Academic freedom on campus<\/p>\n
By Mochtar Buchori<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): When academic freedom was officially introduced
\ninto Indonesian universities in 1988, there was quite a lot of
\nexcitement and confusion throughout the country. Many university
\nstudents thought, for instance, that with the introduction of
\nacademic freedom in our universities, it had become permissible
\nto discuss domestic political issues within the campus. They were
\nwrong. Discussion of domestic political problems as a part of
\nformal academic life within the university was and still is a
\ntaboo.<\/p>\n
What is \"academic freedom\"?<\/p>\n
According to Arthur Lovejoy, it is the freedom of teachers or
\nresearchers to examine and discuss issues in their fields of
\nspecialization and to express their findings, either through
\npublications or through lectures, without any intervention by
\npolitical or religious authorities or by the institution which
\nemploys them, except when the methods employed are considered by
\nauthorized academic bodies within each specialization as
\ndeficient or contradicting professional ethics.<\/p>\n
It is clear from this definition that academic freedom is a
\nprivilege reserved only for those working for the advancement of
\nknowledge. Those without such an assignment have no business
\nmeddling with the implementation of academic freedom.<\/p>\n
According to one source, academic freedom was exemplified for
\nthe first time by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a Jewish-Dutch
\nphilosopher who earned a living as a lens grinder. In 1673, he
\nreceived an invitation from the University of Heidelberg to
\nbecome a professor in philosophy. It was stated in this offer
\nthat he would enjoy ample freedom in developing and teaching his
\nphilosophical system (philosophandi libertatem amplissimum), as
\nlong as he did not \"misuse this freedom and disturb the religious
\nsystem which has already been established within the society\".
\nSpinoza declined the offer. He did not believe he would really be
\ngiven full freedom of thought in his new position. He chose to
\nlive as a lens grinder, where he could enjoy true \"academic
\nfreedom\", rather than as a university professor with only limited
\nfreedom. He seemed to reason that limited freedom was not true
\nfreedom.<\/p>\n
According to another account, the issue of academic freedom
\ncame up for the first time in the United States. In 1653, Henry
\nDunster was fired from his job as dean of Harvard College because
\nhe opposed the practice of christening children. Members of the
\nBoard of Trustees of Harvard College looked upon this conduct as
\na sign of \"unhealthy faith\". As a consequence, in 1654, the state
\nof Massachusetts passed a law which forbade the appointment of
\nthose with unhealthy faith or those with moral defects as
\nteachers. Thus, Henry Dunster was fired not because he was
\nacademically incompetent, but because he deviated from the
\nmainstream view in his religious outlook. It was not until 1738
\nthat Harvard University corrected this mistake, and began to
\nhonor the principle of academic freedom. In this year, John
\nWinthrop was appointed by the Board of Trustees as professor in
\nmathematics and philosophy of science, even though it was
\npublicly known that he was holding heterodox religious views.<\/p>\n
I think that each of the above accounts tells a different side
\nof the same story. Spinoza was portrayed in the first account as
\nthe positive exhibit of academic freedom, while the firing of
\nHenry Dunster revealed the negative side of academic freedom.<\/p>\n
But no matter how we look at this problem, it has been
\ngenerally agreed that academic freedom was the product of a
\ncultural transmutation process which took place in Europe between
\n1500-1650.<\/p>\n
It was during this period that people in Europe started to
\nquestion the validity of the church doctrines in dealing with
\ncultural and social phenomena. New thought patterns emerged which
\nwere responsible later for the birth of new cultural and
\nintellectual forces: the Renaissance (Italian humanism),
\nReformation (German humanism) and Counter-reformation. It was the
\ninteractions among these three \"modes of thought\" which changed
\nthe cultural panorama of Europe, which later had come to be known
\nas the \"cultural transmutation\" of Europe.<\/p>\n
One of the basic characteristics of this new style of thinking
\nwas the rejection of the learning system developed and passed on
\nby the past generations. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) said that the
\nold knowledge was like a dark forest which inflicted wounds on
\nthose who entered into it, and could not provide any nutritious
\nmaterial for the development of fresh and vigorous thought.<\/p>\n
The new European man was looking for new ways of learning, for
\nnew ways of thinking that would enable them to better understand
\nthe phenomena and problems of life. This new European man put
\nreason above doctrines in his search for truth, and stressed the
\nimportance of imagination in his search for beauty.<\/p>\n
It has generally been agreed that academic freedom succeeded
\nin Europe to invigorate scientific and academic life. This
\nfreedom made possible new discoveries and new inventions. Without
\nthis freedom, many innovations would never have happened. It is
\non the basis of experience gained during this historical period
\nthat the maxim of freedom of thought as a prerequisite for
\nscientific progress has been established.<\/p>\n
Indonesia introduced this principle of academic freedom with
\nthe hope that it would give additional impetus to intellectual
\nlife within universities. It was hoped that by giving lecturers
\nand researchers the freedom they needed in carrying out their
\nprofessional assignments, they would become more productive, and
\nadvancement of knowledge would take place.<\/p>\n
This hope was never fully fulfilled, however. At best, the
\nresult has been very sporadic. In certain institutions, progress
\nhas been visible. However, in the majority of cases, our
\nuniversities and research institutions have not been able to
\nbenefit from this freedom.<\/p>\n
In one of the seminars I attended some years ago, one lecturer
\nexplained that the lack of real progress of academic life in our
\nuniversities was caused primarily by the overwhelming presence of
\n\"academic fear\" among lecturers and researchers. According to
\nthis lecturer, there are so many real problems in our society
\nthat can easily be exploited as vehicles for scientific study.<\/p>\n
But the academic fear that prevails among our academe has
\nprevented them from studying and analyzing such problems. Thus,
\nall these problems remain unattended and unsolved. What is the
\nuse of institutionalizing academic freedom if people are afraid
\nto think independently?<\/p>\n
It should be remembered in this regard that according to
\nLovejoy, the principle of academic freedom rests upon two
\nassumptions. First, that scientific knowledge is not static and
\nmerely accumulative, but that it is a chain of interrelated
\nefforts to attain new knowledge, and that the old knowledge is
\nrequired to adjust itself continuously to new developments.<\/p>\n
Second, that the probability of obtaining truth will be
\ngreater whenever there is interaction among different and even
\ncontradictory ideas which emerge from independent thinking; that
\ntruth will never be attained through the practice of
\nsuperimposing uniform and standard ideas on others.<\/p>\n
According to Jean-Pierre Faye, an example of such practice is
\nthe phenomenon of \"totalitarian language\", or a situation in
\nwhich all official terminologies can have only one meaning:
\nmeaning formulated by the establishment. Any other interpretation
\nmust be regarded as subversive.<\/p>\n
Another explanation that has also been given for the lack of
\npositive impact of academic freedom on our universities is that
\nacademic freedom is a Western principle alien to our culture.
\nThis school of thought maintains that academic freedom is the
\nproblem of Western society, Western universities and Western
\nscholars. We Indonesians can advance our knowledge and promote
\nour understanding of the world without academic freedom. \"Isn't
\nthis a tragedy?\" asked the lecturer, who made this remark.<\/p>\n
While we are still searching for the best way of implementing
\nacademic freedom in our culture, academic life in advanced
\nsocieties has taken on a new turn. Whereas in the beginning,
\nacademic freedom was needed to safeguard academic pursuit from
\nnon-academic intervention, since the late 1960s, this freedom has
\nbeen abused to create what has been called \"pseudoscientism\" and
\n\"antiscientism\".<\/p>\n
Prof. Mario Bunge of McGill University maintains that \"many
\nuniversities have been infiltrated, though not yet seized, by the
\nenemies of learning, rigor and empirical evidence: those who
\nproclaim that there is no objective truth, whence `anything
\ngoes'; those who pass off political opinion as science and engage
\nin bogus scholarship.\"<\/p>\n
He mentioned two products of these kinds of activities:
\nacademic pseudoscience and academic antiscience. Examples of
\nacademic pseudoscience are pseudomathematical symbolism (Vilfredo
\nPareto), subjective probability, and \"scientific\" racism
\n(psychologist Arthur Jensen of Harvard, 1969), among others.
\nExamples of academic antiscience include, among others things,
\nphenomenological sociology, ethnomethodology, and radical
\nfeminist theory.<\/p>\n
Prof. Bunge maintains further that antiscience and
\npseudoscience are the products of \"willful or postmodern
\nignorance\", or the deliberate refusal to learn items relevant to
\none's interests. Willful or postmodern ignorance can come in two
\nguises: naked or naive, and disguised or contrived. This type of
\nignorance should not be confused with \"natural or traditional
\nignorance\", which is unavoidable and is part of being a curious
\nlearner and an honest teacher.<\/p>\n
The danger of antiscience and pseudoscience is that they are
\nauthoritarian. Prof. Bunge cited Karl Popper, who said half a
\ncentury ago that authoritarianism is incompatible with
\nrationalism in the broad sense, i.e. \"the readiness to listen to
\ncritical arguments and to learn from experience\".<\/p>\n
Rationality is thus a necessary component of democratic life,
\nwhere the citizen is supposed to form his or her own opinions on
\nmatters of public interest, to discuss them in public, and to
\nparticipate to some extent in the management of the society.<\/p>\n
For the purpose of protecting the society from the damage that
\ncan be caused by antiscience and pseudoscience, Prof. Bunge
\nproposes the adoption of the Charter of Intellectual Academic
\nRights and Duties, consisting of 10 principles. Some parts of
\nthis proposed charter are as follows:<\/p>\n
* Every academic has the right to make mistakes and the duty to
\ncorrect them upon detecting them.<\/p>\n
* Every academic has the duty to express himself in the clearest
\npossible way.<\/p>\n
* Every academic has the right to discuss any unorthodox views
\nthat interest him, provided those views are clear enough to be
\ndiscussed rationally.<\/p>\n
* Nobody has the right to engage knowingly in any academic
\nindustry.<\/p>\n
* Every academic body has the duty to adopt and enforce the most
\nrigorous known standards of scholarship and learning.<\/p>\n
* Every academic body has the duty to be intolerant to both
\ncounterculture and counterfeit culture.<\/p>\n
Thus, the time has come, according to Prof. Bunge, for
\nscientists and academicians to no longer fix their attention
\nsolely on the right to academic freedom, but they must begin to
\nthink of their responsibilities and duties to protect their
\nsociety and their fellow citizens from the abuses of science.<\/p>\n
The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/academic-freedom-on-campus-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }