Sanctioning debate
INTELLECTUAL INQUIRY DEEMED TOO STRESS-INDUCING FOR THIS GENERATION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Last month, as a part of a social event for current students in the department of chemical and physical sciences (CPS) at the University of Toronto Mississauga, I offered to run an activity popularized by American academic Peter Boghossian: Spectrum Street Epistemology.
In this surprisingly addictive game, participants respond to a series of claims — of which they have no prior knowledge — as they are presented on a screen and, following a brief countdown by the host, react by walking to lines inscribed on the floor that represent a spectrum, ranging from agreement, through neutrality, to disagreement — commonly called a Likert scale.
Being not wholly of the woke persuasion, I had convinced myself, perilously, as I have come to realize, that this game would make for an entertaining interlude for young minds attending one of Canada’s top universities.
After all, when I was at college, couched in the heady intellectual environs of Oxford, we undergraduates actively sought out political debate within the quadrangles, struck radical postures and cultivated our skills in argumentation, satiating a collective and deeply felt instinct for “finding ourselves.” We aspired to curry favour in the strange, alien world of adulthood, to seek affirmation, to identify our soulmates and to discover ourselves, and others, in the realm of the mind.
This sounds absurdly nostalgic today, in a world where debate is actively suppressed on any number of important topics, the breadth of which is endlessly expanding. Perhaps it should thus not be surprising, in retrospect, that I received complaints, and was promptly summoned to the office of my departmental chair.
How exactly had I traumatized the psyches of these unsuspecting students? I had endeavoured to couch the statements in such a way as to minimize offence, to select only topics falling within the Overton window — that rather nebulous zone where public debate happens — fencing off the untenable political extremes that are broadly agreed to be off-limits.
“Jews should be gassed” would be a claim outside the Overton window, for instance, as Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s ex-president, and her compatriots now — but only now — comprehend. In my rendition, we began with, “Vegetarians are morally superior to omnivores,” which passed the rather arbitrary “social acceptability” test, according to my chair.
Later came the claim, “Prof. Jordan Peterson requires media training.” Topical, certainly; but wholly unacceptable to the department’s entirely predictable political mood-swings. This type of claim is “stressful to our students,” I was told. As such, it was wholly “inappropriate,” and requires surgical excision. Now I’m worried, because these are merely the warm-up claims.
Presented with the claim, “Western science is hampered by a political bias,” one female student stood on the “strongly agree” line, and I asked her why she had chosen that stance. “Speaking as a Muslim woman of colour, I know that to be true,” she announced over the microphone, followed by words to the effect that all science is a hopelessly white patriarchal Eurocentric endeavour that’s wholly committed to oppressing other ways of knowing.
I was surprised, because she is a chemical and physical sciences student who’s working toward a graduate degree, but it is the host’s role to remain neutral and not express an opinion, or react in any way that might express a certain bias. If her statement reflects her true attitudes, many might express genuine concern that she may have accidentally elected the wrong discipline for advanced study.
Next, we had, “There are other ways of doing science beyond the western tradition,” which led to both advocacy and dissent.
When I crossed paths with a distinguished scientist and former biology chair the day following the event, he invaded my personal space, lowered his voice and shared with me, with the naive incredulity characteristic of a marooned academic scientist, “I attended an event with other scientists where we were told that we ‘wouldn’t understand’ unless we embraced the reality that ‘water is alive.’ ” Then he paused. “I mean, it’s H2O!”
This is the entry-point in the science curriculum for the Indigenous science that has suddenly become an equal and valid cornerstone of scientific inquiry, according to the federal government.
Now we arrive at the most traumatizing claim. Four simple words: “Men can become women.” All hell breaks loose — at least in the context of my chair’s ongoing, unshakable narrative.
This is a traumatic statement, unworthy of a social event, I was told. Students were not suitably prepared. They are vulnerable to manic episodes, and this sort of thing requires trigger warnings and safe spaces and — let’s not delude ourselves — time for unforewarned opponents to raise a cogent defence. I had broken the boundaries of acceptable behaviour as a faculty member. This was pernicious transphobia unmasked.
“We can sit here and pretend, but you and I both know that you overstepped the boundaries.” These are the words etched on my memory. My chair, doubtless exasperated by my antics, appears to have evolved spectacular mind-reading talents, like a character from the X-men comic strip. Or should that be X-women? Or both, or neither. The X-people?
Of course, this ploy is useful in the circumstances of our meeting, because it completely obviates any need for justification. My fate is sealed, the judgment passed, the evidence incontestable.
For those looking for evidence of the clownish insanity that passes for political correctness on Canadian campuses, you need look no further than this one incident, because it is emblematic of the widespread and pervasive authoritarian overreach that now plagues anyone committed to the pursuit of free inquiry in our institutions of higher education.
Naturally, being a compassionate soul, I am sympathetic to the predicament my chair has found herself in, caught in an intolerable pincer manoeuvre between social-justice ideology and common sense. If I were chair, though, I would fret less over a faculty member encouraging topical, if lessthan-anodyne debate, and concern myself with the optics of the other activities that were carrying on in the same room while the Spectrum Street Epistemology bombshells were falling.
There were jigsaws arrayed on one table, a professor playing a variant of Snap with students at another and on a third — no word of a lie — were colouring sheets and crayons. Aliens arriving from Vega would be forgiven for mischaracterizing the event as daycare for human 20-somethings.
It should no longer surprise Canadians that their tax dollars are supporting this mass infantilization of the next generation. This is what university life in Canada has become. We can no longer brook spirited debate, most definitely not in social contexts, because it is too stress-inducing.
I am genuinely unnerved that my innovation has subjected the students, the faculty and the whole department to this terrible ordeal. What sorts of claims should I stick to in the future? I looked to my chair for wisdom. Without a hint of irony, I was given a suitable example: “Pineapple belongs on pizza.”
THIS SORT OF THING REQUIRES TRIGGER WARNINGS.