Yes, cancel culture exists in philosophy too. I will get straight to the point. If you don’t know me, I am Yildiz and I study physics, philosophy, and computer science to become a teacher at the Christian-Albrechts University in Germany. All the time I see surprised faces when I tell people what subjects I am studying. Physics and computer science are hard sciences, and mathematical and tend to be studied by more rational people. Philosophy, however, is often seen as some esoteric stuff, where people just talk all day about things that have no solution, anyway. Philosophy is also often confused with poetry or art. However, it’s not emotion or language that we put focus on as philosophers. We use logic to debate about things so complex, that we invented no science yet that could explore them other than philosophy. So when philosophers are faced with an ethical problem, they don’t just tell their opinion, they look at the root of this ethical issue and, from there, approach a solution through analogies and logical deduction.
The abortion debate, for instance, is a complicated ethical issue. We could ask when should we define a fetus to be conscious because consciousness seems to be a relevant aspect here. That is highly complicated, however. So we could try analogies and compare the mental abilities of a fetus with the mental abilities of a cow or a chicken. It turns out that the mental abilities of a cow are actually superior to those of a fetus. Now, if an Anti-Abortion supporter eats the meat of a cow and other animals, she is faced with a logical fallacy that she needs to tackle in her argumentation. She could say for instance, that members of our own species stand above other animals. Now, before I get too deep into this debate, I already published an article called “Reasons to be pro-choice”. Check it out, if you are more interested in this topic.
My point here is, that as someone who wants to teach philosophy and how to think like a philosopher, I don’t actually care what the argument is but if it follows a logical structure.
Now if a student’s conclusion of his argumentation is “Hitler was right” let’s say, I’d probably have a word with the kid and…well perhaps call a therapist. However, in universities, there definitely is a problem with a bias toward views that are more right-winged. Yes, cancel culture does exist, and it is targeted against conservatives, which is a huge problem and I say that as a leftist. But if we start discussions about ethical issues by already setting the right “ethics” at the beginning of this debate, then how can we call ourselves philosophers?
Right or left, that doesn’t matter to me as a philosopher, only as someone interested in politics. I decide what is right by following logical rules. Of course, we can’t answer everything by logic, but damn it, it is the best tool we currently got to find solutions for these unsolvable questions and that was what made philosophy so special. I don’t think this kind of spirit is currently taught at schools and universities. Suddenly, philosophy indeed became a pseudonym for people to just tell their opinion and sell it as somehow important or valuable to people. This deeply saddens me.
I for my part, have experienced how I was mistreated and pushed back by co-students and teachers by simply challenging left-winged views when they seemed logically flawed to me. Ultimately, I partly have the fear of being evaluated for the position I have, and not my deduction skills.
I am not the only one who complains about that. For a long time now, conservatives keep warning us that schools and universities set left-winged views as the right ethics and right views from the beginning without even allowing room for challenging these views.
If you read my other articles, you know I am the last person who thinks super highly of conservatives. But they have a right to pursue the truth. All students have that right and sometimes leftist views can be strengthened even more after they were challenged. I believe the reason why we observe a right-wing push in Europe currently, is the lack of left-winged views that are being challenged and thus weakened.
So dear colleagues, I ask all of you to remind yourself of the essence of our work, which is logic, not politics, diplomacy, or activism. Of course, there shall be institutions and groups within a school and university that protect the rights of identity groups, and minorities and fight back against radical policies and discrimination, because as I said, not everything is solvable and explainable with logic, we have to take emotions, into account, but that is not the job of philosophers. We question values, we do not protect them.
And If I can be cynical now, radical conservatives give us enough opportunities to find logical fallacies in their arguments, so there is no need for cancel culture, anyway.
