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When Truth is No Longer Paramount
Universities undermine their reason for existence when subjectivism takes over.
When Truth is No Longer Paramount — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal
It is a running joke with my repeat students that “it depends” is the phrase most likely to set me off during a classroom discussion. Don’t get me wrong, I…
jamesgmartin.center
It is a running joke with my repeat students that “it depends” is the phrase most likely to set me off during a classroom discussion.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand context matters, and we should strive to see as much of the picture as possible. Still, repeated appeals to “it depends” by the same student reveal a very different intent. In most cases, the student is using “it depends” as an excuse not to think carefully, substituting feelings for reason.
Such students risk nothing in class discussion, insulating their beliefs and ideas from challenge in precisely the place where they are supposed to be challenged. Too often, professors allow them to get away with it.
In a similar vein, you’ve probably heard people appeal to “my truth,” but this phrase gets the relationship between the self and truth exactly backwards. It is the truth that lays claim to us, not the other way around. Worse, it suggests to the student and their peers that the truth is radically subjective, that is, the truth of an idea depends on the individual’s willingness to accept it. This is becoming common in various “soft” academic fields where academics want to escape rigorous examination of their ideas by saying “That’s my truth.”
When the university tolerates or encourages this kind of behavior in students and faculty, it suspends the principles and values that give the university legitimacy and authority, which are intrinsic to the educational enterprise.
For most of their history, universities operated on the assumption that truth exists independently of our preferences.
~Snip~
Scholarship in those areas is not evaluated primarily on methodological rigor, but on whether the findings support approved moral conclusions. The measuring tool, to borrow a simple analogy, is no longer an external ruler but a political frame. Scholarship that aligns with that frame is rewarded; scholarship that challenges it faces hostility—regardless of the evidence. This creates an unspoken rule in academia: certain conclusions are acceptable while others are not.
The consequences of this rule become clear when scholars produce findings that can be useful to political conservatives.
~Snip~
Academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism or freedom from standards. It depends on disciplines maintaining clear, rigorous methods while remaining open to unexpected conclusions. Universities do not need to purge controversial fields or ban uncomfortable topics. They need to welcome viewpoint diversity and remain neutral amid political and social turmoil. Yes, neutrality would be taking a position, but it is a position on the sideline rather than within the political arena.
All of this hinges on a renewed commitment to the fearless pursuit of truth and the passionate belief in truth. When higher education replaces “What is true?” with “Whose truth?” it loses not only public trust, but its reason for existence. If universities wish to reclaim that trust, they must retire the reflexive appeal to “it depends” and demonstrate the virtues that they claim to develop in their students: prudence and fortitude.
Commentary:
The article is wrong - partially. “It depends” is an answer in search of information. The validity of the answer depends on whether the information sought is subjective or objective. If subjective, the respondent is asking the questioner to invalidate their prejudices - and that is why the author objects.
If the information sought is objective, it is a clarification against a rule - that is, it is providing information obscured by the questioner because the answer is unfavorable to them, in my experience.
