- Joined
- Apr 25, 2011
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Passage:
"Institutions, like individuals, have interests at stake; they must compete for resources. But at the same time, to succeed in getting their needs met, they must convince others of their benevolence and disinterestedness. We know what individuals do in such a quandary: they lie. Institutions are no different. Unless the lies become too outrageous or harmful, we mostly accept them. Watergate was intolerable, but Iran-Contragate was within bounds. We know Freud lied, or at least engaged in self-deception, about infantile seduction, but psychoanalysis retains societys respect. The university, as an institution, can be expected to lie to protect its power and authority.
Cases are not hard to come by. For example, universities are known to reinvent their history when convenient. In 1964, the University of California at Berkeley was shaken by the Free Speech Movement. Popular among students, it was anathema to the administration and many of the faculty, who did everything they could to stamp it out and remove its ringleaders from influence. But life goes on, times change, and what was once a dire threat to institutional business as usual is seen nostalgically, twenty years later, as the shot heard round the world, the opening statement of the sixties. It was important, it was historic, it put the university on the cultural map.
Therefore, in 1984, it seemed appropriate to the university administration heirs to the men who had called armed deputies in to their rescue to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Free Speech Movement with a plethora of university-sponsored activities stressing the Movements historic role and the universitys participation therein . Lost in the hoopla is the fact that the university was involved, all right against its will and as a force in opposition. The administration never (that I am aware of) said in so many words: We supported the FSM. But the inviting of celebrities, the holding of public festivities, said as much and, by saying it implicitly, said it more potently, as the message could not easily be contradicted. Nowadays we see the willful distortion of history as evil when it is done by a government or the media. Should it be viewed any differently as an act of the benevolent university?
..."
The passage implies that the University of California misrepresented its role in the Free Speech Movement in order to:
A. protect its status in society.
B. show that it had changed its position since the sixties.
C. educate current students about an important period in history.
D. fulfill its mission.
What do you guys think of this one? I disagree with the rationale provided for the answer (A) so I wanted to check with the rest of you
"Institutions, like individuals, have interests at stake; they must compete for resources. But at the same time, to succeed in getting their needs met, they must convince others of their benevolence and disinterestedness. We know what individuals do in such a quandary: they lie. Institutions are no different. Unless the lies become too outrageous or harmful, we mostly accept them. Watergate was intolerable, but Iran-Contragate was within bounds. We know Freud lied, or at least engaged in self-deception, about infantile seduction, but psychoanalysis retains societys respect. The university, as an institution, can be expected to lie to protect its power and authority.
Cases are not hard to come by. For example, universities are known to reinvent their history when convenient. In 1964, the University of California at Berkeley was shaken by the Free Speech Movement. Popular among students, it was anathema to the administration and many of the faculty, who did everything they could to stamp it out and remove its ringleaders from influence. But life goes on, times change, and what was once a dire threat to institutional business as usual is seen nostalgically, twenty years later, as the shot heard round the world, the opening statement of the sixties. It was important, it was historic, it put the university on the cultural map.
Therefore, in 1984, it seemed appropriate to the university administration heirs to the men who had called armed deputies in to their rescue to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Free Speech Movement with a plethora of university-sponsored activities stressing the Movements historic role and the universitys participation therein . Lost in the hoopla is the fact that the university was involved, all right against its will and as a force in opposition. The administration never (that I am aware of) said in so many words: We supported the FSM. But the inviting of celebrities, the holding of public festivities, said as much and, by saying it implicitly, said it more potently, as the message could not easily be contradicted. Nowadays we see the willful distortion of history as evil when it is done by a government or the media. Should it be viewed any differently as an act of the benevolent university?
..."
The passage implies that the University of California misrepresented its role in the Free Speech Movement in order to:
A. protect its status in society.
B. show that it had changed its position since the sixties.
C. educate current students about an important period in history.
D. fulfill its mission.
What do you guys think of this one? I disagree with the rationale provided for the answer (A) so I wanted to check with the rest of you
