Before attending Duke, I spent 12 years in French government-run schools, whose unofficial goal is to turn a child into the kind of bureaucrat that has made French government what it is.
Their methods are simple. Everyone must take the same classes. Although students are split into three pathways as juniors, they must still take classes in every subject; the pathway merely determines the relative weight of each subject. Moreover, every paper must parrot the official government line on everything, or it will receive a failing grade.
Sometimes, the government line is based on politics. For example, in ninth grade, you are taught persuasive strategies by writing essays against the death penalty, and it seems students have been doing so since it was abolished in 1981. However, this dogmatic approach is not just a tool to brainwash youth into accepting government policy: you must also learn to master the Ministry of Education's thinking on such subjects as the utility of the fable and knowledge of the self.
Never being allowed to express my own opinion did frustrate me (I am the kind of person who applied for an opinion column, after all). What really got to me, though, was being forced to study subjects I was not interested in, using methodologies in which I did not believe.
Life is different at Duke. For the most part, I am free to choose what disciplines to study, what major to declare, etc. I truly believe that any on-topic perspective is accepted in papers, although humans are always more keenly aware of fallacies in arguments they oppose than in those they support, and professors may occasionally, if unconsciously, favor one side over another.
However, I was introduced to a new tyranny at Duke: every student must have an opinion on everything he or she studies, and a paper should be a reflection of that opinion.
Back in high school, I could write anything, and if what I wrote was wrong, it was because I had not paid attention to chapter three of the philosophy textbook. The "I" was completely perfunctory, and I didn't have to worry about whether or not I agreed with what I wrote: no one expected me to.
At Duke, however, after four months of political science I am expected to have an opinion as to what the appropriate balance between human rights and state sovereignty is. Waffling is penalized: no professor wants a paper that simply recapitulates the syllabus and concludes that the writer has no answer to the question.
In many papers, I am forced to be either a liar or a simpleton: the latter because I pretend to have found an answer in four months to a question experts have struggled with for years; the prior because in a paper, I cannot admit the truth: that I simply don't know. Few paper topics worth writing about are simple enough that an undergraduate can find an answer after four months.
And so I lie. When a paper topic comes up that I have no opinion on, either because I could agree with either side or simply because I have no strong feelings on the issue, I pick an opinion, any opinion, and defend it. Given that I will be held personally accountable for this position, I generally prefer the path of least resistance and take the professor's line.
Duke talks a lot about integrity, about how an education here should not give you just facts and skills but also ethical principles to guide you through life.
Some of this is done in a rather heavy-handed, self-conscious way. This is why Trinity students are required to take at least two courses involving Ethical Inquiry, which prove that in only two and a half easy hours a week, you too can have great moral fiber!
Some of this, though, arises simply out of the nature of the University. Duke's commitment to research affirms the dedication of every member of its community to the pursuit of truth.
Duke's commitment to academic freedom enshrines each individual's freedom not only to defend any position he chooses without fear of reprisal, but also to judge which areas are fit for study, and what approach to use in so doing.
However, Duke as a research institution is different from Duke as an educational institution, where the incentives are not publication, tenure and salary, but grades. Administrators and faculty would do well to remember that every time they reward a student with an 'A,' they are sanctioning his or her behavior, not just validating his or her argument. Grading policy teaches ethical norms, too.
And as long as students are required to take a position on any question a professor may choose to ask them, the only ethical principle I will take away from most of the papers I am assigned is:
If you don't know, lie.
David Rademeyer is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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