July 17, 2006

Dear Colleague,

    In colleges and universities throughout the English-speaking world, one of the most popular ideas of the second half of the twentieth century is "The dominance of the eye." So popular that I am justified to call it a fashion--a French fashion, it goes without saying. Jean-Paul Sartre puts is novelistically thus: "A man plays the piano in a room. He is not a very accomplished pianist. Nevertheless the chords of Beethoven ring out, fill the room, and the man feels happily in control--until a door opens, another man steps in, stands there with folded arms, and watches. Suddenly, the pianist feels self-conscious, his playing falters; he is reduced to an object in the eyes of another and so is no longer a subject in command of the world." Now, this insight is extended more generally to the roving male eye, which targets the female, strips her of her clothes and appraises her as a sex object. Michel Foucault, a later high priest of French fashion, argues the same idea in discussing the Panopticon--an architectural devise that enables a single prison guard, through the power of his all-seeing eye, to dominate the prison population all around him. "Big Brother is watching!" makes us all fear the ubiquitous eye.

    When we look into earlier periods of history, we find the eye valued for quite another reason. In the Middle Ages, the eye is made much of because it is the source of vision. And vision doesn't mean, as we do, seeing things so that we can find our way around in the world, or so that we can dominate it. It means, first and foremost, the ability to see God. Now, when we see God, we hardly reduce Him to an object, a victim of our gaze! Quite the contrary. It is we--we who see who are forced on our knees, reduced to a posture of trembling adoration. And that which we see doesn't even have to be God. Dante catches a glimpse of Beatrice--and, guess what?--her beauty turns Dante into quivering jello! Seeing, in other words, can make us vulnerable, as the ancients pointed out, Plato, outstandingly, in Phaedrus. But what sort of vulnerability is this? Why should we be afraid of being vulnerable when it is to beauty, the good, and truth?

    University officials constantly praise diversity. They seem to think that a diverse student and faculty population will mean a greater diversity of viewpoints. But if we are looking for real differences--radical differences--of viewpoint, we are far more likely to find them in our past than in present populations which, whatever their skin color, are all ideologically much alike. Have you ever heard, for example, African American or Asian-American scholars argue in favor of greater vulnerability? Of course, not. Nor, for that matter, have you heard it from Euro-American scholars. They are all--we are all--far too much creatures of our own time to even dream of that possibility. If our campus seems intellectually bland, it is because we have neglected--through sheer prejudice--the voices of those who live in a foreign country--and by foreign country, I mean, of course, the past.

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu