"To repeat the point I made in my post the other week, when the State is imagined to have purposes, then it must follow that the population lose their freedom, because their acting against the State’s purposes, once it has them, is intolerable to it. The population in such circumstances are reduced to the status of conscripts in the State’s cause, and conscripts are not supposed to be able to say whatever they like about the cause into which they are being conscripted. They are free to say whatever they like as long as it aligns with the State’s purpose. "
I agree with your analysis, and it has echoes in other aspects of our lives , e.g. DEI and media censorship, and (although I doubt it will have escaped the attention of anyone here) it reminds me of a statement made roughly a century ago in Italy:
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state".
It seems that we are rapidly heading in that direction, by stealth rather than violent takeover, and what irks me is that so few people seem to realise it. The drug (social and government approval) seems to be powerful enough that the users can't see that the dealer does not have their best interests at heart.
To what extent is the government a religious entity? To quote your article:
"when the State is imagined to have purposes, then it must follow that the population lose their freedom, because their acting against the State’s purposes, once it has them, is intolerable to it. "
I see an analogy with your statement here and an observation of my own, if I may. . .
"all religions perceive as illegitimate spiritual practices unsanctioned by their theology."
My point then was similar to yours, David:
"Instead of Church Offices, we have Public Health Officers. In place of their draconian actions being done in the name of your *salvation*, they are now being done in the name of your *safety*."
I make this parallel, in part, to counter a sensibility I've come across in these discussions claiming that religion is the cure for all this, as though religion were somehow immune to such regression. No doubt good religion could be helpful, but what we're seeing here is bad religion. And bad religion isn't just a problem with religion: it's the *will to incorporation*, to total embodiment of the populace within... one body. Those heretics who will not conform will be cut away like the limb that offendeth AKA cancelled AKA excommunicated.
We have entered a new medieval period characterised by feudalist values.
I believe you hit another nail on the head with your offhand remark about "too big to fail." For my money, the inception of that policy marked the onset of this new medievalism. The day the crooked corporate crew were rewarded for defrauding the economy was the day corporations were given carte blanche to take over the formerly free world. That was the end of the free market and the start of the economic train wreck folks are scratching their heads over today.
As a former educator, I wince at this government meddling in education. Things were already terrible, and all this means that things are going to get far worse. Education is the foundation. It's already corrupt. Education was already in service to corporate priorities. Perhaps, as you imply, David, it's only a formality.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is a typical example of modern legislation. Parliament passes an Act - but leaves commencement, implementation etc to "ministers", which means to civil servants. The Act exists to transfer power from Parliament to the executive, not to create law.
The Conservatives' complete failure to understand this tendency in modern legislation is the main reason why they failed. They should have insisted that the Act would come into effect on receiving the King's signature, and that the Act itself would specify the measures to be taken.
Parliament has become not much more than an electoral college to elect the Prime Minister. The naive and careless Tories are still labouring under the illusion that Parliament passes laws.
“Nobody expects the Social Justice Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... fear and surprise... Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency.... Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the cancellation of Free Speech... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surprise... I'll come in again.”
My current hope is that the bureaucratic hand of State will over-reach itself even further until the 'bureaucratic overhang' breaks off under its own weight. Ruthless, yes (it's in the totalitarian genes) but efficiency?
I'm inclined to agree, but exactly how, and at what cost? The racking-up of massive government debt, now standing at about £2,468 billion, which equates to about £87,000 per household, is totally unsustainable. Competent managers wouldn't conceal the consequences of running a defecit year after year, but our politicians do. I fear that a financial collapse of UK PLC will be the 'event' that changes things, and it will be much worse than 2008.
Excellent analysis as always David. Hunting out the remaining 'good teaching' will not be easy. My 17-yo daughter (who has already seen enough having taken Sociology as an A Level) has been totally put off.
Yeah, I’ll be facing that issue too in the fullness of time…. The reassuring thing is that young people will be made thoroughly sick of all of this in short order, if they aren’t already.
The physicist Richard Feynman once said “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned”.
The 15/16/17 year old young people of my acquaintance say the same thing. They are very tired of being presented with answers that can’t be questioned. They want to engage in debate and to express their own opinions. And they do, but not at school, it seems.
My advice to them is postpone university, bide your time, get a job and keep learning.I started work when I was 16. I didn’t start my (part time) university education until I was 28. That was in 1977. I was in work, married and had children. Observing me at study, my younger daughter once wrote a comment about me which I saw pinned on a noticeboard in the classroom at her primary school. She wrote:
“My dad does not do housework, he just reads books.” How very discerning. I haven’t changed much.
In Farage's recent interview with Peterson he opined that the Millennials were a busted flush, but Gen Z were quite onside. My own experience (17 and 16-yo) fits with that. What I haven't quite determined is whether that's what they actually feel (although I suspect it is), or if it's the normal teenage rebellion against accepted wisdom.
A pretty grim analysis....little wonder that nightmare Blair wanted 50% in to higher education to continue the 'strait - jacketting' of thoughts and opinions. Going to university 'back in the day' was a real mind stretcher, mind opener, opinions could be voiced freely, could be shouted down, but in the spirit of enquiry. The social sciences seem to have been in the vanguard of this now iron grip on thought and opinion.
The 'bite-size' learning approach to the whole of education ensures tight control, whilst at the same time high standards have been nibbled away .....standards of grammar, arithmetic etc at primary and secondary level, thus lacking the necessary rigour to promote articulate 'conscripts' in to the HE sector.
Obviously there are pockets of excellence in the various stages of education but likely too few to influence the current controlled dumbing down process. 'Learning, real learning, was for me but not for thee', might be the new Ed Sec's mantra.
Excellent description of the consequences of this latest interference by the government/state in Higher Education. Sadly, I ask myself if this will matter much in the end, given that 'academe' has already implemented 'climate extreme change extinction catastrophe' as their main subject in natural sciences, thus teaching the humanities under the overarching theme of 'social justice/gender/woke' won't be much worse either.
Odd, isn't it, that the 'ideology-driven' countries like China and the former Soviet Union were and are able to produce scientist worth that label. Our future in those areas looks worse and worse - but at least our 'new academic elites' will be green and able to implement social justice as far as their eyes can see.
Whatever else you might say about the people in charge behind the Iron Curtain, they were serious people. Those in charge here are not serious people. That’s a big difference.
There has been this belief for a long time that universities drive innovation which is nonsense. Industry drives innovation and often recruits academia for a deeper dive into things. Very little academic ideas in the hard sciences make it into the real world but many tweaks can be made to existing processes. And often that’s where the magic happens.
By pursuing this directed policy the government will push many places into technological deadends and still throw money after money at a shiny Big Idea. They finally closed the lid on contractors with the IR35 rules update. So no kitchen sink bootstrapping of ideas or running a tech endeavour from your garage. All to push people into proscribed holes and then they are surprised when productivity and proper innovation disappear.
University seems so different from the late 80s when I was studying. Students seem more serious and depressed and stressed. Social justice becoming so important has ironically had a toll on social life, it would appear. Perhaps the time is ripe for alternative higher education learning paths?
PS Not sure if you wrote this one in a hurry, but there are an unusually high number of typos!
I wonder how long you’ll be permitted to voice your extreme right wing views
I’m a known quantity - and also happen to work in a place with down-to-earth colleagues. This is very fortunate. It’s not the norm.
I am very glad to hear that
"To repeat the point I made in my post the other week, when the State is imagined to have purposes, then it must follow that the population lose their freedom, because their acting against the State’s purposes, once it has them, is intolerable to it. The population in such circumstances are reduced to the status of conscripts in the State’s cause, and conscripts are not supposed to be able to say whatever they like about the cause into which they are being conscripted. They are free to say whatever they like as long as it aligns with the State’s purpose. "
I agree with your analysis, and it has echoes in other aspects of our lives , e.g. DEI and media censorship, and (although I doubt it will have escaped the attention of anyone here) it reminds me of a statement made roughly a century ago in Italy:
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state".
It seems that we are rapidly heading in that direction, by stealth rather than violent takeover, and what irks me is that so few people seem to realise it. The drug (social and government approval) seems to be powerful enough that the users can't see that the dealer does not have their best interests at heart.
Yes. I did read somewhere that the where/when and exact words were disputed, but it does in any case summarise the ideology.
To what extent is the government a religious entity? To quote your article:
"when the State is imagined to have purposes, then it must follow that the population lose their freedom, because their acting against the State’s purposes, once it has them, is intolerable to it. "
I see an analogy with your statement here and an observation of my own, if I may. . .
"all religions perceive as illegitimate spiritual practices unsanctioned by their theology."
My point then was similar to yours, David:
"Instead of Church Offices, we have Public Health Officers. In place of their draconian actions being done in the name of your *salvation*, they are now being done in the name of your *safety*."
I make this parallel, in part, to counter a sensibility I've come across in these discussions claiming that religion is the cure for all this, as though religion were somehow immune to such regression. No doubt good religion could be helpful, but what we're seeing here is bad religion. And bad religion isn't just a problem with religion: it's the *will to incorporation*, to total embodiment of the populace within... one body. Those heretics who will not conform will be cut away like the limb that offendeth AKA cancelled AKA excommunicated.
We have entered a new medieval period characterised by feudalist values.
I believe you hit another nail on the head with your offhand remark about "too big to fail." For my money, the inception of that policy marked the onset of this new medievalism. The day the crooked corporate crew were rewarded for defrauding the economy was the day corporations were given carte blanche to take over the formerly free world. That was the end of the free market and the start of the economic train wreck folks are scratching their heads over today.
As a former educator, I wince at this government meddling in education. Things were already terrible, and all this means that things are going to get far worse. Education is the foundation. It's already corrupt. Education was already in service to corporate priorities. Perhaps, as you imply, David, it's only a formality.
The government is without doubt a religious entity: all questions are in the end theological.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is a typical example of modern legislation. Parliament passes an Act - but leaves commencement, implementation etc to "ministers", which means to civil servants. The Act exists to transfer power from Parliament to the executive, not to create law.
The Conservatives' complete failure to understand this tendency in modern legislation is the main reason why they failed. They should have insisted that the Act would come into effect on receiving the King's signature, and that the Act itself would specify the measures to be taken.
Parliament has become not much more than an electoral college to elect the Prime Minister. The naive and careless Tories are still labouring under the illusion that Parliament passes laws.
A slightly mangled quote from Monty Python:
“Nobody expects the Social Justice Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... fear and surprise... Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency.... Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the cancellation of Free Speech... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surprise... I'll come in again.”
My current hope is that the bureaucratic hand of State will over-reach itself even further until the 'bureaucratic overhang' breaks off under its own weight. Ruthless, yes (it's in the totalitarian genes) but efficiency?
Yes, incompetence will save us.
I'm inclined to agree, but exactly how, and at what cost? The racking-up of massive government debt, now standing at about £2,468 billion, which equates to about £87,000 per household, is totally unsustainable. Competent managers wouldn't conceal the consequences of running a defecit year after year, but our politicians do. I fear that a financial collapse of UK PLC will be the 'event' that changes things, and it will be much worse than 2008.
We hope!
Excellent analysis as always David. Hunting out the remaining 'good teaching' will not be easy. My 17-yo daughter (who has already seen enough having taken Sociology as an A Level) has been totally put off.
Yeah, I’ll be facing that issue too in the fullness of time…. The reassuring thing is that young people will be made thoroughly sick of all of this in short order, if they aren’t already.
The physicist Richard Feynman once said “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned”.
The 15/16/17 year old young people of my acquaintance say the same thing. They are very tired of being presented with answers that can’t be questioned. They want to engage in debate and to express their own opinions. And they do, but not at school, it seems.
My advice to them is postpone university, bide your time, get a job and keep learning.I started work when I was 16. I didn’t start my (part time) university education until I was 28. That was in 1977. I was in work, married and had children. Observing me at study, my younger daughter once wrote a comment about me which I saw pinned on a noticeboard in the classroom at her primary school. She wrote:
“My dad does not do housework, he just reads books.” How very discerning. I haven’t changed much.
In Farage's recent interview with Peterson he opined that the Millennials were a busted flush, but Gen Z were quite onside. My own experience (17 and 16-yo) fits with that. What I haven't quite determined is whether that's what they actually feel (although I suspect it is), or if it's the normal teenage rebellion against accepted wisdom.
A pretty grim analysis....little wonder that nightmare Blair wanted 50% in to higher education to continue the 'strait - jacketting' of thoughts and opinions. Going to university 'back in the day' was a real mind stretcher, mind opener, opinions could be voiced freely, could be shouted down, but in the spirit of enquiry. The social sciences seem to have been in the vanguard of this now iron grip on thought and opinion.
The 'bite-size' learning approach to the whole of education ensures tight control, whilst at the same time high standards have been nibbled away .....standards of grammar, arithmetic etc at primary and secondary level, thus lacking the necessary rigour to promote articulate 'conscripts' in to the HE sector.
Obviously there are pockets of excellence in the various stages of education but likely too few to influence the current controlled dumbing down process. 'Learning, real learning, was for me but not for thee', might be the new Ed Sec's mantra.
Excellent description of the consequences of this latest interference by the government/state in Higher Education. Sadly, I ask myself if this will matter much in the end, given that 'academe' has already implemented 'climate extreme change extinction catastrophe' as their main subject in natural sciences, thus teaching the humanities under the overarching theme of 'social justice/gender/woke' won't be much worse either.
Odd, isn't it, that the 'ideology-driven' countries like China and the former Soviet Union were and are able to produce scientist worth that label. Our future in those areas looks worse and worse - but at least our 'new academic elites' will be green and able to implement social justice as far as their eyes can see.
Whatever else you might say about the people in charge behind the Iron Curtain, they were serious people. Those in charge here are not serious people. That’s a big difference.
There has been this belief for a long time that universities drive innovation which is nonsense. Industry drives innovation and often recruits academia for a deeper dive into things. Very little academic ideas in the hard sciences make it into the real world but many tweaks can be made to existing processes. And often that’s where the magic happens.
By pursuing this directed policy the government will push many places into technological deadends and still throw money after money at a shiny Big Idea. They finally closed the lid on contractors with the IR35 rules update. So no kitchen sink bootstrapping of ideas or running a tech endeavour from your garage. All to push people into proscribed holes and then they are surprised when productivity and proper innovation disappear.
Yes - it’s based on a myth perpetrated by economists working at….universities. Funny that!
University seems so different from the late 80s when I was studying. Students seem more serious and depressed and stressed. Social justice becoming so important has ironically had a toll on social life, it would appear. Perhaps the time is ripe for alternative higher education learning paths?
PS Not sure if you wrote this one in a hurry, but there are an unusually high number of typos!