Activism has become central to academia; left-wing scholar-activism is prominent in fields which use qualitative methods and universities endorse certain causes. But recent months have seen a crisis. Some left-wing positions have become risky – support for Palestine is the most prominent – and many scholar-activists have fallen silent, raising questions about the foundations of scholar-activism and its trajectories.
I think that if academia goes down this path, it will lose its “social licence”. No one will trust research, people will stop sending their children to university, so forth. The incentives to be activist must change. Part of it, I think, goes back to government grants. This means people must research whatever is currently promoted and government-style bureaucracies penetrate academia. I don’t get grants because I am not trendy, but we actually need people who are not trendy, who preserve knowledge as well as find new knowledge, who emphasise teaching… okay, I’ll stop, but you get the picture.
"Activism has become central to academia". In my view activism should lead to an unceremonious EXIT from academia. Especially tax-payer-funded academia. And whilst we're on the subject, in my idea of academia....'Activism' and 'Scholar' don't go in the same sentence. Sorry.
Are there any regular public opinion tests on respect for higher education institutions? I've an intuition that the Gaza war could be quite damaging. How different (if at all) is the UK from the US in this respect?
I think that if academia goes down this path, it will lose its “social licence”. No one will trust research, people will stop sending their children to university, so forth. The incentives to be activist must change. Part of it, I think, goes back to government grants. This means people must research whatever is currently promoted and government-style bureaucracies penetrate academia. I don’t get grants because I am not trendy, but we actually need people who are not trendy, who preserve knowledge as well as find new knowledge, who emphasise teaching… okay, I’ll stop, but you get the picture.
"Activism has become central to academia". In my view activism should lead to an unceremonious EXIT from academia. Especially tax-payer-funded academia. And whilst we're on the subject, in my idea of academia....'Activism' and 'Scholar' don't go in the same sentence. Sorry.
Are there any regular public opinion tests on respect for higher education institutions? I've an intuition that the Gaza war could be quite damaging. How different (if at all) is the UK from the US in this respect?