The Liberal Synthesis in American Higher Education

Abstract

The much abused terms conservatism, liberal ism, and radicalism are ambiguous, but they serve to organize meanings about social thought and education. The conserva tive's fondness for restraint, stability, hierarchy, competition, and achievement values are linked to his conception of the social functions of higher education, governance, and student life. Radicalism, in both its Marxist and anarchist versions, has challenged the prevailing conservative orthodoxy. Lib eralism has tried to synthesize competing conservative and radical views of social ethics and education. It embraces both freedom and order, stability and change, morality and pragmatism, equality and hierarchy, competition and identifi cation with the victim. The implications of the liberal syn thesis are specified for equality of educational opportunity, pluralism, academic reform, and the "marketplace of ideas."