The awake feeling that is referred to as woke is roaming through the academic world. There were complaints about it in Parliament last month and it has now also reached Maastricht University. Only recently, the editor in chief of Observant complained about Feminists of Maastricht (FOM) in her weekly column. The university newspaper had reported on the action whereby free tampons and sanitary pads had been made available at faculties for women who could not afford these products, or women who are unprepared because of suddenly getting their period.
FOM’s action group with the not unwitty name Bloody serious also wanted to use it to bring up the stigmatisation of menstruation. Observant diligently reported on the matter, except that FOM wasn’t happy, because the article spoke of ‘women’. That should have been ‘people’, to show respect for those who menstruated but did not identify as female. This was going a step too far for the editor, upon which FOM threatened that if this word was not immediately changed in the ‘transphobic article’, a ‘community’ would be mobilised. Furthermore, the group suggested that the editorial board should attend an inclusion workshop.
First, FOM did not take up Observant’s invitation to react in a contribution, upon which the magazine stated on Twitter: We don’t agree, that is possible, but to resort to aggressive language and threats to prove you are right, goes beyond all limits. Reactions abounded, on Twitter and by e-mail, often anonymous because readers felt ‘intimidated’ by this ‘scary development.’
Cancel culture
Are we indeed living in a paralysing cancel culture and is the university under threat by small groups of radical students who are undermining academic freedom and the freedom of speech? I am the last person to defend the grim political correctness and cancelling of unwelcome opinions and speakers that we come across at many American and other Anglo-Saxon oriented universities. A safe space doesn’t just make sure people feel included, such a space might also exclude people and thoughts. But those who feel threatened by this, should do well to look in the mirror first.
Last year, a student complained about a film that I used for an exam at University College Maastricht. I should at least have warned the female students for certain passages from Stephen Frears’ classic Dangerous Liaisons (1988). With thanks to our Problem-Based Learning system, which eventually taught me to curb my natural urge to have an opinion about everything and to immediately pass that on to others, I first asked for clarification. The student found the rape scene intolerable and the film misogynous. What narrow-mindedness, I thought. The cancel culture had finally reached my own classroom.
However, I decided to set aside half an hour for this in my next tutorial. The student was of the opinion that only female students should be allowed to speak first. Maybe she had a point, because such a discussion is often taken over by male participants and soon there is no discussion left (I told myself). She formulated her objections clearly, another student suggested a similar film (always a strong point, to come up with an alternative). Some of the other students seemed to feel uneasy and remained silent, maybe they didn’t want to give a different opinion because of female solidarity. After the discussion had spread to the whole group and it was fortunately remarked that the film was also quite ambivalent and even the macho behaviour of the main character (played by John Malkovich) was mercilessly torn to shreds, a student added something else.
The humanities, he said, are first and foremost about the humilation of humans, the traumas, the atrocities and the catastrophes. With history, literature, gender studies, art and philosophy, we are trying to come to terms with it. What is the point of this whole study programme if these kinds of fragments can no longer be shown and discussed? And if it is clear beforehand what we are supposed to think?
Wokeness
It was an instructive meeting, for the students as well as for me, although that most likely doesn’t dismiss me from the moral obligation of an inclusion workshop. You can see wokeness as a threat or as a point of departure for a debate. Except, the reproach from many is that the cancel culture doesn’t want a discussion, it just wants to be right.
That is nevertheless the question. Anyone arguing for freedom of speech and the written word, for the public debate where everyone is allowed to speak, should realise that it sounds great, but that this debate is not always accessible to everyone. Sometimes, the basic values of freedom and equality clash.
Because what passionate defenders of the public stage, among whom I would like to include myself, often forget in this type of case, is that not everyone has equal access to that stage. Not only do you have to be fluent in the language of the spoken and written word, you also have to be given access – and so be seen and taken serious, bloody serious. It is a rule of thumb for me, the louder the shouts for freedom of speech, the less some others are heard.
Maybe their spokespeople are. They threaten and kick up a fuss in order to get attention, exactly as befits activists. However, the fact that FOM’s activists first refused to submit a written reply in Observant, I felt was disgraceful. They are students, so they may be expected to be able to put their opinions on paper.
On second thought, however, I thought: they receive – which is standard at Observant – space for ‘letters to the editor’ of a maximum of three hundred words, so why does this white male take the space on this public stage of almost a thousand words to make his point?
In the meantime quite a few relevant digital reactions appeared below the article. So, after all, didn’t Observant react too fast on twitter, and isn’t mobilizing a community rather a contribution to the discussion than a threat?
Let me postulate that I value Observant highly as one of the few independent university newspapers in the Netherlands. With its scant means, the paper offers a good podium for various voices from the university community. The question is whether those differences are different enough. I know, it is easy to shout out from the side-lines that some people are not being heard. So should a community be mobilised against me, then I will have deserved it just because of this.
Maarten Doorman is a writer and teacher of Cultural Philosophy at FASoS and UCM