Harry Targ
Years ago, I read a little-known novel written by Howard Fast, one of over 70
novels, called Silas Timberman. It impressed me at the time
because the novel was about the era of McCarthyism and an apolitical English
professor at a university in Indiana, much like Indiana University.
Today we see a brutal assault and destruction of the diversity of scholarship and education at Indiana University by a MAGA governor and state legislature. While less visible, the same efforts to destroy higher education are occurring at the other major Hoosier university, Purdue. The state legislature a year ago passed a law that requires annual reviews of all instructors to see that they include all perspectives in their teaching. Even tenured faculty, tenure a long-honored commitment to protect faculty from capricious attacks on their teaching and research, may be disciplined if they do not meet the criteria of “fairness and balance,” (which presumably would require faculty to present the pluses and minuses of Hitler’s Germany or the Spanish Inquisition). The legislation also required these institutions to take complaints seriously from any student, even anonymously, concerning their professors on any number of things, without providing proof.
In addition, Indiana University, which has been known for its multiplicity of language programs must shut them down if they do not have enough majors. About 40 such language programs have been eliminated. Both universities have been encouraged to eliminate humanities programs, interdisciplinary programs, and programs that address diversity, equity, and identities. The universities have shifted their resources to artificial intelleigence, collaboration with the military and large pharmaceutical companies, and generally, to prioritize so-called STEM education.
Legislators and university administrators claim that the only salient measure of university success is whether college graduates get jobs. (ironically some data suggests that many STEM college graduates are not finding jobs and employers in the corporate sector are mostly interested in hiring graduates who write well, have analytical skills, and have a sensibility about the world outside the workplace).
All of these changes are occurring at the same time that both universities have acted in various ways to repress dissenting voices and actions regarding policies pertaining to the national and state governments on race, gender, and support for US wars. At Indiana University, for example, police with weapons were called on campus in response to protests of US support for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
In sum, the state government, college administrators, and the federal government are seeking to roll back higher education to its historic role of training young people to serve the society as is and to socialize them to accept the legitimacy uncritically policies and US institutions. Perhaps the most egregious of these policies is to reduce or eliminate course work and research that address the underside of US history such as the experiences of slavery and war.
Therefore, as I reread Silas Timerman this time, the novel seemed uncomfortably relevant to today. The lead character, Timberman, is an English professor who pays little attention to national and international politics. He chooses to see his life as almost solely about his family, wife and children, and what goes on in his classroom. As a World War Two veteran he has misgivings about the onset of the Korean War (the novel takes place in 1950) but he does not speak out about the war.
Then a confluence of factors leads to his changed circumstances, an insular professor becomes a public and hated figure. Silas’ department head asks professors to volunteer to do civil defense duty. Silas, although apolitical, regards a national civil defense program as destabilizing, leading to the increased probability of nuclear war. So, he tells his Head that he would not participate.
Meanwhile in his Introduction to American Literature class he presents a syllabus that suggests that the paradigmatic American writer is Mark Twain. And he assigns his students read a Twain short story called “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” In this short story a bag of gold is distributed to a bank in Hadleyburg requesting that the gold be returned to its rightful owner. The self-righteous citizens of Hadleyburg show up in mass to claim the gold. The thrust of the short story is the hypocrisy of the town and the citizens pursuit of gold.
The combination of Silas’ refusal to volunteer for civil defense duty coupled with the short story suggested to a few students that Professor Timberman was a “communist.” The ridiculous confluence of the public processing of the professor’s actions led to his personal and political transformation. He was attacked publicly in the college newspaper and becomes a public target, attacked by some members of the university community for being a “communist,” By the end of the novel he is forced to appear before a McCarthy-like committee. As he refuses to answer some questions, he was cited for contempt and at the novel's end is handcuffed and taken off to jail for a three year sentence.
When I first read the novel some twenty years ago, I processed the novel as a kind of ancient history. McCarthyism, as I taught in classes on US foreign policy, had a significant impact on American culture and politics. The vibrancy of intellectual life on college campuses convinced me that the 1950s were relevant about the past but could/would not occur again.
But reflecting on contemporary efforts to destroy higher education in Indiana, Florida, Texas and virtually everywhere suggest that the experiences of Silas Timberman are occurring once again. And the same constellation of actors, national and state politicians, quiescent or intimidated professors, minorities of ill-informed students are recreating, only more so, the 1950s.
