Shouting down debate

Thursday September 8, 2011

Dennis Hayes exposes the rudeness of academic debate and says that we are losing the art of challenging ideas

Socrates’ vision of the afterlife was either of oblivion or of endless debate and discussion: ‘I should like to spend my time there, as here, in examining and searching people’s minds to find out who is really wise among them, and who only thinks that he is’ (Apology 41b).

Today most people would prefer oblivion than their characterisation of the innermost circle of hell, with Dante’s traitors replaced by debaters. In fact many people would prefer oblivion while alive rather than endless debate or, indeed, any debate.

I recently gave a talk about academic freedom and the responsibility to speak your mind and challenge conventional wisdom. One wag, in a mocking parody of liberty of thought, asked “But wouldn’t you defend the right of people not to challenge conventional wisdom?”

“Intellectual slavery,” I responded, “is always an option that the cowardly, meek or anxious might take, but it is not something to recommend in place of being brave, forceful and confident.”

It may be that people choose intellectual slavery either because they are conventional in their thinking, or because they lack confidence in their ideas and their ability to express them. Or else they may be fearful of the personal and professional consequences of expressing awkward ideas. All these points would be fairly banal. A better explanation would be that most people don’t see the point because the culture that inspired Socrates’ vision of heaven as eternal debate has all but vanished.

Even in academia, which is defined by debate, it has gone. At another talk, this time at a Russell Group university, I was licensed to be ‘provocative’ and was accused by the audience of being ‘provocative!’ Well, what can you do? What surprised me was not disagreement with what I said but the rudeness of the ad hominem responses about my presentation, its style of delivery and my personal mannerisms.

Why do academics feel the need to be rude when their ideas are challenged? These people are not from the old school of challenging and uncompromising intellectuals. There has been an important shift.

The change as I see it is that academics respond so aggressively because they no longer routinely subject their ideas to any serious criticism. This is another way of saying neither they nor their colleagues take their ideas seriously. Academics only talk to their colleagues in mutually supportive research groupings or in the rising number of ‘safe spaces’ in which they can present their ideas to a wider but still in-house audience.

Academics should get out more into the public world of debate where, much to their surprise, they will find their ideas challenged in a variety of ways but mostly without the abuse commonplace in academia that results from a feeling of threat. Academics see their professional careers at stake if they are subject to criticism.

The problem with the contemporary ‘professionalisation’ of academics is that intellectual work has become their private property only to be exposed to a few professional colleagues and friends. This commoditisation of academic life is a major factor contributing towards the death of proper debate in academia. This heated and passionate discussion was always, or sought to be, disinterested and impersonal.

Today debate is personal.

By proper debate I do not mean the sort of discussion that takes place in the private sphere – in university common rooms, pubs, at dinner parties, and even on social networking sites such as Facebook or blogs. For the most part ideas go unchallenged but even where there is disagreement it is of no consequence.

To be debated usefully, ideas have to be put into a public space. In circles of friends, in the pub and on the web anyone can say what they like, but who cares?

If anyone wants their ideas to be taken seriously they need public forums in which they can be openly challenged. Today, it is harder than ever to find such forums. Once they were a fact of everyday life. Political parties, trade unions and activist groups all provided opportunities for serious debate, and social and community life reflected this seriousness in a variety of cultural and educational activities. These traditional forums and their audiences have gone.

Rediscovering debate is the main factor that can reinvigorate contemporary political and social life. Ideas have to be taken out of the private sphere, away from talking to family and friends or to special interest groups or professional networks. Ideas have to be, as the gay rights activists used to say ‘outed.’ This requires confidence, bravery and moral courage, not obvious features, even in academia where people are paid to argue.

The restriction of debate to the private sphere provides the illusion of debate like the shadows seen by chained humanity in Plato’s allegory of the cave. It is at best therapeutic debate. Commitment to putting forward our ideas in public is not an arbitrary whim but our moral responsibility if we do not wish to remain slaves ourselves or see others free to choose intellectual slavery.

Professor Dennis Hayes is the director of Academics For Academic Freedom