I suspect I am not alone in being beyond tired of the academic culture wars. They really don't solve anything, and they polarize the folks who ought to be working together toward beneficial higher ed reform. If you are sick of the culture wars, too, you may find this recent debate between ACTA president Anne Neal and Penn State English professor Michael Berube refreshing and encouraging.

The occasion: the National Communications Association annual conference, held last month in San Diego. The topic: Bias in the classroom. The back story: Much controversy, and a program that originally featured David Horowitz v. Berube. There was so much controversy, in fact, that the ensuing reasonable, cordial, and constructive exchange between two people who were expected to stage some classic culture war pyrotechnics comes across as a radical and welcome break from the norm. Here's to a new and better norm centered on civility, real intellectual exchange, pragmatic problem solving, and common ground. If we can have more discussions like this one, we might begin to get something done.

The whole thing lasts an hour. So you may have to listen in dribs and drabs. But it's worth it.

UPDATE 12/30: For contrast, see this account of David Horowitz's appearance at this year's annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, currently taking place in San Francisco. At least as Inside Higher Ed recounts it, this was a far less collegial and constructive encounter, with threats of disruption, name-calling happening on both sides, leaflets protesting Horowitz's invitation (and comparing him to Goebbels), security detail, a restive audience that sank more than once into nastiness, and other exciting culture-war-type sideshow attractions. Meanwhile, the article notes, nothing new was said, and the event proceeded according to established, stylized, boring norms ("Horowitz didn't break new ground in his critiques of academe--nor did Horowitz's critics in their analysis of him.") The MLA deserves props for trying. But they just wound up staging another round in a standardized stand-off, and not a dialogue. Maybe next year the MLA can invite Anne Neal and host a real discussion.