What should be favored between freedom to learn and security? Literature professor Isabelle Arseneau said she was ready to bare her claws for the freedom to teach, and for the freedom to learn, to use and shocks if necessary. However, “when my daughter was about to turn twelve, she suddenly had this great need for freedom. And, while I was working at McGill University on open letters to defend academic freedom in the classroom, I saw myself at home having these reflexes of a mother hen, of a helicopter parent who wants to be overprotective.” A paradox of thought, experienced from her mother’s body, which came to enrich her essay, Laure’s nostalgiaon teaching in times of trauma and emotional reactions.
“The university is now struggling to be what it has always been,” writes Isabelle Arseneau from the outset, namely “the place where we can, collectively and with complete confidence, expose ourselves to shock.”
His little book, tightly packed, crystallizes a reflection around cases which have often made the news in recent years. And more often than you might think: a factual review, led by the woman who is also a researcher and archivist, lists the “affairs linked to freedom of education” which have made the news in Canada.
Since 2011, there have been 27. And we can very clearly see the explosion of cases from 2020, the year of the “Verushka Lieutenant-Duval affair”, with seven cases. Then another seven cases in 2021.
It’s a trend, not a phenomenon
Isabelle Arseneau carried out this research when “in the newspapers and news, a certain work [celui de Francis Dupuis-Déri, aux éditions Lux] made noise about moral panic in college.”
“It was said that the cases reported are epiphenomena, situations which could have been resolved amicably, by chatting. »
“If it’s true enough that many of these cases could be resolved by talking,” said the professor, smiling, “I knew, to keep up to date with what’s happening in the United States, because I teach in McGill and for having gone to an Ontario university, that we are not, in Quebec, in isolation from the United States and Canada.”
“Ideas do not stop abruptly on the bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau,” she emphasizes, and Quebec’s specificity is not impervious. “This count shows that, for ten to twelve years, cases have been increasing. It goes beyond the epiphenomenon, it goes beyond the phenomenon. »
To reflect on the situation, Isabelle Arseneau relies on The Coddling of the American Mind, where Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff observe the changes of recent decades on America’s most progressive campuses. There “is a culture of security and fragility (safetyism)”, which extends from the family universe, according to Mme Arseneau.
A culture which would promote “a “pampering” of the mind” and which would place “greater value on emotional reasoning than on rational reasoning”.
This count shows that, for ten to twelve years, cases have been increasing. It goes beyond the epiphenomenon, it goes beyond the phenomenon.
The essayist also reflects on the arrival of trauma warnings, which are not without effect on the works, despite their proven ineffectiveness in protecting emotions. It also evokes the ritual of virtue signaling to which institutions give in, and the need to welcome the shock and, for a professor, to accompany the discomfort.
Isabelle Arseneau also thinks about what happens when we stop using certain words, like the n-word, for fear of offending. There is then confusion between the sign in use and the sign in mentionshe writes, among other things because “when we teach, we do notjob not taboo words; we quote them, a bit as if there were quotation marks, distance between oneself and the texts read, she writes.
“I can’t imagine saying to students, ‘On page twenty-five, there will be this word; If it might cause something unpleasant for you, skip the page,” she adds verbally.
“We would never imagine telling an anatomy student that he can skip pages, like those on the male genitals, the penis, for example. »
“If you take literature with a seriousness equal to anatomy, to medicine, and it can be, then I am convinced of the usefulness of each word in a book. »
Self-censorship or sensitivity?
As a teacher, Isabelle Arseneau has never had any complaints from students related to what she teaches. The medievalist covers the fabliaux of the Middle Ages, with highly sulfurous contents.
“I also teach the obligatory course for all new students. If I had to make a list of potentially problematic books, I wouldn’t be able to teach anything. But I still wonder. » As around Philosophical dictionary by Voltaire, which she reads every year.
“Phrases in this dictionary absolutely need to be understood in context. For example, what is somewhat anachronistically called his anti-Semitism. It’s difficult to talk about it at the moment, especially with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. »
“It’s one of those books where I wonder what I should do, teaching-wise. Because students read this at home. We come back to it together then during the presentations; there, I can explain to them that the Jewish question in Voltaire is linked to a kind of hatred of superstition, which includes women, religion, etc. »
“I can then talk about the history of anti-Semitism. But there will be a time when they are alone at home with their reading, and when it is easy to quote an disconnected sentence on social networks with a comment likely to ignite the powder.
I also teach the obligatory course, for all new students. If I had to make a list of potentially problematic books, I wouldn’t be able to teach anything. But I still wonder.
This moment, alone with the work, remains in the eyes of Mme Arseneau, essential. “I believe that there is really a necessity for aesthetic shock, which helps to learn to think. The question of defamiliarization, too, seems necessary to me. »
“So, I just told them, ‘Tie on your hats! Tie your hat tightly, for the French! Have fun, we’ll talk about it.” »
“We who have had the privilege of being able to read everything and learn everything,” she writes in conclusion, will we resist the urge to sort through the great stories of history to purge it of its “worst moments”… And thus bring together the conditions conducive to their repetition? » Nothing is less certain, believes the author.