Sir Roger Scruton, an English scholar who specializes in political philosophy and aesthetics, says that the pursuit of social justice is changing the very nature of scholarship, and that the pursuit of truth suffers for it, according to the Libertarian Republic.
Scruton is a senior research fellow at Oxford University, the author of more than 50 books, and a highly-regarded conservative -- at least, as highly regarded as a conservative can be in academia. “The academy has been invaded by a new form of study,” he says in a video recently posted to YouTube. “It used to be the case at universities you were teaching a recognized subject with a recognized curriculum and you were carrying out research or scholarship in the humanities which was open-minded, guided by the pursuit of truth, and not dismayed particularly if it came to surprising or unorthodox conclusions.”
"One of the first things that happens when a totalitarian government takes over is that universities are 'cleaned up,'" he continues. "That is to say, people who are doing that kind of thing get thrown out." But now, "the pursuit of truth seems to be secondary to something else, the other thing being political conformity."
That conformity is now a virtual requirement in many humanities subjects -- womens studies programs, for example.
“It’s very difficult to imagine you would succeed in that subject if you didn’t have, either at the outset or certainly at the conclusion, feminist opinions,” Scruton says. “It’s a subject constructed around an ideology.”
Scruton conced that such an ideology might be grounded in truth, but it’s impossible to know because one is not allowed to question its premises. "Conformity to an orthodoxy takes precedence over intellectual method," he said, and this is occurring more and more at universities.
“The growth of the fake scholarship industry enables people to claim authority for nonsense,” Scruton said. “It makes conformity to orthodoxy the only thing that you have. If the scholarship is nonsense, what else is there? Only the conclusions.”
The Libertarian Republic adds that NYU professor Jonathan Haidt argued similarly last year about the state of the modern university, that political ideology is trumping the pursuit of truth, and universities would soon have to choose between Truth and Social Justice: “I believe the conflict reached its boiling point in the fall of 2015 when student protesters at 80 universities demanded that their universities make much greater and more explicit commitments to social justice, often including mandatory courses and training for everyone in social justice perspectives and content.”
The situation has only gotten worse since, not just in academia but in the culture at large: where truth is under assault from a rabidly totalitarian far left that is on the rise in the aftermath of Donald Trump's ascension to the White House.
