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COMMENTARY: What does 'woke' mean? At UPEI, it leads to a lack of courage

You may have noticed that in casual conversation the word “woke” is often preceded by an apology. Many do not know exactly how to use the word, or what it truly means. It is a word with little philosophical underpinning — except vague assertions about being awake to the fact we all have the right to self-fulfill, and a repetitive credo encouraging us all to be sickeningly “nice.”

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How utterly boring. But a deeply suspect interpretation of “woke” is also being used as an instrument of repression. In the hands of University of Prince Edward Island administrators, it is a cudgel to protect themselves from scrutiny, and seems also to form part of their new philosophy of education — a half-baked amalgam of puerile mush which is in fact a betrayal of the core Liberal principles of the university. Under the camouflage of instructing us all to be “nice” as they define “nice,” it is used to justify the punishment of courage, verve, rage and rebellion; it stifles originality and deadens the artistic impulse; it squashes legitimate criticism and, most sadly, essentially removes humour from academic engagement. (Think George Carlin on vast doses of Prozac, sitting gazing at himself in the mirror).

Aside from encouraging good people to behave well, “woke” is mostly self-indulgent self-pitying rubbish — a navel-gazing orgy of victimhood rooted in ignorance and illiteracy. And though words shape how a culture evolves and whether it succeeds or fails, UPEI’s administrators continue to be pathologically negligent in teaching reading, writing and critical thinking skills to students. There are often fourth-year business students in my first-year academic writing classes who have not been taught — in four years at the business school — how to write a proper sentence, paragraph or cohesive argument. There are several (documented) scenarios where entire groups of UPEI students have taken part in mock job application processes that ended in shocking embarrassment for all involved — and a humiliating failure for the ill-prepared students. These charades exposed rampant incompetence and lack of accountability by UPEI, and yet nothing was done to correct the root of the problem.

The distorted woke ideals being peddled by UPEI are in fact grooming students for authoritarianism and conformity. When the UPEI dean of arts recently asserted that there were ideas emerging from her third-floor office in Main that were “provocative” and “unsettling,” I laughed louder and longer than I have in 20 years. Empty words like hers are bandied about daily by administrators and by UPEI communications. They love the sound of their own voice. But look behind the pomposity, pretense (and the stiff academic droll) and you will see an institution that expends an inordinate amount of time and energy merely trying to stifle open legitimate criticism aimed squarely in their direction.

COMMENTARY: 'Miserable, soul sucking,' UPEI workplace hard to 'just move on' from

COMMENTARY: UPEI's fair treatment policy is anything but

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The fact of the matter is that in a harsh place called “reality” UPEI is not provocative or unsettling in the least. Though there are brave souls inside the university who have started to exercise their long-dormant academic freedom rights and challenge some of the antiquated ways of doing things. And though there are some good disciplined teachers, parochial resistance persists and the same old pedagogical platitudes are still floating around the place like sewage. In opposition to many positive suggestions put forth in the Rubin Thomlinson report, a good portion of the old guard — some recently promoted after clear evidence of abuse of power — are fearful that their complacent cozy lives built on the backs of underpaid sessionals will be disrupted, and so they act accordingly — like Peter Shaffer’s Salieri.

It is clearly the right moment to do what Jane Ledwell suggested quite some time ago — “burn” the whole charade down. Revise the P.E.I. University Act and reimagine the university entirely. Those on the board of governors when Dr. Carroll and Ms. Casey alleged sexual harassment need to leave the university immediately. Recent actions ($5 million of taxpayer money piddled away on legal fees) call into question the judgment of the present chair of the board of governors. Deans and chairs and other senior administrators whose petty vengeful actions inhibit free speech daily need to retire and inquire about positions at their local newspaper — where they may relearn the fundamental principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Now that we have courageous leadership at the UPEI faculty association, UPEI — the merging of two institutions built not to coddle students but to prepare them for the harsh reality that is life — will be much better off when the dilettantes are removed from the university once and for all. Let their penance be reading Walter J. Ong for eternity. It is past time to revisit the Diocesan Four Pillars of Formation which were at the core of St Dunstan’s University for ideas on how to rescue UPEI from this mushy road to perdition.

As the acclaimed Slovenian theatre director, Mateja Koležnik, said in response to a recent audience attack on an actor in her production of the provocative play, The Beauty of Killing Fascists: “The next wave of fascism, there will not be monsters. There will be normal, nice people.” I know these normal nice people very well. They are some of the most perniciously evil people I have worked with in 30 years, and they’re putting generations of UPEI students to sleep like discarded dogs.

Colm Magner is a sessional instructor at the University of Prince Edward Island. He lives in Victoria, P.E.I.

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