A reflection on Sari Hanafi's ‘societal polarization, academic freedom, and the promise of dialogical sociology’

In a recent contribution to Dialogues in Sociology , Sari Hanafi (2025) warns about the perils of the ‘cancel culture' in particular, and the gradual weakening of tolerance and open dialogue in the university spaces. He argues that this is mostly the product of the actions of those who considers themselves attached to liberalism, but only symbolically so. In this reflection piece, I share the same concern with Hanafi, and argue that this dangerous development would deprive the western academia from one of its most remarkable strength – that is, its free intellectual environment that allows for critical voices to be heard and flourish. I also argue that this is the product of a profound change in what I have called – following Marx's notion of the ‘organic composition of capital' – the ‘organic composition of activism'. Taking into account two dimensions of activism – virtual vs. on-the-ground nature of activism, and inside vs. outside locus of it – I have offered a 2X2 matrix with four possible combinations; and have argued that most of the activism we are witnessing in the world today, including that of the cultural left or the symbolic liberals is of the virtual/outside-the-locus nature, which represents the lowest level of engagement with reality and the lowest level of effectiveness. I have ended with inviting the left to think more seriously and critically about the ‘cancel culture', in order to break the monopoly that the right has recently gained in defending – unauthentically – the ‘freedom of speech’.