(00:00:00) I'd like to start with something of a an explanation. I noticed that the title of my talk as notice to you is Asian-American and the Multicultural Society. I want to explain to you why the title that I'm going the people I'm actually going to deliver is a little bit different but we'll cover the same the same Notions and we would make that explanation by way of making a connection with the students in the audience and remind you that there's a kind of similarity between writing a paper and preparing for a talk the similarities are that when you first conceived what you might write in your paper, it's kind of general and amorphous and you do some research you do some reading and talking with others and eventually some IDs begin to take shape and form in your mind. And You Begin the actual process of writing? Eventually the paper is done. And when you look at the results you realize that the original idea you had has become so transformed that it's unrecognizable. But when you're writing a paper you have the advantage of you can then just simply baptized it and give it a name. When you're going to read a paper or give a talk, it's quite natural for public relations people to want to know. What are you going to talk about? Give us a title. So what you try to do is you give a title that is so General that virtually anything you say will fit into it. So that's what I've done when I responded with what what is the title of your paper? I said Asian-American the Multicultural Society and I will in fact address much of what I intended in my thinking about this at that title, but I've actually got a different title that I want to leave with you in the talk of actually preparedness. The title is the new learning community a new object for the higher learning. Now that title itself needs something of an explanation somewhat brief impacting what I've written include as a footnote, but I'm making reference in this idea of a new object for the higher learning to some comments made by A person by the name of Russell Kirk previously Russell Kirk is the author of a book titled the conservative mind. And Russell Kirk as many of you may know is perhaps the most articulate spokesman in America on what we know as philosophical conservatism. And Russell Kirk believes The Higher Learning in America has become and the word he uses is decadent. In his efforts to explain the use of this word he relies on a philosopher by the name of cem Joad and Kirk rights decadence occurs as Jude tells us when people have quote dropped the object that is when they have abandoned the pursuit of real objects aims or ends and and have settled instead for the gratification of mere experience. In society the characteristics of decadence our luxury skepticism weariness superstition. Also in joads words quote a preoccupation with the self and this experience has promoted by and promoting the subjectivist analysis of moral aesthetic metaphysical and Theological judgment. That was all a quote from Russell Kirk in his trying to explain his notion of object. To a significant degree Kirk's Russell Kirk same is to defend the Canon the curriculum of colleges and universities of the West and to repudiate the inclusion of certain studies which he believes do not contribute to the real aim of higher education. And if we would ask someone like Kirk well, what is the quote real aim of higher education? He might say that is the realization of the ethical attributes of wisdom and virtue. Look beyond that however, Kirk also cannot accept greater access believing that most cannot benefit from a college or university education. Well my own view of this is that I agree that the object important to Kirk has been to some extent abandoned but discover a new object for the Learning Community by no means inferior. Indeed our survival in the global economy, May demand a different object for higher education American society can no longer invest in an academy which stands aloof from the needs of the citizens and the state. Well, as I said that's all by way of a footnote in my actual written document that attempts to explain the title a new object for The Higher Learning. Now this is the talk that I've actually prepared. A microcosm of all the peoples of the world one of the engines of a global economy a country where the social and political ideal is a society where every individual has the freedom to develop to her fullest. I believe that this is America. Some have said that America is a Melting Pot where differences are eliminated others have said that eliminating differences is to lose. What is most valuable? Melting Pot or salad it could be said that this is the question which is divided the American Consciousness from the moment the Yankee began to contemplate the waves of immigration from Europe. Beginning with the Native Americans The History of the United States is one of welcoming and assimilating immigrants from every corner of the Earth. For leader purposes. Let's review for a moment how America's population was formed from 1792 1914. In 1790 America had fewer than 4 million people. Fewer than 4 million people today. There are more than 250 million. three-quarters of that 4 million people were slaves eighty-two percent of the total white population was English these English were of course the original Yankees. the Irish Germans and Scandinavians came in the 1830s In the 1880s immigrants to America Shores were from eastern and southern Europe. From 1,800 to 1914 some 50 million people left Europe almost 35 million came to the United States. As a kind of point of reference in comparison in the twentieth century immigration has been from Central and South America Africa and Asia. The original Yankee has they contemplated the arrival of the immigrants? Debated the issue of State responsibility for public education. From these debates a decision was reached in Massachusetts to create the Massachusetts Public School System. The first Secretary of the State Board of Education from 1837 to 1847 a man by the name of Horace Mann. Mon was a man with Puritan roots. and values he was without question the most Ardent spokesperson for the view that education and social reform are one. Mom prevails and education was seen by many as the key to the need to assimilate The Immigrant. I think that most remarkable was mons task mons view of the task before the Board of Education, which he was the first Secretary and I discovered what he thought the board's task was from some journals. He wrote that was subsequently published and I find it really remarkable a he thought the Massachusetts Board of education's task was to integrate people. With a predilection to Crime questionable morals and who did not speak English into American society. The metaphor of the mayor of the Melting Pot with its Alchemist connotations of a flame to purify, of course dominated the thinking of the day, I sometimes wonder though and find doubtful whether the Irish the Germans and the Scandinavians relish the notion that they somehow needed to be subject to The Rite of purification in order to become Americans. There is perhaps however an important lesson to be learned here and that is that accepting greater diversity on a college or university campus must be predicated on an acceptance of cultural differences. Many of the Americans today who are immigrants trying to assimilate are from great cultures, which are fundamentally different as a result of their being the product of different world religions all come back to this. There is a thesis that I will partially developed that great world religions and the cultures and civilizations societies their grow up in and around them produce rather different human beings. Many of the people from Asia for example are not Christians but Buddhist. For those of you interested there is an interesting account of immigration from Asia in a fairly recent book by Professor Ronald Takaki at the University of California, Berkeley. That's title strangers from a different Shore. Non-traditional and minority students faculty and staff are in many institutions becoming fixtures of the landscape. When the complexion gender and age of the student body began to change some faculty like Russell Kirk. left academe never to return in fact, he wrote a very interesting book that is titled decadence and renewal in the higher learning and episodic history of the American University and college does 1953. in this particularly fascinating book Kirk gives an explanation very rich with polemic of his reasons for leaving, Michigan State College. and teaching age gender and color barriers came down to midst great drama. inauspiciously GI Bill rang the beginning of change in American higher education And what did the GI Bill do after all if provided access and opportunity to individuals to The Higher Learning who had previously not had that opportunity. He was in fact one of the reasons Kirk left, Michigan State. He couldn't accept nor believe that Michigan state would admit as students individuals who came from different socio-economic groups returning GIS to higher education. Of course, we had legislation flowing for the civil rights movement that contributed some change to American higher education. And I believe that the women's movement sealed. The fate of American higher education privilege associated with Higher Learning was abandoned and brought access was created. I believe that is a direct consequence of the democratization of higher education. That's how I think of it. We are witness to and part of the transformation of an academic community. Some see Devastation of the academic Community where I see transformation and change Russell Kirk Sydney hook and more recently Allan Bloom have decried the loss of the community of Scholars the habits of mind values and a sense of shared responsibility characteristic of the past appear to them to have disappeared. Faculty colleagues have championed applied research and Technology transfer over pure research. Western Civilization has lost his position of eminence in the cannon and has been replaced by Multicultural studies. A feminist perspectives has become a legitimate area of research and inquiry. The Advocates of an intellectual and moral aristocracy have been challenged. I think however their Kirk and the others I mentioned are mistaken in their belief that the ethical attributes of wisdom and virtue are no longer the object of The Higher Learning. I believe rather and on the contrary that the object has been enlarged to include the perspectives of great civilizations other than the West the world is viewed by women the differently-abled and those with different sexual orientation. In the words of Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin. Some have seen the emergence of a politically correct agenda as if No, Agenda political or otherwise existed previously. Of course, there was a politically correct agenda before the one that's identified presently. Well, all of this is not new in a way because on the historical stage of the West Advocates of the values of the community and Advocates of the rights of the individual have been warring contentious forces at the dawn of philosophical Consciousness in the west Play-Doh spoke for the State against protag Yuri and individualism. Alexis de tocqueville an observer to founding America commented on the tension between the two and cautioned against emphasis on individual freedom and the excesses of democracy. For chateaubriand and de maistre and France the patriarchal family the gills and the universities were the stabilizing institutions of society and the essence of any community. For this reason they together with Edmund Burke in England deplored the French Revolution and his fascination with individual liberty. They're dismantling and the subsequent eradication of entailed and Prima genitor brought the Ancien Regime to its knees their greatest fear was that the celebration of the individual could only lead to an impotent to socialized a narcissistic free spirit. These conservative thinkers feared the loss of privilege and there and the recognition of individual rights. And even more recently historian Max Lerner describes the emergence of the individual and in an increasingly encompassing International economy dissolution of communal ties in favor of a more fragile allegiance to the state. Well, if we turn now again to the discussions that we find in higher education, we find more recently perhaps and best-known is Allan Bloom and his having condemned the loss of privilege resulting from increased access and the degradation of a vision of the act the academy in which the legitimate objects of intellectual inquiry are insulated from the marketplace and the ideals of pleurisy democracy. I don't deny that increase taxes is created uncertainties the quality of the curriculum and the education which brings from it has become the focal point of these uncertainties and that's I think is unproblematically. If we are sure that the loss of privilege is not behind the expression of these concerns. For the moment. Let's consider who are the beneficiaries of increased access. minorities women large numbers of adults Is pretty clear that the clientele in colleges universities today? Do not make a seamless whole it still comes as a surprise to some to learn that if we look at who participates in American higher education today a majority are part-time working adults. This means of course that American higher education today serves basically two different populations traditional aged individuals individuals who traditionally would attend college and university for the first time and part time working adults. The presence of minorities in our campuses is a furtherance of democratic ideals. Non-traditional students more adult students seek higher education to maintain or Advance themselves in American economy struggling to continuous hegemony within a global economy. The concept of work itself has been irrevocably altered by the introduction of technology and other products applied research. Well, certainly from these considerations. We should conclude that the transformation of the academy includes acceptance and recognition of the contribution of all the peoples of the earth and the realization that even the higher learning must have an object other than the mere advancement while that's important of human knowledge The fear for a diminution of quality is dispelled with the awareness that increased access has had the result of challenging the fullness of the cannon and the goal the object of higher education The Higher Learning is no longer no longer has a singular goal of preparing individuals for the clergy a few professions in the captains of industry. If any of you have had occasion to read the history of some great universities in this country. Yale or Harvard other institutions very very old you find that they thought that their principal purpose was to prepare people for the clergy and the few professions and the captains of industry. I think the quality must be defined in part with an acceptance of who attends our colleges and universities there and the nation's (00:19:26) needs. It (00:19:31) was a 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who argued? That the great world religions produced a different kind of human being. The followers of Buddha Christ the prophets of the Jews and Muhammad think the world and think about themselves somewhat differently. Without an awareness of these differences. There is a great danger that the peoples of the earth will mistake another for themselves. Find the imagined other offensive or Worse incomprehensible. From that unhappy conclusion growth the temptation to see evil lurking where there is only difference which could be an object of wonder in celebration. I'd like to illustrate this observation through a review of some of the ideals of Buddhism. Well, then look to see if I can show how a stereotype might be replaced by Fuller understanding and appreciation of an individual. I think the kind of analysis I'll do here is applicable as well to the other world religions. Will religions other than Buddhism. Like Christianity Buddhism is many-faceted with a multitude of different forms as a worldview it began with Buddha in India de spread to Japan where became Zen and it arrived in Japan by way of China. It was transformed from its original form by Chinese Masters. Most notably about he Dharma thought to have entered China from Southern India in 520 ad. And it was transformed further by a Chinese Sage by the name of Hui, neng. Who Thrive between 638 and 713 ad and they were both influenced by the teachings of an older contemporary of Confucius loud, sir, Confucius you recall thrived around 550 124739 before Christ. I like to give you a kind of sense of Japanese or Zen Buddhism by way of recalling something that loud sir wrote In The Tao Te Ching. This is a quote now from The Tao Te Ching of Lhasa. Some say that my teaching is nonsense others, call it lofty but impractical. But do but to those who have looked inside themselves, this nonsense makes perfect sense and do those who put it into practice. This loftiness has route there go deep. I have just three things to teach Simplicity patience and compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. simple in actions that in thoughts you return to the source of being patient with both friends and enemies you Accord with the way things are compassionate toward yourself. You reconcile all beings in the world. Well, that's a quote from loud sir. Dao de Jing. Returning to the source of being being in accord with the way things are and reconciling all beings in the world are themes to be found in all the various forms of Japanese Buddhism. By way of elaboration on Lao Tzus thoughts the beginnings of an understanding of the kind of human being Buddhism seeks to create can be easily suggested. Returning to the source of being is the way to achieve as the Japanese understand. It's Satori a state of mind of ultimate fulfillment. Sometimes the state of mind is characterized as freedom. Lao-tzu speaks as if Satori is achieved through Simplicity and thoughts and actions. Developing the thought of body Dharma Hui, neng brought forward the essential idea of Zen in the doctrine a Doctrine. He called the doctrine of no mind. According to this Doctrine this Doctrine if we Nang the discipline by which the Tories achieved his meditation Deanna and the aim of meditation is to still the mind. Well, this can be somewhat bewildering but for our purposes it can be said that stilling the mind is to think nothing. to suspend conceptualization Now for those of us brought up in the west, this is a very jarring idea. If you respect your individual Consciousness is hard to find the moment in time when there's not an idea. When there's not a thought when you are free from every conceptual encumbrance. Even so we can catch catch a glimpse of the marvellous receptivity and Clarity produced through meditation by remembering what it's like to sit on a dock. Which reaches out into a Minnesota lake late at night. At such moments you might find that the moon cast is reflection on the surface insects make their presence known the sound of water and the breaking of the Surface by a fish. Or alternatively remembering remarkable as it may seem in this set of circumstances The Sound of Silence. Silence is a sound. As such moments we have returned to the source of being. The Buddhist ideal is the spiritual development of the individual to the point where this marvelous translucent State of Mind prevails and the phenomenal world is revealed as illusion for the Zen Buddhist achieving happiness and freedom is a purely individual concern requiring no mediation or involvement of others achieving the ID spiritual ideal is an intensely personal project. being in accord with the way things are this injunction to be in harmony with others reminds one of the ancient stoic Epictetus and the most eloquent of the stoic Socrates. This is something that both of them taught. The Buddhist and Loud, sir Place importance on accepting things as they are and getting along with others. One facet of the Spiritual Development Buddha strive for is derived from the understanding that humans realize their Humanity in a social setting. The family the community the society and Nation are necessary for human development. In a society chastened by Buddhism. There is no human predilection towards individual aggrandizement. In order to reconcile all beings in the world loud suit teaches the value of compassion towards yourself. Now this notion of compassion toward yourself is also quite different from what we find in the west since Freud we know about the punishing character the super-ego sometimes record to being human is with a measure of Shame offered as an explanation for some perceived transgression. As a way of modifying the pangs of conscience. This may be effective for the Christian. Buddhist however have a very different view of this and a certain assumed human desire and bodily functions without shame taking satisfaction in one's achievements accepting shortcomings and persisting in a desire to do better. These are the road to reconciling each individual with the rest of being. Well, what kind of human being emerges from Buddhism? reserved and without aggression oriented towards the family and the group accepting of circumstances, but undaunted self-contained and hard-working. These characteristics are the realization of the Buddhist ideal. On the other hand and viewed from another perspective. They are the surface irradiation zdenda fide and attributed to the model minority the Asian Americans. We can see perhaps that Beneath The Stereotype there is much which is hidden. A stereotype is a truth albeit superficial. A stereotype is the beginning for a genuine appreciation of human beings raised in circumstances very different from our own and illustrating and other spiritual idea or other values. It represents another human possibility. Let me know return to an earlier theme. Earlier, I put forward the thesis that American higher education is in a state of transformation. That the learning community. The community in which we learn community in which we study is being transformed. The access created through the furtherance of democratic ideals is itself a challenge to modify the cannon the curriculum what we teach and what we are taught a cannon which has served the West well in circumstances where knowledge of Western culture was sufficient for being an educated gentleman. To those who argue that decadence or loss of object and I have here in mind Russell Kirk and Allan Bloom Sidney hook. and the others those who argue that decadence or loss of object threatens higher education. I reply that a new richer and more encompassing object is being sought the decline of provincialism is the most evident feature of this new era. The imperative to create a campus climate which accepts cultural differences and cultivates tolerance must guide our efforts. Perhaps most important is the recognition that quality must be defined differently. We must accept those who enter higher education colleges and universities and colleges and universities must come to see their task as one of developing the talents of individuals their self-realization and the freedom of spirit and intellect Associated must become the ideal which informs the educational process. Thank you for inviting me. We must keep in mind that the point in time where individuals appear in higher education at colleges like Carlton or others we must keep in mind that. It may be somewhat mistaken to expect. That all people have had the same preparation. That all people have had the same opportunities. That all people have been to that point in time on a Level Playing (00:31:54) Field. (00:31:57) The issue that you're you're pointing out and this is an issue a matter that bloom and Sidney hook and Russell Kirk and others have have made a central part of their argument as a denial for accents. This this this observation and I'm not denying that's reality. This observation has to be has to be modified by the recognition that in it the expectation should perhaps be different unless We're willing as individuals and a nation to address the needs developmentally of all the citizens of America so that indeed up to and including the point where they apply to higher education. They've had equal opportunity to prepare to develop and to be successful. So my first attempted responding to the question is well, there's a large issue here. We shouldn't identify it narrowly and say that it's only a matter of how well our high schools are doing or how well our Junior High's are doing or how well our our K through 12 is doing but we should consider also the whole social and living environment in which people are growing up. Unless those environments are wholesome. Unless they contain sufficient nutrition. Unless they have families that are cohesive and stable. Human beings are human beings. Some may not succeed. So I try to enlarge the issue. And not see it narrowly as an issue of Preparing People as though it's purely an educational issue. I think it's both educational and social. And has to do with the domestic policies of the United States. And that we must work on many fronts at once. Try to assure greater stability and cohesiveness of communities tried to provide for the nutritional needs of all children. And try to alleviate some of the attenuate some of the ills and temptations which otherwise draw away young people, too. Lives and styles and habits of thought and living that are destructive if we put it into the larger context of people being in environments where they might succeed we realized that that includes and encompasses virtually. all Americans I do think that we will see an increase in the use of interactive full-motion television. And maybe in terms of sociologically looking for the sociological perspective for a reason connected with the second question. And that is that people are not at all put off by. If possible interaction with a TV image and that notion where we're so accustomed to having TV images that having a classroom where there might be individuals in different locations in different parts of the city different parts of the state different parts of the world where we can see them, but they can see us where they can interact with us and they was with and we with them. And where we can have the kind of discussion that you would have in a classroom. Otherwise that kind of use of technology and television I think is will see an increase of that. And I know that I have a great interest in that and I expect that it at Metropolitan State in the greater metropolitan area of the Twin Cities. We will begin using that in the very near (00:36:37) future. (00:36:40) This other issue is one that I frankly haven't thought a great deal about even while I've heard some discussions. I do think that the it is true that much more information is now coated and processed by ourselves as visible visual than print. Some have argued that that will diminish the conceptual capabilities of people because visual images are in some sense less complex. Or less thoroughly embedded in conceptual Frameworks. To that. My response is that if we start studying images more carefully. and make them an area of study in the same way that words have been an area of study and discovering the conceptual interconnections among images that that language as it were the language of visual images may very well be as if not more rich And what interest me more of though as an individual who spend a large part of my adult life studying philosophy is the possibility that they're not only is a conceptual framework or language of images. But that because images are apparently processed by different part of the brain than is than our words. That seems to draw on that side of the brain that some of associated more with intuition and creativity. As you know, there are people who talk about the left the right hemispheres of the brain and the different functionings the 11 hemisphere doing The Logical processing in the other side doing the image processing and one being the locus of linear intelligence and other being the locus of imagination and creativity while the visual side the part of the brain that seems to process the images is the part that is more readily associated with intuition and creativity. So if there is a language of images And we get smart enough to figure out what it is and discern as it were in some sense these logic. Then in fact the kind of information processing and the dialogue we have with each other may be far richer but those are completely speculative source of thoughts on my part. Well due to some extent of course demographics. Have a great influence and We can look at California and we can see levels of participation of Asians and increasing participation in the politics of the state that directly mirrors the the the population of that part of the country. So to the extent that the demography kind of is mirrored in the level of political activity. We see that already occurring in California and will increase As with African-Americans or Latinos or Native Americans. It's not often recognized that there is amongst those groups and amongst Asians great diversity. If you acquaint yourself with the history of the Pacific Rim. You discover that. traditional enemies In that region were China and Japan. Korea got into this because it was the whenever Japan was going to attack China. They first subjugated Korea used as a staging ground to attack China. And whenever China was going to return the favor, they would subjects subjugate Korea to attack Japan. So first of all, you've got just taking those two countries you have countries that have have had a long history of conflict between them. And even while Japan in many ways culturally has drawn some of its richest treasures and routes out of Chinese history. There is this whole context of two great civilizations viewing each other not always in a friendly manner. You then add to that the people of the Malay peninsula? For example the Filipinos if you look at what cultural physical anthropologists say about the Filipinos and the people of the Malay Peninsula from the perspective of physical anthropology. They are negroid. Well in China and Japan, there are not many people who have their roots and identified as negroid. And so there is another attitude in China and Japan about the Filipinos and the people in the Malay peninsula. You then look at southeast Asia and you look at Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos the people there in power and control or ethnic Chinese. The indigenous people the kind of counterpart as as it were to the Native American in America. The United States are the Hmong. So you've got the ethnic chinese vietnamese looking at the Hmong in the way that America is looking Native Americans. Now with all of those historical relationships is quite natural that there's not it's not one big happy family. That there are differences. Understood differences by those who have their historical roots in that part of the world. and fully appreciated that has some implications. However, because even while if we look at California, I believe the largest population of Asians there happened to be Filipinos. But among Asian groups in California, they have achieved least educationally. Those who achieve most educationally are the Japanese and the Chinese. So what we see there in California in the politics of the situation is the political leadership as it were emerging from the ranks of the Chinese than Japanese and to some extent the Koreans. Representing a group of people that they have these long historical relationships with which were not always genial. So you have you have all of that mixed up in the politics in Asian community in California and you find some former version of that in virtually every major metropolitan area where all the different Asian groups are are collected. And you have similar Dynamics as I'm sure many of us appreciate no be in the in the African-American community and in Regional differences between black people in America. Then we have the African. It was a people from the Caribbean that's a very mixed group of people also and some of the politics you referred to in that context are well understood and they have their exact counterpart in the Asian American community. exact counterparts I'm interested in this notion of the model minority because I regard that as a very divisive device. As used by some in some political circles. I see it as a device to somehow separate from concern and interest in social justice and equity. A significant part of the population the people of color that is the asian-americans to somehow keep them out of the overt expression and concern expressed concern for social justice and equity. And so it's been a topic that has interested me a great deal. I mean as an Asian-American when my see but why don't you just take some pride in that? I mean after all it really is a kind of honorific and and I can understand why people might think that but I think the way that it is typically promoted is promoted in a way to somehow cast and create invidious comparisons for political reasons that I cannot approve. And so I'm one reason I did the thinking necessary even for this talk today. And reflected on this notion of the model America needs to tie the Asian-American performance as it were more to a cultural context. And by that means attempt to explain it because the same kind of cultural context were talking about is when desired by everyone. A family and Community where there is cohesiveness and environment that is protecting and nurturing. A home and a community where ideals of success and a household where culture is a natural feature. These are all desirable things for everybody. And what I find is that anyone who has those things succeeds. And so what I look at questions and issues of equity and Justice, I asked the question, why don't other people have these things and what is the responsibility of each of us and the state? To look to provide them to whatever extent we can. And so I would rest at least two sides of what I heard you asked and that was preached of all there is as much complexity in the Asian American Community politically due to Long historical understandings and relationships amongst Asian groups as there are in the black or African-American Community or the Latino community. And in addition to that that I think that Asian Americans ought not to take any particular pride in being identified as a model minority. If the implication of that is that there are non model minorities and implication of that is that there are some who are good and some were bad or that some who are superior and some who are inferior. And if that is the intention and purpose of anyone using the expression, then asian-americans should never use it and she'd repudiated.