Loose talk in Canada

Wednesday November 23, 2011

Dennis Hayes says universities should not try to restrict ‘loose and excessive’ thinking

There is a Second World War poster that carried a now famous message:

‘War information makes good conversation. The Axis counts on others repeating what you tell friends “in confidence.” Think before you talk!’

‘Think before you talk!’ could be a good motto or injunction for academics to give to students. If ‘thinking’ requires reading, and some of that reading involves research, many academics require something like this of their students. Otherwise what passes for discussion in universities is just chatting and just chatting is too often what academic discussion has become. Academic discussion can be reduced to the swapping of half-formed or ill-informed opinions if the students haven’t done their work or the lecturers or curriculum indulges their ‘voice.’

But ‘think before you talk’ can also be used to silence critical opinion, even from students. A way of shutting them up, however good their ideas unless they have done some ‘research.’

In October, on the 100th anniversary of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, that organisation effectively decided to do away with academic freedom. They simply said that any university or college must: ‘defend academic freedom against interpretations that are excessive or too loose, and the claims that may spring from such definitions.’

This isn’t the ‘reasonable’ statement it intends to be. It has parallels in ‘reasonable’ statements about excessive drinking or loose behaviour – that some of us might also object to – but academic freedom is entirely different. Academic freedom is precisely the freedom to express the excessive and the loose in ideas. Defending the excessive and loose is what academic freedom declarations are about. If academic freedom in reality meant that only moderate and tight views were expressed, there would be a need define it in law or in mission statements or to defend it in practice! If it did not cover these things there would simply be no need to defend it!

Going too far in ideas and their expression is what academic freedom is about. I was once criticised by a left wing trade unionist who said ‘Dennis Hayes takes academic freedom too far.’ That’s authoritarian nonsense. Academic freedom and free speech cannot be taken too far.

There has been some comment on the technical and protracted quasi-legal processes that would be necessary to judge in each case whether some statement or article was ‘excessive’ or ‘loose.’ That’s true, but one thing we can be sure about is that statements critical of university managers and their actions will certainly fall into these categories. Academic freedom is rarely held by university bureaucracies to apply to them. They want it caged in the classroom like a dangerous beast whose criticality may devour them.

The statement says also that academic freedom should be ‘exercised in a reasonable and responsible manner’. In a similar way to the prohibition of ‘loose’ talk, trying to prescribe the form of academic freedom means that something you don’t like because of its content can easily be held to be unreasonable and irresponsible in its expression. A bit more critical and unreasonable and irresponsible argument should be encouraged so as to shake up the current quietism that dominates university life.

In universities we need to be a bit more unreasonable and irresponsible and say things that the authorities will denounce as ‘excessive’ or too ‘loose.’ The Association of Universities and College of Canada have, in a reasonable and responsible way, asked academics to be moderate and to structure their thoughts. Their sensible advice is one step further towards academic silence. This possibility reminds me of posters from a later conflict where, on the streets of Belfast and Derry, there appeared another now famous message:

‘Loose-talk costs lives – In taxis – On the phone – In clubs and bars – At football matches – At home with friends – Anywhere! – Whatever you say – say nothing!’

Dennis Hayes is the director of Academics for Academic Freedom