Do we need universities?

A comment writer in a national newspaper has recently observed that information found on the internet may not always be correct.

Only last week this same comment writer wrote about his education at Cambridge University in the 1970s.  He recalls that some of the academics who taught him were right wing, while others were left wing.  He does not make it entirely clear what he means by those terms, but he does offer some clues.  For example, he associates left wing views with opposition to racial discrimination, and right wing views with opposition to inheritance tax.

He implies – or at least appears to imply – that some of the left wing academics sought unduly to influence the opinions of their students – in short, to brainwash them.  He does not imply – or appears not to imply - that any of the right wing academics indulged in any form of brainwashing.

He then argues that it is increasingly common nowadays for academics to be left wing.  He suggests that this may be a matter of self interest, as academics feed off public funds to a large extent, but surely that was no less true in the 1970s.

Also, even if it is true that British universities are increasingly becoming bastions of left wing brainwashing, then presumably their influence is limited – at least as far as political views are concerned.  I think it is fair to say that most of us change our opinions as we get older, and often do so in response to changes in our personal circumstances.  It is easy to adhere to one set of views when we are students at university, but it is equally very easy to adhere to different views once we have graduated and find ourselves in a different situation.

On the other hand, not all views are what we might term political.  I have read accounts of the persecution of Christian students in universities in the USA, and I often wonder if the same thing could happen in the United Kingdom.

I cannot be certain, but it appears that there may be a lot of brainwashing going on in science faculties of universities both in this country and elsewhere.  Without going into detail right now, I used to be active on a science forum on the internet, and based on that and other experiences I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that people with science degrees can be extremely narrow-minded and even bigoted.

Is there a law which requires universities to seek to educate rather than indoctrinate?  Are university academics required by law to grade their students’ work strictly on the basis of merit?  So far as I am aware, the answer is no.

Universities came into existence in the middle ages, when books were handwritten on vellum, and so were prohibitively expensive for almost everyone.  Public libraries did not exist, but universities had libraries where students could have access to books, and in a structured environment.  Teaching staff were on hand to advise students on which books to read first. The drawback to this was that the teaching staff were in a position to abuse their influence, which is not to say that they did.

We now live in a very different society.  For as long as I can remember, this country has had public libraries where people can access a wide variety of books, and where almost any book can be obtained on request.  Book shops allow us to buy books at prices which most working people can afford.

We also have the internet, which is perhaps the most truly egalitarian invention in the history of the world.  The internet allows almost anyone anywhere in the world to access almost any information, including information which brainwashing academics might prefer us not to have access to.  Of course what we read on the internet may not be true, but things we read in books or hear in lectures may also not be true.

In other words, the foundations of the university system are crumbling, and any sensible government should ask why they still exist.  I am not saying that there is not a reason, but perhaps we could at least be clear what that reason actually is.

The politics of denial

Followers of this blog may be aware that I have for some time now planned to write in detail about the supposed holocaust perpetrated by the German National Socialist regime in the 1940s.  Some may also be wondering why it matters.

In the past week my blog has enjoyed its highest readership in France, the USA, and Greece.  Two of those are countries where free speech is denied to those who seek the truth.  A simple search on the internet reveals that in September 2014 the Greek parliament voted to outlaw any denial of the supposed holocaust, whereas a similar law has existed in France since 1990.

It is never made entirely clear why such laws exist, but links are often made with the inevitably vague concepts of racism and anti-semitism.  I have some questions.

Have the lives of Jewish people in France improved since 1990?  Have the lives of Jewish people in Greece improved since 2014?  Are Jewish people in those countries better off than Jewish people in Britain and the USA where holocaust denial remains legal?

I repeat what I wrote in an earlier post: 

According to a recent press report Britain is currently experiencing a sharp increase in incidents of anti-semitic hate crimes.  [If I remember correctly, the press report did not link these hate crimes with holocaust denial.]  In France the situation is far worse, with many Jews emigrating to either Britain or Israel.

In other words, many Jews feel safer in Britain where it is legal to deny the holocaust than they do in France where it has been illegal for more than a generation.  If anyone still thinks that holocaust denial laws exist for a good reason, then maybe they could leave a comment.  

I remember watching The Cook Report on ITV in 1997 when Roger Cook confronted Nick Griffin about his views, and in particular asked him about the holocaust.  (This programme can normally be found on Youtube by searching for Cook Report BNP.)  It is worth noting that Roger Cook raised the matter, and not Griffin.

About ten years later, a programme was broadcast called BNP Wives (which can also be normally found on Youtube), in which a member of the British National Party called Marlene Guest was shown distributing leaflets during a by-election campaign which refuted allegations that she was a holocaust denier.  I couldn't help but wonder if this were the best possible use of her time.  Surely people tend to vote in elections on the basis of what is happening in their lives today, and not on the basis of what may or may not have happened many decades ago.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is active in a political party is to stay away from this topic as much as possible.  If anyone asks you your view on the supposed holocaust, then reply that you are campaigning on the lack of affordable housing locally - or whatever issues matter to the local electorate at that time.

I am glad that I live in a country where the denial of free speech has not yet extended to twentieth century history, and I cannot help but feel sorry for people who live in countries such as Greece and France.

It seems to me at times that the whole concept of the supposed holocaust of Jews in the 1940s derives from a belief that the life of a Jew is of greater value than the life of a gentile, but then maybe I am wrong about that.  Another simple search on the internet reveals that abortion is permitted in Israel, and that the overwhelming majority of Jews in the USA are tolerant of abortion.

If a Jewish woman has an abortion, then a person of Jewish parentage dies.  Does anyone care to deny that?

Related previous posts include:
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
Another very British holocaust

Another very British holocaust

You may have missed it, but Friday just gone was holocaust memorial day.  This annual event was initiated in 2001, and marks the day when the concentration camp at Auschwitz was captured – I won’t say liberated – by the Russian army.  It is supposed to be an opportunity to remember not only the supposed extermination of Jews by the German National Socialist regime, but also of subsequent acts of genocide in four countries – Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region of Sudan.

To be fair, the holocaust memorial day website does contain limited information about those four genocides, but I am not aware that holocaust memorial day has ever been used in this country to mark any genocide other than the one that never actually happened.

This week my local newspaper quotes a local MP as referring to the supposed extermination of Jews by Hitler’s regime as the biggest mass murder in history.  Here are some facts.

The number of Jews who died under Hitler’s regime is normally cited as around six million.  Many historians believe that Stalin’s communist regime in the Soviet Union killed far more people than that, and likewise many historians believe that Mao Tse Tung’s communist regime in China killed far more than six million people.  I believe that some historians maintain that more than six million African people were murdered in the Congo Free State.

Also, I believe that it is a matter of recorded fact that more than eight million babies have been slaughtered in abortion clinics in this country since 1967.

This year’s holocaust memorial day saw the film Denial released in cinemas in the United Kingdom.  It tells the story of the libel trial which bankrupted David Irving.  The judge in that case ruled that Irving distorted evidence to suit his agenda.  I wonder if the judge in that case would deny that eight million is a larger number than six million.

Related previous posts include:
A very British holocaust
The Pope visits Auschwitz 
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
Is holocaust denial a bad thing?
Of Jews and paedophiles

Are you a fascist?

There used to exist a communist country which was commonly known as East Germany.  I remember once seeing its head of government on television making a speech.  In a country devoid of democracy, he referred to its western frontier as the frontier with fascism.  I found this curious - even a trifle amusing - but I eventually realised that this was in fact a key part of the communist mindset.

Fascism - like communism - is a difficult concept to define in words, but basically it is a political ideology which arose in Italy around one hundred years ago.  As with communism, it maintains that the power of the state should be without limits, and holds both democracy and free speech in contempt.  Someone at some point coined the word totalitarianism as an umbrella term to classify both communism and fascism.

But whatever fascism was originally, it is now a word habitually used by communists to vilify almost anything they dislike.

Take for example this recent essay on the website of a national newspaper.  The author talks about the rise of fascism, but without offering any definition, and neither can I find a definition in any of her previous work.

What is obvious however is that she dislikes the outcome of the Brexit referendum, the election of Donald Trump, and tax avoidance by large companies.  I also have a dislike of tax avoidance by large companies, but I would not describe it as fascism.  I would not vote for Donald Trump, but I'm not sure I would describe him as a fascist.  I voted for Brexit, and I certainly do not regard myself as a fascist.

In an essay written in August 2016, the same author describes supporters of Jeremy Corbyn as ordinary, fed-up voters, and I wonder why she cannot bring herself to apply a similar description to British people who voted for Brexit or for American people who voted for Trump.

While the author may see herself and other people like her as marginalised, it is nevertheless the case that she is allowed to put her views across in a national newspaper.  By contrast, I am not sure I have ever come across a genuinely nationalist comment writer in any of Britain's national newspapers.  It is of course true that newspaper comment writers will occasionally put across a patriotic point of view, but this is merely a cynical ploy to encourage people to buy the newspaper.

I have never been invited to write for a national newspaper, and neither to my knowledge has any other patriotic blogger.  I hope that readers of this site will follow my example and never buy any national newspaper.  Read them only when you can do so without letting them have any of your money.

Related previous posts include:
The communist-loving "right wing" tabloids
The Trump phenomenon
What is tax avoidance?

An academic view of races

I cannot resist the temptation to return to the issue of race.  I am responding to an essay I recently found on the internet.  The quotes are in blue text, and I respond in black text.

The worst error in the history of science was undoubtedly classifying humans into the different races.

Rather than stray into a lengthy digression, I will merely observe that there are many errors in the history of science which could be classified as the worst.  Also, the fact that the author uses the term the different races suggests to me that he secretly accepts that races do in fact exist.

... race theory ... has wreaked untold misery and been used to justify barbaric acts of colonialism, slavery and even genocide. Even today it's still used to explain social inequality, and continues to inspire the rise of the far right across the globe.

Was race theory used to justify the millions of murders committed by the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the USA over the past hundred years or so?  I merely ask.

The human races were invented by anthropologists like Johann Friedrich Blumenbach back in the 18th century ...

This is utter garbage.  Anthropologists may have identified the concept of races, but races themselves were never invented.  They exist as a fact of science.

As an aside, I have recently found out that the word race derives from the medieval Italian word razza, and that it can be used to mean a breeding stock of animals.  The different races we see in the world today are basically different breeding stocks.  They have tended in the past to be determined largely be geography, but even in present day multiracial societies they can be determined by culture.  For example, fewer than ten percent of marriages in Britain today are inter-racial.

From the very beginning, the arbitrary and subjective nature of categories was widely acknowledged.

This is misleading.  It may well be true that there are some situations where racial definitions become blurred, but there are also many situations where the classification of animals into species and subspecies become blurred.  Does it follow that scientists who indulge in such classification are charlatans?

Most of the time races were justified on the grounds of cultural or language differences between groups of people rather than biological ones.

Even if this is true, it proves nothing.

Their existence was taken as a given right up until the 20th century when anthropologists were busy writing about races as a biological explanation for differences in psychology, including intelligence, and educational and socioeconomic outcomes between groups of people.

While the author does not want us to believe in races, he nevertheless acknowledges that there are different groups of people, and that they can differ in terms of intelligence and socioeconomic outcomes.  Maybe he’ll be telling us next that they can also differ in terms of propensity to criminal acts.

But buried within the survey results were some troubling findings like that anthropologists from privileged groups — in the US context 'white' males and females — were more likely to accept race as valid than non-privileged groups.

The author now accepts that white people exist as a group, and also as a privileged group.  Notice also that he does not explain what he means by privilege in this context.

These privileged scientists represent 75 per cent of the anthropologists surveyed. Their power and influence reaches right across the field. They are the main people determining what research is done, who gets funding ...

The author appears to hint at the possibility that access to funding in the academic world may not always be decided strictly on the basis of merit, but rather on the basis of adherence to an accepted point of view.  That does not surprise me in the slightest.

Related previous posts include:
Is there really just one race?
Are you a racist?