The Dubious Value Of Value-Neutrality
Is value neutrality really dubious? And what does it mean to promote value neutrality in higher education? These are the question Steven Balch (2006) seeks to answer in his paper about value neutrality and value liberality in higher education in the U.S. As a person, who is tolerant to every race and every color in my life, and who tries to look beyond visible human features like age and nationality, I always believed that to be value neutral is important to be objective and non-biased. I was also confident that value neutrality was one of the dominant principles on which the system of higher education in the U.S. rests. However, and what seems the most interesting in Balch’s (2006) article, the author shows that value neutrality and value liberality in higher education is still in its infancy state. In other words, only now do universities come to realize what real value neutrality is and how it works. I was surprised to see that, for example, some universities simply do not realize the full scope of value neutrality and consciously or unconsciously refuse to use the principles of value neutrality in studies. That some students find it difficult to protect their viewpoints when they do not coincide with those of professors is not new to me, but for the first time I was able to unite these isolated incidents into one systemic concept of value neutrality.
Of course, I do not agree with Balch (2006) that everything in higher education is as bad as he is trying to show it. At the same time, I fully agree in that the new programs developed and financed by Universities seek to address these value neutrality problems and promote true diversity of meanings. I, personally, and due to Balch’s (2006) article, now see value neutrality as something that helps bring different meanings and opinions into the one. Even if these opinions contradict or do not coincide, they create a more realistic picture of the world. These will, as Balch (2006) shows it, stimulate intellectual pluralism. I believe that such diversity and pluralism will also help many students realize their strivings and succeed in the major studies. Unfortunately, for now, only science presents a unique opportunity to research a variety of opinions and designs.
References
Balch, S.H. (2006). The dubious value of value-neutrality. Retrieved September 30, 2009
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