Political Correctness and Identity Politics in Universities
(This is an appendage to my text on Jordan Peterson.)
I do share some of Peterson’s worries about the current state of Universities. It is a problem that some low-tier Universities have started to embody a certain type of everyone-can-win attitude to education. While Peterson blames this on a world encompassing secret Marxist plot to ruin western society, I think it’s more due to the increased customerisation of students under neo-liberalism, and a straightforward strategy for Uni’s to keep their valuable student assets. “Hey kids, at our Uni no one can fail! Apply now!”.
The role of a University or of academia at large is to accumulate and categorise knowledge, not to monetise nor instrumentalise, but to nurture a world-encompassing library over the human project. Inclusion allow for the universities to tap into a much broader pool of interpretations to fill this library with. It is not necessarily out of empathy they subscribe these ideals and so painstakingly work to include marginalised bodies, but out of sheer greed for knowledge. A wider array of bodies will lead to more experiences and interpretations, which will lead to a broader, better, denser and more extensive academia.
(For the STEM-lords: even though the impact of diversity is more tangibly present in the humanities I believe most professional within STEM fields would agree that diversity is a bonus as well. Peterson himself act in a non-STEM field, psychology being especially susceptible to the inherent biases of homogeny, e.g. viewing homosexuality as a disease, diagnosing women with hysteria and so on. It wasn’t the voice of white straight males who ceased these atrocities, although some did help. Peterson ought to be more appreciative of the contributions of diversity within his own field.)
The bodies holding these new experiences need to feel welcome to be able to contribute. This is where identity politics comes in as a useful tool for recognising the lived experiences of those who have not previously been included. These experiences/identities need to be identified and named in order to feel they have a voice. This is not cementing but acknowledging a lived experience.
These identities certainly runs the risk of becoming fortresses in their own, the problem of which is at the core of the contemporary critique of identity politics (at lest from within the left.) It is not surprising that these newly gained identities do become fortresses, when these identities has been ignored, suppressed, dismissed and silenced since forever. “Wear it like a crown”, the crown easily become a helmet when you must wear it every day.
We need to avoid these pitfalls of identity, where it become a fortress instead of an enabler. The best way to do this is to create an as welcoming climate as possible for everyone to engage. This is not a safe space, but a respectful space. A space where we can discuss the intricacies of gender and biology without for that case deliberately hurting the opposite part. Where we use each other’s preferred pronouns because we know the opposite will hurt and exclude the other and reduce our abilities for a fruitful communication, but where we at the same time do not shy from voicing our opinions about artificial alterations of language. In short, a challenging and explorative environment built on empathy and mutual curiosity. The key thing here being curiosity and empathy for the stranger, something that Peterson obviously lacks in his assertion that only his interpretation of the world is viable.
