Multiplied and Betrayed Freedom. Neoliberal Reason, the Crisis of Critique, and the University

Abstract

Academic freedom, reduced to the decision-making autonomy of individuals within a competitive system, takes on a paradoxical form. Incapable of claiming an unconditional freedom of inquiry and proposition, the university has ceased to present itself as a space of unconditional speech (Derrida, Rovatti, 2002), free from external political and economic constraints. This results in a narrowing of the possibility of formulating radical questions, especially those capable of challenging its own assumptions, its public role, and its social function. On these premises, the essay aims to show how the critical function of the university becomes atrophied, not so much through authoritarian imposition, but rather through a progressive internalization of neoliberal logics, which render every dissonant voice superfluous by means of a sinister government through freedom (Dardot, Laval, 2019²).