{"id":150805,"date":"2023-02-22T15:43:53","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T14:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=150805"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:39","slug":"in-praise-of-flatness-on-campus-protest-and-academic-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/02\/22\/in-praise-of-flatness-on-campus-protest-and-academic-community\/","title":{"rendered":"In praise of flatness. On campus protest and academic community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two recent events afford a clear view of what the administrative leadership of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) thinks a university really is. More precisely, these were two provocations. They made me think of Edwin Abbott\u2019s novella Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions<\/em> (1884), that tells the story of A. Square, who lives in Flatland, a world in 2D in which he can only experience a 3D-shape like a sphere as circle. Analogously, at this university the capacity to see in more dimensions seems missing, and everything that does not fit in the \u2018strategy\u2019 of administrators and their bureaucratic squares is rendered flat.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFemke Legu\u00e9<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

First provocation: protest versus \u2018academic community\u2019<\/h2>

First there was the response of the university board to the occupation of the space in front of the university\u2019s auditorium by students of OccupyEUR on February 7 and 8. They demanded an end to the university\u2019s ties with the fossil fuel industry, to precarious labour, to student debt, and to the lack of campus accessibility. During a previous occupation in November 2022 the board immediately called the police. This time they did so after one day. This response testifies to an utter incomprehension of campus protest, and to a kind of housekeeping reflex, a neurosis of security and hygiene. When students were unwilling to, on day one, dilute their protest to a \u2018dialogue\u2019 on the administrators\u2019 terms, the administrators\u2019 response was, entirely in keeping with the corporate identity of the university: get the fuck out of hEUR with your attempts to make of this place something more than a factory for credentialization and a lobby lounge for suits and ties intent on doing what their daddies did before them: cashing on the planetary plunder called capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018This response testifies to an utter incomprehension of campus protest, and to a kind of housekeeping reflex, a neurosis of security and hygiene\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Whoever seeks to return to normal this quickly, rests on shaky foundations. In a decretal dripping with childish frustration, the occupation was dubbed \u2018illegal\u2019, and not a protest. What is more, it was declared not befitting an \u2018academic community\u2019, which, after all, cannot be disturbed \u2018just because a small group has a certain opinion\u2019. As the board said: \u201cIn no way have you shown an openness to dialogue. This attitude does not suit an academic community and Erasmian values, nor does it contribute to real solutions.\u201d What a spoiled habituation to being found important. And what a pathetic impatience when, for once, you don\u2019t immediately get your way. Apparently, administrators fail to recognize protest unless it is flattened to \u2018having a certain opinion\u2019 and expressing it in a format they determine (a \u2018dialogue\u2019). And with a historical and political-theoretical amateurism that is almost touching, they believe a protest is something that doesn\u2019t disturb anything. Finally, and this is an important yield, it turns out they cannot conceive of the climate catastrophe in anything but technocratic terms, as if it were a \u2018problem\u2019 requiring a \u2018solution\u2019. Of course, that solution could never be anything that changes existing relations of power. Anything else would be \u2018a certain opinion\u2019. \u2018Leadership\u2019 is a generous concept if all roads automatically lead to the same order-hugging technocracy.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t