Academic degeneration, or the problem of flippancy and spoiledness

The talk of "militancy" that has begun to float around in politics, in teaching, in the judiciary and here and there has no side to it that can be taken seriously or debated. It is quite clear that it is not offered as an observation or a criticism, but is used as an expression of hatred and abuse born of inner feelings. Perhaps the causes that give rise to these feelings can of course be examined. The incompetent ambition within the opposition, beyond a certain point, pushes it to make resentment speak for everything it cannot reach. From that point on, like hooligans in the stands, it is driven to hurl mouthfuls of abuse at the opposing team's player, at its manager, and, when that is not enough, even at the referee who shows it no favoritism.

To take such words seriously and respond to them is a waste of reason, of time and of strength alike. The language that would answer them would be addressing them in the same tongue from the other side of the stands, which would be a disaster of its own kind. All one can do is lament the level to which they have dragged politics down.

There is no need here to venture into an inquiry into the etymological or philosophical meaning of the militant. Yet in the academy we see an example of how brazen and lawless the segment that uses this language is in appropriating all conceptual and symbolic capital for itself.

Academia and freedom are two concepts generally thought of together. Academic freedom is the most important condition of scientific production, and being free from the interference and pressure of politics is the indispensable condition of its successful output. The protests staged most recently over the rector appointment at Boğaziçi University showed that the country has not an academic freedom problem but a serious problem of academic spoiledness. For what was done was not an interference with the academy; after all, the university administration has no direct effect on academic production. The objections were only to the political identity of the appointed person. Had the academics there not been politicized in a highly militant manner, they would not even have paid attention to the political identity of the appointed person, because in one way or another every academic may have a political identity or affiliation, and the university is a cosmopolitan space in which every kind of political identity can coexist and debate with one another. If people were truly acting only on academic motives, they would have looked not at the appointed person's political identity but only at his academic performance. Of course, we are not speaking of the mud slung at his academic performance or quality on the basis of his political identity.

The point to which the chatter about academic freedom in Türkiye has come, from its beginning, has been reduced not to the academic's freedom in his academic activity, but to the freedom to use his own chair as a militant of a political view.

No one can place the frivolity displayed by a faculty member in exam questions at Marmara University on any side of any philosophy of academic freedom. There, an academic, far beyond his academic interests and out of nothing but political spite and hatred, mixes these into his work in a militant and flippant manner. An academic who behaves in this way can be said to have no respect for the work he does, for his students, or for the university institution where he works.

An academic, in all of today's universities, may be an opponent of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and of the AK Parti. This right to opposition is sacred and untouchable. He may also express his critical approach in any work or policy anywhere outside the university, and even, if it relates to his own subject, within the university. There is nothing standing in the way of that.

But unfortunately, the behavior displayed here is not even such criticism or opposition. It is the corruption of the university and of the academy. It is a disrespect not only to President Erdoğan but, first of all, to the university and to the students.

If this were a single example, it would in fact be dismissed as the ravings of one faculty member. Yet, unfortunately, we are talking about a habit that has become the academic routine of a certain group of academics at many of our important universities today. Many students I have met and spoken with from Ankara University, ODTÜ and Boğaziçi University tell me that in many lessons, relevant or irrelevant, the class begins with Erdoğan and ends with Erdoğan. Some faculty members impose their own political feelings on their students during class, sometimes in a mocking tone, making fun, and sometimes in a serious propaganda style. The mocking style in particular produces serious opinion formation in these settings. No reason, no thought, no analysis, no evidence. Two watery jokes, two flippant allusions are often enough to produce and spread an opinion. This has nothing to do with science or academic freedom, but those who do it do so while sheltering behind the so-called sacred notion of "academic freedom."

In fact, if they are truly in opposition, there is nothing to prevent them from contributing academically to the production of alternative policies to those of the current government.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom they dislike today, was once in opposition too. But he and his friends spent their time in opposition not with such militant frivolities but by developing alternative policies that would build the Türkiye of the future. With the work they put in at that time, they built today's Türkiye. Today's Türkiye, that is, a Türkiye that, through revolutionary changes in many areas, from health policies and the level of social services offered to its people to industrial production and exports, to its integration with the world and its democratization, is moving swiftly and confidently into the future with even greater projects.

And you, O militant academics of the CHP, intellectuals whose light derives from your spoiledness, apart from these frivolities you display, what are you producing and promising as an alternative to what Erdoğan has done?