Ideology and the Reform of Public Higher Education

Abstract

In this article, I critically examine calls for reform of public higher education. I construct a counter-intuitive alliance between the conservatism of twentieth-century philosopher Michael Oakeshott and the more recent thinking associated with post-structuralism. It is argued that in Oakeshott and post-structuralism, we find a similar critique of the idea behind these reforms as imposing instrumental or productivist values on higher education. What is produced is a type of person organized to produce more and to demand of herself greater production. This critique is associated with a broader criticism of liberalism found both in Oakeshott and post-structuralism that the liberal order produces a normalized and docile individuality. Conversely, it is argued that theories of higher education in Oakeshott and post-structuralism inform a broader positive idea of individuality, enacted in a “style,” having intrinsic worth, and never reducible to any finished form.