Report for basic training
Cambridge students will get some training in not trying to suppress every opinion they dislike.
Students at the University of Cambridge will be given free-speech training in an effort to tackle so-called “cancel culture” against guest speakers.
The sessions by two academics will aim to teach undergraduates to tolerate views that they disagree with and could be rolled out to more universities if successful.
Note that what’s meant here by “tolerate views” is not agree with them or accept them or even try to understand them, it’s just allow them to be heard. That’s not asking all that much. Cambridge isn’t likely to invite professional racists to spew racist abuse for half an hour, so maybe the students can actually bring themselves to stop trying to filter out scary feminist speakers who think women matter.
A lot of scary events were cancelled last year, and this year hasn’t begun all that robustly.
Cambridge alumni threatened to pull funding from Gonville and Caius College after its master boycotted a gender-critical speaker last week. Helen Joyce, an author and former Economist journalist, was invited to the college by one of its fellows for a debate on gender ideology.
However, before she spoke, Professor Pippa Rogerson, the college’s master, joined Dr Andrew Spencer, the senior tutor, in telling students that Joyce’s views were “polemics”.The head of Cambridge’s sociology faculty also apologised to students for the “distress caused” after sending an email out inviting them to the talk.
It’s good that Pipps and Andy got named, given how they treated Helen Joyce. They should be getting some training themselves. Too bad the sociology weasel wasn’t named.
The new training scheme is being led by Arif Ahmed, an outspoken Cambridge philosophy professor, who will host a two-part series of free-speech training sessions at Gonville and Caius College next month.
Pipps and Andy, meet Arif. You have a lot to learn.
He said the training sessions were for students but he would consider opening them up to fellow academics and suggested that some employed by universities refused to tolerate views they disagreed with.
Why yes, they do. Sally Hines anyone? Alison Phipps? And of course our own Pipps & Andy.
He added: “As we have seen recently there are also many academics who don’t understand the importance of tolerating views that they find offensive. It may be that similar training is necessary for academics — as much as it horrifies me to say that.”
May we call you Professor Ahmed?
Basic training, seriously. Freedom of speech is the core of liberal civilization. If people were to come out of high school having learned nothing else, I would be satisfied if they understood the principle and its entailments in full.
Yeesh.
My dog identifies as a human. Sure, I humor him, but I’ll choose how to identify things for myself, thank you very much. Speaking of which, how I identify philosophers seems fairly uncommon nowadays.
twiliter, my cat identifies as a goddess, She does seem happy enough with such servile actions as filling her dish with cat food at the right time of the day, and leaving my robe lying on the sofa for her to sleep on. I can accommodate her identity without having to accept it since those are ordinary daily routines anyway (though the robe will be less present as weather gets colder, since I will be less likely to get too hot and take it off where I am).
Professor Arif Ahmed is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius, where he is Director of Studies in Philosophy. I presume it was he who booked the room for the debate with Helen Joyce, to the alarm of ‘Pippa and Andrew’.
Professor Manali Desai is the recently appointed head of the Sociology Department at Cambridge.
I made a mess of the comment that is now in moderation. Please delete the lines following ‘Sociology Department at Cambridge’. Sorry about this.
No worries. It was in moderation because several links.