TRIGGERnometry - Has Academia Fallen？ With Jim Butcher

00:00:00.000 To say the number of people who've been no-platformed or sacked or something

00:00:02.980 isn't the whole issue at all. You know, the issue is the culture.

00:00:12.160 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:16.360 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:17.540 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:23.240 Our brilliant guest today is a lecturer and writer, Dr. Jim Butcher. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:27.900 Thanks, folks. Thank you very much.

00:00:28.980 It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on. You are a part of the Don't Divide Us campaign, which we'll get into in a second. And we really wanted to talk to you about the Race Equality Charter in British universities. Before we do that, tell everybody a little bit about who are you, how are you, where you are, what has been the journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

00:00:50.580 Well, that's a great question. I'll keep it brief. Well, I'm from Derby in the East Midlands originally. I worked in further education for around 10 years in the West Midlands in Birmingham. And I've been down at Canterbury, at Canterbury Christchurch University for the last 20 years. Over most of that time, I've been involved in the UCU Trade Union as a rep. I'm a big football fan. I'll mention the team so everybody can have a good laugh, Derby County.

00:01:20.580 And I also volunteer with an asylum charity

00:01:25.660 and sort of mentor a young man who's come over here.

00:01:29.920 And I mentioned the Race Equality Charter,

00:01:32.740 which we'll get into in a second.

00:01:34.740 But you've been in further education,

00:01:36.720 it sounds like, most of your adult life.

00:01:38.820 Would that be broadly accurate?

00:01:39.860 Yeah, further education for 10 years,

00:01:42.260 higher education in the university sector for about 20.

00:01:44.720 I am that old, yeah.

00:01:46.420 Well, your age aside, what I'm really trying to get into is

00:01:49.560 you've been in that part of our society yes for a long time what have you observed in your time

00:01:56.980 in in in that field what have you noticed what have been some of the big trends that you've

00:02:01.900 noticed over the last 20 30 years well some incredible trends really i mean i mean one that

00:02:06.460 i'll skirt over because it's not perhaps so central to what we're talking about here is the

00:02:09.860 growth of the use of the internet when i started out we still had paper memos three a week that

00:02:14.060 you look at and put in the bin uh 10 years later it's 30 emails a day that you must answer because

00:02:18.640 people know if you've not not read them and things like that but I think the most significant change

00:02:22.640 has been how education has become very instrumental in relation to all sorts of other things you know

00:02:28.900 it's never about the knowledge now and the skills and the thing that you love and that the students

00:02:32.960 want to learn about you're always answerable to some metric some graph or something like that

00:02:39.380 I think for a lot of the time in FE that became a kind of bureaucratic burden but I think the thing

00:02:45.420 that's really taken off in the last 15 years perhaps is the growth of exactly the same thing

00:02:50.560 a kind of managerialism a tick box mentality a whole load of bureaucracy and a whole load of

00:02:55.460 kind of instrumental goals that we have to meet related to so-called social justice and the one

00:03:00.760 of course we're talking about today is race but other things as well and so they started to come

00:03:05.220 in 2005 was it a particular event that kind of precipitated this or was it an organic thing

00:03:11.160 No, I'm not saying it came in in 2005. I think broadly, I've just noticed the growth of these things. And it's actually more recent than that, I think, that it's become a really, really big issue with things like the Race Equality Charter.

00:03:22.840 Tell everybody about that. What is that?

00:03:24.980 Okay, well, the Race Equality Charter is like a kite mark or a certificate that universities try to get to show their commitment to fighting racism. They get this certificate from an organisation called Advance HE.

00:03:37.360 they're funded by government and universities and they deal with training and teacher training and

00:03:43.460 things like that if you look at the politics of advanced he though you can see that this

00:03:48.680 race equality charter actually is all about well critical race theory decolonization white privilege

00:03:59.020 microaggressions these are all there on the advanced he website in the training materials

00:04:03.420 and that kind of thing. This is happening in universities anyway, but the Race Equality

00:04:07.860 Charter provides a kind of impetus for ratcheting that up and encouraging universities to go

00:04:13.520 further. And I think there are real, real threats to free speech, free expression. I think it's

00:04:18.600 very patronising. And I also think ultimately it's self-defeating. It's incredibly divisive.

00:04:23.940 And when was the Race Equality Charter implemented?

00:04:27.240 Well, it's been around for a few years,

00:04:29.640 but I would say that this is a kind of big year for it.

00:04:33.820 It seems to be right now that in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter,

00:04:38.380 and now we're kind of all back after the pandemic as well,

00:04:42.000 it seems to me that universities are going very strongly

00:04:44.820 for the Race Equality Charter.

00:04:47.060 But it's not all about the Race Equality Charter.

00:04:48.620 I mean, universities were doing this anyway.

00:04:51.060 A body called Universities UK, UUK,

00:04:53.580 which is the body of university leaders they were already in documents around race talking up and

00:05:00.500 affirming critical race theory very openly that's a big thing when you think about it the leaders of

00:05:05.740 the university sector a body that represents them saying this is the theory that explains and the

00:05:11.300 one you should think about to help you explain the issue of race you know universities should

00:05:14.960 remain neutral in that respect precisely so people within them the students and the staff

00:05:19.580 can have that freedom and feel free to question,

00:05:23.080 to put forward other theories.

00:05:24.560 But they're affirming these theories.

00:05:26.040 It makes life more difficult for naysayers, heretics,

00:05:29.520 and very reasonable people who just want to know both sides, frankly.

00:05:32.900 Well, Jim, if I'm a normal person,

00:05:36.040 I don't know what that means exactly.

00:05:38.060 You're not, mate.

00:05:38.580 I'm not.

00:05:39.400 That's what I'm trying to acknowledge here.

00:05:41.500 I'm definitely not a normal person

00:05:43.020 because I kind of have a sense of what you're talking about

00:05:45.600 and some of the problems that stem from that.

00:05:47.280 But if I'm someone who is uninitiated in this discourse, as the people now say, what's wrong with the universities trying to not be racist?

00:05:58.500 What's wrong with a charter that says we need to eliminate?

00:06:01.860 Because, you know, some people are still racist in society.

00:06:04.080 Absolutely.

00:06:04.800 They're racist around.

00:06:06.080 Surely it's a great thing for our places of learning to be working to eradicate all of that.

00:06:11.420 People might say.

00:06:12.100 Yeah. No, I'm all for getting rid of racism, although I don't think university campuses are,

00:06:18.220 as they're sometimes portrayed, sort of hotbeds of racial discrimination. But of course there

00:06:22.220 are racist incidents. Of course that happens. And that needs to be dealt with. I think it has

00:06:26.180 been in the past. I think one of the great things about universities as well is that all of those

00:06:30.880 people coming together from different backgrounds, there's a kind of lived anti-racism. You know,

00:06:36.300 young people meet other young people from other backgrounds. They make friends, they break down

00:06:39.760 barriers that's been happening for decades and that's that kind of conviviality has been really

00:06:44.020 really positive kind of thing so yeah that's really really positive but what's actually

00:06:48.800 happening with the race equality charter is a set of ideas that encourages people from the day they

00:06:53.800 step into the university very often in their induction as we found out you know at st andrews

00:06:57.940 and kent this week we might talk about encourages them to view themselves as white privileged i

00:07:05.480 I mean, you might be from a working-class family

00:07:08.540 and struggled on your way up, but you walk in that door,

00:07:10.540 you'll be told you're white-privileged

00:07:11.740 by somebody who's doing rather better than you

00:07:13.680 and perhaps your family were doing as well,

00:07:15.260 which might not be so easy for some people to take.

00:07:17.900 It's divisive.

00:07:18.660 It encourages people to focus on differences,

00:07:22.140 to treat people as members of groups rather than individuals

00:07:27.080 who might contradict your expectations about that group.

00:07:32.300 So I feel a lot of it's very well-meaning.

00:07:35.480 but I feel that very often it kind of revives,

00:07:39.680 it sort of re-racialises the university in a certain way,

00:07:43.620 makes it more difficult for people in their daily lives

00:07:46.780 and daily struggles to break down those barriers for themselves.

00:07:50.500 Why is it that critical race theory, it's a theory,

00:07:55.260 why has it suddenly been taken to be fact?

00:07:57.780 That's what I don't get.

00:07:58.760 It's all very well to have a theory.

00:08:00.540 All theories should be taught.

00:08:02.280 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:08:03.460 and I've very vocally spoken out against very occasionally in America you get people saying

00:08:08.880 ban critical race theory in universities very very very very rare absolutely I'm saying that's

00:08:13.880 nonsense you can't ban critical race theory if you disagree with it you want it out there

00:08:17.440 part of the discussion but part of a discussion not uh validated by your employer you know how

00:08:24.640 many students are going to if they feel like it they might not they might agree with it but how

00:08:29.100 many students if they feel like it are going to write an essay critical of critical race theory

00:08:33.120 when the department says, we are the decolonised department,

00:08:37.360 we are the critical race theory university, and that happens.

00:08:40.900 How many members of staff are going to speak up

00:08:43.320 about the divisive consequences?

00:08:44.660 Well, people are, but it's difficult when your employer

00:08:48.780 is training the students you teach, training, not discussing,

00:08:53.240 telling them how to decolonise, how to sort of enact

00:08:58.660 critical race theory.

00:09:00.680 You know, it makes life more difficult.

00:09:02.760 The theory, no problem.

00:09:04.960 You know, it was an old theory from sort of critical legal studies.

00:09:08.400 Interesting theory.

00:09:10.200 You know, you go forwards, what is it, about 40 years, 30 years, whatever.

00:09:15.180 And I think as in that book, Cynical Theories,

00:09:18.320 Helen Pluck-Rose and James Lindsay, you know,

00:09:20.160 they described how some of these theories have become kind of policies

00:09:25.300 at the level of everyday life.

00:09:27.060 and that is what we're dealing with a very kind of intensive kind of ideological pressure to

00:09:37.780 conform and think in a certain way not to discuss the theories but to enact the theories and one of

00:09:45.600 the other things you brought up there is the idea of decolonization and I find that very interesting

00:09:49.440 because every job I've ever had whether it's this whether it's comedy whether it's when I was a

00:09:54.320 translators always involved looking at words and understanding their precise meaning and using them

00:09:59.660 correctly. I don't understand how you can decolonize a university. To colonize something

00:10:04.760 means to invade a foreign country and take it over and use it appropriate its resources.

00:10:10.500 How do you decolonize a curriculum or university? Well it's a very flexible term I guess and it is

00:10:16.720 taken to mean different things. You know many many different things and you know so for example

00:10:23.420 to review reading lists so that there are more writers of colour

00:10:28.480 on the reading list, because those writers of colour

00:10:31.940 will be more representative or will sort of chime better,

00:10:36.780 if you like, with students of colour who come into the university.

00:10:41.540 So revising reading lists, that kind of thing.

00:10:43.920 There's a big philosophy behind it, and the philosophy behind it

00:10:46.380 generally is the idea of decoloniality or decolonialism.

00:10:50.960 And that holds, to put it simply, that when we go to university, there are different systems of knowledge, different types of knowledge that historically have come from different places.

00:11:03.120 And the knowledge we use, the Western knowledge, has crowded out historically those other types of knowledge.

00:11:11.580 And therefore, we need to bring those things back in.

00:11:16.560 But it's a theory.

00:11:18.140 It's an idea to be discussed, not to be imposed.

00:11:20.960 That's the first thing.

00:11:22.640 But humanists and many, many people who fought colonialism

00:11:26.400 and anti-racism in the past believe something very different,

00:11:29.500 which is that knowledge is human, universal.

00:11:32.580 Yes, there's all sorts of different things going on,

00:11:33.900 but we're part of a sort of global discussion across cultures,

00:11:39.080 across time, across place.

00:11:41.420 And we ought to try and work out not, you know,

00:11:44.640 let's include people because they're from this tradition or this colour.

00:11:48.180 Let's try and work out what's best for humanity.

00:11:50.960 for all of us. And that might mean, it might well mean, as people like Ken and Malik and others have

00:11:56.800 argued, it might well mean including black philosophers that have been neglected. Absolutely.

00:12:02.660 It might well mean including working class geographers who've been neglected. However,

00:12:08.660 we need to have a basis to judge what is the canon, you know, what is what we teach. And that basis

00:12:14.260 has to be a universal one, I think, you know, where we have some criteria and some sense of

00:12:19.980 what is the best knowledge irrespective of where it came from that's a problem isn't it because

00:12:26.220 with this entire theory is that you're not judging ideas anymore you're judging where the ideas came

00:12:31.460 from and who the ideas were were you know supported by or said it it just seems that we're just

00:12:38.580 delving further into the how can I put this into into the the black hole that is identity

00:12:45.260 where it's not about ideas, it's race, gender, sexuality, et cetera, et cetera?

00:12:50.600 Absolutely. I think that's exactly right.

00:12:53.380 I mean, in effect, what it ends up doing, I think, is putting people in boxes.

00:12:58.960 If you're a student of colour, we're going to have these,

00:13:02.800 or we're going to look at getting these new writers on the curriculum for you.

00:13:06.540 Now, you may not, you know, really, it's got to be about the ideas

00:13:11.340 and we shouldn't make any assumptions that somebody from this background,

00:13:14.360 this background, this colour, this colour. I mean, the whole point of going to university at the end

00:13:17.040 of the day, the exciting thing intellectually about it is you get to experiment and you get

00:13:22.620 to try and, you know, you've got your lived experience, you've got your own culture. That's

00:13:27.020 very important for you and very important. I would never decry that. But when you go to university,

00:13:32.300 you want to try and look around, you know, and maybe in a way transcend that. Not forget where

00:13:37.360 you came from, but look around and think about ideas that maybe have a veracity and applicability

00:13:43.580 way beyond anything you'd ever lived you know that's exciting and a lot of young black white

00:13:49.920 every scholar you know good students that's i think what they do you know they're fascinated

00:13:54.420 by the subject by the history by the science whatever it is they're not thinking about the

00:13:59.840 identity or the color of the person who came up with the idea but they are now they may be they

00:14:05.160 may be and i suppose um it is a problem because of course you know you look at many of the um

00:14:11.860 great ideas if you look at darwin's origin of the species i mean darwin's boat and his uh his

00:14:19.480 journey was financed and sort of bound up with you know victorian imperial uh britain at that time

00:14:26.780 but does that decry from the origin of the species you know yes i don't think

00:14:31.820 well i'm saying i'm saying it i'm saying it doesn't and i'm saying that that knowledge

00:14:39.640 today is available and should be made more available, more available to people in this

00:14:44.560 country and other countries who don't have access to it. And the same, the latest science, I don't

00:14:48.160 really care if, you know, where it came from. It should be made available to scholars in well-funded

00:14:55.200 universities in poorer countries. We should be looking to do things like that and help and sort

00:15:00.940 of share the best that is thought and known. That good old classical liberal idea is one that I hold

00:15:05.680 soon. It's difficult, but I still hold to it. Well, you say it's difficult. This was the

00:15:10.040 question that I was really going to ask you. Do you think those of us who reject the idea that

00:15:17.920 life should be viewed primarily through the prism of your identity, that we've lost? We've lost

00:15:25.100 at the education level. We've lost in policing. We've lost in the media. We've lost in even in

00:15:31.340 sport. God, I don't know how that happened, but still. In every area you look at, it is now

00:15:37.020 absolutely normal to view representation of different people as the number one priority.

00:15:45.280 It's more important that a media organization has the right number of people of the right

00:15:49.960 demographic characteristics than that organization produces good reporting. It's more important that

00:15:56.020 the intake of a university is ethnically mixed than that it is fair and based on the merit of

00:16:02.600 those individuals. In every, I would argue, in every area of our society now, we are at a point,

00:16:08.180 I feel, that we're not even having that discussion anymore because it is now accepted that that is

00:16:13.820 how it must be done. Do you not see that? I see the point, but I don't agree with it.

00:16:19.680 And I mean, you could say I'm obliged to disagree with it because I'm sort of not

00:16:24.820 representing but i'm a member of ddu and we're trying to push don't divide us don't divide us

00:16:28.880 yeah have a look it up uh but this is what i'm putting to you yeah i want you to challenge me

00:16:33.500 on this we're already divided i would say your your your incantation is don't divide us but

00:16:39.700 you're speaking to a society that's already divided itself i don't think we are i think that

00:16:44.160 um you know you look at social trends um i mean i just off the top of my head i read the other day

00:16:50.120 that you know increasing number of black and white people are getting married in america you know

00:16:53.920 America, where this race war is supposed to be going on,

00:16:55.880 on the street, young black men and white women and vice versa

00:17:00.760 are getting together and getting married.

00:17:05.120 So people's lived reality contradicts some of this stuff.

00:17:09.420 If you look at opinion polls as well, for example,

00:17:11.420 including in the universities, it's not the case that decolonisation

00:17:15.680 is something people come in and say, yeah, we've got to support this.

00:17:18.900 It's not the case that people come in committed to that.

00:17:21.160 a relatively small number do.

00:17:23.940 The problem is when they come in,

00:17:25.520 they're made to feel that this is the norm.

00:17:28.080 This is like the wallpaper, you know.

00:17:29.600 It's there.

00:17:30.780 This is what anti-racism means.

00:17:32.680 If you're a good guy, this is what you do.

00:17:34.940 So what it really takes, therefore, is for people,

00:17:37.480 and it can be difficult in some respects,

00:17:40.280 people to provide an alternative to that.

00:17:45.100 And I think that's what we're trying to do at DDU

00:17:46.780 because we're not only criticising things like the notion

00:17:51.720 of white privilege as a principle in universities

00:17:53.600 and all that kind of thing, but we've also started,

00:17:56.420 and it's in our response to the Race Equality Charter,

00:17:59.780 proposed some slightly more positive things.

00:18:03.080 Tell us.

00:18:03.600 Well, a very, very simple one.

00:18:05.100 Virtually every university, if you look on its website,

00:18:08.900 especially around this time when it's Black History Month coming up,

00:18:12.360 I think, that they put out what they call kind of anti-racist reading lists.

00:18:17.400 So students are told, you know, racism is a really, really important issue,

00:18:20.300 and I agree it is, of course, and here's what you read to understand it

00:18:23.620 and to inform your actions.

00:18:25.860 Now, you look down these anti-racist reading lists that universities put out,

00:18:29.960 they have the same names on them.

00:18:32.500 Ibrahim Kendi, Reni Edo-Lodge, critical race theorists, Derek Bell,

00:18:38.400 all of these kind of things, one side of the argument, okay?

00:18:42.360 So one of the things that we're saying is, yeah, racism is a really, really important issue.

00:18:47.420 We should be looking at it. We should be debating it.

00:18:49.900 Why don't we put out reading lists that say, well, yeah, let's look at what somebody's saying on this side of the argument.

00:18:58.580 But why not read John McWhorter or somebody else from the States who's arguing something rather different?

00:19:05.820 Read both and we can discuss.

00:19:07.620 isn't that a better thing to do at university than to provide a wholly one-sided reading list

00:19:13.240 that completely neglects reams of scholarship, reams of history I might add because a lot of

00:19:18.200 very famous writers, thinkers and anti-racists from the past did not buy the politics behind

00:19:24.300 decolonise. I mean famous people of the left, anti-colonialists like CLR James, their politics

00:19:30.240 was not that of today's sort of decolonisers and so on.

00:19:36.260 I'm really interested, I'm not a historian,

00:19:38.380 but I'm really interested in engaging with these history debates

00:19:40.620 precisely for that reason.

00:19:42.280 I'd really love, and one thing we really want to do

00:19:44.540 is engage with critical race theorists,

00:19:47.660 people who disagree with us.

00:19:49.520 But that's not always forthcoming, you know,

00:19:51.600 when you look for those discussions and debates.

00:19:53.360 Why is that?

00:19:55.020 Well, you'd have to ask the people concerned,

00:19:56.540 but don't divide us.

00:19:59.520 I know that they sent out some invites to Advance HE,

00:20:03.920 the Critical Race Charter people,

00:20:05.920 and various people associated with that,

00:20:07.400 saying, look, in good faith, let's have a discussion about this.

00:20:10.960 The response we received to a number of emails from Advance HE

00:20:14.180 was nothing, nothing, not a word.

00:20:16.780 Now, we have over 100 academics well over supporting us.

00:20:21.500 Our academics are told at university

00:20:23.060 we have to answer emails within two days.

00:20:26.020 Yet this professional body deigns not even to respond

00:20:28.980 to requests to debate. And I actually think that's quite outrageous, but indicative of a sense that

00:20:34.580 this is the view. You don't debate this view. It's not up for debate.

00:20:39.320 This is exactly my point, which is why I say, why I'm questioning it. I'm desperate for you

00:20:44.120 to prove me wrong, but I'm feeling myself becoming more cynical by the day because you are, I would

00:20:50.480 argue, naively sending out these invitations to people whose entire worldview is based on the idea

00:20:56.500 that they have the truth and you are an evil racist bigot

00:20:59.780 and they don't want to debate the two different sides.

00:21:03.800 They don't want Thomas Sowell or John McWhorter

00:21:05.640 or Glenn Lowry or whoever else to be represented

00:21:08.160 in that conversation because they're not interested

00:21:10.420 in conversation.

00:21:11.680 They're interested in taking over the institutions,

00:21:14.320 which I put to you, they've already done.

00:21:17.020 It's a good point.

00:21:17.660 I mean, I think that as an organisation trying

00:21:19.880 to put a point of view, we have to assume

00:21:23.220 in the first instance, good faith.

00:21:24.760 although maybe that's getting stretched a little bit now but as I said before um many people engage

00:21:30.480 in this entirely in good faith on the other side um you know and I find this you know and sometimes

00:21:37.540 it can become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy to assume you know the other person doesn't want

00:21:42.260 to discuss this I mean that you're right at the level of so you know you sort of professional

00:21:48.160 anti-racists and race trainers and people like that I mean they have a material interest in

00:21:53.080 in that and they generally won't engage but there are a few people you know that there are in any

00:21:58.360 given university hundreds of lecturers people like you and I they're interested in ideas

00:22:02.920 they're open to discussing them so that's where we've got to look and maybe it does mean

00:22:07.480 developing new forums and different ways of doing that I mean things like your show

00:22:12.060 all sorts of things like that so I'm I'm not overly optimistic but I'm an optimist by nature

00:22:21.180 and we're going out there to put our point of view I find it resonates with students I talk to

00:22:27.300 I find it resonates with lots of sort if you like neutral people that's most people isn't it at the

00:22:32.140 end of the day they want to get on with the job and meet people and find out about stuff and

00:22:36.320 all the rest of it um so that makes me optimistic um and I think the more you go out and put the

00:22:44.760 ideas to regular people the more optimistic you get because I think our ideas are convincing

00:22:51.060 I think they do chime with people's lived experience.

00:22:54.160 You know, people come to university, they don't want to be thinking,

00:22:56.600 as he raised his eyebrow at me, that could be a microaggression right there.

00:23:00.020 You know, people want to be open to say what they think,

00:23:03.040 you know, to say to somebody who's being aggressive,

00:23:05.300 you're being aggressive and not to think, could that be a microaggression?

00:23:08.980 I mean, the classic one on the subject of microaggressions,

00:23:11.720 where I always break the rule, is asking people where they're from.

00:23:14.540 Apparently you're not supposed to really do that.

00:23:17.540 Most of my classes are very, very diverse.

00:23:20.000 We get lots of young black kids, well, I say kids, adults, young adults from London and people from Kent and people from around the world.

00:23:27.260 Very often, the majority of the people in my class happen to be black, neither here nor there to me.

00:23:31.280 I say, where are you from? And they can interpret how they like.

00:23:35.200 I have to say in 20 years, never had a problem with it.

00:23:38.380 Made a lot of friends through it, found out a lot about people through it that enables me to maybe bring to bear examples in my teaching, you know, that they can relate to.

00:23:47.380 Maybe where they're from is a place I've studied.

00:23:50.000 So it's a great thing to do to ask people where they're from.

00:23:53.020 It's a great thing.

00:23:54.020 Nobody should be feeling, should I say, shouldn't I say this?

00:23:58.140 And it's a real shame, I think,

00:24:00.280 that the advent of this new sort of critical race politics,

00:24:04.940 it actually makes people check themselves and not be spontaneous.

00:24:09.300 And when you go to university, you want to be spontaneous.

00:24:11.460 You want to have fun.

00:24:12.240 You want to meet people.

00:24:14.300 You don't want to be able to...

00:24:15.180 You want to make a few mistakes, even.

00:24:17.120 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:24:17.960 we're going to learn that way

00:24:20.740 a culture of

00:24:22.560 standoffishness if you like

00:24:24.340 doesn't benefit young black people

00:24:26.380 young white people or anybody else

00:24:27.700 so that's what we're going to call the episode

00:24:29.480 Jim Butcher why I agree with microaggressions

00:24:31.760 but

00:24:34.300 to me Jim

00:24:36.160 there's two questions that I want to ask you

00:24:39.040 number one what's it like being an academic

00:24:41.160 in this particular kind of

00:24:43.240 atmosphere

00:24:43.640 and number two isn't the rubber going to hit the road

00:24:47.320 when someone gets fired because of this.

00:24:49.320 That's the moment we're really going to hit the mainstream with it.

00:24:53.060 Okay.

00:24:54.340 Well, to answer your first question, I love it.

00:24:57.980 I really, really love it.

00:24:59.240 In fact, when I went in my class after COVID,

00:25:01.940 I hadn't taught for a long time, I nearly burst into tears.

00:25:04.780 It was so wonderful to be stood in front of a class of people,

00:25:08.460 nobody wearing masks, me not wearing a visor,

00:25:11.840 which the last time I'd been in a class I was wearing,

00:25:14.460 it was utterly, utterly wonderful,

00:25:16.080 and I got a bit carried away with it but well so it's great and I work uh in a business school

00:25:22.520 at Canterbury Christ Church and I work with terrific colleagues you know we we negotiate

00:25:27.440 all this stuff and we get along we've got along for a long time utterly terrific and that's what

00:25:31.800 a lot of it's like you know that's that's what a lot of it's like and I'd be lying if I said there

00:25:37.880 weren't tensions you know opinions that I've told you earlier before we went on air opinions that I

00:25:44.580 have sort of gender critical views that are regarded as anathema by people on my own union

00:25:49.820 committee. I'm a member of the union committee. But we, you know, we're trying to negotiate those

00:25:55.160 things and do the sort of stay in the room with people you disagree with, you know, sort of that

00:25:59.640 kind of idea. So it's really, really good in that respect. I wish in general that education

00:26:09.120 focused on knowledge and education but as any academic will whinge about and it's true there's

00:26:15.680 so much that's instrumental you fill in a form to say you've done this you prove you've done this

00:26:20.260 you do you and then of course you do your decolonized training and all of these other

00:26:24.400 things which I loathe and when I raise my point of view in it maybe I'm told Jim we don't make

00:26:30.980 the rules you know literally so it's that kind of attitude you do those sorts of things but

00:26:36.360 But, yeah, I really enjoy it, and I wouldn't try and talk anybody out of it.

00:26:40.200 But I think if you've got, if you like, views critical of, you know,

00:26:46.120 the sort of critical social justice, I think you've got to...

00:26:52.120 Watch your back is the wrong word, but I think you've got to...

00:26:57.920 Watch your front.

00:27:00.080 Well, I think you've got to be canny.

00:27:03.240 I think you've got to be just aware of the political issues

00:27:06.240 and the way they play and the possibilities for you to be in trouble

00:27:12.740 over very inoffensive things.

00:27:15.660 That happens.

00:27:16.180 I mean, you've read about it.

00:27:16.860 I've read about it.

00:27:17.620 That's happening to people.

00:27:19.540 But you've got to front that up.

00:27:21.760 What's the point of cowering away?

00:27:24.600 What would be the point of giving up a job lecturing,

00:27:27.520 talking to young people, educating them?

00:27:29.760 It's a great job.

00:27:31.840 All the problems, tell it like it is.

00:27:34.980 Put it out there.

00:27:35.480 I'm trying to do that today say what you think other people can disagree with that more people

00:27:40.460 who do that the more open it becomes the more hopefully we can get back to well I say back to

00:27:44.460 the never was a golden age we can get back to knowledge ideas facts skills things that when

00:27:53.460 people are growing up they they get a buzz out of they they want to know they they catch on to

00:27:58.440 rather than the the sort of identitarian stuff which frankly at the end of the day for many

00:28:03.440 young people it is extremely boring your second point about somebody getting fired over this well

00:28:11.300 we don't know if anybody hasn't been fired over it first of all most uh union cases and things

00:28:17.420 like that are not discussed beyond the case for kind of obvious reasons and when people do go

00:28:21.740 very often there are agreements under which they go and things like that but there are seems to me

00:28:26.060 there are quite a few cases now of people being investigated and this is actually in a sense more

00:28:31.680 important so Neil Finn up in Edinburgh was investigated because some students didn't like

00:28:36.960 him tweeting very inoffensive things that he wasn't completely in agreement with Black Lives

00:28:42.220 Matter he was investigated for this can't a university management say we've had a complaint

00:28:49.180 there's nothing here Neil there's nothing here carry on you know do they not have that authority

00:28:53.060 these days to to do that apparently not apparently not and as a union rep I find that that managers

00:28:58.040 don't manage in that way they always defer to uh you know investigating taking everything

00:29:03.320 in that way but my point is sorry my general point is this if you risk investigation

00:29:10.860 and possible censure um you're trying to make your career you're trying to earn your living

00:29:19.040 you have to consciously decide to to go down that route and and say what you think i think

00:29:27.480 Many people say this, and even the University College Union,

00:29:30.700 my union, who are very woke, even their own research shows

00:29:33.540 that a lot of lecturers self-censor.

00:29:37.060 I don't want to self-censor.

00:29:38.520 I want to have a climate in which we don't have to.

00:29:40.280 Even people whose views I strongly disagree with,

00:29:43.660 I don't want them to self-censor.

00:29:45.440 I respect their views when I disagree with them,

00:29:48.700 and I want them to respect my views to the extent

00:29:50.380 that we can talk about them.

00:29:51.840 That's what our students deserve.

00:29:53.520 That's what a university should be doing.

00:29:55.320 You know, they deserve that.

00:29:57.480 Jim, I'm going to be honest with you.

00:29:59.060 You seem like a lovely bloke who's very positive and very optimistic.

00:30:02.520 But you're going to mention the Derby County supporters.

00:30:05.880 No, but the picture you're painting is bleak.

00:30:11.660 It's really bleak.

00:30:13.240 The fact that somebody was investigated for a tweet

00:30:17.840 in which they criticised a political organisation like BLM.

00:30:22.400 And let's be fair, let's be honest about this.

00:30:25.420 They were in danger of losing their job.

00:30:27.480 simply for criticising a political organisation.

00:30:31.980 Yeah.

00:30:32.520 That means that...

00:30:34.920 The problem is with that, number one,

00:30:37.860 is it showing that there's no real freedom of speech on campus

00:30:40.340 and number two, that is a warning shot to everybody else in your sector

00:30:45.040 that if you criticise this organisation,

00:30:48.220 then you are going to be for the chop.

00:30:50.600 It is exactly right.

00:30:52.360 That's exactly what it is and all of these other things

00:30:54.460 like the Race Equality Charter itself,

00:30:56.860 All of these things, this whole kind of infrastructure, you know,

00:30:59.600 of regulations and statements which put you in that position.

00:31:04.380 And that's why I'm saying, to say the number of people

00:31:07.180 who've been no-platformed or sacked or something isn't the whole issue at all.

00:31:10.860 No.

00:31:11.160 You know, the issue is the culture, you know, that's engendered by this.

00:31:15.020 You're absolutely right about that.

00:31:17.920 But even this week and recently, you know, there are people standing up to this.

00:31:21.320 There are people prepared, not just individuals.

00:31:23.700 I mean, at Cambridge, Arif Ahmed and some others stood up to a thing there.

00:31:29.400 I think basically there the issue was, you know, these anonymous reporting tools.

00:31:33.660 You can report people including their name.

00:31:35.640 Nobody needs to know who you are.

00:31:37.940 And the whole microaggressions thing, they stood up to it.

00:31:40.400 And there was some sort of vote there being a Cambridge college.

00:31:42.780 They do that kind of thing there.

00:31:44.740 And they won that.

00:31:45.740 This week, Professor Lee at Kent University has been opposing, you know, her students having imposed upon them a sort of, you know, training involved, involving daft things about, you know, if you buy second hand clothes or some nonsense, you might be committing a microaggression.

00:32:04.220 I can't even keep up with it. You know, some of the stuff you don't remember because it's so bizarre and unbelievable and weird.

00:32:11.140 people are out there standing up to it and I think that this year it would be a good idea

00:32:15.960 absolutely if more people stood behind them in any way they can social media you know contacting

00:32:22.020 people in their own university very important our race equality charter response get it around a few

00:32:27.200 people we're doing that and we're getting some very good responses of course you get that pushback

00:32:31.720 from the vocal activists and that pushback often is not a political one we disagree with you in

00:32:37.300 this way it's who are these people how can you say that that shouldn't be said that's the pushback

00:32:42.860 but you always get other people more likely under the radar but often publicly too saying

00:32:50.280 wow is this is this how things are you know we can't even question this well maybe it shouldn't

00:32:56.740 be done you know maybe it shouldn't be like that maybe at the very least our students should be

00:33:01.060 able to turn around and say well i don't see myself as white privileged um and therefore i'm

00:33:07.520 not buying it yeah and what percentage of academics do you think actually believe in this i know you

00:33:12.600 see it's a little bit of an unfair question because but in your own but in your own experience

00:33:17.140 do a lot of them believe in this do a lot of them support this or is it kind of well on one hand we've

00:33:23.060 had eric kathman on to talk about the polling and the research in this era well he'd probably know

00:33:27.360 a lot more in terms of the polling about that i think it's very important to regard academics as

00:33:34.200 a group of people very diverse very very diverse indeed and a lot of these debates which people

00:33:39.800 characterized as as culture war debates um take place between the debates themselves take place

00:33:46.780 between relatively small groups of people so it's a bit hard to say what everybody thinks because

00:33:51.380 most people are sitting looking on you know and thinking that's a bit over the top you know i

00:33:55.980 agree with them but maybe not coming forward uh at this at this at this stage let me ask you so

00:34:02.700 i wouldn't like to give i wouldn't like to put a percentage on it but i don't think it's the

00:34:05.900 majority of people who are ideologically committed to um authoritarian divisive woke politics as we

00:34:11.760 set it out in our documents yeah uh i mean i i suspect that's very true and also not necessarily

00:34:19.180 that important because all it takes is a an intolerant minority to get their will if they

00:34:23.440 want to. But look, I hear you and you don't divide us and others are doing good work on opposing

00:34:29.060 this stuff. And it's great to see, as you say, that people are making successful efforts to push

00:34:35.000 back against it. The one thing that I remember before we started the show in April 2018, I

00:34:42.580 remember 2016, 2017, seeing videos from American college campuses, these sort of very stereotypical

00:34:49.960 people with you know pink hair and septum piercings and whatever boycotting or no platforming people

00:34:57.300 and all of that and at the time I had the impression that this was all student-led this

00:35:02.880 was driven by the students since then I have also got the impression that a lot of it has come

00:35:08.480 through the faculty through the the teachers and the lecturers teaching kids something and then

00:35:14.180 that activates them to behave in these sort of ways where do you think this is coming from is

00:35:19.620 sort of bottom up are you getting 18 year olds 19 year olds turning up at your university

00:35:24.600 full of these ideas or is it more a process of you turn up to university and you kind of maybe

00:35:31.080 were sort of thinking that way and then your beliefs get reinforced so how does that happen

00:35:35.320 well I think it's definitely the case that anybody who is thinking that way you know I've got this

00:35:39.140 belief that must be protected and all the rest of it and I don't want people to you know be able to

00:35:45.100 kind of offend me or anything like that i think nbc does think that way that their view will be

00:35:49.320 affirmed when they are on campus very quickly you know i think that's the point by whom by

00:35:53.980 universities by universities i mean universities have spent a number of decades developing all

00:35:58.700 sorts of um sort of speech codes and uh sort of regulations and things like that which basically

00:36:04.960 validate that so for example uh it wouldn't be unusual for a university to have anti-harassment

00:36:11.000 sort of little bylaws for the university from the students union and from the university

00:36:17.120 and it wouldn't be unusual at all in fact it would be commonplace standard practice pretty much

00:36:22.300 for those to say that harassment can include many things where you didn't even realize you

00:36:28.780 were harassing the person there doesn't need to be any intent there at all it can be entirely

00:36:32.580 subjective okay so you've got a situation there where there might be a small number of people

00:36:38.300 with a particular belief, but that belief is validated

00:36:40.880 by the institution that they walk into.

00:36:43.180 I think your point about staff is a fair point.

00:36:47.880 I mean, you tend to have cliques and groups of people,

00:36:52.280 and that's fine, it's completely normal for groups of people

00:36:54.820 with common beliefs and so on to get together

00:36:57.080 and organise around things.

00:36:59.460 I'm thinking about the no-platforming attempts

00:37:01.720 at people like Selina Todd, Kathleen Stark, people like that.

00:37:06.300 they seem to come from from academics and I suspect at times students are brought in as

00:37:13.820 I'm not saying it's not there too students are brought in as a stage army you can't do this

00:37:18.160 because our students will be offended you know or you know black students or trans students or this

00:37:23.260 group nobody's asked the black students my view is probably most will not be offended and would

00:37:28.380 would not really like the idea that their identity is being sort of like treated as a stage army to

00:37:35.620 you know, behind sort of censorious politics.

00:37:39.260 But, yeah, a mixture, I guess.

00:37:44.120 But my inclination is to actually blame the institutions

00:37:48.660 or to look at the way that they have cultivated a situation

00:37:51.940 within which relatively small groups of people

00:37:55.260 who have the kind of view that certain views and identity

00:38:01.620 should be protected and free speech is entirely secondary to that,

00:38:04.180 that view is constantly validated and supported and that seems to me the way you know the balance

00:38:13.120 i would put on it how can these institutions justify spending public money on on on these

00:38:20.880 on these types of theories or politics or supporting blm why are is our tax money being

00:38:28.080 being used for this this doesn't help anybody does it well i think it's a very very good question

00:38:33.780 especially at a time when universities are making lots of redundancies

00:38:36.800 and when many universities seemingly can't get it together

00:38:41.260 to provide lecture theatres for everybody's lectures.

00:38:44.460 And there's lots of stuff going on online in the aftermath of COVID.

00:38:47.840 And, of course, it's to do with ventilation and COVID and things like that.

00:38:50.380 But I think it's also to do with other things too.

00:38:52.900 There is this new kind of vision of university campuses

00:38:55.020 as being like virtual campuses where you show up a bit

00:38:58.040 like the Open University used to be, except you do all this stuff online.

00:39:02.140 I mean, yeah, I'm not sure really in response to your question.

00:39:07.440 Because shouldn't we come to a point where institutions,

00:39:13.820 these institutions, they should be apolitical.

00:39:17.040 The police should be apolitical.

00:39:18.820 The NHS should be apolitical and so should universities.

00:39:22.400 Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:23.360 I don't think universities should be spending money on things

00:39:27.440 that are directed at a particular political philosophy,

00:39:32.140 a particular political campaign or so on,

00:39:34.140 I think it's so important that these institutions,

00:39:37.160 more than any other, remain and are seen to remain neutral

00:39:40.380 because there's no other way in which a university

00:39:43.420 can fulfil its mission to act as a kind of crucible

00:39:46.180 for debate and ideas.

00:39:49.560 That's absolutely imperative.

00:39:51.000 So it is, well, it is disgraceful.

00:39:54.560 It is.

00:39:55.180 It absolutely is that money's being spent on that.

00:39:58.140 I'll just qualify that by saying there's a lot of goodwill,

00:40:00.660 a lot of people trying to do good things,

00:40:02.080 But I think it's misguided. I'm not saying it's all of it is some, you know, people want to do good things and help students, black students in many respects. But I don't think they do. I don't think they do.

00:40:16.060 Even people with goodwill who are trying to decolonise the curriculum and things like that, you know, our arguments are very much that a lot of these sort of critical race theory type of arguments, they make assumptions about people, they re-racialise people, they treat people as identity groups with certain attributes.

00:40:39.240 You know, you're likely to be microaggressed against.

00:40:43.960 You're more likely to be a microaggressor if you say these things.

00:40:46.840 You have white privilege.

00:40:48.040 You're a victim of white privilege.

00:40:49.980 What's written out of this is the individual.

00:40:52.160 The individual's passions, interests, desires.

00:40:55.980 And they're far more important, far, far more important

00:40:59.560 than cultural influences that can be assigned to different groups.

00:41:06.840 So you're the optimist.

00:41:08.180 you're the optimist right how do we get from that which is what you're talking about to

00:41:14.700 where you want to be well how do we do that how do we do that that's why this conversation has

00:41:21.800 this negative hue because everything you're saying we sort of agree with and also know

00:41:27.300 because we've had these conversations many times but as with many other people when i'm asking

00:41:32.080 when we're trying to get from where we are now which i think you've diagnosed accurately to where

00:41:37.760 you'd like to be i'm not seeing that okay all right um well there's a couple of things going

00:41:44.980 on at the moment i mean some people are looking at the sort of legal routes as you know and the

00:41:50.860 government has been looking at uh sort of um as some people see it enforcing free speech

00:41:58.440 so you know people can go to the office for students or whoever

00:42:01.840 and you've got that that kind of route and i used to be very very against that

00:42:07.000 you know, against any government interference in universities whatsoever,

00:42:10.760 anything that even appeared to resemble government interference in universities.

00:42:14.440 I'm a bit equivocal on it now, because I think that if I was an academic

00:42:17.840 who was under the cosh facing discipline for having an opinion

00:42:22.580 and there was nobody behind me, I'd quite like to have a law to draw on.

00:42:28.500 But I think the real thing, the really important thing,

00:42:31.640 and maybe I'm not going to convince you here, you know, to be optimistic,

00:42:35.820 I think the really important thing is to try different ways

00:42:39.860 to create a discussion and debate so people can say,

00:42:46.020 well, I do agree with this, or I don't,

00:42:47.640 and I don't think that fully exists at the moment.

00:42:50.660 There is a growing infrastructure around this.

00:42:52.480 I mean, there are organisations like, I think, Counterweight,

00:42:56.260 ourselves, over in America you've got FAIR, different organisations.

00:43:00.480 We didn't have that five years ago, so that's good.

00:43:03.000 So we're going some way to providing that counter, that counter to that.

00:43:07.400 I think the other thing that we're not very good at at the moment

00:43:09.700 that we've got to develop, as well as ensuring that the debate happens

00:43:14.360 and convincingly criticising these ideas,

00:43:19.060 and I think we're not too bad at that,

00:43:20.980 we also need to represent a new positive vision of the university

00:43:25.120 because that's really what's going on here,

00:43:27.480 the vision of our higher education institutions,

00:43:29.940 what they're for, what their potential is.

00:43:31.920 And I think we can excite young people much more with a vision of a university that you come to from whatever background and no assumptions are made about you.

00:43:42.920 The world is yours. The ideas of the world are yours.

00:43:46.860 It doesn't matter where they came from or what colour the person was who dreamt up these ideas or indeed whether they were funded at some nefarious purpose way in the past.

00:43:57.540 a campus where it's assumed that young people can get together

00:44:02.480 and trust each other to talk without, as I think it was

00:44:05.480 at Sheffield University, without people paid to wander around

00:44:10.920 and look for, you know what I mean?

00:44:12.660 This is crazy stuff.

00:44:13.780 And it was seen as such 10 years ago.

00:44:15.400 You can see the sort of mission creep there.

00:44:18.740 So maybe that's the thing that we need to do more of

00:44:21.500 and do better, really.

00:44:22.720 not always focus our efforts on tackling these ideas that we've got to do that as part of it

00:44:30.840 absolutely but also we tried to do this a little bit in the race equality charter response that

00:44:37.380 we wrote present a vision of a university that's really inspiring for young people

00:44:41.880 they get some excited about the world and about knowledge and not seeing university as a place

00:44:46.820 to affirm your identity and defend it

00:44:49.360 or to seek out the naysayers and their ethics

00:44:53.420 and make sure that they don't say what you don't want them to say.

00:44:57.600 But a place where you go and you're going to take a few risks,

00:45:00.660 intellectual risks, maybe even a few risks about being offended too

00:45:03.700 at the end of the day.

00:45:05.400 That sounds great.

00:45:06.420 The only thing that's missing is a list of universities

00:45:08.980 where that is the case that you can apply to.

00:45:11.980 If you're a young person now who's excited.

00:45:13.740 I'm excited by that vision.

00:45:14.960 And if I were to take a year out from doing whatever I'm doing

00:45:17.260 or three years out to go and do a degree, that excites me.

00:45:22.720 I think there will be a lot of young people who watch trigonometry

00:45:25.660 who are excited by that.

00:45:28.100 Now you need a list of universities to apply to.

00:45:30.500 Where is that?

00:45:30.860 Well, I don't think there's a list of universities.

00:45:33.140 I mean, I think most young people who've been to university,

00:45:36.540 well, people can have all sorts of views,

00:45:37.880 but let's say somebody tuning into your show who broadly agrees

00:45:40.360 with the sorts of things that you say and I say,

00:45:44.060 they'll probably think of their time at university and they'll say,

00:45:46.220 yeah, that lecturer really inspired me.

00:45:49.380 That's where I really learnt what economics or sociology

00:45:53.020 or whatever it was all about.

00:45:55.140 That's where I realised I'm here, he's there or she's there

00:45:57.640 and I'm going to get there, you know, that kind of thing.

00:46:01.260 So it's not this or that university.

00:46:02.860 I think it's more down to individual members of staff.

00:46:04.720 And you go to a university and there are great teachers.

00:46:08.640 And I have to say there are many fantastic teachers

00:46:11.460 on the other side of this argument.

00:46:13.120 Sure.

00:46:13.960 Absolutely.

00:46:14.680 You know, I mean, I know people myself who would be sitting here

00:46:17.880 chomping at the bit to disagree with what I'm saying.

00:46:20.320 Great, you know, and I'd love them.

00:46:21.500 Maybe we could do another show and they could come

00:46:23.080 and we could do something like that.

00:46:25.760 But, you know, that's not happening at the moment.

00:46:30.480 And, you know, that's the sort of thing that we need to ensure

00:46:34.320 happens more in the future, really.

00:46:37.480 Jim, I'm going to ask you a question.

00:46:40.320 It's not a particularly fair one, but it's just something

00:46:42.180 that I believe honestly I look at the universities they're charging what nine grand a year yeah yeah

00:46:47.820 okay so they're charging nine grand a year the value of a degree has been completely devalued

00:46:53.060 I think that's fair to say in a lot of instances yeah in terms of employment in terms of in terms

00:46:58.460 of in terms of employment in terms of the quality of teaching contact time universities now saying

00:47:03.580 that you know that the lectures are going to be virtual you look at a lot of degree courses nine

00:47:09.540 10 hours you're charging nine grand for this when are we just going to admit that maybe the

00:47:14.920 university sector is and now that with all this stuff that we're talking about when we get should

00:47:20.040 we just admit that it's not fit for purpose i think i think there's a difference between saying

00:47:26.300 that the university sector isn't fit for purpose per se on the one hand and on the other hand saying

00:47:31.160 that the university sector needs to be seriously reformed yeah and i think there is a real dearth

00:47:35.180 discussion about reforming the university sector um a colleague of mine phil cunliffe and and

00:47:40.880 somebody else um wrote a really interesting report that um features on the keo think tank

00:47:50.660 website i reviewed it on spike magazine as well looking at a sort of future for universities very

00:47:56.100 different from the one we've got it involved knowledge-based institutions fewer of them very

00:48:00.420 competitive and none of the woke yeah training and things like that it's very good i'd recommend

00:48:07.780 people go and have a look at that it's on on the keo uh think tank website and my thing on spiked

00:48:13.660 as well um we need more of that we need not we need more thinking out of the box you know

00:48:18.440 universities have developed in you know they've been really politicized i mean that's the thing

00:48:21.620 knowledge was really politicized so uh you had the old polytechnics which were pretty good at

00:48:26.480 training you know they were good at training and you could do your hnd they were good at getting

00:48:29.940 people into business no it had to be a degree had to have a sort of parity in three years long

00:48:34.780 and then all the polys became universities and then all sorts of different things had to be

00:48:42.140 university status courses that weren't before and before you know it a university has become

00:48:48.820 this rather indistinct thing that encapsulates training you know very practical things

00:48:54.580 as well as very kind of abstract knowledge and it's trying to do all of these things

00:48:59.620 not doing perhaps any of them as well as it might.

00:49:02.580 So I'm not sure about the sector as a whole,

00:49:08.540 but I absolutely do think there needs to be a very serious societal debate

00:49:13.060 about where we're going with universities.

00:49:15.120 And at the top of that debate, I think, needs to be that we need to have universities

00:49:19.120 that are all about knowledge, pushing the boundaries of knowledge.

00:49:25.340 And that requires free speech, and that isn't negotiable.

00:49:29.620 that really isn't negotiable.

00:49:30.980 You can talk about all sorts of other sensitivities

00:49:32.560 and I'm very sensitive myself to what my students say

00:49:35.120 and feel and all the rest of it.

00:49:36.980 But we need to start off with some basic principles

00:49:39.980 and those principles are the pursuit of knowledge

00:49:42.320 and the ability to do that freely without fear or favour.

00:49:46.700 On that happy note...

00:49:47.860 I was just going to say...

00:49:49.620 He's got one more black-tailed question for you.

00:49:53.740 The introduction of tuition fees,

00:49:56.620 particularly the bumping it up to nine grand,

00:49:59.140 yeah part of i see this as part of the problem because what you've now turned students into

00:50:05.280 are customers and with a being a customer comes with a sense of entitlement and that entitlement

00:50:10.720 is i don't want to be confronted with things that i disagree with yeah well i think i think there's

00:50:15.740 an element of truth in that but i don't think it's completely true i think one of the arguments

00:50:19.780 um that joanna williams makes in her book on consuming education is that even if you were

00:50:25.680 to take away the nine grand universities have already knowledge has already been kind of

00:50:30.660 compartmentalized and made very instrumental as we said before you study this to get this and

00:50:35.580 you have these learning outcomes that you have to meet and it's all very mechanistic

00:50:39.540 and all of the woke stuff and all of that that would be there without the nine grand

00:50:44.220 so I think the consumer mentality I'm here so my views need to be respected because I've paid for

00:50:49.980 them you know all of those things which most students not really you know at the front of

00:50:56.400 their minds I have to say okay you know students are more you know they're there they're still

00:50:59.540 their bright-eyed bushy tail the problem is what the universities tell them when they arrive that's

00:51:03.640 the problem you know not what the universities think uh before they arrive so the consumer side

00:51:08.380 of it that that's there anyway and the nine and a half or nine grand or whatever is is not such a

00:51:16.120 big part of that and I can think of situations in the past historically where people have paid

00:51:21.240 for a brilliant classical education you know you can pay for something really good maybe maybe down

00:51:26.940 the line there's some ideas about how the university sector might actually change people

00:51:31.580 offering a different kind of education and if you were paying for it you might decide that's where

00:51:38.320 your money will go rather than the way many universities seem to be going at the moment

00:51:43.060 that choice would be good very much on that note i hope your positivity is merited

00:51:48.420 and i hope so too good luck with don't divide us it's a it's a great slogan um and let's hope

00:51:55.880 you can make that happen but in the meantime uh we always end with the same question which is

00:52:00.960 what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really should be

00:52:04.580 i would say you know we're talking we're here talking about universities and education

00:52:10.080 but perhaps the thing that we haven't talked about that is worth talking about is fun i actually think

00:52:16.820 university that you know i still well clear the students and their boss and they believe me

00:52:23.340 but i i kind of vaguely remember in the dark distant past having a lot of fun at college

00:52:28.380 at university yeah still do have a little bit of fun but you know back then it was fun and exciting

00:52:35.260 And I tend to think that this impulse to regulate,

00:52:41.200 even with the best intentions to regulate how we speak to each other

00:52:44.540 and what gestures, the microaggressions thing

00:52:46.560 and all of these kind of things,

00:52:48.360 I think it gets in the way of people having fun and being open

00:52:53.200 because we want people to take risks

00:52:56.280 and be open in terms of their intellectual lives.

00:53:00.080 But it's also generally a good thing to be open

00:53:04.000 to experimenting a little bit

00:53:06.200 with relationships and things like that

00:53:08.400 and just fun and trying things

00:53:10.360 in our personal lives

00:53:12.220 and in our leisure lives too.

00:53:14.700 So more freedom

00:53:16.140 in that respect

00:53:17.420 and

00:53:18.420 fun

00:53:20.880 and conviviality and togetherness.

00:53:23.840 All the things we missed out

00:53:24.900 during the pandemic and everybody's dying to get back into.

00:53:28.180 Now you walk into university and it's well

00:53:29.740 watch out for this, watch out for the microaggressions

00:53:32.320 these places are dangerous.

00:53:34.000 it's almost like fear is attaching itself to things that we always did you know getting on

00:53:39.240 having fun meeting new people hanging out trying new sports music whatever um so fun that's the

00:53:46.480 thing we should be talking about that is a great thing to be talking about we're going to ask you

00:53:50.000 a couple of questions for our local supporters but in the meantime uh you write for spiked uh

00:53:54.900 where else can people find you online uh well i've got one of these sub stack things so i've

00:53:58.960 written for a few different educational and other magazines and things like that ario a little bit

00:54:05.420 um so that's where they can find it look at jim butcher substack and it's pretty much all on there

00:54:11.100 i've written a few books they're generally on travel uh and the cultures of travel and i did

00:54:17.980 actually write a book that in a way in a very roundabout way is a bit of a critique of woke

00:54:23.900 travel it was called the moralization of tourism so if you've never thought about tourism in in

00:54:28.780 the context of this i've written a few things uh around that as well another area of our lives

00:54:34.360 where very often we're told you know you need a code of conduct you need to be carefully destroying

00:54:38.480 the environment and all the rest of it and so yeah nothing escapes the the web of uh our

00:54:45.120 contemporary sort of woke culture i think jim thank you so much for coming on the show it's

00:54:50.020 been an absolute pleasure thank you and if you've enjoyed this episode we always put episodes out

00:54:55.160 on Wednesday and Sunday, 7pm.

00:54:58.000 Also, if you didn't enjoy them either,

00:54:59.660 we still put them out.

00:55:00.180 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:55:01.240 They will always go out 7pm UK time,

00:55:03.760 2pm Eastern Standard.

00:55:05.780 Our Raw shows always go out

00:55:07.420 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

00:55:09.800 same time.

00:55:10.500 And if you want your trigonometry on the go,

00:55:12.300 it's also available as a podcast.

00:55:14.520 Take care and see you soon, guys.

00:55:16.820 We hope you've enjoyed this incredible interview.

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TRIGGERnometry - October 21, 2021

Has Academia Fallen？ With Jim Butcher

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