As an undergraduate attending seminars in law school, it sometimes seems as if we are in the midst of an ideological war, fought by unwitting operatives with a surprising amount of aggression. In a law school dominated by postmodern, culturally oppressed, marginalised, victimised, patronised, relativist, politically correct (few of whom are able to argue their position with any semblance of coherence), it’s cool to be left.
Out with the conservative liberal ideologies – “fascism!”, they cry – and in with the pedagogy and discourse of rights and privileges. Any opinion that strays from the party line is subjected to vicious and unrelenting attack. Some may voice their disapproval purely as a sigh of disbelief – “how can anyone hold such a view?! the horror, the horror of it all!” – while others are more vocal in their expressions of puritanical hatred for all things Old and Hierarchical.
A wave of muttering surges around a lecture theatre, signalling yet another soon-to-be victim of the Collective Critique, and a string of hands is raised. Deliberately, almost mechanically, the dissenter is picked apart clause by clause. Trifles of semantics are argued incessantly, the ‘inherent’ immorality of certain premises is objected to, and an all-enveloping sense of condemnation hangs heavy in the air. The ‘discussion’ ends with an exasperated sigh from all concerned — both parties shaking their heads at one another’s seemingly indefensible arguments.
Sitting towards the rear of a jurisprudence seminar, even superficially innocuous responses to the lecturer’s ethical questions seem to have become controversial. Ordinarily, one would expect such minor provocations to be ignored or, perhaps, cheerfully dismissed in the satirical tone with which they were delivered – evidently no longer. Shocks of horror abound at how one could “so obviously perpetuate” existing power hierarchies and historical injustices. When anything related to rights or social identity is mentioned (or merely able to be mentioned), it is, and suddenly every difference in opinion becomes personal. Humour has no place, dissent is quelled, and objections to relativist or pluralist modes of reasoning are for the most part ignored.
This attitude isn’t just infecting students. It seems to have pervaded every aspect of academic life, and to have exerted its own chilling effects: lecturers are strangely quiet; disarmed, unable to fend off scathing attacks on their subject’s validity and theoretical underpinnings, the mean green meme ends all meaningful discussion wherever it ventures. Friends report that the humanities and language faculties are also operating under a similar tyranny of what is, ironically, a form of contemporary moral conservatism.
I find it most paradoxical that a movement which claims to accord all worldviews equal worth itself rejects and painstakingly vilifies contrary moral or social paradigms. Ultimately, this undermines its important message: pluralism is an important recognition, and the tools of post-modernism are useful insofar as they grant us insight into the genuine harms caused by racism and other exclusionary ideologies. Active development of all individuals’ jurisprudential (and epistemological) conception of law should be encouraged without fear of being branded a subversive renegade.
Are there other academic institutions that suffer from a similar philosophical infection? How have other students (and professors) encouraged meta-cognitive development without subjecting themselves to attack (and social/philosophical isolation)?
