the "right" way. New York: Routledge Fahner.Bergson, H. I. (1935). The tiuo sources of morality and religion. New York: Heniy

Holt.Boyd, B. (2006). Getting it all wrong: Bioculture critiques cultural critique. The

American Scholar, 75(4), 18-30.Brown, C. (Ed.). {\998). Artist to artist. Coi-vallis, OR: Jackson Creek Press.Darnton, J. (2004, March 11). Union, but not unanimity, as Europe's East joins

West. The New York Times, pp. Al, A12.Davidson, D. (1984). Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford, England: Oxford

University Press.Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Heniy Holt.Dewey, J. (1986). Dewey outlines Utopian schools.. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.),John Dewey:

The later xuorks, Í925-1953, Vol. 9: 1933-1934 (pp. 136-140). Carbondale, IL:Southern Illinois University Press.

Dollar, G. W. (1973). History of fundamentalism in America. Greenville: Bob JonesUniversity Press.

FaiiTveather, E. R. (1970). (Ed)./I Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham. New York:Macmillan.

Foticatilt, M. (1972). The archeology of knowledge. New York: Harper & Row.Foucault, M. (1984). Polemics, politics, and roblemizations: An intei-view with

Michel Foticatilt. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader. New York: PantheonBooks.

The Fundamentalist Tendencies of the New Curricularists 51

Gitlin, T. (2006). The intellectuals and the flag. New York: Golumbia UniversityPress.

Haack, S. (1998). Manifesto of a passionate moderate. Ghicago: University of GhicagoPress.

Hlebowitsh, P. (1999). The burdens of the new curricularist. Curriculum Inquiry 29,343-354.

Holler, E. (1980). The true believer. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books. (Originalwork published 1951)

Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. (2010). http://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jctKort, W.A. ( 1996). Take, read: Scripture, textuality, and cultural practice. University

Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Lewis, J. (2007, December 23). The fundamental tnith about fundamentalism.

Retrieved Febniary 27, 2010 from http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/12/the_fundamental_tnjth_about_fu.html

Marty, M. E., & Scott Appleby, R. (Eds.). (1991). Fimckimentalisms observed. Ghi-cago: University of Ghicago Press.

Menand, L. (2005). Dangers within and without. In R. G. Feal (Ed.), Profession2005 (pp. 10-17). New York: Modern Language Association.

Natoli, | . , & Hutcheon, L. (Eds). (\993). A postmodern reader. Albany, NY: State Uni-versity of New York Press.

Pallas, A. M. (2001). Preparing education doctoral students for epistemologicaldiversity. Educational Researcher, 30(5), 6-11.

Pinar, W.E. (1979). Notes on the relationship between a field and its journals. TheJournal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2(1), 7-11.

Pinar, W. E. (1992). Dreamt into existence by others: Gurriculum theory andschool reform. Theory into Practice, 31(3), 228-235.

Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Gambridge, England: GambridgeUniversity Press.

Rorty, R. (1998). Achieving our country: Leftist thought in twentieth-century America.Gambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schubert, W. H., & Lopez Schubert, A. (1982). Teaching curriculum theory. TheJournal of Curriculum Theorizing, 4{2.), 97-111.

Seals, G. (1998). Objectively yours, Michel Foucault. Educational Theory, 48(\), 65.Warfield, B. B. (1948). The inspiration and authority of the Bible. Philadelphia: Pres-

byterian and Reformed Publishing Go.Wilford, J. N. (2002, September 19). Maya callings tell of a war of two superpowers.

New York Times, pp. Al, A14.

Copyright of Curriculum & Teaching Dialogue is the property of Information Age Publishing and its contentmay not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's expresswritten permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.