Should academics be political activists?

Navigating the perilous waters of public intellectualism

Noam Chomsky (left) and Jonathan Haidt (right). Images from Wikimedia, CC license.

Something has been bothering me for some time now. And one good use of writing is to tackle issues one is not clear about, because we are forced to read more carefully in order to write as clearly as possible. Clear writing only comes from clear thinking. So here it goes.

The issue in question is whether academics should also be political activists. If you think the answer is straightforward, I hope you will think again. It is not.

So here is the plan. Let me begin with a concrete example at my own university, proceed by picking two champions of opposing views—Noam Chomsky and Jonathan Haidt—continue with a personal instance from my own teaching and writing, and then see if we can make way on the whole shebang.

An example: land acknowledgment statements

As we all know, the United States of America began its history with a large dose of Enlightenment ideals (Franklin, Jefferson, and the other “founding fathers”), religious fundamentalism (Puritans), slavery, and genocide. The latter issue is the reason for increasingly common “land acknowledgment statements” made by universities and other institutions at the beginning of official meetings and events. The City College of New York, where I work, has adopted the following one:

“We acknowledge that The City College of New York, grounded on the schist bedrock outcrop of Harlem, is situated upon the ancestral homeland and territory of the Munsee Lenape, Wappinger, and Wiechquaesgeck peoples. As members of an educational community, we are obligated to know the histories of dispossession that have allowed the City College of New York to grow and thrive on this vibrant terrain. As designers and thinkers, we endeavor to build in ways that lead toward justice, and we are committed to working to dismantle the ongoing consequences of settler colonialism and to restore the whole people to the full enjoyment of their rights and heritage.”

Setting aside the detail that Wiechquaesgeck appears to be misspelled (it should be Wecquaesgeek), I agree with the general sentiment. Injustice ought to be recognized and addressed. But is the City College of New York actually “working to dismantle the ongoing consequences of settler colonialism and to restore the whole people to the full enjoyment of their rights and heritage”? I don’t see much evidence of it. Nor would I expect it, because the primary missions of a university are scholarship (research, in STEM fields) and teaching, not dismantling the consequences of colonialism and restoring people’s heritage.

Arguments have been made—by colleagues who have thought about this stuff—that reading such statement in public sends a bit of a chilling and counter-educational message to faculty and students, because it strongly implies that anyone disagreeing, for whatever reason, with the statement is not welcome on campus. It also implies that group thinking is encouraged, which most definitely it should not. Finally, this sort of thing can fairly be criticized as virtue signaling, given that it doesn’t actually accomplish anything practical on behalf of the people about whom we are allegedly so concerned.

Okay, mull this over and set it aside, for now.

Chomsky: the duty of a public intellectual

On 23 February 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam War, linguist Noam Chomsky published a landmark essay entitled “The responsibility of intellectuals.” It builds on a series of articles published twenty years earlier by American writer, philosopher, and activist Dwight Macdonald, which Chomsky had read as an undergraduate student. The beginning of Chomsky’s essay goes like this, in part:

“With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the ‘responsibility of people,’ given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.”

I have always thought—and still think—this passage to be one of the most powerful that I have ever come across, in any writing. I think of myself, perhaps immodestly, as a public intellectual, though not of the caliber of Macdonald or Chomsky. I do live in a western democracy (of sorts), and I do have the kind of access to information, political liberty, and freedom of expression that make it possible for me to speak or write about whatever I want. Such privileges, to me, imply the corresponding duty of making a good use of them, which means actually speaking or writing about social and political issues that i think are important and about which I may have something original or at least competent to say. (More on the latter point below.)

Case closed, then, right? Not quite.