In academia these days, you can get into trouble for what you say. Megan Neely, a Duke assistant professor in biostatistics, lost an administrative position for pleading with Chinese students to speak more English—for the sake of their careers. Calling them out (in an email) was considered insensitive. Jeffrey McCutcheon, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, had to apologize for suggesting that students who claimed excessive test anxiety (and thus sought special accommodation) might simply be unprepared rather than suffering from a disability.[1] That too was considered insensitive.
Until now, I have been fairly comfortable writing about history. True, I’ve found some words you shouldn’t use, such as “barbarians,” but that’s okay with me. We don’t have to echo the Romans or their prejudices. But here’s one I’m beginning to wonder about: “universal.”
A couple of months ago in class, I said (all too confidently) that some human tendencies can explain similarities between the history of one region and that of another. The explanation doesn’t have to be that the regions were connected through trade or other contact. I gave a few examples: governments tend to grow; people tend to rebel; knowledge accumulates; cultural similarities tend to support territorial consolidation, etc.
I was criticized (by another student) for “universalizing.”
I quickly learned that not everyone thinks there are universal human characteristics or tendencies. The problem with universalizing human behavior is that it sets up a “binary.” A binary is two opposing ideas, one of which tends to dominate. If you call something “universal,” you create a binary because anything that doesn’t quite fit is treated as inferior. (Ironically, “one” creates “two.”) For example, if we assume that male-female gendering is universal, then we have created a binary, one that excludes the trans-gendered.
In fact, a new genre of writing called microhistory was created partly to avoid “implicitly universalist presumptions about human behavior,” writes Yale historian Francesca Trivellato.[2] Instead, microhistory focuses on detailed accounts of interesting individuals, whether they reflect any historical trend or not.
The critique of universalism has cropped up in educational circles, too, as Jay Schalin points out in his incisive critique of modern K-12 science education.[3]
“In universalism, the basic rules apply everywhere; modern science transcends boundaries,” says Schalin. But some multiculturalists reject the idea of scientific universalism on the grounds that it is ”socially and culturally constructed” (it’s Western science, not universal science). Thus, Okhee Lee, a postmodernist science educator, “deplores the way universalism will be used as a de facto gate keeping device for determining what can be included in a school science curriculum and what cannot.”[4]
Okay. Maybe there is something suspect about claiming universalism in history. But in science?
Notes (Comments Follow Notes)
[1] My personal observations (and also my personal recollections from the past) suggest that many students do not prepare very well.
[2] Francesco Trivellato, “Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?” California Italian Studies 2, no. 1 (2011). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0z94n9hq.
[3] Jay Schalin, The Politicization of University Schools of Education, James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Raleigh NC, February 2019.
[4] Schalin, p. 75.
Here in Oregon we have the highly subsidized Oregon Humanities that gets almost half of its $2 million budget from the National Endowment for Humanities. Its publications and programs are almost entirely “microhistory” devoid of scholarship or models of human behavior.
Example: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/
I find this criticism of “universalizing” to be silly. I’m guessing that the picture of the Sesame Street characters is no accident. Recall the song that goes “One of these is not like the others, which one is different do you know?” Sorting or categorizing is a pretty fundamental function of the brain. Categorizing is a useful habit. I don’t go to the pet store when I’m looking for a new pair of pants. If I am trying to understand why some institutions seem to fail and others don’t, might I ask what do the winners have in common and what ditto for the losers? Categorizing seems to be important in how we process information and make our way through the world. It’s why we don’t stand flummoxed in front of the meat counter wondering why we don’t see any ice cream.
I agree with the two previous comments.
BTW What does this student think (probably feel,not think) about the scientific method? The argument against universalizing seems to me to leave no room for social science.
By the early 1950s, political science was simply “thick description” of politicians and institutions. There were no actual models of political behavior that would allow one to make predictions about the potential results of changes to the rules of the game. Ken Shepsle described the behavioral revolution that followed thick description this way,” there was a growing sense that
something was missing, that the behavioral revolution had wiped
too much of the slate clean. For one thing, behaviorists provided
few unifying principles for their descriptions, measurements,
and hypotheses. Partially as a reaction to this theoretical vacuum,
some postwar scholars in political science and economics began a
new project— formal political theory (also called “rational choice
theory,” “positive political theory,” “public choice,” and sometimes even the old and oft- used label “political economy”).”
Do the anti-universalists object to what Shepsle called unifying principles?” It sounds like microhistory might be a version of thick description that leaves the writer without any means of, as Shepsle says, “deriving expectations that could be examined empirically.”
Sounds to me like your fellow student has a problem with reality. “Universalizing” is just a stronger case of generalizing. Without the ability to generalize, you can’t survive. You have to be able to generalize that the shiny red berries will kill you. And that the tall brown ones with antlers are good to eat, but the short grey ones that travel in packs are dangerous. It’s just noticing patterns and trends.
Also, my guess is your critic universalizes all the time: “All MAGA hat wearers are racist, sexit, yadda yadda.” Maybe the thing to do is to turn it around on him or her: “You’re universalizing about universalizing when you suggest all universalizing is bad.” Then stand back and watch the head explode.