Towards the end of Thursday’s televised debate, the question of academic freedom came up. That surprised and pleased me.
I see it as an indication that the extremely serious crisis the university is going through is beginning to be understood outside its walls.
The topic also earned us the most amusing moment of the evening: Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois pouted out the words “White Niggers of America” like someone was biting a lemon.
activism
If you want to better understand what is happening at our universities, read the book Les Deux Universities by my University of Ottawa colleague Robert Leroux, published by Éditions du Cerf, which was presented on Saturday night. .
Only a full professor at the top of the hierarchy could afford this book without too much personal risk.
Why this title? Because two conceptions of the university lead to an intellectual civil war.
There are those who stick to a classic university concept: we seek objective truth there, whether we like it or not, and we don’t engage in politics.
If a teacher wants to do politics, let him do it outside his classroom.
The other view is that of people who think that there is no one truth, that everyone has their own, but that theirs is so important and just that it deserves to be imposed on everyone.
Isn’t it contradictory, you will say, to say that everything is relative… except your point of view?
Yes, and precisely because this work has such an extraordinarily low scientific level, these people impose themselves through intimidation, censorship, infiltration of departments and exclusion of colleagues who don’t think so.
Leroux multiplies the examples of academic works that are nothing but the promotion of ideologies and value judgments.
These professors, whom Nathalie Heinich dubbed “academic militants,” turned their neurotic obsessions into fields of research.
This results in “Gender Studies”, “Fat Studies”, “Ethnic Studies”, “Queer Studies”, “Disability Research” etc.
It is no longer a matter of understanding, but of defending and promoting, always starting from the premise that the people being studied are victims.
The complicity of infiltrated student unions and intimidated administrations, increasingly staffed by those with degrees in these fields, give them considerable strength.
Imagine young people who have been brainwashed for years entering the job market.
Career
Just look at who gets scholarships (and who doesn’t), the thesis topics, the profiles of newly hired teachers to also understand that many have smelled the vein that pays for a career.
Ideological fanaticism paired with personal interest then becomes a powerful cocktail.
In the social sciences we no longer produce citizens, says Leroux, even less intellectuals, but parrots.
Read this book. You will not regret it.
