How do scholar activists answer the question "why should a conservative government, voted in by a conservative electorate, fund an explicitly and inherently anti-conservative academia"?
Splendid article! We try not being activists because understanding is needed before a path is selected. We worry about the amount of activism that is creeping into every field and think that it creates some challenges too. If all scholarships is activist, then it's harder to engage in conversation that can convince neutrals or newly informed people.
Thanks Mike! The roots of this line of thinking are diverse, but the influence of the Marxist educationalist Paulo Freire is very important. Look forward to reading your piece!
Enjoyed this, but your point that "few relish conflict" made me think of this piece on a fractious episode in Australian philosophy: https://honisoit.com/2022/08/the-great-split-a-radical-history-of-sydney-philosophy/ . Seems like everyone was up for a scrap there! Also contains the following hair raising detail: "In 1970, fourth year philosophy students at USyd had a dope-smoking and heroin-shooting group for one."
To my mind, there is a difference between advocacy and activism. I also think that in teaching, the position must be different again. I can and I do advocate for particular positions being taken in my writing. Good advocacy requires me, however, to note that there are other positions and to canvass them fairly. Activism means rejecting all other points of view: https://www.whatkatydid.net/p/activism-versus-advocacy
I do not think it is my place, as a teacher, to tell the students to agree with my advocacy for a particular approach. I must make it very clear that they are welcome to disagree with me, and that, in fact, I welcome it. I am there to teach them what the law is, not my vision of what the law should be. Part of my role as a teacher and academic is not just to advocate for views, but also to be a custodian of past knowledge. I can’t just ignore what courts say or pretend that law isn’t out there.
There seem to be layers to this, beginning with a naive under-appreciation of the value of intellectual humility. Moral 'reasoning' seems to be a largely arbitrary cognitive function (based on pre-existing intuitions, probably rooted in childhood experience) and I don't even trust my own. It takes a certain arrogance to carry it into a sphere of human endeavour that is positioned as a pursuit of 'truth'.
The impression I have is of bloated egos imposing their will on the world rather than attempting to explain it.
Has anyone traced the seeds of this idea that scholarship is for 'improving' the world, rather than making clearer sense of it?
Science isn't much more neutral. The social sciences are saturated in far-left ideological premises as are fields like public health, epidemiology, climatology, "misinformation studies" (which is activism) and so on. Even academic economics has a strong left wing bent.
If you were to truly clean out the pseudoscientists and activists it's unclear what would be left. Parts of the very hardest sciences perhaps, but the activists would immediately try and glom themselves onto those. Computer science has this problem right now, with some supposedly prestigious US universities publishing "computer science" papers that are little more than a sprinkling of data analysis or ML over a fat wide base of critical theory. Usually these are multi-author papers and the critical theorists barely touch computers, but some doe eyed postgrad from a real CS course is roped in to enable the publishing of a paper.
It can't, and universities are going to receive less public support going forward, and the sector is going to shrink. Which it should, because it's ridiculously bloated.
Faculty who refuse to allow dissenting perspectives in are in the same position as monarchs who cut off the heads of anyone who brings them bad news. Eventually you have no idea what is going on, no grasp of reality, no sense of when you look like a fool, and are in for a nasty surprise.
Great article Thomas.
How do scholar activists answer the question "why should a conservative government, voted in by a conservative electorate, fund an explicitly and inherently anti-conservative academia"?
Thanks! And I have no idea. On concrete issues, they tend to be quite evasive.
Splendid article! We try not being activists because understanding is needed before a path is selected. We worry about the amount of activism that is creeping into every field and think that it creates some challenges too. If all scholarships is activist, then it's harder to engage in conversation that can convince neutrals or newly informed people.
Thanks - very kind of you :-)
Also, really good inspiration for my own upcoming more philosophical & speculative piece on these issues
Thanks Mike! The roots of this line of thinking are diverse, but the influence of the Marxist educationalist Paulo Freire is very important. Look forward to reading your piece!
Enjoyed this, but your point that "few relish conflict" made me think of this piece on a fractious episode in Australian philosophy: https://honisoit.com/2022/08/the-great-split-a-radical-history-of-sydney-philosophy/ . Seems like everyone was up for a scrap there! Also contains the following hair raising detail: "In 1970, fourth year philosophy students at USyd had a dope-smoking and heroin-shooting group for one."
Thanks Alan. And yes, some academics do relish conflict! Fortunately, however, I haven't encountered such recreational groups in UK academia :-S
To my mind, there is a difference between advocacy and activism. I also think that in teaching, the position must be different again. I can and I do advocate for particular positions being taken in my writing. Good advocacy requires me, however, to note that there are other positions and to canvass them fairly. Activism means rejecting all other points of view: https://www.whatkatydid.net/p/activism-versus-advocacy
I do not think it is my place, as a teacher, to tell the students to agree with my advocacy for a particular approach. I must make it very clear that they are welcome to disagree with me, and that, in fact, I welcome it. I am there to teach them what the law is, not my vision of what the law should be. Part of my role as a teacher and academic is not just to advocate for views, but also to be a custodian of past knowledge. I can’t just ignore what courts say or pretend that law isn’t out there.
Thanks Katy - that's a really interesting post and an important distinction.
Meanwhile, your post has inspired me to further thoughts! https://www.whatkatydid.net/p/the-worthy-fruit-of-academia
There seem to be layers to this, beginning with a naive under-appreciation of the value of intellectual humility. Moral 'reasoning' seems to be a largely arbitrary cognitive function (based on pre-existing intuitions, probably rooted in childhood experience) and I don't even trust my own. It takes a certain arrogance to carry it into a sphere of human endeavour that is positioned as a pursuit of 'truth'.
The impression I have is of bloated egos imposing their will on the world rather than attempting to explain it.
Has anyone traced the seeds of this idea that scholarship is for 'improving' the world, rather than making clearer sense of it?
Science isn't much more neutral. The social sciences are saturated in far-left ideological premises as are fields like public health, epidemiology, climatology, "misinformation studies" (which is activism) and so on. Even academic economics has a strong left wing bent.
If you were to truly clean out the pseudoscientists and activists it's unclear what would be left. Parts of the very hardest sciences perhaps, but the activists would immediately try and glom themselves onto those. Computer science has this problem right now, with some supposedly prestigious US universities publishing "computer science" papers that are little more than a sprinkling of data analysis or ML over a fat wide base of critical theory. Usually these are multi-author papers and the critical theorists barely touch computers, but some doe eyed postgrad from a real CS course is roped in to enable the publishing of a paper.
It can't, and universities are going to receive less public support going forward, and the sector is going to shrink. Which it should, because it's ridiculously bloated.
Faculty who refuse to allow dissenting perspectives in are in the same position as monarchs who cut off the heads of anyone who brings them bad news. Eventually you have no idea what is going on, no grasp of reality, no sense of when you look like a fool, and are in for a nasty surprise.