Disagreement is not oppression. Argument is not assault. Words – even provocative or repugnant ones – are not violence. The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.
- Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity
Two years after he was cancelled, Dr. Jordan Peterson, the controversial Canadian psychologist, spoke at the University of Cambridge. He spoke at a packed out series of university events this past week in November.
I wish I could have been there in person but instead I learned of it through academic friends who attended his talks. I have never been so proud of my alma mater.
Peterson was there at the invitation of a few academics. Unlike last time there were no protests impeding his attendance at an ethics lecture, a Wittgenstein lecture, and a two hour seminar in the divinity faculty entitled “Friedrich Schiller and Immanuel Kant on beauty and play.” He also gave a lecture to divinity faculty staff and students entitled, “Imitation of the divine ideal.”
His keynote speech at a packed out Lady Mitchell Hall was preceded by an announcement by two of the university proctors, dressed in full academic robes, that they were “present to uphold freedom of speech.”
In an hour-long address, delivered without notes, an upbeat Dr Peterson took the theme of “perception” and moved through neuroscience, theology, politics and opera to argue against the idea that our understanding of categories and reality is determined by oppressive or patriarchal cognitive habits that must be unlearned. Instead, he said, the truth of things calls out to us and, being moved to tears more than once, described how great art and religious buildings made the miracle of perception apparent.
In early 2019, an invitation to spend time at Cambridge as a visiting academic was rescinded after a small campaign of complaints by small band of hyper-activists. It became one of the most talked-about examples of “cancel culture” and spurred into action a network of faculty members at Cambridge who were determined to reverse what they saw as a descent into intellectual cowardice and a surrender of the principles of free enquiry.
The decision to disinvite Peterson was taken without the involvement of Cambridge’s vice-chancellor, Stephen Toope, a respected human rights lawyer and scholar, who was in China at the time, delivering a speech to Peking University, during which he saluted his Beijing hosts by telling them that, “at a time when many minds appear to be closing all around the world, it is reassuring to find here [in Beijing] a formidable institution that seeks an open world, open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people.”
However, upon being informed that his own institution had cancelled Professor Peterson because of another person’s t-shirt, Toope offered unequivocal endorsement for the faculty’s rush to judgement. “Robust debate can scarcely occur,” Toope expatiated in an official statement, “when some members of the community are made to feel personally attacked, not for their ideas but for their very identity.”
What Toope did next confirmed the suspicions of academics who feared Peterson’s cancellation represented more than a panicked response to an unfortunate photo and was, instead, part of an assault on the permissibility of certain opinions. The vice-chancellor sought to implement a new university-wide code on free speech in line with his insistence upon “balancing academic freedom with respect for members of our community.”
Toope’s code sought to make freedom of speech for Cambridge’s staff, students and visiting speakers conditional on their “respecting” the ideas and identities of others. Although not explicit in the statement, this would have muzzled opinions by risking a misconduct charge for anyone accused of causing or encouraging real or perceived offence. Had it passed, there was scarce prospect of Cambridge hearing again anyone like Professor Peterson who has, for instance, challenged speech-code-enforcement by transgender rights activists.
In an extraordinary act of disobedience, in December 2020 Cambridge academics voted down the contentious parts of the new code in the Regent House (the university’s parliament) after some academics mobilised their peers and decided to make a stand. In this regard Arif Ahmed, a Reader in Philosophy, led the charge. Almost 87 per cent of votes cast amended the code’s wording from a duty to “respect” to merely “tolerate” – thereby neutering the risk of censorship.
Toope responded deftly to his humiliation by welcoming it: “The statement also makes it clear that [it] is unacceptable to censor, or disinvite, speakers whose views are lawful but may be seen as controversial,” he proclaimed, disingenuously.
The morning after the Regent House vote, Dr James Orr, a lecturer in the philosophy of religion, emailed Jordan Peterson with the idea of inviting him back to Cambridge in order to test whether the defeat of the “respect” code was more than a “paper victory.” Peterson was receptive, and Orr subsequently formally invited him to come to Cambridge in November 2021.
This time around Professor Peterson’s ability to interact with scholars during his visit to Cambridge assumed a greater significance given the university’s previous decision to cancel an invitation to him to lecture on the book of Exodus. As Arif Ahmed, a Cambridge reader in philosophy and defender of the university’s commitment to free speech, stated, “the reaction to Peterson’s arrival will tell us much about whether Cambridge is on the side of the Enlightenment or the mob.”
In even better news, Stephen Toope announced he was taking early retirement as vice-chancellor. His conditional freedom of speech codes have been amended out of existence and a further university-wide initiative to encourage students to report staff for perceived “micro-aggressions” was hastily withdrawn following a similar outcry.
Peterson for his part enjoyed his week in Cambridge drawing record crowds at events including one at the Cambridge Union, the famed student debating society whose vacillating president had recently introduced and then abandoned a scheme to blacklist speakers who risked offending someone.
University-wide efforts to make a range of speech subject to policing may have wilted, but individual colleges like Wolfson and Downing are busy introducing speech-restrictive measures within their own domain. Darwin’s decision is especially extraordinary given it is graduate college named after one of the university's most famous families and alumni, that of Charles Darwin. The Darwin family previously owned some of the land, Newnham Grange, on which the college now stands. In his day Darwin rocked the academic world with the publication of his ‘Origin of Species’ and faced consistent calls to be ostracised and his scientific works burned and views on evolution banned.
No one who values free speech should rest on their laurels. The fight back continues.
Dum spiro spero (While I breathe, I hope).
**Photo: Jordan Peterson with Douglas Murray stand together in the courtyard of Trinity College, Cambridge, Nov 2021
