As a professor of political science, the debate around academic freedom has entered many of my conversations lately. It has become an essential theme; a marker of our time, one might say. Of course, this is not the first nor the last time that both the nature and the scope of academic freedom have been called into question.
But there is something that impresses me with the way in which the subject is currently being treated in Quebec. As we have done for a host of other delicate political issues of recent decades, which torment Quebec but also the Western world more broadly, we refuse to remain a simple witness of what is happening in front of us. We don’t want to be “average” either. We want to act and set an example for the whole world.
Many see this reflex as a form of unhealthy chauvinism. For my part, I am of the opinion that this stems at least in part from the fact that Quebec is a “small nation” in search of moral capital. I will come back to it.
The Cloutier report
At the outset, I would like to underline the quality of the reflections gathered in the report of the Independent Scientific and Technical Commission on the recognition of academic freedom in the university environment. Led by Alexandre Cloutier, the 71-page report is both educational and accessible.
The data from original surveys and meetings with a multitude of experts enabled the commissioners to illustrate the extent of numerous phenomena that many were still recently seeking to minimize, or even amplify, depending on what is considered to be the desired purpose of the university’s mission.
Obviously, not all will be satisfied with the recommendations and opinions made by the Commission.
To this day, I remain skeptical of the need for Quebec parliamentarians to legislate on academic freedom. It seems to me that we are opening the door here to the judicialization of a properly political phenomenon, in addition to constraining the autonomy of universities.
It also seems to me that in light of established practices of living together in Quebec, public debate is preferable to legal recourse.
Even if it is more symbolic in nature, and therefore has no legal teeth, a statement of principle seemed to me the way to go. In short, the absence of a law would not necessarily lead us to “swim in confusion”, to use Mr. Cloutier’s expression. But while this issue is effectively treated in a very disparate manner from one establishment to another, if the Quebec legislator accepts the recommendations while being cautious, I agree that we can avoid slippages on both sides. other.
The question of small nations
The debate around university freedom is obviously not unique to Quebec. At the very least, it has imposed itself in all contemporary liberal democracies.
However, one of the things that strongly marked me during the press conference, where the commissioners presented their report, is that Quebec is being erected as a beacon of humanity, capable of enlightening and promoting ‘bring its lights to the four corners of the globe.
In response to a journalist, Alexandre Cloutier affirmed that, if Quebec adopted the recommendations of the Commission, it would become nothing more or less “the model for the world”.
Chauvine, Mr. Cloutier’s reply?
I interpret this rather as a symptom, which reminds us that Quebec is part of this family of “small nations”. As sociologists Joseph Yvon Thériault and Jean-François Laniel point out in their work, small nations are not recognizable due to a meager population, the absence of state institutions, an atypical territory or even low GDP.
It rather refers to a state of mind, to a way of representing oneself collectively facing the course of history. “Non-hegemonic” societies, small nations like Quebec typically feel a certain fragility, fearing that they will disappear in relative global indifference.
The philosopher Uriel Abulof showed that in the face of this existential fear, in return, small nations tended to want to amplify their moral contribution to humanity. This becomes a way for them to legitimize their existence in the eyes of the “big guys” around them.
In Quebec, the quest of many people to want to make the Belle Province a model for the fight against climate change seems to me to stem from this reflex internalized by small nations. Same thing when Pierre Godin combined the defense of our French language with the defense of all the minority languages in the world against the hegemony of one.
While we know very well that debates around academic freedom are raging in the United States and English Canada, as in the United Kingdom or France, this desire to make Quebec a model of academic freedom appears to me. participate in this reflex.
As long as this approach leads to balanced and promising proposals to advance debates and reflections, it is entirely healthy to celebrate these ideas of grandeur which respond to this feeling of relative fragility.
Rather than detecting a form of arrogance in it, I rejoice, on the contrary, in this creative tension. It testifies to the resilience and the potential for innovation that stem from this quest for emancipation, in order to morally justify its existence to the whole world.