By Tommy Jadoo 
A support of the Guillorian perspective of the canon. One cannot help but wonder if the obfuscation in canonical debate is indicative of the obfuscation in American political debate, and if so, can Guillory’s thesis have broader application?
In a review of criticisms concerning the academics of the university, Hazel E. Barnes writes that the institution has been challenged with respect to the validity, value, and social relevance of what it offers to its members. Had Barnes been speaking more specifically of the canon, historically challenged upon the same dimensions, she may have offered words of similar meaning. From Longinus’ insistence upon not persuasion but transport to Kant’s writings on subjective universal tastes, there have been many questions but few solutions which did not generate controversy. Amid the effective battery of perspectives surrounding the canonical debates emerges John Guillory’s unique, unobtrusive criticisms of what he has termed purely a symbolic struggle. Namely, Guillory maintains that the conflict between the canonical and noncanonical, respectively characterized by traditionalist and proggressivist agendas, has clouded the real debate over what should and should not be accepted as part of academia; particularly noting the dissemination of national culture in relation to cultural capital. The New Rights relegation of the noncanonical has been countered (mistakenly) by the lefts notions of multiculturalism. The entire conflict, Guillory suggests, has obscured the fundamental issue: Assuming that cultures are interdependent both at the time of a works production and its consumption, will the school acknowledge the interdependence during consumption? The answer emerges from a series of Guillory’s arguments in which he outlines: 1) a taxonomy of culture and examination of the institutions transmitting culture; 2) multiculturalism and the pluralists deprived conception of cultural capital that has led to multiculturalisms downfall; 3) the ludicrousness of the canonical vs. noncanonical debates and the implications of engaging in meaningless prattle.
Guillory’s notions of culture are defined along two lines. Culture in the sense of refinement includes familiarity with the great works of civilization. This culture-in-the-sense-of-refinement has been termed school culture as opposed to national culture which relies upon an ethnographic sense of common beliefs, behaviors, attitudes. Traditionally, educational institutions, including the university, which have attempted to make school culture stand for national culture, have only created dissonance and resulting failure. Guillory, offering an explanation of the failing, writes “the left hand of the educational system the dissemination of a supposedly national culture remains ignorant of what the right hand is doing the differential tracking of students according to class or possession of cultural capital.” It is this very dynamic that has been labeled as the invisible culprit of class suppression. The educational system has become lost in ideological beliefs based upon fallacious reasoning (the reliance upon school culture to transmit national culture) and has divorced itself from the cultural realities that actually exist.
The obfuscation between school culture and national culture deepens when national culture is made to assume Western culture a slippery entity not easily confined to definition. William Bennett, though interchanging the terms culture, civilization and society rather loosely, provides a notable attempt in his characterization of what constitutes Western culture apart from mere, Western artifact. He writes, “[Western] society was founded upon such principles as justice, liberty, government with the consent of the governed, and equality under the law. . . These ideas, so revolutionary in their times yet so taken for granted now, are the glue that binds together our pluralistic nation.” Bennett seems to suggest that the transmission of a national culture through the canon, which has assumed Western culture as he defines it, is the transmission of universal principles and ideas that will make homogeneous our heterogeneous nation. Guillory attacks this notion as “chauvinistic and a dubious assimilation of Western thinkers to democratic political principles many or even most of them would not in fact have endorsed” yet falls short of offering any immediate solutions.
An alternative to Bennett’s attempt at homogeneity through transmission of a canon of Western culture is one that has been conjured up by leftists. Termed multiculturalism, the alternative provides noncanonical, cultural (predominantly minority) texts to delegitimize canonical texts. This allows for more diversity in the canon and, as Simon During has pointed out, it opens the way for identities that once went unrecognized by universities. It is a proposed means of changing the canon to avoid a reproduction of social relations that benefit those holding the cultural capital. However, as Guillory argues, the study of Latin-American novels in the university does not really transmit or reproduce Latino culture. Similarly, one must also doubt that the study of Western works will transmit Western (American/European white) culture. This may stem from the deracination of works from their original, cultural circumstances. As Guillory writes, “the function imposed upon schools of acculturating students to our culture often thus requires that texts be read out of context, as signs of cultural continuity, or cultural unity.” A rather unique solution to the dilemma comes from Henry Louis Gates Jr. who has proposed the packaging of audiotapes (containing spoken text) with anthologies of literature. It is a noble attempt to bring works back within their actual, context.
Indeed, the Western-ness of the traditional canon may not be exclusively reflective of white American and European values as Bennett has alluded to previously. Toni Morrison has been critical of arguments that the canon exclusively preserves white male views. Concerning the African American influence, she writes, “I am convinced that the contemplation the black presence is central to any understanding of our national literature and should not be relegated to the margins of literary imagination.” This existence of multicultural influence upon the canon during its genesis stages is a similar idea to what Guillory has suggested. He argues, “cultures are inescapably interdependent both at the moment of a cultural works production and at that of its consumption.” Western history is the history of the global relations of Western states, cultures and societies. It is only through an interaction with the global world that Western cultures were able to document their own history forming the current canon. Thus, multiculturalism may already be present in the canon and leftist advocates are wandering an already traveled path that could have been avoided with a knowledge of history. Christopher Millers provides the concept of intercultural literacy for these wandering, multicultural advocates. It is a means of inquiry that respects the accumulation of shared cultural works but also invites research into processes by which cultures are formed and how cultures constitute themselves by reference to each other.
The intentions of leftist advocates for multiculturalism, however, may also include gaining minority groups cultural capital. These intentions are well received though non-productive. Minority groups already come to the table with cultural capital gained through their influence on already established canonical texts or their study of traditional, Western texts during earlier levels of education. The right agenda accommodates for these self-made individuals and assimilate them to the caste of all those with an interest in preserving the rights and privileges of acquired capital. Capital is already dispersed amongst a number of minorities and multiculturalism will consequently serve no purpose. In addition, Guillory suggests that pitting multiculturalism against Westernism elides of what school culture really is. What relation to ones own culture is derived from the formal study of cultural artifacts? Guillory writes that works should be read because they are important and significant cultural works. In the wake of conservativism, it is no longer politically advantageous to profess for the necessity of teaching certain noncanonical works solely on the grounds that these works represent social minorities. As Edward Said also contests, works should be brought in through “the scrutiny of these works as literature, as style, as pleasure and illumination” otherwise they will be regarded as simply ethnographic specimens suited for a minute number of experts and area specialists.
One constant can be upheld: the canon debates will rage on. There will be those who blame the noncanonical syllabus for the crisis (reactionary scapegoating) and those that reduce canonical works to the ideology of a monolithic Western culture (multicultural reductionists). Guillorys approach transcends these confines. He suggests for the readership to rise above these debates and enter into the realization that canonical and noncanonical works both contain cultural capital. Works survive because they maintain the interest of the readership and are important cultural works. They consist of nothing but cultural artifact and are intended for objective, alienated study out of the limelight of controversy. In the shadows of the fundamental question (What relation to ones own culture is derived from the formal study of cultural artifacts) is the canonical struggle a purely symbolic struggle along paths previously traveled. For those wishing to maintain the fight, Guillory provides a simple procedure of change: Initiate rapid transformations in social relations (which consist of much more than a relation of text to the reader) in response to rapid changes in relations of production and consumption and one can theoretically bring about a change in the entire system. On a more pragmatic level, Guillory suggests converting the canonical-noncanonical debate into a negotiation between historical and modern works. Unlike the canon which works upon limitation and exclusion, the aim of a historical-modern works model would be to provide access. Nothing is excluded. Nothing is included. Rather, there exists a body of literary texts to which everyone should have access; a profound idea, indeed.
Tags: Canon, education, edward said, John Guillory, literary, literature, multiculturalism, noncanonical, text
