For a few years, even a few decades, the debate on the neutrality of ostentatious religious symbols within public institutions has been raging. However, we never speak of ostentatious ideological neutrality. Why ?
While we are torn about secularism, a debate that obviously remains important, we are hiding a subject that is, in my humble opinion, highly problematic and serious: ideological neutrality. The German sociologist Max Weber wrote a famous text just a century ago: The scholar and the politician. The sociologist evoked the fundamental need for the teacher and the university researcher to maintain “axiological neutrality”.
It goes without saying that complete axiological neutrality is impossible. However, it seems to me essential to aim for this ideal and not to allow ideologues to take over our educational institutions. It certainly seems to me more dangerous to institutionalize certain ideologies within our schools than to let a few teachers wear a crucifix, a hijab or a yarmulke. However, we are currently seeing a trend towards increasingly obvious and uninhibited ideological discrimination that is taking place in our universities.
The case of the FRQSC
I have just, last October, applied for a grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec — Société et Culture (FRQSC) for a postdoctoral fellowship at the CNRS in Paris in ancient philosophy (for a translation of a text from the Ve century, from ancient Greek to French). I must admit that I was shocked by some elements of the form, in particular two categories.
First, we were asked to say whether our research contributed to sexual diversity. As if it were a “must have”. Especially since we had to justify, not only if we answered yes, but also if we answered in the negative! So I had to explain why my research was not contributing to sexual diversity…
Then, it had to be said if our research contributed to the new catechism of EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion). Not wishing to be excluded from the scientific community in the history of philosophy, since I consider that my project offers a real contribution to the advancement of knowledge (the text in question has never been translated into French), I had to perform a series of contortionist-like maneuvers in order to ape the progressive clown in me.
All this is absolutely shocking, and I am happy to see that many students, professors and intellectuals are rising up against this invasion of fashionable ideologies in our educational institutions. The consequence of this will certainly be to add to the already considerable pressure for conformity in the choice of research subjects. Thus, paradoxically, promoting “diversity ideology”, particularly through EDI, will ultimately only contribute to reducing the diversity of research fields.
In addition to the ideological discrimination that will increasingly favor the fashionable vision of the world to the detriment of anything that comes out of the dominant ideological framework, this will have the effect of politicizing the educational field even more. However, the excessive politicization of all sectors of society is, if history is of any lesson, an absolutely fatal sign. It is important that certain non-ideological havens resist, in particular education.