Mizoginia u władzy? Sprzeczności i cenzura uniwersytetu w czasach kryzysu krytyki

This article examines the key elements of censorship and the contradictions inherent in the academia during a time of crisis in critical thought – a time marked by the resurgence of fascism. It thus proposes an analytical framework for discussing the university stripped of its traditional tools of resistance, operating within a state of political and affective emergency. Such situation of academia is conceivable only within a fascist political project – that is, one grounded in extreme misogyny – wherein the production of knowledge, much like all other forms of power, becomes increasingly subservient to an absolute state authority, understood primarily as the executive branch. Here, misogyny is defined as the treatment of cultural femininity as a resource to be disposed of without restraint by a hegemonic, white, and privileged masculinity – a resource to be exploited, discriminated against, marginalized, and oppressed. Reproductive and care work, tenderness and care, vulnerability, corporeality, sensuality, and irrationality constitute some of the primary elements of this specific conception of “femininity” – elements that fascist culture exploits within colonized and racialized individuals and groups, as well as among women, queer people, and persons with disabilities. Within such cultural realities, the university evolves into not merely a disseminator of knowledge dominated by male hegemony, but also a workplace and a cultural hub that actively reproduces misogynic behaviors. Censorship and contradictions of such a University constitute the central subject of this article; furthermore, the concepts of fascism and neoliberalism – which, partly due to the multifaceted crisis of critical thought, have today devolved into mere “bad abstractions” – are here imbued with what is, hopefully, a truly critical substance. From this perspective, the (ir)rationality of the academia is seen – in accordance with the project of Adorno and Horkheimer – as the return of a nationalist-imperial myth; however, misogyny is treated – unlike in the work of those authors – as the center, rather than the margin, of this return of fascism in neoliberal times, which serves to paralyze the university.