On academic activism: a French perspective

by Nathalie Heinich

Conference « Perils for Science »,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,

January 10th, 2023

___

1. The peril for science has a name: wokism 

Wokism is a kind of activism. According to it, all the work done at the university should be oriented towards a political concern for the modification of the social world. But we, researchers and teachers, are paid to produce knowledge and to transmit it. This is a goal that has nothing to do with politics, even if, of course, our productions can be used to support political causes – and most of us, including myself, are happy about this. 

This is why activism should have no place in the academic world. What I called « academo-activism » is an attack on the autonomy of science and a misappropriation of public funds. Indeed, we are not paid by our fellow citizens to be activists in the frame of our academic positions, but to produce and transmit knowledge. Therefore, this militantization of the university leads to a drastic decrease of the intellectual level, and to the incapacity of so many students today to understand what real research is.

Wokism being a form of activism, it constitutes only a new version of a phenomenon widely attested in the academic world during the previous generations, namely the contamination of knowledge by ideology. Practicing the confusion of the scientific arena with the political arena, it claims the submission of the scientific aim of production and diffusion of knowledge to a political aim of defense of the "exploited" (Marxist version), of the "oppressed" or "colonized" (Third Worldist version), of the "dominated" (critical sociology version) or of the "discriminated" (woke version) : a scope which is perfectly legitimate in the political arena, but contrary to the rules of production of scientific objectivity in the academic arena.

Its success is largely due to the fact that it defends causes that are rightly associated with progress and justice, but – and this is where it poses a problem – by 1) introducing them into arenas where they have no place, by 2) making them systematic or even unique grids of perception of the world, and by 3) using means that end up distorting them.

This academo-activism particularly concerns the social sciences and the humanities – sociology, political science, anthropology, history, philosophy – because these disciplines are by definition much more permeable to ideologies than the natural sciences. And it also concerns in particular, France, for reasons that I will quickly mention before turning to two assets that French people can use in order to confront it.

2. The permeability of French social sciences to wokism

I attempted to diagnose the modalities and effects of academo-activism in two short publications in which I highlighted the different periods of activist influence in the university and, specifically, in the social sciences¹: not only the Marxist moment of the 1950s-1960s, and the leftist moment of the 1970s, but also, since the middle of the 1990s, Bourdieu's "critical sociology" (the turning point being his collective book La Misère du monde, published in 1993) associated with the new radical left activism ; and finally, more recently – since the end of the 2010s – the "woke" moment imported from the Anglo-American world. 

Across the Atlantic, the woke ideology is largely and explicitly inspired by the French thinkers of "deconstruction", who largely fed the so-called "post-modern" turn from the 1990s onwards : Derrida for the deconstruction of discourses, Foucault for the deconstruction of powers, Lyotard for the deconstruction of the notion of truth, etc. Imported for the most part into the literature departments of North American universities, they came back to us as an export commodity under the valorizing label "French theory"². This fashionable intellectual trend left an extremely powerful and, in my opinion, deleterious imprint on the Anglo-American academic world, because it contributed to blur the boundary between science and opinion, between objective, reliable knowledge and subjective, contextual points of view. Then the way was left wide open for the replacement of academic production and transmission of knowledge by academic activism.

This confusion between academic knowledge and activism, or between science and ideology, gave rise to the idea that it would be legitimate to consider as academic disciplines the "studies" dedicated to the description and denunciation of all forms of discrimination, whether they are based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Hence the creation and growth of "gender studies" as academic supports for feminist activism ; "decolonial studies" as academic supports for anti-racist activism and the fight against the said "islamophobia" ; "intersectional studies" at the crossroads of feminism and anti-racism ; "gay studies" as academic supports for the fight against homophobia, among which the fight against "transphobia" is becoming particularly visible in the public space through violent actions. 

All these said “studies” are based not on academic disciplines, with their conceptual frames, methods, intellectual traditions, but on the study of communities defined by the fact that they would systematically suffer discrimination. This means a direct import of unquestioned slogans, and a drastic reduction of the corpus of concepts, of which only "domination", "discrimination", "patriarchy" remain. As a result, "studies" destroy the traditional architecture of disciplines (sociology, history, anthropology, political sciences, philosophy, etc.) by replacing them with an organization of knowledge centered on the sole notion of discrimination, that is, on a political agenda. Hence the catastrophic loss of disciplinary knowledge, the dramatic reduction of conceptual tool kits and, on a global level, the impoverishment of large parts of the social sciences.

It is thus this conjunction of French and American trends that has led to the current confusion between the academic and the political arenas : a confusion which paved the way for wokism. It is often said that the "woke" phenomenon comes from the United States. That is true. But it would not have had this success if it had not been grafted onto a form of militantization of the relationship to knowledge that essentially came from critical sociology and the political uses of French authors such as Derrida, Bourdieu and Foucault. This is why the French heritage of the theories of deconstruction, combined with a certain Americanophile snobbery, largely contributes to explain the permeability of the French academic world to this North American influence. 

3. Three major differences between wokism and prior forms of academic activism 

There is a phenomenon closely linked to wokism, namely "cancel culture", which also originated on the other side of the Atlantic³. Cancel culture legitimizes the prohibition or cancellation of any public speech that is allegedly « problematic » or "offensive" to a minority. Such a conception is unsuited to French law, which frames freedom of expression in such a way that only courts are qualified to prohibit any discourse, unlike in the United States and Canada, where the constitutional absolutization of this freedom leads to its limitations being taken over by activist groups. However, even in France this movement has recently given rise to various actions of threat or even violence against the presentation of lectures, training courses or public performances, which have resulted in their cancellation⁴. 

Based on the idea that it would be legitimate to restrict the freedom of expression of others if what they say does not correspond to a certain conception of the good, cancel culture means a violation of the freedom of expression which, from a democratic point of view, obviously constitutes a major regression. This is an important difference with the activist academic movements of the post-Sixties leftism, which fostered all kinds of freedom, be it of expression or of sexual practices.

There are two other major differences between wokism and near past activism. The second difference is that the "woke" movement, meaning a systematic awakening to discrimination, is a current form of the Protestant awakening theology. It is important to understand that we are thus confronted by a kind of individual guilt politics. For example, the term "white privilege" is part of this form of guilt-tripping of individuals and blacklisting of those who don't think right. This is a kind of religious intolerance or, as my French colleague Pierre-André Taguieff put it, "punitive neo-puritanism"⁵. So one should not overlook the affinities of this "woke" movement with a religious and more specifically Protestant sensibility.

The third difference between wokism nowadays and past activism is that, far from being marginal or limited to small groups, it benefits from the support of institutions and, in particular, of European institutions as far as research support is concerned, allocated as a priority to anti-discrimination themes, to the detriment of many other research fields. So more and more calls for research projects, at the French and at the European levels, are linked to these themes. Our colleagues who do not wish to work on the new standard topics – gender, intersectionality, racism, homophobia, etc. – have difficulties to find funds for their projects or fellowships for their students. A colleague of mine, a French anthropologist specializing in Islamism, testified that she can no longer get funds for her work because all the research themes focusing on Islam are immediately reinterpreted as "the fight against Islamophobia".

And finally, in the United States the woke movement is driven not only by academic institutions but also by big companies, particularly the GAFAs, which impose mandatory trainings related to discrimination. This is obviously one more big difference with the leftist activism we were used to forty years ago.

4. Resisting wokism (1) : the universalist tradition 

However, France has assets to resist this phenomenon, as evidenced by the number of columns published in various newspapers against wokism⁶, and the number of books on the topics, some of them by important publishing houses⁷. This resistance rests on two main assets, as we will now see. 

« Studies » and « cancel culture » convey the idea that people should be defined once and for all by identities built on well differentiated communities, and that the members of those communities would have the right to control what can be said or represented about them, so as to avoid « cultural appropriation ». It means that wokism embodies a communitarian conception of citizenship, where individuals are considered not as members of the "community of citizens" but as belonging to restricted "communities", constituted on the basis of essentialized properties such as gender, sexual orientation, religion or skin color. This « identity politics », as our colleague Laurent Dubreuil named it⁸ (or, in French, « identitarisme »), akin to a communitarist multiculturalism, arose in the last generation, mostly in the United States. It focuses exclusively on discrimination by reducing any individual to his or her status as dominant or dominated, discriminating or discriminated, whether by gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. It is thus closely connected to activism through various collective movements : women, gays, people of colour, etc.

From a political point of view, it is an attack on the value of universalism, because it reduces individuals to a community affiliation. Wokism imposes the perception, designation and treatment of persons according to a rigid identity frame, whatever the contexts : this means there is no chance to suspend identity assignations, no possibility to state that, for example, being a woman may be relevant in certain contexts but not in others, and likewise with respect to our sexual orientation or the color of our skin. Under these conditions, social peace would be achieved through the affirmation of these "communities" (this is the multi-cultural model used in the Anglo-American world) and not through the suspension of affiliations within the civic arena, as is the case with the model of republican universalism proper to the French conception of citizenship.

This is the reason why French universalism, guaranteed by the Constitution, acts as a possible safeguard against woke communitarianism. Let me give you an example. On November 21st, 2017, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education, condemned the organization of "non-mixed workshops" (« ateliers en non-mixité ») as well as the use of the terms "racialized" (« racisés ») and "non-racialized" (« non racisés ») because, he said, "in the name of the so-called anti-racism », it « obviously conveys racism". The same minister, after the beheading of the teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist in October 2020, publicly denounced the "islamogauchistes" (islamoleftists) tendencies rampant at the University – in which he was supported by a column signed by a hundred academics published in the influential newspaper Le Monde⁹.

The universalist tradition is particularly anchored in the attachment to a value which is consubstantial with it : « laïcité », which does not mean « secularism » nor « atheism » but, rather, the abstention of any commitment to religion in the civic arena. The same Jean-Michel Blanquer affirmed this attachment to laïcité as soon as he arrived at the Ministry by creating a "Conseil des Sages de la Laïcité » (Council of Wise People for Laïcité). This still vivid presence of the universalist tradition is a reason why the woke phenomenon arouses reservations and even frontal opposition beyond the academic world in which it originated, through associations for the defense of laïcité such as the "Printemps Répbulicain", the "Comité Laïcité République" or « Unité laïque ». In the academic arena, the « Observatoire du décolonialisme et des idéologies identitaires » (Observatory of decolonialism and identity ideologies), created in January 2021, has become the main collective fighting against wokism¹⁰. It organized one year later at the Sorbonne a conference named "Après la déconstruction" (After Deconstruction), which marked an act of resistance to wokism in the academic world and was widely criticized as such. The minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was invited to introduce it, and the president of the « Comité laïcité république » to conclude it.

This prevalence of a political sensibility to universalism and « laïcité », fundamentally opposed to communitarianist wokism, has made France a privileged target of the war that Islamists are waging on Western societies, and which was witnessed by the bloody attacks of 2015 (in Paris) and 2016 (in Nice). In such conditions, the Islamist offensive, based on the denunciation of the discrimination of which Muslims would be victims in France, finds obvious sympathies and even complicity among woke propagandists, quick to refuse any condemnation of Islamism in the name of the fight against an alleged "Islamophobia". This is the principle of the tendency called « islamo-gauchisme » ("islamo-leftism"). This collusion between wokism and Islamism, well highlighted by specialists¹¹, fortunately contributes to slow down the woke movement in a country which is particularly sensitive to Islamist terrorism.

It should also be noted that in France the universalist tradition is present on both the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. On the left, it belongs to the social-democratic, reformist tendency, also called "Republican left", which is much less audible today than the extreme left or "radical left", but nevertheless embodies a very old sensitivity among progressists. This is another advantage, because unlike in the USA where the opposition to wokism is clearly assimilated to the right or even to the extreme right, in France this opposition is also carried by left-wing personalities, and sometimes manages to express itself in media considered progressive¹².

This is why wokists often allege that fighting for universalism would be a right-wing position, or even worse. But it is a mere strategy not to respond to our arguments : "You are right-wing, and so we don't listen to what you have to say". In doing so, they forget or pretend to ignore that in France the republican left defends universalist values, freedom of expression and laïcité, together with equality of rights. One of our battles today is precisely to avoid being assimilated to the right, and to affirm that opponents to wokism can also belong to the left.

5. Resisting wokism (2) : the status of a civil servant

The conference "Après la déconstruction" that we organized at the Sorbonne would have been unthinkable in the United States, where wokism is firmly established and supported by academic institutions. However, French academics benefit from a relative freedom to protest against this combined hold of academic activism and communitarianism, as shown by the abundance of public statements on the subject. This freedom is widely due to the status of civil servant bestowed to French researchers in public organizations and teachers at the University.

Allow me to share a personal anecdote on this subject. Invited in September 2022 to give a keynote at a conference for cultural policy specialists in Antwerp, I chose to address the risks of academic activism¹³. My talk was met with contrasting reactions, ranging from the loudest rejection to the warmest approval. Several colleagues from all over the world came to congratulate and thank me, in words that made me cringe: "I can't believe you would say that! It's the first time we've heard someone defend this position in a university!" I concluded that a public position that, in France, requires no more than a little determination, elsewhere would require one to risk tenure, and therefore one's salary. This probably explains why France is, it seems, one of the countries where resistance to wokism is the most developed.

And indeed, what do French academics have to fear in trying to counter the woke wave? Our young colleagues do indeed risk marginalization, exclusion from funding programs, and even the slowing down of their careers. Many of whom write to me to share their regret in not being able to publicly support my positions even though they share them, and one can understand their caution. But those who have, for the most part, their careers behind them do not risk much : the animosity of colleagues for whom they have no esteem anyway ; and, at worst, being put on the back burner when their teachings are suppressed, and being ostracized by a left-wing press that thus tramples on its historical values. It is unpleasant, of course, but it is not tragic. And the approval of colleagues whose opinion matters to us, combined with our intimate feeling of working for a just cause, more than compensate for these inconveniences.

This is why, in France, we can still oppose wokism with the resistance we owe both to scientific principles and to universalist values.

6. We can resist while remaining honest scholars 

But at the same time we must be careful not to confuse our own militant productions – for example, the columns I as other academics often publish in newspapers – with our scientific output. I am sometimes criticized for criticizing academic activism while doing anti-woke activism myself. But I never publish committed papers in the same media as my academic productions : what I submit to scientific journals has nothing to do with what I submit to newspapers. This distinction is fundamental, since it is the condition for what Max Weber called the « axiological neutrality » of researchers and teachers – their capacity to suspend their personal opinions in the frame of their academic activity. This is why we have to keep this distinction in mind if we want to fight against the harmful influence of activism in the university without becoming « academo-activists » ourselves.

Meanwhile, as the many colleagues involved in the same concern for the autonomy and quality of science, I try to continue my work as a researcher with all the rigor I can muster. I keep on hoping that it is by publishing good articles and exciting books that we can persuade students that there is something else than the distressing discourse they are offered by « academo-activists ». And finally I try to encourage all my colleagues to spread those ideas, as I am doing today, hoping that reason will finally prevail. 

Nathalie HEINICH

(CNRS-EHESS, Paris)

1. Cf. N. Heinich, Ce que le militantisme fait à la recherche, Gallimard-Tracts, 2021 ; Défendre l’autonomie du savoir, note pour Fondapol, 2021.

2. Cf. N. Heinich, « French Theory : petits malentendus transatlantiques », Telos, 9 février 2021. https://www.telos-eu.com/fr/societe/french-theory-petits-malentendus-transatlantiques.html

3. Cf. N. Heinich, « Cancel culture (l’importation d’une politique) », Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, mai 2021, http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/cancel-culture-limportation-dune-politique/

4. Cf. N. Heinich, Oser l’universalisme. Contre le communautarisme, Le bord de l’eau, 2021.

5. Cf. P.-A. Taguieff, « Sur la déconstruction », Res Publica, janvier 2022, https://www.fondation-res-publica.org/Sur-la-deconstruction-Comment-une-maniere-sophistiquee-de-lire-les-textes-philosophiques-est-devenue-une-machine-de_a1517.html

6. E.g. Jean-François Braunstein, « La biologie, une science « patriarcale » et « viriliste » ? », Le Point, 25 janvier 2021, https://www.lepoint.fr/debats/la-biologie-une-science-patriarcale-et-viriliste-25-01-2021-2411061_2.php#11 ;  François Rastier, « Transphobie et déni de la biologie, le soutien officiel à la « science trans » », L’Express, 6 août 2022, https://www.lexpress.fr/idees-et-debats/francois-rastier-tansphobie-et-deni-de-la-biologie-le-soutien-officiel-a-la-science-trans_2178100.html ; Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, Nathalie Heinich, Xavier-Laurent Salvador, Pierre Vermeren, « Solidarité anti-patriarcale au-delà de la Méditerranée, complicité patriarcale en France ? », L’Obs, 4 novembre 2022, https://www.nouvelobs.com/opinions/20221104.OBS65501/solidarite-anti-patriarcale-au-dela-de-la-mediterranee-complicite-patriarcale-en-france.html.

7. Cf. Sami Biasoni (ed.), Malaise dans la langue française, Le Cerf, 2022, ; Jean-François Braunstein, La Religion woke, Grasset, 2022 ; Xavier-Laurent Salvador, Le Cerf, 2022 ; Jean Szlamowicz, Les Moutons de la pensée, Le Cerf, 2022 ; Pierre-André Taguieff, L'imposture décoloniale : Science imaginaire et pseudo-antiracisme, Paris, Éditions de l'Observatoire, 2020 ; Liaisons dangereuses : Islamo-nazisme, islamo-gauchisme, Hermann, 2021 ; Pourquoi déconstruire ? : Origines philosophiques et avatars politiques de la French Theory, Paris, H&O, 2022.

8. L. Dubreuil, La Dictature des identités, Gallimard, 2019, https://www.google.fr/books/edition/La_dictature_des_identit%C3%A9s/OBuMDwAAQBAJ?hl=fr&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.

9. https://manifestedes90.wixsite.com/monsite.

10. http://decolonialisme.fr/.

11. Cf. Lorenzo Vidino, « La montée en puissance de l’islamisme woke dans le monde occidental », note pour Fondapol, juin 2022 : https://www.fondapol.org/etude/la-montee-en-puissance-de-lislamisme-woke-dans-le-monde-occidental/.

12. Cf. notamment Marianne, Charlie-Hebdo, Franc-Tireur…

13. N. Heinich, « On Academic Activism », 26/09/2022, https://decolonialisme.fr/on-academic-activism/.