Philippe Huneman, philosopher: “Making the university a reflection of society borders on comic reasoning”

After the mountains of books, the hours of television and radio broadcasts, the hundreds of statements, each more entertaining than the last, from our politicians, we were worried that the tribulations of Islamo-leftism and wokeism were coming to an end.

But that was without counting on our government team, which has generously provided us with a new episode in recent days: a squabble between the Minister for Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste, and his supervisory minister, Elisabeth Borne, over a few unfortunate words. The former declared that "there is no Islamo-leftism at university" [Monday, July 7, on the Parliamentary Channel (LCP)] . Alas! The poor man was sharply reprimanded by his boss, who, on July 13 on Radio J, maintained that Islamo-leftism exists at university because it is a fact of society.

Without commenting on this Islamo-leftism, what it would be, where it would come from, and how many divisions it would represent, I would like to point out here the futility of the ministerial argument, because it is symptomatic of the treatment of the university in the public debate.

Is this really a microcosmic version of the macrocosm that society would be? This is a complete misinterpretation. Generalized, the reasoning even seems comical. There is algebraic geometry at university, since chairs and departments are devoted to it. Is there algebraic geometry in society? No. Is there Assyriology? No. Conversely, do we find cell phone case sellers or Dalida lookalike contests at university? No.

The university is neither an extension nor a reflection of society. Nor is it necessarily dedicated to the values that should govern life in society. Thus, it is not democratic, because students and teacher-researchers stand in a vertical relationship, simply because of their different relationships to knowledge.

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