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Do you have to be indigenous to teach a course about residential schools? Is it disrespectful if you don't use an array of made-up pronouns to denote people who consider themselves to be outside of the "gender binary"? Can one legitimately "teach" creationism and spiritual beliefs? How about myth, legend and folklore? Would your answer be different depending on whether the course was taught in a faculty of sciences or social sciences or humanities?

Who do you think you are? Who do I think you are? Who do I think I am? Who do you think I am? If the answers to questions one and two are different, or to questions three and four are different, whose view should prevail? Or does either view have to prevail? If we enter into discussion or debate on the matter, is that automatically, ipso facto, disrespectful? Is one of us by definition harassing or oppressing or bullying the other?

In a thought-provoking article in yesterday's paper, Graeme Hamilton explores the question of "indigenization" on Canadian university campuses and whether it poses a threat to open inquiry. One of the critics he quotes is Mark Mercer, a philosophy professor at St. Mary's University in Halifax and president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship. Mercer is not against indigenization initiatives per se, but fears the tendency of some of them to push us towards a "culture of celebration". Mercer contrasts this culture of celebration with "a culture of disputation, a culture of critical inquiry and critical discussion" which he considers more appropriate to a campus environment. (As an aside, I think we tend to vastly overuse the term "culture", often to denote something far less complex or sophisticated than a real culture - think "rape culture" or "learning culture" or maybe even "corporate culture" - but that's a topic for another time)

In my view, this is an issue with tentacles extending far beyond indigenous studies. Think of the Black Lives Matter movement. Or whatever wave of feminism we're now into. Or the LGBTQetc. movement. And of course there's always Jordan Peterson and Lindsay Shepherd and the rough ride they've had over the pronouns thing. And how often is free expression at odds with public safety? Should Ben Makuch of Vice Media be compelled to hand over to the RCMP his communications with a self-described Canadian ISIL terrorist? Do loose lips sink ships, even in peacetime?

I must say that in most cases, I'm firmly in the freedom of expression camp. And I mostly consider my politics to be somewhat left-leaning. But no political stripe is immune from that irritating tendency to dismiss people with whom they disagree by saying things like "Ah, well - Jordan Peterson's one of those alt-right folks". We depersonalize others by categorizing and labelling them when the fact is that any thinking person is going to be a hybridization of views from across a vast spectrum.