Universities and the pursuit of ‘pluralism of opinion’. A dangerous fundamental misunderstanding

At the University of Salento, during a seminar on sex and gender identity, a lecturer suggested reading essays such as “La cancellazione del femminile, il sessismo al contrario e la teoria del privilegio cisgender” and “Il movimento trans è una menzogna”. Needless to say, left-wing students were up in arms. Fifty years ago, they would have turned the lecture theatre upside down. Today, they are asking the vice-chancellor to intervene on the grounds that “pluralism of opinion” is not being respected. They want to hear the other side of the story too: a lecturer who is convinced that “being trans is wonderful”. Or something along those lines. The result, they argue, is a lecture that morphs into a talk show in which one speaker says white and another says black, with the hope that the audience will engage in debate rather than doze off. By the same logic, they suggest, a session on quantum physics should by decree include an Einsteinian scientist, while a conference on Pascoli ought to feature at least a couple of D’Annunzio-style poets. Or not?

Let’s be clear: the blame does not lie entirely with the students, who, after all, are simply following the lead of those who, for some time now, have turned the lectern into a platform for making appeals. It is the last resort of professors who are weary and disillusioned with their profession. They are struck by the unpleasant realisation that what they know is of no use whatsoever. To feel useful again, they swap academic study for militant activism and lectures for debate. They invite a barrage of guests to show that every argument has its polemical counterpart. They pander to the students’ natural amateurism: ‘I agree with Leopardi’, ‘I disagree with Sartre’, ‘I like it’, ‘I don’t like it’. They confuse understanding with approval or condemnation. They use books solely to decide whether the author is one of ‘us’ or an enemy. Aided by the terrifying ‘new teaching methodologies’, the result is that the old-fashioned lecture risks disappearing. Yet it is, in fact, the only way to truly grasp an issue, hold it firmly and articulate it with the utmost clarity. The same applies to the professor as Carmelo Bene said of the actor: the mediocre one turns even a monologue into a dialogue, whilst the skilled one turns even a dialogue into a monologue. Not out of autism, but to give time, breathing space and necessity to what they are saying. The rest is just chatter.

The expression “discovering warm water” is often used to describe an obvious insight, yet even such knowledge can occasionally cause discomfort. A lecturer at Unisalento is well aware of this. Instead of rebuking the budding young censors, he described them as an ‘expression of the vitality of our university community’. In Italy, professors are often anxious about appearing sufficiently democratic and accommodating. Suspecting they have brought it on themselves, they do not dare explain to the students that the university is not a film club, and that a proper lecture requires the audience to remain silent long enough for the message to sink in. Debate is reassuring, because it fills the silences and encourages people to take sides. A lecture is jarring, because it robs opinion of the pleasure of believing itself to be fully formed thought.