Sunday Ruffian
A dodgy article, a brilliant book, the EDI swamp, and an issue in Irish higher education
Dónal Lynch has an article in today’s Sunday Independent about the Trans community in Ireland and, according to the subheading, he is encouraging people to ‘be ready to fight.’ It is a bone cringe of a piece, shackling sexual orientation to gender identity, drawing on the usual regurgitated arguments that are learned off and recited like a 1984 mantra. It is surface level gobbledygook lacking in depth and displaying a remarkable inability to engage with the actual issues at hand, disregarding well founded concerns about men competing in women’s sports and the importance of single-sex spaces for women. Lynch acknowledges there has been a ‘huge rise’ in the numbers of young people with gender dysphoria but neglects to mention research pointing to the potential risks of hormone-cocktails or irreversible surgeries or the lack of evidence on long-term outcomes. Reading his opinion piece was enough to tempt me to reactivate my Twitter account. But no.
I deactivated Twitter in June. I have thirty days to juggle the idea of reviving it. I’ve about ten days left. Mostly I prefer being off Twitter. And, I have more time to read.
I’m currently on Volume II of Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus The Matter With Things, a labyrinthine book spectacularly rich in depth and insight (unlike Lynch’s piece which is crashed-rain-drop-deep). Some of the topics covered by McGilchrist include neuroscience, music, myth, academia, bureaucracy, truth, quantum physics, opposites, and time. The book comes in two volumes and is a whopping 1,333 pages long followed by appendices and a 182-page bibliography (with roughly thirty entries per page). It is extraordinarily well-researched and his arguments are backed up with forensic-level evidence. I don’t remember reading a book of its size or depth before. It is a rewarding experience, enhanced by daily walks listening to various interviews or speeches by McGilchrist.
Chapter 13, Institutional Science and Truth is a must-read for anyone working in academia. McGilchrist explores the trend towards increased specialisation. He highlights problems arising from the pressure to publish, and from vested interests interfering with research findings. He also writes about the impossibility of the type of objectivity that involves adopting a viewpoint without making any presuppositions, and he highlights some eye-opening dodgy incidents from the academic publishing world.
Something that really strikes me from his book are the points about the current almost-obsession with quantification. This is evident today in higher education with ever-increasing layers of bureaucracy particularly, it seems to me, around EDI (Equality Diversity Inclusion). In Ireland, this drive is ramping up as is apparent in the Government’s adoption of the Athena SWAN Charter that was originally aimed at supporting women in academia but has drifted into an ideological swampfest that stifles academic freedom and creativity. It is incumbent on all Irish HEIs to engage with this Charter that requires enormous resources to produce various reports and action plans including statistical details, and to develop EDI initiatives. McGilchrist quotes Jerry Muller (The Tyranny of Metrics):
‘the gathering and publication of performance data serves as a form of virtue signalling. There is no real progress to show, but the effort demonstrated in gathering and publicising the data satisfies a sense of moral earnestness. In lieu of real progress, the progress of measurement becomes a simulacrum of success…’
Last week, there was an article in the Irish Times by Carl O’Brien about a lack of funds to pay staff in Irish universities this year. It’s interesting that there is a shortage of funds when so much of the higher education budget is being hoovered up by EDI initiatives. The Higher Education Authority even has a full centre dedicated to EDI: The Centre of Excellence for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Meanwhile, as stipulated in the HEA Gender Equality Report of 2022, all HEIs in Ireland are now expected, as a minimum, to have  a Vice-President, or equivalent, with responsibility for EDI. HEIs also sometimes have a team of staff working on EDI. Nationally, in 2024 alone, there is hundreds of thousands in funding ploughed into EDI development.
This accelerating push for EDI in Ireland is, I would argue, leading to stagnation, over-bureaucratisation and a stifling of the creative mind. It’s fuelling groupthink and sucking up resources that could be spent on far more fruitful activities. Instead of compelling staff and students to unquestioningly adopt EDI policies, there should be conversations about what exactly is meant by ‘equality, diversity, and inclusion’. McGilchrist quotes Nietzsche for example: ‘the fundamental inclination to posit as equal, to see things as equal… corresponds exactly to that external, mechanical process (which is its symbol) by which protoplasm makes what it appropriates equal to itself and fits it into its own form and files’. Equality, as a concept, must be open to critique. McGilchrist includes another quote by Nietzsche: ‘the will to equality is the will to power’.
Twitter can be great for keeping up to date with news and encountering diverse perspectives. It’s where I first heard of McGilchrist for example. However, I have found Twitter increasingly toxic in recent months. I’m not sure if I will go back.
And finally, Louise Perry interviewed me recently for her wonderful Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast. It was an honour to be invited to speak to her. We spoke mainly about gender identity belief and its parallels to religion. Link to the podcast for anyone interested:
Excellently put as always Colette.