FIGAROVOX. -
The controversy around Islamo-leftism has allowed the general public to discover the academic world.
You have seen this environment evolve in two decades ...
Renée Fregosi
- At the end of the 1990s, the group, which had become hegemonic in the social sciences, was only at the start of its offensive.
He claimed to be Pierre Bourdieu's “critical thinking” but denouncing all forms of “domination” was not yet the alpha and omega of research.
This is why, although not having followed a traditional course, I was able to be admitted on the list of aptitudes of the lecturers, the first sesame to apply for university posts.
The atmosphere that reigned at the CNU (Editor's note, the National Council of Universities responsible for the management of the career of teacher-researchers) had nothing to do with that of today: the professors were showing openness to spirit and tolerance towards people who did not come from the seraglio and published articles not only in academic journals or at least not recognized as such.
Read also: How Islamo-leftism plagues universities
What changed ?
The atmosphere.
I note the return of a form of stiffening, of Puritanism in French society and intellectual clashes are more violent.
The university is only an extension of political correctness and of conformist attitudes of generalized self-censorship;
it is above all a matter of denouncing, gagging rather than analyzing and debating.
But the intellectual world bears a great responsibility in the dissemination of ideas.
If education and research also become places where dogmatism and ideology reign with the aggressiveness that this entails, it is the production and dissemination of important theories and scientific knowledge that are threatened.
The university is just an extension of political correctness and conformist attitudes of generalized self-censorship
Renée Fregosi
However, this is what has been happening for two decades.
The university institution was gradually taken over by sectarian groups.
Pluralism of approaches and methods, such as the diversity of origins and backgrounds or the originality of the words are systematically banned.
It is not only the ideas that are fought, but also the people who embody them.
Those who do not belong to the clan that has become the majority are rejected or excluded from recruitment, promotions and research funding.
Under the pretext of a lack of scientificity, of defending an "essentializing" point of view, of adopting methods that would be far from the field, or of never having published in peer-reviewed journals (Editor's note, a journal which publishes scientific articles reviewed by reviewers).
You also criticize the fact that teacher-researchers are judged by their peers ...
In this parity system, the one who holds the majority of votes and / or the greatest influence can acquire undivided power and without counter-power which he can abuse.
It is supposed to guarantee impartiality as to persons and a scientific quality of research and teaching, but it is perverted by the will to power of organized groups.
The rise in power of a “diverse ideology” which we are witnessing at the university is therefore facilitated by this mode of operation.
These activist excesses are also present in the world of culture, the arts and the media.
They are carried, spread and impose their rules of life through strategies of empowerment in institutions and organizations of civil society.
The naivety, oversight and cowardice of the majority then facilitate the tyranny of minorities over the majority.
Thus, an old friend who is now deceased, a great professor at the Sorbonne, confessed to me that he and his colleagues of the same generation and belonging to various schools of thought, had all, through neglect and lack of clairvoyance, left s 'infiltrate a clan of young wolves who then dispossessed them of their political science department.
These professors-activists now recruit exclusively their proteges, their associates, their obligees.
Whoever holds the majority of votes and / or the greatest influence can acquire unchallenged power without checks and balances which he can abuse
Renée Fregosi
Has the Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal become aware of the situation?
She became aware of it, it seems, but very late.
And we can doubt its sincerity since those responsible for the deviation of the institution are themselves required to make the inventory ... Today, the social sciences, mainly sociology, political science and anthropology, are taken in hand, and other disciplines such as history or philosophy and even medicine and public health, for example, are beginning to be affected by decolonialist, racialist, indigenist, neo-feminist and Islamo-complaisant drifts.
Their supporters take over the management of university departments and laboratories of the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) as well as the highest bodies such as the CNU, the CPU (Conference of University Presidents) or the HCERES ( High Council for Research Evaluation and Higher Education).
The Ministry of Higher Education and Research has long since abdicated in front of these supposedly independent organizations because they are equal, but in fact largely dominated by ideologists.
What do you recommend?
Instead of announcing or calling for surveys on the nature and level of scientificity, difficult to define objectively, of teaching, research projects, theses and other academic work, it would be more important to guarantee the pluralism of theoretical approaches. and methods of analysis.
For this, it would be urgent to ask the ministry to support the appeals of applicants and teams when they are refused for positions or for research projects by the famous "independent bodies" and peer review.
Because the ministry systematically discards itself by responding to gracious appeals formulated that "the commissions are sovereign".
And as this exists for primary and secondary education, even if its implementation is far from satisfactory, offices should be set up allowing complaints to be lodged against concrete infringements of academic freedom (refusal of thesis subjects or 'research subjects) and educational (exclusion of certain teaching themes and reference authors).
It would not be a question of instituting there "police courts of thought" (since there is no question of banning themes) but on the contrary, of fighting against those already set up by these dogmatic intellectuals. which “cancel” (cancel culture) and exclude people, free debates, ways of thinking.
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