On academic activism: a French perspective

Wokism is a kind of activism. According to it, all the work done at the university should be oriented towards a political concern for the modification of the social world. But we, researchers and teachers, are paid to produce knowledge and to transmit it. This is a goal that has nothing to do with politics, even if, of course, our productions can be used to support political causes – and most of us, including myself, are happy about this.

This is why activism should have no place in the academic world. What I called « academo-activism » is an attack on the autonomy of science and a misappropriation of public funds. Indeed, we are not paid by our fellow citizens to be activists in the frame of our academic positions, but to produce and transmit knowledge. Therefore, this militantization of the university leads to a drastic decrease of the intellectual level, and to the incapacity of so many students today to understand what real research is.