I'm joining this controversy with some reluctance. The position I'm alluding to is one of directionality. It's a cliche of scholarship that the very issues which we investigate are dependent on our theory of the problem we have chosen to address. What we derive from the investigation depends much more upon this than upon the data. And every teacher knows that the issues which students are offered an opportunity to discuss are usually much less important than those those which our readings encourage them to discuss.
Teachers choose readings.
They aren't inevitable parts of the course being given. This observation is in fact part of the standard critique of traditionalist courses. Ultimately then, a course usually has a particular directionality which is a result of choices made by its originators. Now, it seems to me very clear that John's course has its own directionality, and that directionality is what has made it co troversial. First, it has chosen a set of issues for discussion which are of much more concern to one side of the political spectrum than the other.