Material on Cambridge University, like material on a significant number
of other topics on the site, is highly dispersed. This page amongst
other things is a guide to material on Cambridge University which can be
found on other pages of the site and provides a convenient way of
finding it. In some cases, there's an extract on this page of material
from another page. The page started as a critique of a protest at
Cambridge - the disruption was led by Owen Holland. The account I
provide, in the section
Owen Holland and the English
Faculty, is one of the most striking things on the page, I think -
it concerns a shameless and grotesque display of Cambridge mediocrity
and stupidity.
Here, I concentrate my attention on Cambridge mediocrity
and Cambridge stupidity rather than Cambridge excellence, but I do
discuss some Cambridge advantages. In my page
Ethics: theory and practice
I discuss the importance of 'outweighing' in ethics and other spheres. I
don't claim that Cambridge mediocrity and Cambridge
stupidity outweigh Cambridge excellence.
Mediocrity and stupidity at
Cambridge University in past centuries took forms which were very
different in many ways from present-day mediocrity and stupidity. Michael Grant's
book 'Cambridge' mentions the case
of Richard Watson, who, 'on appointment to the Chair of Chemistry (1764),
declared he had never read a syllable on the subject, or seen a single
chemical experiment; and for the Chair of Divinity, to which he moved seven
years later, he was scarcely better qualified.'
'Cambridge excellence' flourishes, at the
Cavendish laboratory, the engineering laboratories and so many other
places, including the Faculty of English, but Cambridge excellence coexists with
Cambridge mediocrity and Cambridge stupidity. This
'world class university' has flaws, including some
serious flaws.
This page can't possibly provide adequate context, including the
flaws to be found in other universities. My page Israel, Islamism and
Palestinian ideology gives my reasons for criticizing anti-Israel
activists and anti-Israel propaganda. Anti-Israel activism and
propaganda isn't nearly as prominent at Cambridge University as at
many others, although all the academics criticized in the section on
'Cambridge protest,' such as Priyamvada Gopal, have views on Israel
which amount to active distortion.
There are far more Manchester academics than Cambridge academics who
support boycotting of Israel, BDS and action against so-called apartheid
Israel. This reflects well on Cambridge, not nearly so well on
Manchester. People who support boycotting, BDS and action against
'apartheid' Israel will come to a very different conclusion - but can
they give the arguments and evidence to support this very different
conclusion. People who think they have the arguments and evidence - feel
free to contact me and tell me more about your arguments and evidence.
Material on Cambridge University
I don't criticize any undergraduate or
graduate students still at Cambridge University. Owen Holland was a
postgraduate student at the time of his protest but he went on to become
a career development fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and now, he's a
teaching fellow at University College, London.
(1) Owen Holland is the postgraduate student and arbiter, who decided that his
views were so important that he had a duty to protect Cambridge
and the wider world from views not nearly so important as his own,
such as the views of David Willetts, Minister of a democracy, who had
been invited to speak at Cambridge but wasn't allowed to speak -
Owen Holland and his supporters - including Cambridge University
academics - had decided this should be so.
(2) Owen Holland is the 'poet' whose grotesque and rambling
'poem' wasn't received with a stern Cambridge warning against
incompetent and slovenly
use of language. Dr Priyamvada Gopal of the Cambridge English Faculty,
for instance, didn't find anything to object to. An exception is
Dr Andrew Zurcher of Queens College, who supported the protest, with
slight reservations. In the case of the text itself, his reservations
weren't slight. He wrote,
'The CDE protest text [the one declaimed by Owen
Holland] was a shambles.' It's to his credit that
he calls it a 'text' and not a poem.' This member of the Cambridge
English Faculty seems to have overlooked the fact that it was a
Cambridge graduate in English Literature, Owen Holland' who was
obviously oblivious of the multiple flaws of the text. Its hideous flaws
suggest that it's possible to graduate in English literature from
Cambridge University with a very striking insensitivity to words, a way
with words which is so poor that it raises some troubling questions
about the Faculty. Its hideous flaws suggest that it's possible to teach
literature in the Faculty of English - to give just one example, Dr
Gopal - without recognizing the hideous flaws. Even so, I've no general, far-reaching
criticisms to make here of the Faculty or the University.
The extracts from the 'protest text' and my comments on
the 'protest text' will make it completely clear that I agree. It was a shambles. Below, I refer to it as a 'poem,' a text
with no serious claims to be considered as poetry. I also refer to it as
a 'pose-'poem.' '
Owen Holland studied at St Catherine's College, Cambridge.
He has a Cambridge MA degree
in English and a Cambridge PhD, as well as an MA in Critical Theory from
Sussex University. Of course, possession of a Cambridge degree in
English Literature can't possibly guarantee that the graduate writes
poetry which is better than mediocre, but it should guarantee that the
graduate avoids elementary mistakes in the use of language.
Obviously, standards at Cambridge aren't stratospherically high in
every respect. A possessor of a Cambridge first degree in English can still
produce a text - or a 'poem' - that is 'a shambles.' An academic
at Cambridge University, Dr Gopal for instance, failed to see any
problems with 'the poem.'
(3) Owen Holland is - or was - a demonizer of Israel, Owen Holland
is the specialist - the specialist misuser of words, such as the
word 'apartheid,' the specialist so absorbed in his condemnation of
Israel that he seems to have omitted to carry out a responsible survey of the
intractable problems of the Middle East and other issues relevant to
his condemnation, such as apartheid in South Africa, and there are many of them.
Like many another Oxford
and Cambridge academic, and many another academic at many other universities, he seems someone with a degree of rigour, or the appearance of rigour, or spurious rigour in his own field (which includes study of
William Morris) and a dilettante when he comments on matters outside his
field. Academics who have made a deep study of matters such as the
complex histories of Middle Eastern countries, military tactics and
strategy, the ethical problems raised by military action, and many other
fields with a vast and complex literature, don't in general comment on
William Morris. If they did, they should make strenuous efforts
to know enough about William Morris to comment on him. People with
an interest in specialisms
far removed from harsh and unforgiving fields like military action
often see no reason why
they shouldn't lay down the law, unequipped, unprepared, inadequate,
vulnerable.
I think the university's duty of care to students is an
important consideration in the protest led by Owen Holland at Cambridge.
Some forms of
protest may entail physical dangers, not applicable to this protest at Cambridge, unlike some other,
non-physical dangers. Academics who encourage students to
take unnecessary risks, from a position of safety, have to be
questioned. Owen Holland probably didn't give nearly enough thought to some possible
consequences of his protest.
'The chant that drowned Willetts out' begins at 11.45 in the video.
Who were the other academics who were involved in the protest? Did none
of them realize that this was a protest that had got out of hand? The
should have realized that long before 'the chant that drowned out
Willetts' which began at 11.45. They should have realized that there
could well be repercussions for Owen Holland and risks for the
reputation of the University. This was a deranged protest.
A viewing of the full video is likely to be a tedious experience but
should be attempted if at all possible for a full appreciation of the
deranged protest and the part played by Owen Holland - and not in a subsidiary role.
He was the most prominent protester by far and it made perfect sense to
impose sanctions on him. The evidence was clear-cut. It would have been impossible to
identify and unjust to impose
sanctions on everyone involved. But identifying some at least of
the other academics who were involved was feasible, surely. Dr
Jason Scott-Warren admitted that he took part. Sanctions on him and any
other academics who can be proved to have taken part would have been
justified, I think. I don't discuss here the price that Owen
Holland paid for his mock-heroic protest. I'll simply state that I think
the original sanction, suspension from the University for seven terms,
was much too harsh, but a strong sanction was essential to deter future
disruption of this kind.
'Holland, an
English literature student, stood up and shouted out the lines, which were
amplified by several other protesters in a human megaphone style.' The
extracts from the so-called poem below are transcribed from the video,
except for the opening lines. I haven't been able to find a text version of
the rest.
'The Best of
Private Eye 1974' has a hilarious piece 'The Unpublishable Diaries of Evelyn
Baugh.' It includes Baugh at Oxford - not, in isolation, particularly
hilarious:
'He was enchanted
by the wit, the elegance, the insouciant sophistication of post-war Oxford.
It was the time of the famous 'aesthetes', including the legendary Hon. Sid
Beloff, who kept a peacock in his rooms at Christchurch, and once astonished
a group of passing rowing men by chanting at them through a megaphone
Verlaine's poem "Bonjour matelots".
I don't think that
the not-quiet-so-legendary Owen Holland ever kept a peacock in his room at St
Catherine's, but his protest at Cambridge was just as ridiculous as the
action of the legendary Sid Beloff.
The protest
was ridiculous but no laughing matter. His language was stale and
stilted. He called a letter an 'epistle,' if he had made a joke - very
unlikely - he might well have called it a 'jest.'
I've not been
able to find a 'definitive' version of this minipiece or rather
micropiece - opposites of a masterpiece, to varying degrees. The extracts below are transcribed from the
video. In a few places the sound is unclear to some extent.
In written form, the badness of the lines is even more striking, Owen Holland's
limitations even more evident: a severe disadvantage, I would have
thought, in a Cambridge-educated man who now has the job of teaching students of
English literature at Jesus College, Oxford.
This is the
opening of the long pose-'poem' shouted out by Owen Holland.
The future does
not belong to you.
This is an epistle
which is addressed to you.
But it is written
for those who will come after us.
Why?
Because we do not respect your right
to occupy the platform.
The 'poem' has
yet to reach full stupidity, but already, there's more than the promise
of stupidity in abundance.
Consider 'it
is written / for those who will come after us.' The 'poet' is actually
claiming to have written a 'poem' which has lasting significance, or
should have lasting significance! He's writing for generations still to
come - or one generation at least.
This grandiose
claim can be compared with claims to lasting significance based on the
writer's justified pride in work well done, such as Thucydides' claim
that his history of the Peloponnesian War is 'a possession for all time'
(κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ)
in section 1:22 The Roman poet Horace (Q. Horatius
Flaccus claimed 'I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze' (Exegi
monumentum aere perennius), Carmina III, 30. And, of course, the poetry
has lasted to this day.
... you
come with a knife
concealed beneath your cloak
...
This is inflated
rubbish, rubbish perpetrated by someone with the benefit of a
Cambridge University English degree - people not so fortunate, humble
builders, for example, are very unlikely to have the knowledge needed to
perpetrate this particular form of stupidity. Even so, builders, have
their own expertise and skills, setting an example for Owen Holland
which he can't match in the field of poetic composition. Here, he's a jerry builder
with words, a beginner and a bungler and a bodger. This is emphatically not' 'a possession for all time.'
The poet-poseur,
or 'poet'-poseur quickly explains why he detests David Willetts so
much, or some of the reasons, and why David Willetts shouldn't be allowed to speak, according to
this particular arbiter:
The protestors
had no choice - can he be serious? They had the choice of standing outside the venue before
David Willetts was due to speak, handing out leaflets to people who had
decided to attend the event. There was no compulsion to wreck the event,
to strengthen the growing Cambridge reputation for intolerance.
Another
objection, which would only be decisive to people like Owen
Holland:
He's probably
unaware of the book 'The God that failed: six studies in communism'
which includes pieces by Arthur Koestler, Andre Gide, Stephen Spender
and others. Whatever gods failed in the case of David Willetts,
allegedly, they're not to be equated with the vengeful God of communism.
'The highest death tolls that have been documented in
communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin,
in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and in
Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of
non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of
21 million to a high of 70 million.'
There follows,
after more forgettable verbiage, a laboured comparison which has only
one advantage: it injects just a little laboured but unintended humour into the
diatribe. Dr Gopal is just one of the Cambridge academics who seem not
to have realized that this isn't poetry:
...
This is quickly
followed by a blatant contradiction. After insisting that 'we are
climbing into the driving seat' he now insists
He seems to
overlook the obvious point that chairs have different functions. A chair
in a library can provide support but can't perform the
functions of a car seat. More on libraries:
Other 'seats
of learning' are ignored. Professorial
chairs are ignored. Laboratories and lecture theatres are ignored.
It seems that he never bothered to revise these lines, but I can find no
evidence that he revised any of the lines in the 'poem.'
Libraries do
give rise to some
obvious difficulties for Owen Holland. This is a view of the library of Jesus
College, or some of it:
The Bodleian
Library is much larger, of course - the second largest in the country,
and a National deposit library, entitled to request one copy of every
book published in the United Kingdom within a year of publication. Owen
Holland's views of the spoken word are clear enough - if he disagrees
sufficiently strongly and is able to put a stop to it, then he does put
a stop to it, at least he did in this case. What is his view of the written word, such as the books in
libraries? A library such as the Bodleian is very
comprehensive. It contains books which give the arguments for and the
arguments against, for example the arguments for a particular policy in
higher education and the arguments against. Does Owen Holland question
this? Would he throw out books
which promote conservative policy in higher education, for instance? I take it that he
and his supporters wouldn't engage in anything as crude as book burning?
The plaque which marks the place where Nazis burned books in
Frankfurt is a harrowing record of the event.
All attempts to suppress pro-bullfighting books or other printed
materials, to suppress pro-bullfighting films or internet materials, to
suppress pro-bullfighting talks and lectures, are deeply misguided. In
'the marketplace of ideas,' I regard anti-bullfighting arguments as
decisively, overwhelmingly superior to pro-bullfighting arguments. The
anti-bullfighting case needs no censorship of pro-bullfighting views.
The principle that there should be a free flow of ideas, information and
evidence is a principle under attack. It's essential to defend it. I
know of one organization which called upon a bookseller to remove a
pro-bullfighting book from sale and was successful. This was a bad
mistake on the part of the organization and the bookseller. There are
many threats to freedom of expression, threats which may be veiled or
violent. They come from believers in political correctness,
Islamists and others. A bookshop or library should be under no pressure to deny
shelf-space to books which criticize political correctness, Islam and
bullfighting and books which support political correctness, Islam and
bullfighting, and similarly for other issues. Before I could read
Alexander Fiske-Harrison's Into
the Arena it was necessary for me to buy a copy or
borrow a copy from a library. I bought a copy. The idea
that I should be expected to criticize Alexander Fiske-Harrison's defence of bullfighting on the basis of a few things I'd heard, without
having read the book, is repugnant.
It's overwhelmingly likely that Cambridge University Library will
continue to be a very comprehensive repository of print materials which
aren't censored but publishing can't possibly be as comprehensive as
librarianship. Even so, some of the output of the magnificent and
shockingly bad Cambridge University Press goes well beyond mediocrity,
some of its biases are blatant: I think that the term 'political
correctness' is in need of replacement, but whatever replaces it,
Cambridge University Press is likely to treat the questioning of
political correctness as 'not suitable' for its list. . It will continue
to publish philosophers' debates on the reality of the external world,
on solipsism, and of course other epistemological topics, but it isn't
very likely to publish academic doubts on this particular reality.
Columbia University Press has published a very good book edited by
Daphne Patai and Will H. Corral, 'Theory's Empire: An Anthology of
Dissent.'
The
range of human sufferings, the range of human cruelties, the range of
human imperfections are ignored in Owen Holland's monomaniac pursuit of David Willetts.
Contrary to what Owen Holland may believe, David Willetts isn't one of
the worst men who has ever lived and the views of David Willetts on such
matters as higher education, choice and the economy aren't amongst the
most shocking views ever to have been put forward. If the benefits of a
Cambridge education don't include an understanding of such elementary
points as these then so much the worse for a Cambridge education, at
least in the Faculty of English.
We do not wish
to rape our teachers.
'Clearly Owen’s spirited protest ... comes from his Morrisian values
and Cambridge’s brutal reprisal against him is by the same token an
attack on academic work on Morris and utopia.'
'Morrisian values' are conveyed by means of a
moronic poem.
This is yet another academic who would react very very badly, I think,
if one day students at one of his lectures started shouting, 'Pinkney!
Pinkney! Pinkney! Out! Out! Out!' Whether 'Morrisian values' inspired
their protest or not.
Owen Holland
makes a rousing call to arms, not by any stretch of the imagination by
poetic means, although there are propagandist Soviet 'poets' who have written
lines just as bad as these:
... we will
stand with our teachers
on their picket lines.
More
pose-'poetry' follows, not routine at all, much worse than routine. He
refers to
Poetic
excellence is completely absent from the line 'Your methodistic
framework of excellence. '
If the
economy is irrelevant to Dr Owen Holland, if the needs of the economy are
completely irrelevant, if he ignores the fact that so many benefits, in
health, education and other spheres, are dependent upon economic health,
then I only hope that only a small minority of other graduates
from the Faculty share these views.
... we are
schooled
in a different kind of pedagogy.
It can be
assumed that people who studied in the Cambridge Faculty of English and
emerged unscathed, with a BA and possibly a PhD degree know the meaning
of a word like 'pedagogy.' It can't be assumed that they have even
low-level skills in some of the uses of words.
Owen Holland's
capacity for rigorous or creative thought is difficult to detect.
The muscularity and vigour
available in English are completely missing from the next prissy lines (not
forgetting all the other lines.)
Here, and in other places, the protest text makes assumptions about some
imperfections of humanity: David Willetts is the villain and the
protestors are virtuous, very, very virtuous, Owen Holland included.
Another view of the imperfections of humanity, to be found in
Kant's
"'Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing
was ever made,' Isaiah Berlin's loose translation of 'Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht
ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert,' from 'Idee zu einer
allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher,' Absicht, 6. Satz (1784).)
A contrast of great interest, I think, from Friedrich Hölderlin's 'Lebenslauf'
(1800):
Where Orkus ('Orcus') is the underworld of Roman mythology.
This is a very short reminder of wonderful,
concentrated poetry after so much examination of diffuse dross, with
dross still to be examined - but I've already made it clear that this
dross shouldn't be regarded as poetry, even the modest poetic
achievement which Gerard Manley Hopkins called 'Parnassian.'
Owen Holland
was a 'Career
Development Fellow' at Jesus College, Oxford. These Fellows are given help in
obtaining their first academic post. Not long before he became a Career
Development Fellow, the idea of a career was far from his mind,
as the 'poem' makes clear. He asks of David Willetts,
Unless, of
course, this was just for show - the young idealist stressing his
refusal to conform to worldly ways.
He's now at
University College, London. For the time being, University College is stuck with a fellow paid to teach English
literature with so little feeling for words that he can perpetrate 'may
in fact preclude it' as a line in what has been widely regarded as a poem.
Possessions,
like professions, are unimportant to him - or were at the time he
denounced David Willetts and attacked other targets with his feeble blunderbuss.
What - did he
read those words after he'd written them to check if they would
make him appear ridiculous when he declaimed them in public? Does he
really claim that he owns nothing? If so, there's nothing of his which a
thief could steal.
A little
later, this incompetent dramatist, or rather this incompetent
over-dramatizer gives us this:
BUT YOU CANNOT
RAPE US.
BUT YOU CANNOT
RAPE US.
He takes the
trouble to explain why David Willetts can't possibly rape these protestors:
The fact that
the protestors are more numerous than David Willetts is a statement of
the obvious, but this gves the clear impression that Owen Holland believes
that people who are outnumbered are very likely
to be in the wrong.
What
can he be referring to? What is the decisive point? He gives the answer
immediately:
You do not
have confidence in yourself.
And the
chanters repeat it.
At 11.45 in
the YouTube video, a youth takes over. He could easily have been
identified, surely, and perhaps was identified. He should have been
sanctioned too. He shouts
The aggression
of the audience is obvious but Owen Holland isn't at all fastidious. He
doesn't sit in silence. He can be seen joining in before he turns his
back to the camera. Gonville and Caius' Jason Scott-Warren isn't too
fastidious either. By his own admission, he shouted with the rest.
George Orwell
on elation and heavy drinking in a Paris bistro at half-past one in the
morning. ('Down and Out in Paris and London.')
'We perceived
that we were not splendid inhabitants of a splendid world, but a crew of
underpaid workmen grown squalidly and dismally drunk.'
After the
spurious exhilaration of listening to the not-so-potent words of Owen
Holland, after the false thrill of shouting out 'Out! Out! Out' the
protestors, Owen Holland included, may well have felt after the protest that
they weren't, after all, 'splendid inhabitants of a splendid world.'
When it appointed Owen Holland to the post of Career Development
Fellow in English Literature, Jesus College blundered, I think - to be more exact, more fair-minded, whoever was
responsible for appointing him made a mistake.
Since moving to Jesus, Dr Holland will have been expected to develop,
amongst other things, the literary skills, values and insights of
undergraudates, although how someone with so abysmal a feeling for poetry
can possibly do them much good or any good at all is a mystery.
Since moving to Jesus, Dr Holland seems to have been keeping a low
profile. He's a Career Development Lecturer at Jesus - a temporary lecturer
who is being supported as he attempts to get his first university post. He
became quite famous for a time for his part in the noisy protest at
Cambridge and the sanctions which followed, but he may have decided that
shouting down a visiting speaker at Oxford isn't in his best interests, and
that a ban on protesting is what's needed now, a self-imposed ban, not one
imposed on him. If he's successful, if he eventually obtains tenure, he may
or may not decide that he can take greater risks. There's an alternative
explanation, that he decided that his actions had been frivolous, futile,
fatuous ...
'The English course is extremely demanding ... Our students think in original and imaginative ways, and are willing
to pursue ideas, themes, and approaches to texts independently.'
And, ' you need to be able to read widely but also in close detail; to
understand the sweep of historical change while also being able to meditate
on the nuances of a single word.'
Can Owen Holland meditate on the nuances of a single word, such as the word
'epistles' in the poem he declaimed? Why not 'letters' rather than the
obsolescent word 'epistles?' (Gerard Manley Hopkins: 'The
poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened, to
any degree heightened and unlike itself, but not...an obsolete one.' (Letter
- not 'epistle' - to Robert Bridges, 14 August, 1879.)
Of course, harshness takes very different
forms and to very different degrees, but I think that the academic world
is a harsh place in many ways. Becoming an academic isn't always
difficult but very often it is, and of course there are many, many
people who fail to find an academic post. Being an academic involves
harshness - academics play a part in failing students, or awarding
degrees which are bitterly disappointing to students, who expected a
much better degree, possible outcomes whenever they mark examanition
scripts. I've absolutely no power, of course, to give Owen Holland his
first real academic post, or to refuse him. All I've done is to write
and publish some harsh criticisms of him, with arguments and evidence
(I'm aware that providing arguments and evidence isn't the fashion in some places.)
I oppose unrestrained warfare and I oppose unrestrained polemics as
well. I removed a profile from this page - not the profile of an
academic - when I found that the person I'd written about had serious
health issues.
Oxford University gives a comprehensive list of Owen Holland's Journal Articles and
Chapters in Books, including these (I've no idea if he's a Marxist or not
but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he was.)
‘Morris and Marxist Theory’, in The Ashgate Research
Companion to William Morris, ed. Florence Boos (forthcoming)
‘From the Place Vendôme to Trafalgar Square: Imperialism and
Counter-hegemony in the 1880s Romance Revival’, Key Words:
A Journal of Cultural Materialism, 14 (2016), 98-115
His internet writing isn't listed, of course, but internet materials can
be very, very revealing. They certainly are in his case. He's the author of
an article published on the site 'Lebanese Campaign for the
Boycott of Zionism'
In his Lebanese article, Owen Holland writes, ''Small wonder ...
that the Falls Road Murals in Belfast paint pictures of solidarity with
Palestinian suffering.' He provides a link to images of some murals,
including one which shows Bobby Sands. This is another Belfast mural showing
the hunger striker.
This is another, with the names of assorted hunger strikers. The first
two in the lists are Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes. The slogan includes
this, 'Our rulers will stop at nothing to attain their ends.'
'In 1978, a bomb exploded under the car of William Gordon, a member of
the Ulster Defence Regiment who was taking his children to primary school.
He was killed instantly, as was his ten year old daughter, Lesley, who
was decapitated. His seven year old son Richard was severely injured by the
blast.
'The bomb was planted by Francis Hughes. The year before, he had taken
part in an attack on a police vehicle in which one man was killed and
another wounded. In 1978, Francis Hughes was captured, after a gun battle in
which one soldier was killed and another severely wounded. After his
capture, his fingerprints were found on a car used during the killing of a
77 year old Protestant woman.
'This is the man, then, who has been described as 'an absolute fanatic,'
'a ruthless killer' who undertook a hunger strike and was the second man to
die ...
'Within six months he was arrested again. This time he and a nine
man team had been assembled. Their target - The Balmoral Furniture Company
on the Upper Dunmurry Lane.
' ... The IRA had targeted the store, in the full knowledge of the risk
to staff and shoppers ... The only reason that Republicans can cite for the
attack was “...the extravagantly-priced furniture it sold…”. The plan was to
petrol bomb the premises and then to lay explosive charges to spread the
flames.'
'Information about the other hunger strikers who died - their names,
organizations (INLA is 'Irish National Liberation Army) and convictions - by
'convictions' I mean, of course, 'reason for imprisonment,' not 'desire to
bring about a united Ireland by shooting and bombing.' These men, like
Francis Hughes and Bobby Sands, would have been the beneficiaries of Seamus
Heaney's translation from Dante if he hadn't changed his mind.
'Raymond McCreesh, IRA. Attempted murder, possession of a
rifle, IRA membership
'Patsy O’Hara, INLA. Possession of a hand grenade
'Joe McDonnell, IRA. Possession of a firearm
'Martin Hurson, IRA.
Attempted murder, involvement in explosions, IRA membership
'Kevin Lynch,
INLA. Stealing shotguns, taking part in a punishment shooting
'Kieran
Doherty, IRA. Possession of firearms and explosives, hijacking
'Thomas
McElwee, IRA, Manslaughter
'Michael Devine, INLA. Theft and possession of
firearms.
'The INLA is less well known than the IRA but was just as ruthless.
Dominic McGlinchey, Chief of Staff of the INLA between 1982 - 1984, had
operated with Francis Hughes. 'He once boasted to an Irish reporter that he
had murdered at least thirty people.' After the bombing of a pub in
Ballykelly, which 'killed seventeen people, eleven of them soldiers and four
of them young women ... McGlinchey became the most wanted man in Ireland.'
(Jack Holland, 'Hope against History: The Ulster Conflict.')
Dr Patterson, of Queens College, was the supervisor of Owen Holland.
Does he really want the wider world
to take this extraordinary, misguided display of outrage as an extraordinary
display of Cambridge humanitarianism, of Cambridge values and Cambridge
priorities?
Ian Patterson's blog article includes
this:
'Milton and Dryden were both rusticated from Cambridge, it’s true,
for quarrelling with college authorities, and Swinburne from Oxford for
speaking in support of an attempt to assassinate Napoleon III, but I
don’t think anyone has previously been punished in this way for reading
a poem.'
:
To put this
ludicrous display of anger in perspective, Hashem Shabaani, like Ian
Patterson a poet and teacher - but there the resemblances end -
was punished with a very different kind of suspension - hanging.
He was arrested in February 2011 with four other Iranian Arabs
'apparently in connection with their cultural activities, such as
organizing events in the Arabic language, conferences, educational
courses, art classes, and poetry recital gatherings' according to
Amnesty International, sentenced to death in July 2012 for 'waging war
against Allah, sowing corruption on earth, propaganda against the
Islamic Republic and acting against national security,("waging war on
God"), as well as "sowing corruption on earth, propaganda against the
Islamic Republic and acting against national security and hanged at an
undisclosed prison in January 2014.
Owen Holland appealed
against the suspension. 'The Cambridge Student' on the outcome:
'generosity.'
http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/news/0017943-a-merciful-course-details-of-owen-hollands-appeal-revealed.html
' ... the Septemviri [the University's Appeal Court] were at pains to
point out the 'one-off' nature of their generosity: "We have therefore
decided, but in this case only, to follow a merciful course."
'The Septemviri therefore reduced Holland's sentence from seven
term's 'rustication' (or suspension) to one term on 22 June. This still
means however that Holland, currently studying for a PhD in English at
St Catharine's College, will be unable to use the University's premises
and facilities, and will no longer officially be deemed a student of
Cambridge University, for the duration of Michaelmas Term 2012,
returning to the University at the start of 2013.
There's more on the reasons for the original sanction:
"brought his current misfortune on himself"
'The majority of the Chairman's report sets out in detail how the
Septemviri upheld the original verdict of 'guilty' on the charge that
Holland "had intentionally or recklessly impeded freedom of speech
within the precincts of the University".
The charge relates to an incident on 22 November last year, when
Universities Minister David Willetts was prevented from starting a
lecture on "The Idea of the University" in Lady Mitchell Hall on the
Sidgwick Site by around 30 students from activist group Cambridge Defend
Education (CDE). As Willetts arrived at the lectern, the protesters
began chanting a 25-minute poetic letter, or 'epistle', entitled "Go
home, David", via call and response led by Owen Holland. After the chant
finished, a group of around 20 protesters proceeded to occupy the stage.
Upon this, Willetts left without giving his lecture, and the event was
cancelled. The protest was followed by a week-long occupation of Lady
Mitchell Hall by CDE activists.'
On another page of 'The Cambridge Student:'
http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/news/0012290-cambridge-students-hijack-willetts-speech.html
'CUSU President Gerard Tully, said in a statement: "David Willetts is the architect of higher education policy which is actively
damaging to the quality of education that Cambridge (and other
universities) offer and creates an unfair financial barrier to students
from the broadest backgrounds aspiring to University. It is entirely
right that students and academics protest these policies, as over 100
did today before Mr Willetts' talk. Tonight students had the opportunity
and choice to hear and question Mr Willetts, in the 800-year old
tradition of academic enquiry and freedom of speech that Cambridge has
pioneered. Students have now been denied that opportunity, and CUSU
cannot support this.
'Freedom of expression is one of the founding principles of
University education - no matter how objectionable the views being
espoused are. Students believe in this principle and so does CUSU, so we
cannot support any protest that violates it - which the disruption of
David Willetts' talk tonight clearly did." '
This is a strong, a
very welcome expression of support for the principle of academic freedom
- even if the
'800-year old tradition of academic enquiry and freedom of speech that
Cambridge has pioneered' is a travesty of historical fact.
Jason
Scott-Warren: 'Out! Out! Out!'
From the introduction to these profiles of academics, 'Some of the profiles of academics give information about
denial of free expression with a direct connection with the
Israel-Palestinian conflict, others are concerned with denial of free
expression with no direct connection with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In all
these cases, the academic has pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel views.' Dr Jason
Scott-Warren is a prolific pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel statement signer.
Paul Sagar wrote an article for
Liberal conspiracy, 'The student 'protest' at Cambridge last night
was deluded.'
Dr Jason Scott-Warren wrote to correct him in the Comments
section:
'It wasn’t only students who were involved in this ‘protest'; several
academics were involved too. I was one of them. I was told in advance
(during the protest which began at 4.30) about what was planned, and when it
started I joined in with the chant that drowned Willetts out.'
Paul Sagar wrote:
'Willetts was introduced – with an explicit appeal for reasonable
discussion – and the man himself took the stand. But as he began speaking, he was immediately interrupted. A single
individual [Owen Holland] began shouting.
'His every line was immediately repeated by 20-30 or so others. Thus began a
long, ponderous series of declamations, bizarre poetic allegories, and
varying denunciations of Willetts, his Government, the future of education,
and everything in between.
'Willetts could not get a word in edge ways. The tension in the room was
dramatic. It felt like it went on and on. Shout then chant, shout then chant
...
'When the “speech” from the floor was over, the instigators began chants
of “Willetts Willetts Willets, Out Out Out”, and surged forward. They took
the stage. Willetts had already left. The event was abandoned. A hundred or
so other people were forced to exit without being able to voice their
opinion or take part in the public debate they were invited to attend.
'I left the hall angry, disgusted and embarrassed. And I write as somebody
who took part in the Cambridge Occupation last December, and has attended
several recent protests against the Government’s cuts ...
'Firstly, it ... irritated all of those in the room who
were not privy to CDE’s unilateral decision. [CDE: Cambridge
Defend Education]
The result was the wasting of
their time and making them feel marginalised, and in many cases also very
angry. It’s hardly a good strategy for winning friends.
'Secondly, it allowed Willetts to leave Cambridge being able to claim that
he’d tried to engage openly, but that irrational, unreasonable, selfish
students had prevented any constructive dialogue. Anybody who thinks that
this ‘action’ was a victory against Willetts is living in cloud cuckoo land.
There’s a considerable irony here too. One of CDE’s stated complaints
about Willetts and his Government is that it is so sure of its own
convictions they ride rough-shod over the opinions, concerns, rights and
needs of others. And yet that is exactly what CDE did tonight.
'It was a show of disguised selfishness; the indulgence of a
self-satisfied moral superiority.'
In his comment, Dr Scott-Warren urges those people who are critical
of the form the protest took (he's obviously not in the least critical)
to be
'attacking the real enemy: a government with no democratic mandate for
change destroying its public education system.'
His ignorance of the democratic system is obvious. The
electorate have democratically elected a government. The electorate
hasn't democratically voted for all the policies of the government
which have been proposed or implemented after they were elected.
He's wrong, of course, to think that the electorate in
general opposes the government's policies in higher education. There's
widespread public indifference to higher education and the government's
policies and actions which affect higher education.
I don't share this indifference in the least. I think
that higher education - not just teaching and research in science,
technology, medicine and other subjects with obvious practical
importance but teaching and scholarship in the humanities and other
subjects without obvious practical importance - has massive importance.
I think that academics, whose skills and knowledge are so often at a
very, very high level, deserve to be paid more, perhaps much more.
There are many people who are hostile to universities.
They may think, for example, that students are lazy layabouts. If Dr
Scott-Warren doesn't realize this, he should mingle more with ordinary
people. He might well be surprised, and shocked. He took part in a
protest which would confirm the contempt of so many ordinary
people. It would confirm them in their view that universities aren't
worth bothering about, or that people in universities are stupid,
or that universities are hostile to British society.
This comment from 'cjcj' on the same page of 'Liberal
Conspiracy' reflects the reaction most ordinary people would have to Dr
Jason Scott-Warren, or a reaction far more likely than 'obviously a
principled and justifiable protest.
'Jesus f*cking Christ, an academic (and from my
own college too I discover after a quick google!) chooses to drown out a
visiting speaker.
Perhaps I should pop into one of your lectures, Jason, and drown you
out.'
Anyone who thinks that impoverished university graduates amount
to a scandalous problem and have a very strong claim on public
sympathies may like to take into account this view, presented by
James Kirkup in the 'Daily Telegraph' (15 May, 2014):
'One person in five who receives university education becomes a millionaire, according to
official figures.
'Twenty per cent of all adults who hold at least one university
degree — more than two million people — now have wealth totalling at
least £1 million, data from the Office for National Statistics show.
'Almost a tenth of all British adults now own assets — property,
pensions, savings and physical objects — worth £1 million or more.
'The total number of millionaires in Britain has risen by 50 per
cent in four years despite the recent financial crisis. The figures
showed a stark gap in wealth between people with different levels of
education. Only three per cent of people with no formal educational
qualifications have assets worth more than £1 million.
'The gap in wealth as it relates to education has widened over
time. In 2006-07, some 16 per cent of graduates were asset
millionaires, compared with two per cent of people without formal
qualifications.
...
'David Willetts, the universities minister told The Telegraph
that the figures were “more evidence of why going to university is a
very good deal”.
'Nhe higher wealth of people with degrees justifies Coalition
policies to charge higher tuition fees and push more school-leavers
to go to university, he added.
' ''It shows why it’s fair to ask graduates to pay back the cost
of their higher education, and why increasing the number of people
who go to university will spread wealth and opportunity.' '
Dr Andrew
Zurcher, selective libertarian
Dr Andrew Zurcher of Queens College, Cambridge, is an
outspoken defender
of free speech. If someone is invited to address a meeting but
protestors disagree with the speaker, then outdated notions of free speech
would defend the speaker's right to speak, not the protestors right to shout
the speaker down. Not so! At least, for Dr Zurcher and many other Cambridge
academics. The free speech of the censors is what counts. Obviously, the
cause must be a virtuous one. If the speaker is an elected MP and a minister
of a democracy, then this is no defence.
Andrew Zurcher is a committed defender not
just of freedom of speech, in this special sense, but freedom of action,
such as occupation of buildings for as long as it takes - until demands
are met, or unless 'repressive' action puts a stop to it.
I'm not sure if he would agree with disruption of his lectures (by such
means as chanting a poem) or occupation of his own living quarters. There
are limits to his tolerance.
He was one of sixty Cambridge
University academics who 'have spoken out in dismay at the university's
handling of a peaceful protest in which more than one hundred students
occupied the Law Faculty,' in the version of reality put out by
Cambridge Gaza Solidarity. The occupation, which lasted
a mere six
days, before being terminated by the university authorities, was intended to show solidarity with the people of Gaza. The
students made 'six main demands' (the number of lesser demands isn't
given, whether small or large). One of the main demands was for
disinvestment from the arms trade.
In their letter (February 6, 2009) the academics write
'We ... strongly agree that an educational institution should not
be involved with or benefit from the arms trade which has brought so
much suffering around the world, and therefore support students' calls
for disinvestment from this industry.'
And if every liberal
democracy decided to have nothing to do with the arms trade, then every
liberal democracy would go under. ISIS would no longer be bombed from
the air and the guns would fall silent, the guns of liberal democracies'
unarmed forces (formerly, armed forces), that is. ISIS could invade this country in perfect
safety, and could carry out beheading of kuffars, including the deluded
people who signed the
letter.
The consequences of principled objections to the arms trade before the
Second World War are obvious, if not to these academics: a successful
invasion of this country, followed by mass executions, genocide (genuine
genocide, that is , not the genocide which it's claimed the Israelis carry
out), forced labour and the ending of free speech.
These people also add some relatively inoffensive
waffle.
'As teachers, we strive to foster in our students an interrogative and
transformative attitude towards the world' whilst maintaining, in many or
most cases, perhaps, an unquestioning belief in the dogma of Palestinian
righteousness. This was one proclamation which didn't include even a
token reference to Israel's right to defend itself.
Instead of indulging their self-indulgence, like the sixty academics, the University authorities gave a more valuable lesson to the students,
in the form of a reality check: the limits to self-indulgence. (This
will be a valuable lesson if any of these students are tempted to try
similar tactics when they enter employment: occupation of the employer's
premises won't be met with gratitude for their enlightenment.) 'Over the course of the six-day sit-in, the University threatened
matriculation sanctions and legal action. It also endeavoured to prevent
any food being brought into the building for the occupiers.'
If one of the main demands had been for the University to impose an
academic boycott against Israel, and a hundred protestors had occupied a
Medical Faculty Building and a hundred more Science Laboratories and a
hundred more Geography buildings, until the university became
gridlocked, if a hundred radical Islamists had descended on the Law
Faculty, occupied a different part of the building and demanded
implementation of Sharia law, if hundreds and hundreds of other
protesters had decided to occupy University buildings for other
causes and made their demands, then even these academics might just have
realized that this couldn't possibly go on.
Andrew Zurcher outlines his particular interests:
'I work on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, with a
particular focus on the works of Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, and
William Shakespeare. My research to date has emphasised early modern
legal history, Elizabethan colonial and military activity in Ireland,
textual studies (including palaeography and manuscript studies), the
sixteenth-century reception of Academic and Pyrrhonist epistemology,
early modern secretarial practice, and the theory and practice of
allegory in the sixteenth century.'
Most of his work is remote
from the military and ethical dimensions of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
His publication 'English Handwriting 1500-1700: An Online Course,
written with Raphael Lyne and Gavin Alexander, wouldn't provide many
transferable skills, but his study of military activity in Ireland might
have given him some useful insights. It seems not to have done so.
This is
from his book 'Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene": A Reading Guide'
Chapter 1. Mapping and making
' ... he was never far from the brutal and repressive violence of
Elizabeth's military campaigns in Ireland. He was present at Lord Grey's
victory at Smerwick in the autumn of 1580, when at least 600 Spanish and
Papal troops surrendered and were summarily massacred. He later
accompanied Lord Grey on similarly brutal campaigns in Wicklow and
Wexford and he must have seen - and perhaps done - terrible things durig
the war that slowly engulfed Ireland after the revolt of the Earl of
Tyrone in 1594 ... '
Notice that although it seems very likely that he considers Israel beyond
the pale, he has a very much more flexible attitude to Edmund Spenser.
Edmund Spencer's involvement in 'brutal campaigns' doesn't count against
him, or not decisively.
My page
Ireland and Northern Ireland: distortions and
illusions gives a harsh estimate of the position of Ireland at different
periods of its history. At these times, it's virtually certain that if
Ireland had not been under British influence, or rather, British occupation,
it would have been occupied by another powerful state, and more brutal state
than the British. See in particular the section on the period of the Second
World War.
The harsh fact is that Israel provides protection for the Palestinian
territories. Israel would do everything possible to prevent the Palestinian
territories being occupied by Isis or another radical islamist organization
worse than Hamas.
Dr Zurcher is featured in the article 'Cambridge's most eccentric
professors,' published in 'The Tab,' a tabloid magazine produced by students
at the University. I don't in the least gloat at the portrayal of Dr Zurcher
in the article. I don't find the article interesting in the least, except
for the brief quotation of Dr Zurcher's poetry. This, I think has obvious
strengths. 'The Tab' on the other hand is tedious, I find, lightweight
but leaden, another instance of the mediocrity which can coexist with
achievement at Cambridge.
The Cambridge Gaza Solidarity page which gives the text of their
letter also gives a list of links to other occupations. Highly recommended:
the list of occupations. Reading the list of occupations will be more than
enough for everyone but the most devoted occupiers, who will be certain that
this kind of occupation is virtuous whilst Israel's (alleged) occupation is
evil.
So, on to another cause, the 'Cambridge Defend Education'
activists, which involved yet another occupation, this time the occupation
of Lady Mitchell Hall. This is supplementary material, as the issue had
nothing to do with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. There are obvious
linkages, however, with the disruption of Shimon Peres'
talk by Abdel Takriti.
This
is one source of information on the protest.
http://www.oxbridgeessays.com/blog/is-cambridge-defend-education-defensible-765/
'The Cambridge Defend Education campaign group was formed in
October 2010 in opposition to the dramatic cuts to the government’s
education budget and the raising of tuition fees to £9000.
'Dr Andrew Zurcher, in an open letter in support of CDE, published
on their website, claimed that any threat to the core values of the
university posed by the protesters when they interrupted Willetts’
speech was offset by the fact that the very act of inviting him to give
the speech was, in the light of his recent political decisions, an
insult to the moral standing of the university in itself. He challenged
Goldhill: “You have said that CDE has mistakenly attacked the core
values of the university. Perhaps you have undermined them, by inviting
a politician to whitewash his ideologically driven rape of the
university sector, in a speech that would rhetorically re-describe it as
consensual sex.”
'Dr Simon Goldhill, of the Faculty of Classics, had publicly spoken out
against the government’s new education policy; even joining a group of
681 academics who sent an open letter of protest against it to the
national press last year. But when Willetts’ speech was interrupted, he
reacted with an angry statement on the faculty website, claiming that
the protesters had denied Willetts himself the very freedom of speech
they claimed to be trying to protect.'
He wrote,
'There are two reasons why I was disappointed with the form of the
protest. I say the form of the protest because,
like Naomi Wolf who spoke in Cambridge two weeks ago, I believe that protest
is a democratic necessity, and like most who work in the University I have
been appalled by the nature of the proposed government reforms of education.
I would have been surprised if there had been no expression of the anger
many feel. But I was equally annoyed by the way these few students elected
to behave.
'The first reason is that we lost an extraordinary opportunity. Mr
Willetts agreed to do something very few politicians ever do: to face his
critics for an hour of questions without any preconditions. We had some of
his most articulate critics in the audience. This exceptional opportunity to
change public opinion, whatever Mr Willetts’ response, was lost.
The second reason is that the protest, in the name of protecting the
values of the university, destroyed the values of the university. You cannot
defend the university as a place of rational debate, as the home of the free
and critical exchange of ideas, by preventing people from listening to a
talk they wish to hear, by refusing to listen to views you disagree with,
and by shouting down any opposition ...
'The history of the twentieth century reveals again and again the
disastrous consequences of this sort of behaviour. It starts with anger,
often, as in this case, justified anger, but when it moves through absolute
certainty, to violently excluding other voices, then the political
consequences become lethal. I stood for a good while with the protesters
earlier outside Lady Mitchell Hall, and heard speaker after speaker extol
the opportunity for anyone to speak, to hear the marginal voices, and many
passionate defences of educational principles with which I agree – and then
sadly watched the violent destruction of such ideals in the protest’s
strident, totalitarian yelling.’
I agree with Simon Goldhill. For the record, I've an immense respect
for the achievements of this country in scholarship and in scientific and
technological research and dismayed by the under-valuing of academics. I
think they should be paid much more, even if a minority wouldn't
deserve to be paid more.
The Oxbridge Essay site gives this information:
'Willetts was prevented from speaking at all, as several students around
the hall began chanting a 25-minute poem beginning "David Willetts, the
future does not belong to you/This is an epistle that is addressed to
you". [Surely the word is 'doggerel,' not 'poem.'] The chanting was done using the so-called "people's microphone"
method, whereby Owen Holland read out each line, which was then repeated
back by all the other protesters. Willetts had been due to give a speech
on "The Idea of the University", but left the hall during the course of
the 'epistle'. The protest divided opinion among Cambridge students,
many of whom, including CUSU President Gerard Tully, claimed that it had
violated David Willetts' right to freedom of speech.'
Cambridge protest and Cambridge
Philosophy
Dr Lorna Finlayson, Philosopher
Queen
The majestic dining hall of King's College, Cambridge,
where Dr Lorna Finlayson, a Cambridge philosopher, has often
dined and often spoken, perhaps on the subject of
oppression or disadvantage. She's now moved to Essex University.
I think of Lorna Finlayson as a Philosopher Queen, in the authoritarian tradition
to be found in Plato, criticized by Karl Popper in
'The Open Society and its Enemies.' I think that Lorna
Finlayson is very much an enemy of the Open Society. The
union of political power and philosophy would be anything
but safe in her hands and in those of people like her.
She puts people in their place, or tries to.
In the Republic, Plato describes a utopia and argues that
this utopia will never come into existence until kings
philosophize or philosophers become kings. Political power
and philosophy ( δύναμίς τε πολιτικὴ καὶ φιλοσοφία)
must be in the same hands. (Book Five, 473 d.)
Lorna Finlayson's book 'Introduction to Feminism' is
published by Cambridge University Press. I intend to provide
a review of the book. Cambridge University Press doesn't
appear to have published any books which give arguments
against feminism. Perhaps the people at Cambridge University
Press are unaware that there are arguments against feminism
or refuse to examine them! Perhaps standards of
intellectual honesty at Cambridge University Press aren't
uniformly excellent after all? Perhaps Cambridge
University's standards aren't uniformly excellent and beyond
criticism?
Perhaps the standards of Cambridge University Press aren't
uniformly high and beyond criticism.
See my discussion of two ludicrous contributions to
The Cambridge Companion
to Seamus Heaney written by Guinn Batten and Fran Brearton. Guinn
Batten is a member of the department of 'Gender and
Sexuality Studies' at Washington University in St Louis.
Fran Brearton contributed an article 'Heaney and the
Feminine' to the Cambridge Companion.
I write in my review, 'Amongst the
associations of the Cambridge name -
better not to refer to the Cambridge 'brand' - are associations to do with
excellence. 'The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney' is hardly ever
excellent. Instead, the good, the not-so-bad, the bad and the
shockingly bad.'
From the synopsis provided for Lorna Finlayson's Cambridge 'Introduction to Feminism:'
'As well as providing a clear and critical introduction
to the theory, this refreshing overview focuses on the
practice of feminism with coverage of actions and activism,
bringing the subject to life for newcomers as well as
offering fresh perspectives for advanced students.'
For the time being, I don't discuss her advanced views on feminism for
advanced students of feminism but I do discuss her advanced criticism of
free speech for advanced students of 'actions and activism'
who would like to put a stop to excessive free speech. I
also discuss her views on Israel, Iran, the Palestinians and
Islamism, a section which includes severe challenges to her
views.
On free speech, she has written,
'Not that people don’t in general talk
enough about freedom of speech – it would be better if they
talked about it a bit less. But if people are going to
talk about it, they may as well do it properly.'
In 'LF on free speech' she writes,
'... this is one very valuable outcome of forcing David Willetts off the platform: ' ... an act of destroying
certain possibilities' (the possibility of the government
minister David Willetts
speaking and the possibility that people who came to attend
a talk given by David Willetts could actually listen to a talk by
David Willetts) 'is always at the same time an act of creating further ones.
One valuable thing that came out of the whole episode, to my
mind, was that the idea of ‘freedom of speech’ got hauled
out of its hiding place ... '
After the
disruption of David Willetts' speech, there were now
new opportunities, not so much for 'uninformed' people to discuss free speech, but
opportunities to listen to people who do it 'properly,' such as Dr
Finlayson.
If radical Islamists
prevent a talk by a non-believer from taking place then this
too is creating new possibilities.
If 'advanced transgender advocates' prevent a
talk by someone they see as less advanced from taking place,
such as a feminist whose view of transgender people isn't
the same as theirs, if they force feminists 'off the
platform,' then this too would be viewed as
creating new possibilities, although it's obviously not
creating new possibilities for the person who is prevented
from speaking.
Transgender activists who prevent feminists such as Julie Bindel and Julie Burchill
from speaking are badly mistaken but the defence of free
speech should go well beyond a single issue. Feminists who
object to the denial of free speech to some feminists but
see nothing wrong with the denial of free speech to
anti-feminists are badly mistaken too.
Dr
Finlayson, philosopher, writes that 'in
the immediate aftermath of the Willetts action, there was
plenty of predictable, well-rehearsed, lazy, ‘free speech’-
themed noise-making.'
In the the immediate
aftermath of the Willetts action, there were plenty of
predictable, well-rehearsed, lazy, noise-making
attempted justifications of shouting down a minister of a
democracy, such as 'LF on free speech.'
She says
of the invitation to David Willetts to speak, 'we regarded the event itself as an improper
procedure.' She declares that it's improper so it
must be improper. The
dogmatic assumption, the unquestioned assumption of absolute
rightness is completely obvious.
In 2013 she contributed to an event in Cambridge on various
aspects of free speech. Her talk had the title, 'Free Speech as Liberal Fiction.'
This is Paul Sagar's view of the protest which Lorna
Finlayson took part in and which she defends:
'Willetts was introduced – with an explicit appeal for reasonable
discussion – and the man himself took the stand. But as he began speaking, he was immediately interrupted. A single
individual [Owen Holland] began shouting.
'His every line was immediately repeated by 20-30 or so others. Thus began a
long, ponderous series of declamations, bizarre poetic allegories, and
varying denunciations of Willetts, his Government, the future of education,
and everything in between.
'Willetts could not get a word in edge ways. The tension in the room was
dramatic. It felt like it went on and on. Shout then chant, shout then chant
...
'When the “speech” from the floor was over, the instigators began chants
of “Willetts Willetts Willetts, Out Out Out”, and surged forward. They took
the stage. Willetts had already left. The event was abandoned. A hundred or
so other people were forced to exit without being able to voice their
opinion or take part in the public debate they were invited to attend.
I don't examine here the issue of free speech at the
University of Essex. The page
http://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings/profile/essex#.VvzM4qQrKUk
does give a verdict, one which may or may not give a
simplified view: 'The University of Essex and the
University of Essex Students' Union collectively create a
hostile environment for free speech.'
A collective conclusion may well hide complexities,
such as individuals who have many, many reservations about
the policies of the 'collective,' individuals who are
opposed to the policies of the 'collective.' I restrict myself here
and discuss only Lorna Finlayson's hostility to free speech.
I don't have anything like detailed knowledge of the
Philosophy department of Essex University but from what I
know, it's a very interesting department. The initiative to
do with assessment, for example, is remarkable.
From 'The Guardian,' 15 February, 2015:
'We cannot allow censorship and silencing of individuals.'
'The fate of Kate Smurthwaite’s comedy show, cancelled by Goldsmith’s
College in London last month ... is part of a worrying pattern of
intimidation and silencing of individuals whose views are deemed “transphobic”
or “whorephobic”. Most of the people so labelled are feminists or
pro-feminist men, some have experience in the sex industry, some are
transgender.
'Last month, there were calls for the Cambridge Union to withdraw a
speaking invitation to Germaine Greer ... The feminist
activist and writer Julie Bindel has been “no-platformed” by the National
Union of Students for several years.
'You do not have to agree with the views that are being silenced to find
these tactics illiberal and undemocratic. Universities have a particular
responsibility to resist this kind of bullying. We call on universities and
other organisations to stand up to attempts at intimidation and affirm their
support for the basic principles of democratic political exchange.'
Followed by a large number of signatories.
The letter is a good one, but subject to {restriction}. A
wider range of examples would have been far better. Free expression is a
necessity for anti-feminists as well as feminists.
Dr Finlayson doesn't seem to support in the least the 'basic
principles of democratic political exchange' and supports
some attempts at intimidation.
Does Lorna Finlayson, philosopher, support the denial of free
speech to feminists such as Julie Burchill and Julie Bindel?
If she supports their right to speak freely at University
events and other events, transphobic activists might well
accuse her of minimizing the plight of transphobic people,
according to their interpretation. She's supported no-platforming
in the case of the minister David Willetts but doesn't
support no-platforming in the case of Julie Burchill and
Julie Bindel, critics of some aspects of transphobia
activism? If so, activists might well conclude, 'What an insult to transphobic people!'
The record of philosophy at Cambridge, past and present, is a record of
very great achievement, including the contributions of Wittgenstein and G E
Moore but so many others.
'Should fascists and/or racists be given a platform?' This is naive
in the extreme. Now, 'racism' and 'fascism,' 'racist' and 'fascist' are
used as all-purpose condemnation words, a facile way of establishing
instant moral superiority, supposedly, with many, many meanings and
many, many applications, spurious and otherwise.
Along with a large number of
other people, including many from Iran, a country she obviously thinks is vastly superior to
Israel, Dr Lorna Finlayson
(at the time at King's College, Cambridge) signed a statement put out by 'Back the
Boycott,' philosophers and political theorists for a boycott of Israel,'
which called for the standard 'boycott, divestment and sanctions.'
So, Dr Lorna Finlayson (Signatory No. 11) condemns Israel,
'philosophers and political theorists' in Iran condemn Israel,
'philosophers and political theorists' in many other countries condemn
Israel, and take the trouble to sign a statement. Sometimes it can seem
that the whole world condemns Israel. Fortunately, this is not so. There
are still many, many people with other concerns and other priorities,
including the people who organized the Paris demonstration against the use of
the death penalty in Iran,
difficult though it may be for many thinkers to comprehend this
alarming event. What? A demonstration not aimed at Israel? The Palestinians not at the very centre of the
moral universe? The universe not Palestino-centric? Heresy [Secular
style] It's certain that there will be many statements condemning Israel
in the future, demanding no more than the typing of a name and a few
clicks of the mouse, giving further opportunities for Palestino-centric
people, further opportunities for the display of effortless moral
superiority.
http://backtheboycott.com/
The statement made a comment on critics who
assert, correctly, that these people are 'singling Israel out’.
'As many have persuasively argued over the last few weeks, it is Israel
that singles itself out: through its claims to moral impeccability, its celebrated
status as a democracy, through its receipt of massive support from the
US and other nations, and through its continual abuse of the legacy of
the holocaust in order to deflect criticism and to discredit the
Palestinian struggle.'
What? Its 'celebrated status as a democracy' is supposed to count
against it? 'Abuse of the legacy of the holocaust' is beneath contempt.
The signers have an affiliation with many Iranian
universities: Imam Sadiq university, which 'bridges the gap between the
Islamic seminary and traditional university' according to Wikipedia, and
which includes courses in criminal law and . Islamic jurisprudence, and
the universities of Khajeh, Nasir al-din tusi, Motahari, Shiraz,
Semnan, Allaame tabaatabaae, Tarbiat Modares, Razi, Alzahra, Yazd,
Monaghegh ardabili, Zanjan, Kharazmi, Mashahd and Tabriz.
Al-Quds is a Palestinian University. Brandeis University suspended its
partnership with Al-Quds University on November 18, 2013, for reasons to
do with a demonstration there:
'The Nov. 5 demonstration on the Al-Quds campus involved demonstrators
wearing black military gear, armed with fake automatic weapons, and who
marched while waving flags and raising the traditional Nazi salute. The
demonstration took place in the main square of the Al-Quds campus, which
was surrounded by banners depicting images of “martyred” suicide
bombers.'
The President of Al-Quds university did condemn the demonstration, after
the routine sentiment with which his statement began,
'The university is often subjected to vilification campaigns by Jewish
extremists ... '
'Iran is the most prolific executioner in the world now, after China,
executing political prisoners, homosexuals, dissidents, people found guilty of 'enmity against God,' and a 16 year old schoolgirl, Atefeh
Rajabi Sahaaleh, on charges of adultery and 'crimes against chastity.' She
was hanged in public.
'It's Israel which is described by the prominent anti-Israeli campaigner
and disrupter Deborah Fink as 'The Satanic state.' It's likely that her
attitude to Iran is much less critical.
The former Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who blamed
the "Zionist regime" of Israel for starting both the First and Second
World Wars), speaking to university students in the US, said that Iran is
'the only nation' that 'can offer a new model for life to the world.'
'Haji Rezai was the prosecutor, judge and witness in the trial of Atefeh
Rajabi Sahaaleh. He also tortured Atefeh,
and he was the hangman. He placed the noose around her neck before she was
hoisted on a crane. He was insistent that the verdict and sentence complied
with the laws of Islam. No charges have been brought against him. The Supreme
Court of Iran gave an order that Atefeh should be freed, although the Court
was already aware that she had been executed.
'Previously, she had been arrested three times by the Moral Police and convicted
of having sex with unmarried men. For each offence, she was imprisoned and
given 100 lashes - the punishment for single women. The punishment for married
women is still technically stoning to death - stones which are not too large
are specified, as large stones would cause death too quickly. Stoning to death
is unlikely to be carried out in Iran now - which counts as progress. Even
so, at least six people have been stoned to death in Iran since 2006.
'When she appeared in court for having sex with a taxi driver, she removed
her hijab at one point. This was regarded as severe contempt of court. No
lawyer was provided. She appealed against her death sentence but no lawyer
was provided for the appeal.'
Lorna Finlayson certainly has philosophical abilities,
evident in such an article as 'Kripke, names, and the
necessary a priori' but in general, her world is far more dubious and
disturbing than the world of many Christians.
If the past is a foreign country, where they do things
differently, the world of military actions, terrorism,
fanaticism, intense loathing, fear and suspicion may well be
a foreign country for anyone who writes about it from a
perspective of safety in a world of reasoned discussion,
such as discussion of Saul Kripke. (Fluency in French is of
no help when the border has been crossed and what is needed
now is fluency in Flemish.)
Lorna Finlayson on the logician Kripke (followed
immediately by Lorna Finlayson on the comedian Russell
Brand):
'This
is the structure of Kripke’s
argument:
(1) It is
not conceivable that not-(H=P)7
(2) It is necessary that
(H=P) [from (1)]
(3) It is knowable only a posteriori
that (H=P)
Therefore, ‘H=P’ expresses a necessary
truth knowable only a posteriori.
Premiss (1) seems correct. Kripke has given a convincing
alternative explanation of the intuition that we can
conceive of not-(H=P). But there is a tension between (1)
and (3). Normally, if not-p is not conceivable, we can know
a priori that p. For example, we cannot conceive of a
married bachelor, and so we know a priori that all bachelors
are not married. Yet Kripke seems to be suggesting that the
whole of ancient Babylonian society failed to realise a
truth of which the negation is inconceivable.'
In
an article for the 'London Review of Books,' 'Brand
v. Rawls,' Lorna Finlayson defends the comedian Russell
Brand
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/03/05/lorna-finlayson/brand-v-rawls/
She writes,
The inclusion
of Russell Brand on Prospect’s annual
list of ‘world thinkers’ has been met with
predictable outrage and ridicule. The Guardian
said that his ‘presence looks designed to be provocative’.
Reviewing Brand’s book Revolution for Prospect a
few months ago, Robin
McGhee attacked ‘Brand’s political
stupidity’. At the same time, the Telegraph said
that ‘Russell Brand’s politics are staggeringly stupid.’ The Spectator called
him ‘an adolescent extremist whose hatred of politics is
matched by his ignorance’. In the Observer,
Nick Cohen once derided Brand’s ‘slack-jawed inability to
answer simple questions’. Nathasha Lennard in Vice said
she didn’t ‘think Brand is totally idiotic. But, to be
clear, he is an idiot.’ Lorna Finlayson may not claim that
Russell Brand is a political thinker on quite the same level
as John Rawls, the author of 'A Theory of Justice,' or
Plato, the author of 'The Republic,' or Aristotle, the
author of 'Politics,' but she
does seem to claim that he's a deep thinker.
Dr Paul Sagar of King's
College, Cambridge, wrote a very interesting, very robust
and very accomplished reply, published on the same page,
which includes this (I don't claim, of course, that Paul
Sagar necessarily agrees with my criticisms of Lorna Finlayson and
of feminism):
'My colleague Dr. Finlayson’s blog piece cannot, I am
afraid, pass without some comment. Partly this is because
much of what she argues is dubious, or flatly false. Partly
it is because others of us working in the field of political
philosophy at the University of Cambridge would like to
preserve our collective reputation as people who can, at the
very least, do the basics. This makes for less oratorically
spectacular grandstanding than Finlayson achieves. But there
are principles worth standing up for, even if they make one
unfashionable, perhaps even boring.
'I will pass over the question of whether Russell Brand
is an idiot (although previous actions may lead us to
believe that more than his Essex accent informs such
conclusions*), and move straight to Rawls. Finlayson writes,
“In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argued that a just
society is one in which things are as equal as possible
without making everyone worse off”. This is an error so
glaring one would not permit even a first year undergraduate
to make it. Rawls’s claim is actually that “social and
economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are…to
the greatest benefit of the least advantaged” (A Theory of
Justice, p. 83). There difference between what Finlayson
says Rawls says, and what Rawls actually says, is enormous.'
Boycotting, BDS, 'Apartheid' Israel and the
duty of care
The Manchester academics who signed the Open Letter criticized here -
there were 88 of them - have every reason to regret signing: sign in
haste, repent at leisure. The recklessness and ignorance of these
academics are examined in this section - with evidence, of course. I
provide the list of their names later in the section. The letter was also signed by Manchester UCU
Executive Committee and by UNISON, University of Manchester. They too
blundered.
The Manchester University BDS site has
a page Don't Punish Protest - Open Letter to the University of Manchester.
'(March 27,
2017.) There's a large picture of a banner with the slogan 'Stop arming
Israel,' placed high on the Samuel Alexander building by
two students. The Open Letter contains this:
'The University should applaud these two students for drawing attention
to the hypocrisy of abetting Israel’s apartheid regime while professing
a socially responsible investment policy. Instead, we see with dismay
that they are to be subject to disciplinary hearings.'
The University,
then, is to 'applaud' students who took the risk of hanging out a long white sheet with a
slogan on it high up on a university building. This is the view of these
academics, or, if we were to judge by their standards here, academic adolescents.
The University's duty of care to students is a consideration which seems
not to have entered their heads. What if
support for these students encourages other students to hang banners
from a height on university buildings? The risk of falling from a
height, of death or injury, is real. Manchester UCU and UNISON
Manchester have a strong interest in safety in the workplace. What were
they playing at signing such a document? This isn't the kind of
'encouragement' which students need.
Of course, these academics mix prudence with principle, self-serving
with principle - using 'principle' in a very wide sense, to include
principle untouched by the critical faculty. They aren't so high-minded
that they are likely to resign their posts as a matter of principle, to
express their abhorrence for the University which employs them and pays
them. They aren't so high-minded that they will risk their own lives by
placing a banner high on a building - they leave that to their
students. These are arm-chair activists, after all, issuing their call
to action from a position of safety. I don't think that a single one is
willing or able to answer objections to their view on
Israeli-Palestinian issues, such as the objections presented at length
on this page - but there are many other sources. I don't have high
expectations of anti-Israel academics.
For the sake of their own reputation, and the reputation of Manchester
University, it would be better if the people who signed the Open Letter
showed some understanding of the
fact that this is a University, not a factory turning out frozen peas -
an institution which recognizes complexity, amongst other things. There
are people who view the university as an institution which should
produce graduates with almost identical views on Israel - Israel an
apartheid state, opposition to Israel one of the most important issues
of our time - and almost identical views on a range of other
issues, graduates more like uniform peas than individuals.
Before I turn to other aspects of this issue, very important aspects, as
I see it, more on the physical dangers of protesting.
This is Nadine Bloch, writing from the protesting point of view on a page of the Website 'Beautiful
Trouble.' The title of the piece is 'Tactic: banner hang.'
http://beautifultrouble.org/tactic/banner-hang/
'Potential Pitfalls
If the banner hang requires specific climbing skills or tools, do not
skimp on training, scouting, or the quality of gear. Cutting corners
could result in the banner snagging, the team being detained before the
banner drops, or someone getting seriously injured or killed.'
And this is Joshua Kahn Russell, writing on the same site:
'Some
tactics should never be attempted without a thorough safety plan and
skill-level assessment, such as a technical (climbing) banner hang where
a fall can often prove fatal. Direct action is not a game.'
The site includes a great deal on risk and management of risk in
my page on
bullfighting (material on the site is often dispersed). There, I
examine risks in mountaineering, risks in war and risks in bullfighting.
There's a photo of Alex Honnold, the best known free climber. Free
climbing is climbing without a rope or any other protection. He's
climbed tall buildings as well as mountains in free style. Protestors at
Manchester University shouldn't imitate his example on the much lower
heights of University buildings. They should ignore the example of the
two students who put the banner up on the Samuel Alexander building,
despite any encouragement from academics.
These people provide further information which
will be useful for people who want to cause maximum disruption to
'irresponsible institutions.' They'd almost certainly include Manchester
University' in the category of irresponsible institutions, The give this
advice on hanging banners: 'Hoisted properly, a banner can only be
removed by a crane truck, which will block traffic and make a further
spectacle. With practice this method can be carried out in a matter of
moments, so busier intersections can be targeted.' They know how to make
'a further spectacle,' but not how to subject their own certainties to
reasoned criticism.
'Beautiful trouble' is a Website which promotes many causes
which are 'obviously right,' to the contributors to the site, but which can't
withstand informed criticism: if people are convinced that they're
right, then they must be right - but obviously, only if the views are
'correct' views.
These academics at Manchester University have decided - or decreed - that Israel is the worst human rights offender in the
world, the country most worthy of Boyott, Divestment, Sanctions, in fact
the only country to be sanctioned, ignoring
the claims of countries such as Iran - but I don't ignore Iran. If
these advocates of sanctions had their way, if Israel had no means of
protecting itself - not that this will ever happen - it would be
wiped off the map.
A university which doesn't encourage reflection, fair-minded debate, the
presentation of argument and evidence but concentrates on short,
propagandist slogans, such as 'Israeli apartheid' isn't the kind of
university to be encouraged, but the view of the academics who signed
the Open Letter seems to be different. What do the academics make
of the fact that homosexuality is legal in Israel but illegal in Gaza
and punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years? ' Israel has
become a refuge for gay people. But the consequences of
wiping Israel off the map are much more far reaching than the end of
this refuge for gay people.
For the academics who signed, the
Israel issue is a central issue, if not the most important of issues then
one of the most important. But other academics, and other students, will
have very different views. Wider society will have very different views.
For wider society, it isn't self-evident in the least that opposing Israel is the
most important of all issues. or amongst the most important.
BDS
Protest is surely a form of monomania. The entry for 'monomania' in
Collins English Dictionary: '... an excessive mental preoccupation with
one thing, idea etc.' BDS protest ignores so many other things,
almost every other thing. The Manchester version of BDS Protest ignores
the Islamic terrorism which has taken the lives of people in Manchester.
The IRA planted a bomb in Manchester which caused widespread damage. I
don't ignore republican terrorism. I lived in Northern Ireland at the
height of the troubles. My experiences and my arguments against Irish
republicanism are provided on the page
Ireland and
Northern Ireland: distortions and illusions. If, in the future,
this country were to be threatened by missiles from North Korea or some
other country, then advocates of BDS Protest would still be claiming
that Israel is the worst offender, the country which threatens the peace
of the world. I'd hope that by then, a great many people who think in
these terms now would have abandoned a view which is so stupid.
As I've explained,
Monomaniac Manchester Protest even ignores the physical dangers of
protest, in its single-minded preoccupation with Israel. On the day I
sent emails to some Manchester academics to draw their attention to this
section (and an academic at York University, Joanna de Groot) I had
other things to do. I work in sheet metal, amongst other construction
materials - I've designed and constructed machinery for bending sheet
metal and to make cutting of sheet metal much easier for me. Sheet metal
is inherently dangerous - the sharp corners can easily sever an artery.
I've devised simple methods of protection. Working at a height, I
attached sheet metal roofing to a greenhouse I'd designed and
constructed. Images and other information are provided on the page
Gardening /
construction: introduction, with photographs. I'm aware of the risks
of falling from a height and do everything possible to avoid it, but
these Manchester academics obviously live in a different world, a much
simpler world, a world which ignores not just military dangers and
political dangers, but everyday dangers, and the importance of
working safely.
Joanna de Groot is the President of the National
Executive Committee of the UCU, the University and College Union. I only
hope that someone who occupies such a grand position as President of the
National Executive Committee of the UCU can find an interest in such
matters as the protection of students - not the protection of students
from views in conflict with her own but the protection of students from
basic risks such as falling from a height. I've contacted her to make
this clear.
If these ignorant and
simple-minded academics expect
the university to grant students freedom to display banners denouncing
Israel from university buildings, other students may expect their own favoured cause to have the same 'rights.'
Why should anyone get themselves into debt to study under the guidance
of such people and be examined by such people? These people are so weak
and unsure of themselves that they can't even construct a very brief set
of arguments in their own defence. If I do receive any defence of
themselves and their support for BDS I'll be sure to give it full
coverage here.
The university has come under attack for its
policy on animal experiments. Why not allow banners with the
(simplistic) slogan
'Manchester University murders animals' or 'Manchester University
tortures animals,' with the hope that any students who take the risk of
placing them from high places don't fall off the building? Should
students who are caught writing similar slogans on the walls of
university buildings not be disciplined?
My experience of campaigning for animal welfare is very extensive,
including activism directed against factory farming, the use of animals
in circuses and bullfighting.
From the section on my page on Israel, 'On the streets of Gaza (animal
abuse, other abuses):
The middle east is uniformly oblivious
to issues of animal welfare. The only exceptions are isolated
individuals in those countries - and the state of Israel. Israel hasn't
taken the attitude that, faced by enormous threats, it can neglect every
other consideration but survival and protection. It recognizes that
civilization requires care for animals, as sentient creatures. Israel
was one of the first countries in the world to ban the use of wild
animals in circuses, in 1995. Britain still has no national ban,
although many local authorities do have bans.
Israel used to be the fourth largest producer of foie gras in the
world. Unlike, of course, France, it banned the
production of foie gras, recognizing the force of the ethical objections.
... Israel has never had a whaling industry but it joined the
International Whaling Commission so as to vote against any resumption of
whaling.
There are a number of academics amongst the signers of the Open Letter
who are feminists with a degree of prominence. Do these academics
think that opposing Israel is a far more important matter than
supporting feminism? Would they like to explain their view of the
relative importance of these issues?
Will these academics support feminists if they decide to hang banners
with the slogan 'No patriarchy at Manchester' or 'End sexism at
Manchester NOW!' It's very likely that all the academics who signed
support feminism, to different extents. What's their view? Supporting
feminism isn't the same as supporting pro-feminist activities which
carry a risk of death or serious injury.
Unless the academics can persuade the student body that
only anti-Israel protest is permitted, university buildings could look
like untidy advertising hoardings, unofficial but freely permitted.
Do these Manchester University academics really want to encourage in
their students the use of slogans instead of making a case, using
arguments and evidence? How many of the academics can point to sources,
in print or on the Web, which gives their reasons for accepting BDS and
the demonization of Israel as an 'apartheid' state? I've given a
comprehensive discussion on this page. Can they? Can they at least point
to the sources which they've used in arrriving at their viewpoint. I'd
be glad to see them and have the chance to discuss them.
Another
danger, of a very different kind from the danger of falling from a
height, which the Manchester academics seem to have overlooked. When
students who have taken part in direct action (the inspirational words
of these academics will have done nothing to deter them) come to apply for a job, then very often - or perhaps
this should be 'nearly always' - the employer will carry out a
Google search for any online information out there which is available
for the applicant. Quite easily, very easily, students who have been
involved in direct action or other forms of protest get their names into
the Websites of newspapers and many other Websites - and the applicant
is stuck with the fact that the information tends to stay there for year
after year after year, even if the applicant decides that his or her
support for cause X was completely misguided, something that has been
outgrown.
This Website doesn't give information about named students,
undergraduate or graduate. It used to have information about a very few
students, not at Manchester University, but I deleted it, except in the case of one graduate student
who became an academic, Dr Therese Jonsson, and one student at Cambridge
who is now a Career Development Fellow now at Oxford, Dr Owen Holland.
I've no intention of ever naming and criticizing someone who is still a
student.
I loathe the idiocies of 'safe spaces,'' the
stifling of dissent which is promoted by so many student unions, by so
many students, I loathe the support of so many students for Israeli
Apartheid Week - although they amount to a small minority of the student
body - but I think that time at university, amongst other
things, will always be a time for making mistakes. I support the need to
discipline students in some cases - putting up banners at a height on a
university building is one instance which justifies sanctions, for the
reasons I've given - but I think that the
sanction, in general, shouldn't be a very harsh one. As I've explained,
there are problems and difficulties which may well follow a student for
a very long time, once an issue gets into the public domain.
Academics, on the other hand, shouldn't expect their words and
actions to be treated in anything like the same way - and on this site,
I don't.
I don't regard students with condescension - 'what can you expect of
students, they're so young and immature,' apart from the mature students,
the students who
are mature in years. I'd be disappointed in any student who
showed the reckless immaturity of these Manchester University academics.
Academics have no more protection than students. Once an issue gets into
the public domain, it's likely to stay there. If the issue is
demonization of Israel - not an exaggerated term for the singling out of
Israel for hate and censure - then these academics may get more than
they bargained for. Instead of the display of superior insight and
superior virtue, a display of ignorance, including ignorance of wider realities.
It's perfectly possible to be an academic at a university with views
which are vastly more uninformed than those of many students. Perhaps
people still at school can take this into account when they are deciding
which department to apply for at which university? But there are obvious
difficulties - a department with one or many abysmal members of staff
may have others who are anything but a liability. And people with
hideous flaws may have notable strengths.
More on the claim that
Israel practises 'apartheid:'
The Goldstone Report
Richard Goldstone is the author of the Goldstone Report. It was
critical of Israel but later comprehensively modified.
'Richard Goldstone published a significant letter in the New
York Times, 'Israel and the Apartheid Slander' on the claim that Israel is an 'apartheid state.' (November 1,
2011.)
Extracts:
'The Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership
has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The
need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been
greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel
from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again
is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on
Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell
Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty
of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The
“evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are
critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke
the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate
slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than
advance peace negotiations.
...
'In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies,
which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is
important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where
Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli
control in the absence of a peace agreement.
'In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the
definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane
acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of
systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other
racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining
that regime.”Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote,
have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy
positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie
alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical
treatment.
...
'The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no
intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression
and domination by one racial group.” ... until there is a two-state
peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain
under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel
will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense,
even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one
side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes,
claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of
“apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to
clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing
Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an
“apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such
images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is
disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier
was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted
great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the
state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship.
Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are
ameliorated when the threat is reduced.'
...
'Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified
to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility
and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been
in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its
existence ...
'
The Canadian writer and politician Michael Ignatieff wrote, 'Israeli Apartheid Week is ... a dangerous cocktail of ignorance and
intolerance ... By portraying the Jewish state as criminal, by demonizing
Israel and its supporters ... the organizers and supporters of Israeli Apartheid
Week tarnish our freedom of speech.
“On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our parliamentary caucus,
I urge all Canadians to join with us in once again condemning Israeli Apartheid
Week here in Canada and around the world.”
Israeli Apartheid Week is a badge of shame. Israeli Apartheid Week
was observed in very few other British universities in the same year.
Sussex University was one of them, but at Sussex University, the
Vice-Chancellor made a diffident comment which even so seemed
not at all routine, heartening, in fact. At Manchester, so far as I know, the
Vice-Chancellor, Dame Janet Ratcliffe, made no comment at all on a
matter which has diminished the reputation of Manchester University. Not
Manchester's reputation for excellence in science and technology and
many specialist fields, but its reputation in matters to do with human
values, which are not the preserve of specialists.
Vice-Chancellors and other
university leaders are faced with a very wide range of difficult issues
and problems. They can't be expected to spend all their waking moments
devoted to Palestinian issues and they can't possibly be
expected to regard Palestinian issues as amongst their highest
priorities. The demands of the anti-Israeli activists and the
anti-Israeli signers of the occasional Open Letter are insatiable,
completely unrealistic. They live in a dream world. If there were far
more of them, they could be making demands that manufacturers of ball
bearings should drop their preoccupation with manufacturing ball
bearings and concentrate their attention on Israel, by boycotting
Israeli manufacturers of ball bearings, by signing a pledge never to
have anything to do with Israeli engineering. They did try to stop the
group 'Radiohead, from appearing in Israel. Radiohead ignored them.
This is what the Vice-Chancellor of Sussex had to say:
'Next week has been designated as ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ and even
the language is deeply upsetting to many members of our Jewish and
non-Jewish community. During this time, it is imperative that everyone
feels supported and we will not tolerate intimidation of anyone for
their religious or political opinions about the politics of the Middle
East.'
There's evidence-based medicine, evidence-based policing, evidence-based
decision making, evidence-based policy making - how about evidence-based
protesting? This would require answers to objections, including
objections to your very selective use of evidence. I've taken the
trouble to present objections on this page. It's time for those of you
who signed the Open Letter to do far more.
I've seen many of these lists of anti-Israel worthies, each preceded by
a Statement with an attempt at dignity which is breathtaking in its
evasions. If the column of names stretching into the distance gives the
impression of people of conscience united in a worthy cause, then
appearances are very deceptive. Names on a list after a statement
denouncing Israel are supposed to be impressive.
List of the Manchester academics and others who signed the Open
Letter 'Don't Punish Protest'
So many of the people who signed came from
the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. this
School (and Social Sciences.) No academics in Science signed, just
one in Engineering, and none or very few in other fields. The
great majority of academics at Manchester didn't sign, but 88 did - not
a tiny number.
I've removed the name of a postgraduate student. As I explain earlier
in the section, I see it as important that individual
undergraduate and graduate students shouldn't face the same scrutiny as
academics - criticism of student unions and other groups which often
show staggering levels of ideological fixation are a different matter -
they can be criticised wihout mention of individual students. If
Manchester academics ever compile another inept document opposing
Israel, they'd be well advised to do it without including students in
the list of signatories.
Manchester UCU Executive Committee
UNISON, University of Manchester
Professor Claire Alexander
Dr David Alderson
Zahra Alijah
Professor Mona Baker (Emerita)
Dr Naomi Baker
Dr Lauren Banko
Dr Anke Bernau
Dr Howard Booth
Professor Erica Burman
Dr Bridget Byrne
Dr Niall Carson
Dr Tanzil Chowdhury
Emma Clarke
Dr Michelle Coghlan
Alessandro Columbu
Dr Steven Courtney
Dr Jerome de Groot
Professor Laura Doan
Professor Mike Donmall
Professor Jeanette Edwards
Professor Aneez Esmail
Dr Douglas Field
Gaelle Flower
Dr Molly Geidel
Dr Kevin Gillan
Leah Gilman
Professor Hal Gladfelder
Dr Ingrid Hanson
Dr Ben Harker
Dr Bethan Harries
Professor Penelope Harvey
Dr Malcolm Hicks (retired)
Dr Jenny Hughes
Dr Andrew Irving
Professor Tim Jacoby
Dr Stef Jansen
Dr Andrew Jones
Dr Steven Jones
Paul Kelemen, Honorary Research Fellow
Frances Leviston
Dr Camilla Lewis
John McAuliffe
Dr Peter McMylor
Professor Roseanne McNamee (retired)
Narinder Mann
Professor Miguel Martinez Lucio
Dr Stefania Marino
Dr Orieb Masadeh-Tate
Professor David Matthews
Dr Vanessa May
Dr Robert Meckin
Lydia Merryll
Dr Dalia Mostafa
Professor Khalid Nadvi
Dr Adel Nasser
Dr Richie Nimmo
Dr Michelle Obeid
Dr Adam Ozanne
Professor Ian Parker, Honorary Professorial Research Fellow
Dr Monica Pearl
Professor Luis Perez-Gonzalez
Dr Floriane Place-Verghnes
Dr Eithne Quinn
Dr Madeleine Reeves
Professor Dee Reynolds
Professor Chris Roberts (Emeritus)
Dr John Roache
Dr Emily Rohrbach
Dr Michael Sanders
Kate Sapin
Dr Fred Schurink
Dr Tony Simpson
Dr Graham Smith
Dr Robert Spencer
Professor Jackie Stacey
Dr Ingrid Storm
Dr Nicholas Thoburn
Dr Petra Tjitske Kalshoven
Dr Angela Torresan
Dr William Turner
Dr Anastasia Valassopoulos
Dr Sivamohan Valluvan
Dr Bram Vanhoutte
Professor Peter Wade
Dr Chika Watanabe
Dr Dan Welch
Professor Janet Wolff (Emerita)
Dr Luke Yates
Noah's Ark 1:
Who would Adam and Eve it?
The two sections on Noah's Ark on this page
also appear on my general page on Christian religion,
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
Above, animals (two of all the
animals in the world) waiting to board Noah's Ark, which will save them from
drowning when God, angry at human wickedness, floods the entire world -
according to the Biblical Creation Trust and many other organizations. The
people who had built the Cathedrals and those lovely English Parish
Churches - as well as the unlovely and quite ugly English Parish Churches -
had a similar view of God, in general.
Below, a representation in
stained glass of Noah's Ark, from Lincoln Cathedral (one of the
cathedrals, and churches, I've visited in the course of architectural
study visits.) The fact that a building is an architectural achievement
is no guarantee that the activities within the building, the beliefs of
the builders and the users of the building, are at a high level:
credulity and superstition aren't excluded from buildings of note.
'Adam and Eve it:'
Cockney Rhyming Slang, of course, meaning 'Who would believe it.' The
accents and dialects of the British Isles are an interest of mine. My
own accent is Yorkshire, specifically South Yorkshire, Sheffield, but I
also use Sheffield dialect - a particular grammar and vocabulary as well
as a particular pronunciation.
From the page
https://www.biblicalcreationtrust.org/people.html
'Steve Lloyd MA, PhD works part-time as a
Researcher and Lecturer for BCT [Biblical Creation Trust] and is also pastor
of Hope Church, Gravesend. He studied Materials Science at the University of
Cambridge and became a Royal Society University Research Fellow. Steve also
has a Diploma in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of
Cambridge.'
It's obvious that this Royal Society University
Research Fellow has more than maintained the high standards of Cambridge
science. If we look at some of his beliefs, it's obvious to me that he's
also maintained the abysmal standards of Cambridge theology.
These are some of the beliefs promoted by the
Biblical Creation Trust. From the page
https://www.biblicalcreationtrust.org
Belief 'that the Bible provides reliable historical
information.'
The Bible's 'God-spoken testimony to events such as
Noah’s flood means that a worldwide global flood in human history (for
example) must be included in any scientific model that is true to the
earth’s past.'
Amongst the doctrines 'central to Biblical Creation
and established from numerous passages of the Bible,
'Adam was a historical individual from whom the whole human race is
descended.
...
'Noah’s flood extended over the whole globe, bringing destruction to all
air-breathing land animals outside the ark.'
I don't make any attempt to give the arguments and evidence against these
doctrines, except to state that a flood extending over the whole globe is
impossible - to mention just one objection, floodwaters could never reach to
the tops of high mountains, or to the tops of high hills, and 'air-breathing
land animals' in these places would survive. Noah is supposed to have
brought two animals of every kind into his ark. The impossibility here
should be obvious - Noah's Ark would have to be bigger, much bigger, vastly
bigger than the biggest aircraft carrier to contain two of every animal.
Whales are air-breathing animals. This particular Cambridge scientist (not
in the least representative of Cambridge science, at least contemporary
Cambridge science) believes. presumably, that there were two Blue Whales and
two of all the other species of whale (all of them air-breathing animals, of
course) on board Noah's Ark. The Biblical Creation Trust does acknowledge
the existence of dinosaurs, generally large or very large animals.
Other luminaries listed on the Biblical Creation Trust Website:
'Paul Garner MSc, FGS is a full-time Researcher and Lecturer for
BCT. He has an MSc in Geoscience from University College London, where he
specialised in palaeobiology. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of
London and a member of several other scientific societies.'
'Matthew Pickhaver BSc, PGCE is an Associate Lecturer with BCT and
our Communications Manager. Matthew was awarded a BSc in Zoology by
University College London.'
'William Worraker is an Associate Researcher with BCT. He has a
BSc (Hons) in Physics and a PhD in Engineering Mathematics, both from
University of Bristol, UK. Employed in scientific software development until
recently ... His current BCT research seeks a scientific solution to the
‘Flood Heat Problem’: where did all the heat go that was released during the
Genesis Flood?'
Their excellence (in scientific attainment) and the stupidity of their
theological views should be obvious - it's obvious to me - but stupidity
doesn't do justice to their views. They also overlook, are unaware of, the
contradiction between their views and human values. They overlook or are
unaware of the human cost.
Noah's Ark 2:
Human values
From my page
www.linkagenet.com/themes/heaneytranslations.htm
Relevant, I think, to some comments below,
on the death of children.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
' 'Lydia Dwight Dead,' from the collections of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, which gives
this information: 'Lydia Dwight was six years old when she died on
3 March 1674' and 'One of the earliest experiments in European ceramic
sculpture, this object was commissioned by the father of the dead child in
order to capture her likeness and perpetuate her memory. It was a personal
and private sculpture, reflecting the grief of the little girl's family ...
' The sculpture was lent to the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield by the
Victoria and Albert Museum and it was there that I saw this heartbreaking
response to the death of a young child, which has a
counterpart in the heartbreaking set of poems by the Polish poet Jan Kochanowski: the 19 elegies or 'laments' of 1580, written to commemorate his
daughter Urszula, who died at the age of two. Seamus Heaney's translation of
these 'Treny,' undertaken with Stanislaw Baranczak, is an important
contribution to this devastating literature, an important contribution to
the poetry of deep feeling.
'I discuss the translation
of only four lines of Jan Kochanowski's 'Treny III' and mainly a single aspect:
the translation of repeated words or phrases. My knowledge of Polish is much more restricted
than my knowledge of the other languages here. I studied Polish before visiting
Poland, a country, and a people, of great importance and significance for me, and spoke Polish whilst I was there, but only for simple, everyday
purposes. The Polish of 'Treny' is Renaissance Polish.
'Stanislaw Baranczak's introduction to his translation with Seamus Heaney includes this:
' 'Jan Kochanowski (1530 - 84), the greatest poet of not just Poland but the
entire Slavic world up to the beginning of the nineteeenth century ... '
'His cast of mind was formed by a philosophy of the golden mean and
moderation, and this in turn produced a quiet acceptance of whatever life
might bring, a tendency to handle the vicissitudes of earthly existence in a
rational and orderly way, one always seasoned with a dose of healthy
scepticism as regards both gain and loss, success and failure, happiness and
misery.
' 'The stable - or stable-seeming - foundation of such an outlook was
provided by both ancient thought and Christian theology. For a
sixteenth-century Humanist - in this case, moreover, a poet whose earlier
work included not only a Classical tragedy with a plot borrowed from Homer
but also a poetic translation of the Psalms - elements of stoicism or
epicureanism could merge conflictlessly with the belief in Providential
protection bestowed on the just as a reward for their virtuous lives ...
' 'Yet it is precisely this kind of stable and secure philosophical
foundation that may well be the first thing to crack 'when the Parcae cease
to spin / Their thread, when sorrows enter in / When Death knocks at the
door'. And this is what happened to Kochanowski in middle age when Death
snatched away his youngest child, a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter called
Ursula, devastating the poet's hitherto unshakeable equanimity ... All of a
sudden, pain reaches a degree of intensity that cannot be explained away. No
rationalization makes sense to us any more when its very philosophical basis
is pulled out like a rug from under our feet - when we can no longer
subscribe to the belief that each of us is to a large extent a master of his
or her own fate, and that we therefore have the right at least to hope that
our actions, if purposeful, timely and determined enough, may bring the
desired results ... '
The devastation caused by the Great Sheffield
Flood of 1864, following the collapse of the Great Dale Dike.
From the page
http://www.mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk/sheffield/flood.html
'Six hundred and fifty million gallons of water roared down the Loxley
valley and into Sheffield, wreaking death and destruction on a horrific
scale.
'Individual experiences were infinitely tragic, pathetic, and sometimes
bizarre. The first to drown was a two-day-old baby boy, the oldest a woman
of eighty-seven. Whole families were wiped out; one desperate man, trapped
upstairs in a terrace house, battered his way through five party walls to
safety collecting thirty-four other people as he went; a would be suicide,
locked in a cell, decided, as the flood poured in, that he no longer wished
to die; one poor old man drowned alongside his sleeping companion - a
donkey; a husband put his wife and five children on a bed on which they
floated until the water went down.'
'After about thirty minutes the flood gradually subsided leaving a trail
of destruction more than eight miles long: it was later described as
'looking like a battlefield.'
In this flood, at least 240 people were killed. The victims included
babies - a few days old, a few weeks old, a few months old. The loss of life
in The Great Global Flood caused by God (according to the Biblical Creation
Trust) was immeasurably greater - for people, for all 'air-breathing
animals.' Why exactly did the all-wise Creator wipe out the entire human
race, babies, children and adults, young and old (as well as
'air-breathing' animals), allegedly - apart from the favoured few inside the
Ark? What does this catastrophe tell us about the nature of God the Father
and the nature of the beliefs of the Biblical Creation Trust?
The attempt to present the Global Flood as a historical event with
a theological basis - an action of God - is made by many, many
fundamentalist Christians and Christian groups, not just the Biblical
Creation Trust, of course. This is one of them, from
https://bibleproject.com/blog/why-did-god-flood-the-world/
Anyone who thinks this is plausible and reasonable needs to think again,
and the thinking - the complete response - should be about much more than
concepts. It needs to take account of human values - but fundamentalist
Christians are likely to dismiss some human values as incompatible with
Christian doctrine.
Extracts from
https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/noah/the-evangelist/
'Like people today, almost certainly the people of Noah’s day were busy
enjoying the pleasures of life and did not believe or care that judgment was
coming.
'During the decades of mankind’s last days, Noah was working on the Ark.
As it grew, it must have been a potent symbol to those living nearby. One
can imagine that Noah was often asked about his construction project.
Indeed, it is likely that he was mocked for such an enterprise.'
'Hebrews
11:7 says, “By faith Noah, being divinely warned
of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the
saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of
the righteousness which is according to faith.” '
'
The Willing Savior
Noah’s Flood teaches us two things about the attitude of
God towards us.
He is angry with sin and will punish it one day.
He loves us and sends us a way of salvation, if we will only repent and
turn to Him.
Jesus is our Ark of Salvation today. Just as Noah was saved
by grace through faith from the destruction of the Flood, we can be saved by
grace through faith in Jesus, when we repent and turn to Him.
There are vast numbers of Christians who have no belief in an actual
flood sent by God and an actual Ark who do believe that if a person fails to
accept Jesus as 'personal Lord and Saviour' they are alienated from God,
eternally.
Cambridge Christianity
See also
my page on Christian religion, which is
much more comprehensive than this section.
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
Emmanuel College:
Professor Catherine Pickstock and 'Radical Orthodoxy'
From Professor Pickstock's Biography on
the Emmanuel College site
https://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/contact/fellows/?id=47
'I am the co-founder of a critical international
field-changing theological movement, Radical Orthodoxy (with John
Milbank and Graham Ward, London: Routledge, 1999), recently dubbed ‘the
Cambridge School’.'
The online Biography is very brief. Obviously, it can't
do justice to the theological achievement of someone who co-founded an
'international field-changing theological movement' - along with other
theological achievements. Perhaps one day, someone can
summon up the will to write about Professor Pickstock's theological
achievement in a proper thick theological Biography.
The claims for radical orthodox theology that Professor Pickstock and her co-labourers make
are so wide-ranging, so dramatic, so astounding, so ... 'field-changing'
that they deserve fair-minded scrutiny. I think, after scrutinizing them,
fair-mindedly, I hope, that the claims are deluded, the achievement
non-existent.
Radical Orthodoxy is presented in the book 'Radical
Orthodoxy' as a kind of magnificent monument of doctrine and belief. Radical
Orthodoxy has huge respect for monumental works such as the Summa Theologica
of Thomas Aquinas, although the structure of their book has none of the
systematic organization of 'Summa Theologica,' and for the theology of
Augustine. Their book contains a chapter on Augustine, written by Michael
Hanby, which discusses many aspects of his thought - but not one which would
make clear the disastrous nature of their project. I
In their introduction,
the trio refer to 'the famous aporias of time in Augustine' which are
'resolved practically and Christologically only when, having concluded that
time makes no sense because it can be comprehended only by that infinity
which it reflects, Augustine further concludes that this infinite
comprehension is nonetheless reflected in time through Christ's restoration
of time's true numerical rhythm. Although we cannot comprehend the
transition from past to future via the present, we can, for Augustine, as
Catherine Pickstock argues in the last essay in the volume, nonetheless hear
and repeat the truth of this passage in the ecclesial praise of the Father
offered through the Son in the Spirit.'
You'd think that 'time's true numerical rhythm' is
more than enough meaningless rubbish for anyone to write, but the claim that
Christ restored this rhythm takes it further, to realms of surreal
stupidity, not transcendental truth. Their notion of truth is very strange.
What went on in their minds when they wrote, in connection with time's flow,
about repeating 'the truth of this passage in the ecclesial praise of the
Father offered through the Son in the Spirit' and should they be read with
respect?
Supporters of Radical Orthodoxy include Anglicans,
Roman Catholics and Greek and Russian Orthodox believers. This is from the
Vatican, a sample of the kind of orthodox belief which the majority of
supporters of Radical Orthodoxy wouldn't share but which they would receive
with respect. Most importantly, it has the closest possible connection with
the teaching of Augustine, which the founders and supporters of Radical
Orthodoxy obviously treat with the deepest respect - or rather one single
aspect of his teaching, the horrific view that unbaptized babies are in
hell. They are in hell because, allegedly, babies are born with the taint of
original sin, which has to be washed away in baptism. The document also
refers to an alternative fate for unbaptized babies. This modification is
still grotesque.
From the site
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/
cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
'INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL
COMMISSION
THE HOPE OF SALVATION
FOR INFANTS
WHO DIE WITHOUT BEING BAPTISED*
'The International Theological Commission has studied the
question of the fate of un-baptised infants, bearing in mind the principle
of the “hierarchy of truths” and the other theological principles of the
universal salvific will of God, the unicity and insuperability of the
mediation of Christ, the sacramentality of the Church in the order of
salvation, and the reality of Original Sin. In the contemporary context of
cultural relativism and religious pluralism the number of non-baptized
infants has grown considerably, and therefore the reflection on the
possibility of salvation for these infants has become urgent. The Church is
conscious that this salvation is attainable only in Christ through the
Spirit. But the Church, as mother and teacher, cannot fail to reflect upon
the fate of all men, created in the image of God, and in a more particular
way on the fate of the weakest members of the human family and those who are
not yet able to use their reason and freedom.
'It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated
on the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the
souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and
who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to
any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This
theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never
entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same
Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up
until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible
theological hypothesis. However, in the
Catechism of the
Catholic Church (1992), the theory of limbo is not mentioned.
Rather, the Catechism teaches that infants who die without baptism are
entrusted by the Church to the mercy of God, as is shown in the specific
funeral rite for such children. The principle that God desires the salvation
of all people gives rise to the hope that there is a path to salvation for
infants who die without baptism (cf. CCC,
1261), and
therefore also to the theological desire to find a coherent and logical
connection between the diverse affirmations of the Catholic faith: the
universal salvific will of God; the unicity of the mediation of Christ; the
necessity of baptism for salvation; the universal action of grace in
relation to the sacraments; the link between original sin and the
deprivation of the beatific vision; the creation of man “in Christ”.
The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical
reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and
brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on
this question found in Revelation. However, none of the considerations
proposed in this text to motivate a new approach to the question may be used
to negate the necessity of baptism, nor to delay the conferral of the
sacrament. Rather, there are reasons to hope that God will save these
infants precisely because it was not possible to do for them that what would
have been most desirable— to baptize them in the faith of the Church and
incorporate them visibly into the Body of Christ.
...
'In these times, the number of
infants who die unbaptised is growing greatly. This is partly because of
parents, influenced by cultural relativism and religious pluralism, who are
non-practising, but it is also partly a consequence of in vitro
fertilisation and abortion. Given these developments, the question of the
destiny of such infants is raised with new urgency. In such a situation, the
ways by which salvation may be achieved appear ever more complex and
problematic. The Church, faithful guardian of the way of salvation, knows
that salvation can be achieved only in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Yet, as
mother and teacher, she cannot fail to reflect on the destiny of all human
beings, created in the image of God, and especially of the weakest. Being
endowed with reason, conscience and freedom, adults are responsible for
their own destiny in so far as they accept or reject God’s grace. Infants,
however, who do not yet have the use of reason, conscience and freedom,
cannot decide for themselves. Parents experience great grief and feelings of
guilt when they do not have the moral assurance of the salvation of their
children ...'
A quotation from John Milbank will
introduce some of his views. His respect for the Vatican will be clear. I don't claim that
his views are shared
completely by Professor Pickstock and Professor Ward, only that these are
views which they would support to a large extent, at least his theological
views. His views on other matters are a different matter. I've reason to
believe that Graham Ward for one wouldn't accept some of these or many of
these. The piece mentions
differences of opinion and change, but it shouldn't be supposed that this is
a movement with the development and growth of organic life. These views were
published on the site
http://politicsofthecrossresurrected.blogspot.com/2010/09/john-milbank-on-radical-orthodoxys.html
in the year after the publication of the book
'Radical Orthodoxy' with the title 'John Milbank on Radical
Orthodoxy's Evolution Toward Historic Orthodoxy.' and the language here is
anything but monumental and imposing:
'In terms of my own positions re gender
and sexuality I suspect that some Catholics would find me a
shade too liberal, but in terms of contemporary positions I
would be classed as extremely ‘conservative’: against abortion,
experiments on foeteses, against any idea that homosexuality can
be the subject of equal rights, in favour of the importance of
sexual difference, critical of liberal feminism, and holding the
opinion that the separation of sex and procreation is in effect
a state capitalist programme of bioethical tyranny etc etc. To
my mind the Papacy is the crucial bulwark against this, even if
I favour married clergy, ordaining women (my wife is an Anglican
priest who is at least as conservative as the current Pope in
most ways) and recognising gay civil partnerships (though
certainly not gay marriage, which I regard as ontologically
impossible ... Some within RO [Radical Orthodoxy] are more
conservative than me on these points.'
I can't possibly provide a rounded picture of
Professor Milbank here, only a few glimpses of him. Oliver Kamm, writing in
'The Times' gives this
http://timesopinion.tumblr.com/post/50500589460/a-tragic-approach-to-same-sex-marriage
'I once debated with Milbank, on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves.
It was an odd experience. He argued for a religion-based common culture. In
opposing him, I mentioned the scarcity rather of public rationalism, as
evinced by Milbank himself: he’s a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Milbank erupted
at this, claiming it was a lie, so note his public support for a group
called Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth. Milbank claims to have withdrawn
his signature, but it remains in the public domain and he has stated (in an
essay entitled Geopolitical Theology: Economy, Religion and Empire after
9/11): “As to the precise causes of 9/11 I remain entirely agnostic.”
Private Eye later reported, completely accurately,
that when this live broadcast had ended, Milbank started screaming at me:
“You’re going to be dealt with!” He kept this up in the studio, down the
corridor, through the lobby and on to the street to our respective waiting
cars.'
I discuss 9/11 in the section 'Anything can
happen' on the page
Seamus
Heaney: translations and versions. I include my translation of
a poem by Horace, Carmina 1:34 and discuss Seamus Heaney's version of the
poem. There's also a section 'Seamus Heaney, Mary Beard and 9/11' on the
page on ethical depth. Mary Beard is also discussed on this
page, in the very brief section on
Cambridge Classics.
Professor Milbank is Director of the Centre for
Theology and Philosophy at Nottingham University but he has Cambridge
connections. He has taught at Cambridge University and he received a
postgraduate certificate in theology from Westcott House, Cambridge.
Cambridge University awarded him a Senior Doctor of Divinity degree in
recognition of his published work in 1998.
The third co-author of 'Radical Orthodoxy,' Graham
Ward is the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford but he has Cambridge
connections too. He studied English and French at Fitzwilliam College and
then studied theology at Selwyn while training for ordination at
Westcott House. He was Dean and Director of Studies for Theology at
Peterhouse.
On the evidence I have, Professor Ward doesn't
adhere to 'Radical Orthodoxy' any longer. The book he wrote with Catherine
Pickstock and John Milbank doesn't appear in the published works he gives on
the Christ Church Oxford page
https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/staff/professor-graham-ward
or in the 'List of Publications' which is provided
on the Oxford Faculty of Theology and Religion' site. The page does give an
article:
'Radical Othodoxy: It's Ecumenical Vision
Professor Pickstock may not realize that the name
'the Cambridge School' was already in use: 'the Cambridge School' of
historiography, which opposes positivist views of history and emphasizes the
role of ideas. It began with Quentin Skinner's 1969 article, 'Meaning and
understanding in the history of ideas.' There was no need for her to mention
a name which had already been taken. I think I can show is that this
theological Cambridge school reflects no credit on Cambridge. People who
like to imagine that Cambridge is a 'World Class Centre of Excellence' (or
'One of the Planet's Most Awesome Universities)' will have to look in other
places for evidence of vibrant, cutting-edge research to add to their
collection.
The Cambridge philanthropy site, which I discuss in
the section on this page
How-to-give-to-Cambridge - and reasons not to give has a comprehensive
view of Cambridge achievement, real and imaginary. It includes not just
Cambridge science and mathematics, for example, where the achievement is
almost entirely real but study of religion at Cambridge, where the balance
is very, very different, tilted firmly in favour of the imaginary. From the
philanthropy site
https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/explore-human-cultures
'Cambridge is where the best human minds gather to
study humanity itself. Its art, its culture, its philosophies, its
religions, the language and societies it creates, and destroys.'
Of course, in the process of studying religion or
practising religion, people often contribute to other spheres, such as
language. Language is listed as one of the 'Featured priorities' on the same
page:
'Understanding ourselves and the world around us
through language and culture.
'Language is fundamental to humanity's ability to
thrive.'
At Cambridge, inability to detect inert or debased
or meaningless language and willingness to contribute inert or debased or
meaningless language are common. The biography Professor Pickstock wrote for the
Emmanuel College site includes this, on her book 'Repetition and Identity':
'Repetition and Identity engages with
literature and aesthetic theory to problematize the distinction between
hermeneutics and metaphysics, arguing that the aporias arising from the
necessity of repetition to constitute identity can be resolved
theologically.' This is so bad that perhaps it deserves to be more prominent
on the page. After reformatting:
'Repetition and Identity engages with
literature and aesthetic theory to problematize the distinction between
hermeneutics and metaphysics, arguing that the aporias arising from the
necessity of repetition to constitute identity can be resolved
theologically.'
So, a few comments on the language of the
introduction to the book edited by Catherine Pickstock, John Milbank
and Graham Ward, 'Radical Orthodoxy' (published in 1999). The introduction
is written by the editors
The language is generally clear and serviceable and
not consistently pretentious. Amongst their lapses is the stylistic and semantic mess of this, for
example, beginning with the phrase ' ... without an appeal to eternal
stability ...'
' Underpinning the present essays, therefore, is the
idea that every discipline must be framed by a theological perspective.
Although it might seem that to treat of diverse worldly phenomena such as
language, knowledge, the body, aesthetic experience, political community,
friendship etc., apart from God is to safeguard their worldliness, in fact,
to the contrary, it is to make even this worldliness dissolve. This happens
in two directions. First, without an appeal to eternal stability, one has to
define a purely immanent security. Whereas the former allows temporality,
the contingency of language and the fecundity of bodies to retain their
ultimacy in the finite sphere, the latter abolishes these phenomena in
favour of an immenent static schema or mathesis.'
It's the section quoted here before the phrase ' ...
without an appeal to eternal stability ...' which is dreadful, disastrous,
surely, and which isn't 'redeemed' in the least by its much clearer
language: grotesque, gargantuan garbage.
Before I examine the section, I'll provide the
passage which follows the one already quoted. Perhaps it will shed some
light on it? Perhaps the Cambridge Philanthropy Project can make some use of
it as evidence of the glories of Cambridge Divinity Faculty writing,
evidence that will motivate alumni, alumnae and others to dig deep and give
generously? I think that hopes will be dashed.
'Curiously, perhaps, it is immanence that is
dualistic and tends to remove the mysterious diversity of matter in assuming
that appearances do not exceed themselves. Second, since the schema or mathesis
is only transcendental , and grounded in nothing, one has to assume either
ontologically or pragmatically (i.e. it might as well be the case for all
practical purposes), that this essential structure is only an illusion
thrown up by the void, even if, as for Derrida et al,' the
essential structure is itself the moment of a delusory and contradictory
concealment of the void. One can go even further to say that the void itself
as a static given assumed by knowledge is the mathesis par
excellence. In this way, the two different paths to dissolution of finite
integrity - modernist epistemological humanism and post-modern ontological
nihilism - merge into one (a dismal promenade.'
Reading the Radical Orthodox Trio's diatribe amounts
to a dismal promenade too. Granted, spoken and written English are very
different things, but I can ask the Trio, Do you ever speak like this? The
spoken English of the lecture theatre may be closer, so I'd ask, Do you ever
lecture like this? Do you ever use phrases in your lectures which are
remotely comparable with 'the void itself as a static given assumed by
knowledge is the mathesis par excellence.'
Very early in the Introduction, in the second
paragraph, the authors have stated their position very clearly. Their
theological framework 'visits sites in which secularism has invested heavily
- aesthetics, politics, sex, the body, personhood, visibility, space - and
resituates them from a Christian standpoint; that is, in terms of the
Trinity, Christology, the Church and the Eucharist.'
This later paragraph resumes the argument - or
rather the dogma. More things are added to the list of things which can't
possibly be considered apart from the Trinitarian God, and, also the
doctrine of Christology, the Church and the Eucharist: 'diverse worldly
phenomena such as 'language, knowledge, the body, aesthetic experience,
political community, friendship, etc.' That 'etc' really amounts to
'practically everything,' apart, that is, from the Trinity, Christology
(and, no doubt, other orthodox Anglo-Catholic doctrines), the Church and the
Eucharist (and, no doubt, the other sacraments observed by Anglo-Catholics.)
The authors have also insisted that 'every
discipline must be framed by a theological perspective; otherwise these
disciplines will define a zone apart from God, grounded literally in
nothing.'
Is it really true that calculus, abstract algebra,
set theory, symbolic logic and all other branches of mathematics and logic
must have a theological perspective and that without a theological
perspective they are 'grounded literally in nothing?'
Collegiate life at Cambridge (and Oxford) gives
opportunities for students of one discipline to talk with students of
another - and there are opportunities at other universities too, of course.
Perhaps Professor Picksock could try out this remarkable set of ideas on a
mathematician or logician dining nearby in the Hall at Emmanuel and try to
convince him or her of the absolute need for every mathematical and logical
discipline to be framed by a theological perspective, without which all
these mathematical and logical disciplines are 'grounded literally in
nothing.'
She could mention the subject to an organic chemist,
a chemical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a solid state physicist, a
modern languages fellow, anyone at the college willing to listen.
She could ask anyone willing to listen to listen to
this sentence in the 'Introduction.' It makes the claim for Radical
Orthodoxy:
' ... in the face of the secular demise of truth, it
seeks to reconfigure theological truth.' Ridiculous all-inclusive or almost
all-inclusive generalizations take many forms. One of them is the claim,
made in many a Website or Blog comment section, that 'politicians are only
out for what they can get,' and another, superficially much more
sophisticated, is 'the secular demise of truth.' What kinds of truth have
suffered this demise? The truth in logical truth tables? The truth of honest
witnesses in courts? The truth of such empirical facts as the boiling point
of water? The truth that Augustine saw hell as the fate of unbaptized
babies? The truth that Edward Wightman was the last man to be burned alive
in England (he had denied the Trinity and questioned the role of the Church
of England)? Or do those last two instances count as theological
truth?
She could quote this passage from later in the
Introduction:
'One can note here that even a thinker like
Balthasar, supposedly sympathetic to the Middle Ages, makes the mistake of
claiming that many human spheres - the familial, economic, technical,
political - cannot be entirely suffused by love, because he thinks of love
in too post-Kantian a fashion as the fulfilment of a universal pure ideal by
a solitary individual.'
The dining hall of Emmanuel College offers so many
opportunities. She might ask a Fellow in economis to comment on the notion
that economics can be entirely suffused by love. She might ask a Fellow in
some technical subject to comment on the notion that this Fellow's subject
can be entirely suffused by law, or ask a Fellow in some aspect of politics
the same question.
As for families, a reading of the first sentence of
Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' would remind her that there are unhappy families
as well as happy families. A reading of newspapers would remind her that
there are even families where a father has thrown acid on a very young son
and families where mothers carry out genital circumcision on daughters,
families where treatment of members of the family is bestial - the notion
that families can be entirely suffused by love is a disturbing and ignorant
one.
There's no need to work through this ludicrous list
of things which are 'grounded literally in nothing' unless framed by a
theological perspective, which includes Christology and the Eucharist. I'll
just mention one: friendship. What a ridiculous, disturbing view of
friendship, to imagine that Christology and the Eucharist and the rest are
essential!
This has linkages with totalitarianism, in its claim
that every realm of life must be submitted to the dictates of the ideology.
Radical orthodoxy is a theological ideology. Radical orthodoxy isn't to be
equated with totalitarian ideology but the name 'totalitarian
orthodoxy' would come closer to its disastrously misguided essence than the
more harmless sounding 'radical orthodoxy.'
Radical orthodoxy, unlike most totalitarian
movements, doesn't punish or torture or kill its opponents. It does, though,
offer the prospect of punishment, on a mass scale.
In various places, on this page and my general page
on Christian religion
I quote a statement of doctrine which has been published by Church Society,
a Conservative Evangelical group in the Church of England:
' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous
anger burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they
are under His condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they
will be separated from Him forever in Hell. (Romans 1 v18, 2 v16, Revelation
20 v15)
'Jesus will come back and the world will end, there will then be a final
judgement where those who have not accepted Jesus will be cast into hell
with Satan and his angels. Christians will receive new bodies and live in
eternal bliss in the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Spirit. (Hebrews 9 v27, Revelation 20 v11, 1 Corinthians 15 v51)
'The biblical way of salvation has often been attacked over the
centuries, however it is stated clearly in the 39 Articles of the Church of
England:
Article 6: Of the sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation.
Article 1: Faith in the Holy Trinity
Article 9: Of Original or Birth-sin
Article 2: The Word, or Son of God, who became truly man
Article 4: The resurrection of Christ
Article 11: Of the Justification of Man
Radical orthodoxy is a movement which is
Anglo-Catholic, not evangelical, but the 39 Articles play an important part
in Anglo-Catholic belief and a Christian who has no belief in hell can't
possibly be described as orthodox. I see every reason for thinking that
Catherine Pickstock, John Milbank and Graham Ward would accept this Church
Society statement.
If Catherine Pickstock does accept it, then when she
talks with anyone who doesn't accept the 'theological framework,' the
Trinitarian God and the rest, she is talking to someone she thinks is, let's
say, very, very disadvantaged compared with herself. If she thinks like
this, then she shouldn't keep it hidden. And the same for the other members
of the Radical Orthodoxy group.
Radical Orthodoxy's views on matters other than
salvation are strikingly dissimilar to pervasive contemporary norms.
John Milbank set out his views in these terms, in a
piece 'John Milbank on Radical Orthodoxy's Evolution toward historic
orthodoxy.' (1 September, 2010.)
http://politicsofthecrossresurrected.blogspot.com/2010/09/john-milbank-on-radical-orthodoxys.html
'In terms of my own positions re gender and
sexuality I suspect that some Catholics would find me a shade too liberal,
but in terms of contemporary positions I would be classed as extremely
‘conservative’: against abortion, experiments on foeteses, against any idea that homosexuality can be
the subject of equal rights, in favour of the importance
of sexual difference, critical of liberal feminism, and
holding the opinion that the separation of sex and
procreation is in effect a state capitalist programme of
bioethical tyranny etc etc. To my mind the Papacy is the
crucial bulwark against this, even if I favour married
clergy, ordaining women (my wife is an Anglican priest
who is at least as conservative as the current Pope in
most ways) and recognising gay civil partnerships
(though certainly not gay marriage, which I regard as
ontologically impossible — I also think that civil
partnerships not linked to sex should be included for
reasons of inheritance etc.) Some within RO are more
conservative than me on these points.'
The detailed discussion of some people in the
Introduction - they include Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Aquinas and Augustine -
can be explained by the fact that they are treated at length in essays
included in the book. Philosophers who don't meet the exacting standards of
orthodoxy of the writers but who do have some claim to philosophical
importance are dismissed very quickly:
' ... in its early manifestations secular modernity
exhibited anxiety concerning its own lack of ultimate ground - the
scepticism of Descartes, the cynicism of Hobbes, the circularities of
Spinoza all testify to this.'
In the case of Spinoza, I respect and admire the man
but not so very much the philosophy. The 'Ethics' is the work of a believer,
not a sceptic. In such places as the Scholium of Proposition 35 and the
Proof of Proposition 42, his writing on God is ardent.
Selwyn College: Professor Ian McFarland
and Chalcedonianism
Above, Selwyn College, including the imposing chapel
Above, the main gate of Selwyn College, with quotation, in Greek, from St
Paul's Epistle, 1 Corinthians 16:13.
Above, Selwyn College Chapel, interior. Photo by David Iliff.
License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Some of the material in this section, the material concerned with Ian McFarland, a
Fellow of Selwyn College Cambridge and the Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge, can also be found in the section 'For God so loved the world ...' in my page on
Christian religion.
The page provides much fuller information and discussion and includes material on King's College chapel.
There's a profile of Dr Lauren Wilcox, also a Fellow of
Selwyn College, in the section 'Cambridge feminism' on this page. My page on
feminism - the emphasis is upon radical
feminist ideology - is a very extensive one.
The material on these Selwyn fellows is very critical, but I also include a
fairly favourable account of the Selwyn College Chaplain. On the evidence
I've seen, the Master of Selwyn, Roger Mosey, is non-doctrinaire and he has
wide interests. The interest in the wider world to be found at Cambridge can often
be unnecessarily selective and
ideologically charged, it seems to me, but not in the case of this Master.
At the end of this section I include an
extract from the introduction
to my page on Christian religion. I make clear my view that the threats
posed by Christianity are often exaggerated - non-religious ideologies are a
far greater threat to mind and body.
Professor McFarland is the Regius Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge. His inaugural lecture after his appointment had the
seductive title (for people of a Chalcedonian leaning or with Chalcedonian
interests) 'For a Chalcedonianism without reserve.'
Chalcedonianism entails acceptance of the
christology and ecclesiology of the Council of Chalcedon, which met in 451.
According to the Chalcedonian version of Christology, the human and the
divine in Jesus Christ are exemplified as two natures and the one hypostasis
of the Logos perfectly subsists in these two natures. Standard and
not-so-standard reference works will clear up any perplexity about the
meaning of all this.They won't necessarily clear up any doubts concerning
the relevance of Chalcedonianism or the importance of Chalcedonianism
in human intellectual, artistic and emotional life, or its relevance and
importance in religious life.
There's a revealing interview with Professor McFarland which was published in the 'Church
Times.'
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/20-april/features/interviews/interview-ian-mcfarland-regius-professor-of-divinity-cambridge
It includes this:
'I was the oldest of three, in a comfortable childhood in a standard US
nuclear family.'
'During term, pretty much all my time is devoted to teaching and
administration.
'
'One reason Cambridge was attractive to me is that terms are short and
vacations relatively generous, and, during vacations, I can devote myself
pretty much full-time to research.'
'Original sin teaches that all human beings are equal in their captivity
to sin.'
'On original sin I’m pretty Augustinian.'
'The confession that Jesus is the saviour of us all means we all need
saving — we’re all caught up in the dynamics of sin.'
'For me, the experience of God comes when I hear the Word preached and
receive the sacrament. That’s God addressing me — if I have the wit to
listen.'
Professor McFarland has many advantages, it seems: a comfortable, sheltered
life, now including very generous vacations (not 'relatively' generous
vacations, surely), and, I'm sure, giving him far more free time during term
than he claims. I don't think it can possibly be true that 'During term,
pretty much all my time is devoted to teaching and administration.' And one
more advantage: the assurance of salvation. The people I mention in various
places on my page on Christian religion and on other pages on this site, the slaves, the
child labourers, the miners, and others, led lives which were different in every way,
dominated by dangerous, back-breaking work and without the assurance of
salvation, except for a few. Unbaptized babies and infants too young to
work went to hell as a consequence of original sin, according to St Augustine. An
extended study of the theology of St Augustine would make it clear that his
statement, 'On original sin I'm pretty Augustinian' has very, very
disturbing implications.
'Original sin teaches that all human beings are equal in their captivity
to sin.' Professor McFarland, do you really believe that the people who
rescued Jews at immense personal risk, the people who fought to liberate the
death camps, the people who fought to end the Nazi nightmare, are 'equal in
their captivity to sin' with Himmler and other architects of the Final
Solution, with Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz and other
implementers of the Final Solution?
'We all need saving — we’re all caught up in the dynamics
of sin.'
Has Professor McFarland considered some of the implications of this claim?
'We all need saving,' according to Professor McFarland, but only some will
be saved. In my page on
Christian religion
I discuss the salvation of slaves, the salvation of mine
workers, including child mine workers, and other groups. Cambridge
undergraduates, graduates, academic staff and other staff are obviously in
need of salvation too, according to Professor McFarland.
The perspective which views people in this way is hideously distorted. Does
he really believe that applicants to Selwyn College should be viewed first
and foremost as candidates for salvation (or damnation)? It could be said
that Selwyn's
reputation for intellectual integrity - and reputation for intellectual
common sense - is compromised by allowing these hopelessly bad views on sin,
original sin, salvation and damnation to go unchallenged. But it would be
unfair to single out Selwyn for criticism. Christianity is a pervasive
presence in the Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Its influence may be very
restricted now but it's still greater there than in most other places.
The fellows of Selwyn College pursue research interests in fields as varied
as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, palaeobiology, computational
fluid dynamics, digital fabrication, compressible gas flow and topology,
whilst one fellow, Professor McFarland, pursues a research interest in
original sin. He's the author of the book 'In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on
the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin,' and not from a skeptical
perspective, one which finds the doctrine unable to explain the
imperfections of our world.
.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' (which begins with an
extended quotation from Augustine, 'Confessions,' I.8, to introduce the
discussion of issues in the philosophy of language) contains this claim,
'[philosophy] leaves everything as it is.'
All the advances and nuances of
Professor McFarland in his quest to understand sin, including original sin,
leave so much of deadly doctrinal content intact.
This could be called incongruous, grotesque, deeply depressing and
many other things. Given the hideous implications of the doctrine - which
include the ignoring of a person's contributions to magnificent areas of
human achievement in science, engineering, music, historical study, literary
study and many more, since salvation and damnation have nothing to do with
such things, since the sin of the sinful contributor to science, engineering
and the rest is far more important - I think a much harsher word is
called for.
Why anyone should be expected to waste years studying theology at Cambridge
University under the guidance of such people as the Regius Professor of
Casuistry is a mystery. Why Selwyn College appointed Professor McFarland as
a Fellow of the College is a mystery.
Some of his Augustinian views are reflected in
mainstream Christianity. The verse
For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.' John
3: 16 (World English Bible)
has the most dismal implications. Slaves, miners, undergraduates, Professors
of Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, Chemistry or History who don't believe
in God the Son don't have 'everlasting life' but 'perish.'
Belief in these inhuman
doctrines obviously isn't confined to one person at this one college -
Cambridge has many other examples. The residual religiosity of the place,
the hospitality of Cambridge University to such people, the indifference to
these inhuman doctrines, is very striking.
It's time for Cambridge colleges, and Oxford colleges to begin a retreat
from Christianity. The fact that so many of them
have Christian foundations shouldn't deter them. Selwyn College was founded
in memory of George Augustus Selwyn, the first bishop of New Zealand.
Attendance at the college chapel was compulsory until 1935.
Contemporary Cambridge, like contemporary Oxford, still has a deferential
attitude to the Church of England all too often. This is the power of the past, expressed
in material form as well as historical influences, traditions and ways of
thinking.
From the Website of the Diocese of Ely - note the term 'by ancient
tradition'
https://www.elydiocese.org/about/our-bishops/bishop-ely
'The Bishop of Ely, by ancient tradition, is the Visitor of three Cambridge
Colleges: Jesus, Peterhouse and St John's. He takes a keen interest in both
the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University. He is also the
Chair of the Council at Westcott House, one of the Anglican theological
colleges within the Cambridge Federation.'
From the same page:
'His understanding of church doctrine and liturgical practice were formed
principally within the Anglican catholic tradition, but this has been
enriched by the positive experience of other traditions throughout his
ministry, such as the charismatic movement. As a child, he attended a
Methodist Sunday School. He is firmly committed to being a bishop for the
whole Church, regardless of tradition.'
'The whole Church' includes the Conservative evangelicals (many of them
belonging to Church Society) who believe that
' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous
anger burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they
are under His condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they
will be separated from Him forever in Hell. (Romans 1 v18, 2 v16, Revelation
20 v15)
'Jesus will come back and the world will end, there will then be a final
judgement where those who have not accepted Jesus will be cast into hell
with Satan and his angels. Christians will receive new bodies and live in
eternal bliss in the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Spirit. (Hebrews 9 v27, Revelation 20 v11, 1 Corinthians 15 v51)
'The biblical way of salvation has often been attacked over the
centuries, however it is stated clearly in the 39 Articles of the Church of
England:
Article 6: Of the sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation.
Article 1: Faith in the Holy Trinity
Article 9: Of Original or Birth-sin
Article 2: The Word, or Son of God, who became truly man
Article 4: The resurrection of Christ
Article 11: Of the Justification of Man
Perhaps the Bishop, the Right Reverend Stephen Conway, could comment on some
implications of these doctrines, such as the fact that all the students,
fellows and other staff at these and other Cambridge colleges who never
accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour are unredeemed, lost.
I doubt if his 'broad church' view is endorsed by very many evangelicals,
who are more likely to view his Anglo-Catholic views, and the views of
Church of England 'liberals' as heretical, to use the established term
with such a horrific history.
The Greek motto over the main gate of Selwyn College is easy to overlook,
not so the dominant Chapel. So many of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges
have Roman Catholic and Anglican origins. Selwyn College has Church of
England origins but has outgrown them. Selwyn College, like the other Oxford
and Cambridge Colleges, has freed itself from Church of England dogma and
doctrine.
The Chaplain of Selwyn College, Hugh Shilson-Thomas, conveys, to me, on the
evidence available, a fairly favourable impression, but I don't have any
evidence about his ability to
provide pastoral care for the wider community of Selwyn. No matter what he
may be achieving at Selwyn, in his own estimation, he could be achieving far
more, I think, in a place which makes greater demands on him.
The page 'Hugh Shilson-Thomas installed as Junior Proctor at Cambridge University.'
https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/hugh-shilson-thomas-installed-as-junior-proctor-of-cambridge-university/
The photograph shows him 'processing' back to Selwyn College in his costume,
following a long Cambridge tradition. This particular tradition doesn't
irritate me in the least. It isn't in the least harmful. The post is a
useful one. Junior Proctors are particularly concerned with University clubs
and societies.
Some other Cambridge traditions are pointless or harmful to a greater or
lesser extent. There was no point at all in the Cambridge practice, which
continued for so long, of naming the subject 'Philosophy' 'Moral Sciences.'
It didn't help an applicant for a job to have to explain what a degree in
moral sciences was all about, and may have harmed their chances. The
tradition of obliging and showing deference to the Church of England harms
the reputation of the university for free and independent thought - or can
cause harm once people become aware of it.
Corpus Christi College: Dr Andrew Davison on
From the Cambridge University Divinity Faculty Website, entry for Andrew
Davison
https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-andrew-davison
'Dr Davison is the Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural
Sciences. Before he moved into theology he was a scientist, and he holds
undergraduate degrees and doctorates in both natural science (Merton
College, Oxford) and theology (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).'
This is someone with impressive academic attainments, then - I'm referring
only to his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and his doctorate in
biochemistry. I regard attainment in theology as 'null and void.' (Compare
and contrast the Roman Catholic view of Anglican orders as 'null and void,
including the orders of Anglo-Catholics. Father Davison is very much an
Anglo-Catholic.)
On the same page of the Divinity Faculty Website:
'Alongside the book on astrobiology, his other principle project is a
book, recently completed, surveying the 'metaphysics of participation' as a
structuring principle in Christian theology.'
Instead of 'principle,' 'principal,' of course.
From the site
ANGLICAN CATHOLIC FUTURE
Living and proclaiming the Catholic faith in the Church of England
http://anglicancatholicfuture.org/fr-andrew-davison-installed-as-canon/
Fr Andrew Davison installed as Canon
The Revd Dr Andrew Davison, Starbridge Lecturer
in Theology and Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and Fellow in
Theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was installed as Canon
Philosopher in St Albans Cathedral on 8th June.
His appointment, is part of an initiative to help
strengthen the Diocese of St Albans in the area of apologetics: giving a
reason for belief in the Christian faith.
Immediately after his installation, he delivered his
inaugural lecture: Knowing and Loving God.
An extract from his lecture:
'We are probably all used to the convenient but ultimately destructive
distinction between a religion of the heart and a religion of the head,
between a Christianity of the heart and a Christianity of the head: one
primarily of loving and the other primarily of thinking. However, if what
I’m saying in this lecture has any bearing, with its contention that knowing
and loving are intrinsically interwoven for the Christian, then this kind of
specialism, this division of Christians into those who live primarily in
their heads and those who live in the hearts, is ill formed.
'One way to bridge this gap is to
look to the examples of figures down Christian history, and in our own time,
who outwit any such head-heart distinction. I think of St Augustine of
Hippo, for instance, who was a virtuoso of both the mind and heart, both a
philosopher and a mystic. He is, on the one hand, the theological touchstone
for Western Christians, whether Anglicans, Roman Catholics or Protestants,
and an intellectual of the first order. But, on the other hand, his
distinctive symbol in art is a heart wreathed in flames of fire. (Having
mentioned Augustine, I’d like to give a plug for the reissued Augustine
Synthesis by Erich Przywara, which is a magnificent anthology of passages
from his writings, recently republished by Wipf and Stock.)'
Early in the section on Professor
Catherine Pickstock and Radical Orthodoxy, I draw attention to one of
the hideous beliefs of St Augustine of Hippo, this 'virtuoso of both the
mind and heart,' this 'theological touchstone for Western Christians' - the
belief that all babies are born with the taint of original sin and that
unbaptized babies go to hell.
Another insight into the man who has so impressed Father Davison and
Professor Catherine Pickstock, Professor Ian McFarland, and, of course, a
vast number of others. This comes from Augustine's 'Tractates on the
Gospel of John 31:11.'
'Even the cross . . . was a judgment seat. For the Judge was set
up in the middle with the thief who believed and was pardoned on the one
side and the thief who mocked and was damned on the other. Already then
he signified what he would do with the living and the dead: some he will
place on his right hand, others on his left.'
Do Father Davison, Professor Pickstock and Professor McFarland believe that
Jesus will place some members of their Colleges on his right hand - the ones
who are saved - and other members of their Colleges (the vast majority) on
his left hand - the ones who are damned? Does their orthodoxy extend this
far? (Obviously, the spatial reference isn't essential in this orthodox
view.)
The reference in the passage from the Tractates is to the account in the
Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 23:
'One of the
criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are
you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked
him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under
the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for
we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this
man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus,
remember me when you come into[d]
your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him,
“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in
Paradise.” '
Only Luke has one of the 'criminals' saved. Matthew has both of them turning
on Jesus - but Augustine hasn't a great deal to offer on the subject of the
contradictions to be found in the Bible.
Augustine's view of the one who was damned is a striking example of the
inhumanity to be found in Christianity.
By the time the one who was later damned spoke those words, supposedly, 'Are
you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!' he had been prepared for
crucifixion by flogging, with the gruesome Roman instrument of torture, made
up of heavy leather thongs, with metal balls attached near the ends. By the
time the flogging was finished, his back would have been broken open, the
flesh a torn and bleeding mass. He would have had to carrry the heavy wooden
cross piece to the place of crucifixion, where he was either nailed to the
cross or tied to it. Then there would have been the struggle to breath, the
struggle against suffocation. He spoke the words with no possibility at all
of carefully considering them. At last, his leg would have been shattered
with a heavy club, so that he could no longer support himself.
In this same lecture, he also said,
'You will hear plenty from me about Thomas Aquinas
in the years to come, as the consummate Christian philosopher, and he is
right on target in his insistence that the truth of the Son leads to love
and the love of the Spirit leads to truth. Of the Son he writes that 'the
Son is the Word, not any sort of word, but the one Who breathes forth Love.'
'
A footnote gives the reference: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.43.5 ad 2 (London: Burns, Oates and
Washbourne, 1912-36).
Of course, Father Davison will be familiar with Thomas
Aquinas' views concerning non-recanting heretics:
'With regard to heretics two points must be
observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church.
On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be
separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed
from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the
faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports
temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are
forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason
is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be
not only excommunicated but even put to death.'
Thomas Aquinas called for the death penalty for
heretics, forgers and a very wide range of other offences - guilt was
'proved,' of course, very very often during torture of the accused. My
page on the death
penalty isn't comprehensive but it gives arguments and evidence
against its use.
Christ's
College: Michael Dormandy and scribal habits
See also the section Pastoral
care: the College Chaplains and Deans.
Michael Dormandy, the former Chaplain of Christ's College studied at Wycliffe Hall,
an evangelical theological college and has published on the site of the
Church Society, the conservative evangelical Church of England organization.
It's very, very likely that he's in full agreement with this :
' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous
anger burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they
are under His condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they
will be separated from Him forever in Hell. (Romans 1 v18, 2 v16, Revelation
20 v15).'
It's very, very likely that Michael Dormandy regards the achievements of
the master of Christ's College and the achievements of the fellows of
Christ's College as far less important than the 'realities' of God's 'just'
judgement against them - or, in a small number of cases, in their favour.
It's very, very likely that his view of Christ College undergraduates and
applicants to the College and the porters and other staff of the College
will show the same narrow, inhuman focus.
Christ's College has a well-deserved reputation for academic excellence.
This is one of the smaller Cambridge colleges but it has produced more Nobel
prize winners than many of the countries of the world. But for evangelicals,
unless the academically successful accept
Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they are lost. This is a nihilistic view
of academic achievement, as of other human gifts and talents and other
strengths: ultimately, the academic achievement does count for nothing in
God's eyes.
It's very, very likely that the scientific achievement of Charles Darwin,
who was a member of Christ's College, and, of course, one of the greatest of
scientists, will mean far less to the chaplain than the 'all-important' fact that
Darwin lost his Christian faith - God penalizes the honest search for truth
if the search ends in loss of faith, not faith in Christ the 'redeemer.'
From Darwin's autobiography:
'Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, & I remember
being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves
orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point
of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused
them. But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament
from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel,
rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the
feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred
books of the Hindoos ...
And this:
'By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to
make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is
supported, — that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more
incredible, do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant
and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels
cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, – that
they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me
to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitness; – by such
reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value,
but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as
a divine revelation.'
It's very, very likely that Charles Darwin's condemnation of
slavery will mean nothing to Michael Dormandy - after all, this is an issue
unrelated to redemption by belief in Christ. See also the section on
slavery, For
God so loved the world ... in my page on the 'Church of England.'
In the 'The Voyage of the Beagle,' 'Mauritius
to England,' Darwin describes the effect of witnessing some of the horrors
of slavery. The account was written at a time when he still had belief in
God:
'On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of
Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country ... Near Rio
de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the
fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young
household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted
enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy,
six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could
interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not
quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's
eye.
...
'picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over
you, of your wife and your little children ... being torn from you and sold
like beasts to the highest bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by
men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God,
and pray that his Will be done on earth!'
Christ's College claims to be a 'vibrant community.'
Its not so vibrant Chaplain, the industrious Michael Dormandy, has published a secondary school Latin textbook and a
critical edition, with translation and commentary, of a letter, the Epistola Fundamentalis by
the
seventeenth century Roman Catholic priest, Bartholomaeus Holzhauser.
Bartholomaeus Holzhauser is, of course, the celebrated interpreter of the
Book of the Apocolypse. According to his interpretation, the 7 stars and the
7 candlesticks which were 'seen' by St John signify 7 periods in Church
history. To these periods correspond the 7 churches of Asia Minor, the 7
days of creation, according to Genesis, the 7 ages before Christ and the 7
gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Michael Dormandy has also been working on 'scribal
habits in the Greek majuscule pandects.'
He's a member of the Faculty of Divinity. The Faculty's site gives further
information about the achievements of this figure, including his 'Text-critical
analysis of the book of Revelation in the Codex Alexandrinus.'
'https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/michael-dormandy
The site gives the information that Dr Dirk Jongkind of St Edmund's College
is a collaborator of Michael Dormandy. I've no information as to whether Dr
Jongkind has conservative evangelical views, of the kind which has an
interest, an overwhelmingly important interest, in the destination of the
Master, Fellows, students and staff of St Edmund's - the path to redemption
or damnation. Perhaps he would be able to make clear his view of things.
The case of Michael Dormandy is an instructive one, although there are many
more like him. He shows the stupidity of supposing that a College Chaplain
can minister to the 'spiritual needs' of even the academic and non-academic
staff of a college, the undergraduate and graduate members of a college, who
have an affiliation with the Church of England, let alone the methodists,
baptists, and members of other Christian denominations, or the 'spiritual'
needs which agnostics and atheists are also alleged to have, or the alleged
'spiritual' needs of people who are completely indifferent to the Church of
England, to all religion, and to thinking about any of the issues.
If it reflects to any extent the deep divisions of the Church of England,
the numerically small group of Church of England people in a college is
likely to contain people who would think of themselves as evangelicals,
conservative to a greater or lesser extent, Anglo-Catholics, Anglican
'free-thinkers,' people who have no belief in some or most of the doctrines
which evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics would regard as essential, and
'mainstream' Anglicans, who may well evade the difficult issues raised by
the presence in this 'broad church' of people with views they view with
distaste.
Michael Dormandy can't possibly see to the 'spiritual' needs of the
non-evangelical Anglicans. He can only see to the 'spiritual' needs of a
minority within a minority. He has his futile scholarship to keep him busy,
to his own satisfaction, not so chaplains without this solace.
See also the section
The C of E, a
broad, divided church: time to leave on my page on the Church of
England.
Christs: Dr Jill Duff, Bishop of
Lancaster
Jill Duff's has outstanding academic ability. She studied
Natural Sciences at
Christ's College. She then studied chemistry at
Worcester College, Oxford, completing her Doctor of Philosophy
(DPhil) degree with a
thesis, 'Investigations of redox-coupled proton transfer by iron-sulphur
cluster systems in proteins'. Her early career was spent working in the
oil industry.
There's a much longer section than this where I criticize her Christian
views, in my page on Christianity and
the Church of England.
Clare College: Dr Mark Smith and tactless questions
Provides a historical and
theological analysis of the major church councils of the
mid-fifth century, from the Council of Ephesus (431) to
the Council of Chalcedon (451)
Analyses in detail how appeals
to the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea
(325), functioned to help, and to hinder, the
articulation of doctrinal truth
Offers a fresh account of the
shaping of orthodoxy in the early church, and the role
of councils and creeds in that process.
The Clare College Website, unlike so many Cambridge College
Websites, gives very little detail about the pastoral responsibilities of
the Dean. From the page 'Health and Welfare:'
'Rev'd Dr Mark Smith is responsible for the running of the
Chapel and has a general pastoral role in the College.' For more on the
pastoral care provided by Cambridge clergy, see my section
Pastoral care: the College
Chaplains and Deans.
Questions for Dr Smith. You're obviously very interested in Christian
orthodoxy, the construal of Christian orthodoxy, the shaping of Christian
orthodoxy, the role of councils and creeds in the shaping of Christian
orthodoxy. Could your own Christian beliefs by described as orthodox? If
they aren't it does seem curious that you devote so much of your time to
study of orthodoxy. If your Christian beliefs could be described as
orthodox, then no doubt you believe in hell as well as heaven, and hell for
the fellow academics you mix with at Clare - the ones who never go on to
acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, that is, not the
academics over at the Faculty of Divinity.
The Master of Christ's College says
that you provided 'very effective pastoral support to the entire College.'
If you have orthodox Christian beliefs, as is likely, is your view of the
'entire College' the orthodox Christian view - some of the College will be
placed on Christ's right hand and some on his left: salvation and damnation.
I appreciate that these direct questions may seem rather tactless.
Jesus College: the Reverend Paul Dominiak
See also the section Pastoral
care: the College Chaplains and Deans.
Paul Dominiak is Dean of Chapel at Jesus.
'About the Chapel' on the Jesus Colloge Website
The Divinity Faculty Website lists Paul Dominiak's
research interests as 'natural law, metaphysics, scholasticism,
Thomism, Reformed Orthodoxy, Anglicanism.'
The page of Jesus College Website 'About the Chapel'
gives the information that he 'specialises in Philosophical and
Historical Theology, in particular the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the
Elizabethan theologian Richard Hooker.'
It also maintains that ''The Dean of Chapel is
responsible for the worshipping life of the Chapel and for the pastoral care
of all members of the College community, whatever their faith or beliefs.'
St John's College: the Reverend Canon
Mark Oakley and Rilke
See also the section Pastoral
care: the College Chaplains and Deans.
It's difficult to to do even partial justice (the most common form of justice by far)
to this likeable/impressive/accomplished/predictable/reckless/flawed-but-not-in-the-least-disastrously-flawed/
writer/believer/establishment
figure, the author of such varied works as
The sermon preached on the Third Sunday of Lent (28 February 2016 ) at St
Paul's Cathedral
and
'The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry,' both discussed below. Dr Oakley
is the Dean of St John's College.
The King's College choir is far more prominent than the choir of St
John's College but very many people with an interest in choral singing -
they include me - appreciate the superlative standards of the St John's
choir, and the 'difference' in their sound.
Mark Oakley is 'Patron of Tell MAMA (supporting those affected by anti-Muslim hate
crime)' This is his account of Muslim religion in 'Splash.' He mentions, and moves on,
very quickly:
'As regards the Qu'ran (610 - 632 CE) God is the poet and speaker of the
entire text.' A closer look at the entire text of the Qu'ran would reveal
difficulties such as the ones cited in the section
The Jordan Peterson case, and a
brief summary ...
Before that, he claimed that 'Christian faith ... teaches that in Christ we
have a body-language of God, an expression of God that reveals the nature of
who God is.' This is the clumsy language which is very common in Anglican
apologetics but not very common in his fluent writing. It's followed by this, 'The doctrine of the Church has developed so
we understand God as Trinity.'
I'd stress that the Muslim view of God and the Christian view of God are incompatible.
Muslims don't accept that Jesus was the Son of God. Muslims don't accept the
doctrine of the Trinity.
But the author has a developed sense of spirituality which allows him to
avoid this difficulty, and others. He writes of 'the push beyond the
literal into the heart of spiritual realities. The 'literal' here is
inclusive. It seems to refer to literal interpretations of the Bible, the
belief in the literal truth of everything in the Bible, and the concrete
facts of our world.
The sermon preached on the Third Sunday of Lent (28 February 2016 )
at St Paul's Cathedral by Revd
Canon Mark Oakley, Chancellor
https://www.stpauls.co.uk/worship-music/worship/read-sermons/sermon-preached-on-the-third-sunday-of-lent-28-february-2016-by-revd-canon-mark-oakley-chancellor
is a hagiographical account of an outstanding man, Desmand Tutu, who is
surely right about so many things and surely mistaken, very badly mistaken,
about a few others.
In the sermon Mark Oakley says 'He is outspoken about
Israel/Palestine.' Desmond Tutu's view of the Palestinians as the oppressed
and the Israelis as the oppressors is grossly mistaken, his view of
Israeli-Palestinian relations is grotesquely mistaken. Mark Oakley
claims, correctly, that Desmond Tutu 'has taken a lead for LGBT people.'
What Desmond Tutu hasn't done is to take into account the fact that
homosexual/gay relations are fully legal in Israel, that LGBT issues are
freely discussed and freely promoted in Israel. In Gaza, homosexual/gay
relations are illegal. I discuss the issues at length in my page
Israel, Islamism and Palestinian ideology.
Desmond Tutu describes Israel as 'an apartheid state.' Richard Goldstone is
the author of the often-cited Goldstone Report, which was critical of
Israel. What is less often mentioned is the fact that Richard Goldstone
modified his views substantially. I provide an account in
the section on the protestor Owen
Holland on this page. An extract, quoting from Richard Goldstone:
'One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again
is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on
Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell
Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty
of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is
going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose
harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke
the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate
slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace
negotiations.
...
'In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies,
which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is
important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where
Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli
control in the absence of a peace agreement.
'In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the
definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ...
committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic
oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial
group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that
regime.”Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have
political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy
positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie
alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical
treatment.
...
'The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is
no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic
oppression and domination by one racial group.” ... until there is a
two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under
threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see
roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as
Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are
met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and
counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of
“apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to
clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing
Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an
“apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such
images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous
to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to
stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great
hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in
many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road
restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are
ameliorated when the threat is reduced.'
...
'Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified
to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and
suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a
state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its
existence ... '
Mathematics textbooks, instead of giving a proof or some other valuable
material sometimes leave it 'as an exercise to the reader' to supply it.
Any readers who are familiar with Mark Oakley's
writings could identify the aspects of the passages below which have
linkages with his writing (or the world of liberal Anglicanism) and aspects where there's contrast.
Mathematics textbooks often give hints as to the solution of a problem.
I do provide a few hints - although this exercise obviously has nothing
to do with certainty.
From my page on
Nietzsche:
'I think that Nietzsche
often remained in what I call the word-sphere. Of course, the word-sphere is
the natural home of imaginative writers. This isn't a pejorative use of the
phrase. 'Word-sphere' in the pejorative sense reflects a sense of reality
which is surely defective. Often, reality is difficult, intractable,
sometimes impossible to deal with. It's far easier to arrange words so that
an aspiration is put forward as reality. 'Declaring' a thing to be so is
mistakenly thought to be the same as the reality. Sometimes, words become a
substitute for action - this is an instance of {substitution}. The
word-sphere is amongst other things the world of facile claims, ringing
declarations, hollow confidence-building assertions ...' [Or the facile
claims, ringing declarations, hollow confidence-building assertions in the
world of liberal Anglicanism.]
From my page on Rilke
and Kafka:
'These two literary artists,
linked by background, as members of the German-speaking minority amongst
the Czech-speaking majority of Prague, are at very different levels of
accomplishment.
'[Rilke] brings to all the topics he writes about a depth, an urge
to create profundity. He brings his profundity to bear on events which call
for protest, opposition, a struggle against. He creates genuine profundity but
far more often deluded profundity, just as the subconscious of the artist for some reason
brings to the surface so often dross as well as artistically important material,
which requires the conscious mind to sift and distinguish. Rilke failed to
sift and distinguish sufficiently. In practice, he ignored and was ignorant
of many things, matters of vital importance (I write in the hope that here,
I can restore to the word 'vital' some of the force of 'vita,' 'life.')
'He obviously knew that the First World War was recalcitrant
and discordant (although he lacked the awareness of suffering to know just how
discordant) and couldn't be brought into his world of acceptance, so although
he lived through the conflict, he ignored it.
'Rilke has surface profundity and very often not much more
than that. [I think that Mark Oakley has 'surface profundity' and authentic
profundity - I can't stop to explain, and explain the difficulties of,
'authentic' profundity.] Now, more than ever, denial of {restriction} is the
source of endless illusion and disillusionment. Very many people are unable
to acknowledge harshness, unable to recognize {restriction} on their
freedom of action, expect no {restriction} on their happiness. They have
'extravagant expectations' (the title of the book by Paul Hollander.)
Rilke's denial of checks, frustrations, obstacles, harshness, undermines so
much of his poetic work. [Mark Oakley has unexpected linkages with
evangelical fundamentalists, although the contrasts are far more marked. Dr Oakley and the evangelicals share the same assurance
- an assurance that is far more complacent in the case of the evangelicals - that
difficulties for their views aren't real difficulties. The contradictions in
the synoptic gospel accounts, the difficulty that the manuscripts are so
much later than the historical events leave evangelicals unconcerned. Dr
Oakley's confidence that the loving purposes of God are so obviously on
display seems, from what I can gather, tenacious or even unshakeable - although I'd hope that
some of the difficulties I document in my page on
Christian religion aren't at all easy
to overlook or evade. Dr Oakley may have far less confidence in the Biblical account
than the evangelicals, but his confidence is still too great, I think. In
'Splashes,' he states that Jesus 'was a verbal artist.' Given the fact that
Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the gospel accounts are in Greek and never quote
the Aramaic and aren't reliable guides to literary style - compare the
massive differences in the way Jesus speaks (allegedly) in the Synoptic
Gospels and in the Gospel according to John - then Dr Oakley is reckless here.] Rilke's sustained exploration of inwardness is undeniably impressive, but
is insufficient compensation for the emphasis on the disembodied life, his
neglect of the embodied life. His emphasis on inwardness has a linkage with his neglect of the embodied life. In his case, the {restriction} he denied was not on anything so
commonplace and important as happiness, but on something much rarer. It's
expressed in one of his statements of 'surface profundity:' “If your
daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that
you are not poet enough to call forth its riches ...' (Letters to a Young
Poet.)
'This may have been good advice in the case of this poet and his
plight, but it would be hideous advice for many others - for millions of
others.
'The daily life of the Jews starving in the Warsaw
ghetto or in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp must have seemed poor, but
they had no reason to blame themselves for not being poets enough to call
forth its riches. At Treblinka extermination camp, the unspeakable sadist
Gustav Wagner decided to shoot a woman and her baby. He shot her baby first
and after the mother had witnessed the act, he shot her.
Rilke was writing before such events as these, but the
horrors of the Second World War, like the horrors of the First World War,
would surely have left him unmoved. When he was writing, acute poverty and
destitution were commonplace. Many, many writers have ignored acute poverty
and destitution, whilst retaining an ability to recognize the harshness in
reality, but Rilke's ignorance of harshness, his inability to recognize
{restriction}, makes any claim for him to be a serious writer impossible to
take seriously. Rilke is very widely regarded as a serious writer but I
think that this misconception will be undermined by the evidence I provide,
at some length, even if the misconception is an understandable one.
'{restriction} is central to Kafka. In 'The
Trial,' Joseph K.'s freedom of action is progressively restricted, in 'The
Castle,' K. faces insuperable difficulties in reaching the castle. Although
Kafka lived before the Nazi horrors (during which his three sisters were
gassed at Auschwitz), his writing anticipated a world in which people faced
insuperable difficulties in avoiding gassing in an extermination camp. Kafka's employment at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute
surely helped to form his clear-sighted view of the world. It involved the
investigation of accidents to industrial workers, such as falls from a
height and loss of limbs.' [Dr Oakley could try reflecting on these
accidents, or on industrial
lung diseases, despite the fact that traditionally, the practice of
reflection has been on matters far removed from these. It was impossible to protect workers from the
particles in the air in coal mines and factories where metals were ground
using grindstones, until, as a result of technical advances, working
conditions were made safe. His
theology, like the theology of the conservative evangelicals, is
vulnerable, although not to anything like the same extent.
As for my claim that he's an
'establishment figure' (to some extent, in part) first the evidence: he's 'a
Deputy Priest in Ordinary to HM the Queen.' Then my claim that it's
unimportant. A very few, disparate matters which have a bearing on the
issue, I think.
On my shelves, I have a superb book on
gardening, 'The Garden Planner.' (Like many, many superb books, it's out of
print.) The Consultant Editor of the book is Ashley Stephenson, at the time
of publication the Gardener Royal.
George Orwell, writing in 'Partisan
Review' of Spring 1944, not long before 'Operation Overlord,' the D-day
landings:
‘The function of the King in promoting stability and
acting as a sort of keystone in a non-democratic society is, of course,
obvious. But he also has, or can have, the function of acting as an
escape-valve for dangerous emotions. A French journalist said to me once
that the monarchy was one of the things that have saved Britain from
Fascism. What he meant was that modern people can’t, apparently, get along
without drums, flags and loyalty parades, and that it is better that they
should tie their leader-worship onto some figure who has no real power. In a
dictatorship the power and the glory belong to the same person ... . On the
whole the European countries which have most successfully avoided Fascism
have been constitutional monarchies. The conditions seemingly are that the
Royal Family shall be long-established and taken for granted, shall
understand its own position and shall not produce strong characters with
political ambitions. These have been fulfilled in Britain, the Low Countries
and Scandinavia, but not in, say, Spain or Rumania. If you point these facts
out to the average left-winger he gets very angry, but only because he has
not examined the nature of his own feelings towards Stalin.'
Support for the monarchy, or good-natured
tolerance of the monarchy, doesn't necessarily have to include support for
all the trappings of monarchy. I think that in this film, where the images
accompany a performance of Handel's Coronation Anthem No. 1, 'Zadok the
Priest,' some of the trappings are excessive, over the top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW9Uudkx42g
Good taste and bad taste aren't fashionable
concerns now, at least in some quarters but there should be a place for
these concerns.
Emmanuel College:
Dean Jeremy Caddick is innocent
'Innocent' is a word with striking contrasts of
meaning, reflected in the discussion here.
First meaning of 'innocent:' 'blameless'
Jeremy Caddick is best known, in the wider world
beyond Cambridge, for his decision to include a photograph of the main gate
at Auschwitz on a pamphlet. I think that Jeremy Caddick was blameless. He
had very good reasons to do what he did and the uproar was ridiculous. The
reasoning which lay behind the sermon he went on to give in the Chapel is a
different matter. It doesn't justify a protest, far from it, but it
does illustrate some of the distortions of a Christian perspective on
events. I think that the objections concern very important principles.
Putting "Jeremy Caddick" "Emmanuel College"
Auschwitz into Google currently gives a first page which includes these
results:
Why did a Cambridge University college put a picture
of Auschwitz on ...
Cambridge college apologises for
'welcome service' pamphlet ...
Emmanuel College forced to apologise
over 'sick Nazi joke' on student ...
Cambridge college apologizes for Auschwitz Nazi
death camp image ...
New Cambridge students shocked at Auschwitz
picture on welcome ...
Emmanuel College uses photo of Auschwitz on
leaflet welcoming ...
"There are a lot of very upset students": Outrage
after Cambridge ...
This is one of the shorter, less
hysterical accounts
https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/emmanuel-college-apologises-for-auschwitz-image-on-pamphlet/
'Emmanuel College have apologised after leaflets
distributed at the college bore the image of Auschwitz among others.
The picture shows the gates with the famous slogan “arbeit
macht frei” meaning ‘work brings freedom’.
The college Dean, Rev Jeremy Caddick initially
defended the pamphlet saying it was a reflection of the college choirs
recent visit to Auschwitz and they had wanted to show an image representing
evil.
Later the college apologised acknowledging that
without context the pamphlet could upset people.
The welcome service
was held on 5th October where the college Dean delivered a sermon
highlighting the evil in the world.
Some students had thought the image could be a
joke about how hard they would have to work to earn their degrees.'
In another account
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/650429/Emmanuel-College-Cambridge-Auschwitz-Nazi-death-gate-joke-Rev-Jeremy-Caddick
the 'joke' takes a different form. A
'second-year student at the college said,
'I have no idea at all what the possible aim of this is, or whether it’s
some kind of joke about entering university life.' It also provides the
'apology' provided by a spokeswoman at Emmanuel:
'We understand that without context this image may
upset people and we apologise for its use in a way that has caused
distress.'
A much more robust defence of Jeremy Caddick was in
order. Andrew James Brown, a Unitarian Minister in Cambridge, provided a
robust and heartening defence, published on the site of the unitarian church
https://www.cambridgeunitarian.org/reflection/blog#!/post/8505283765654322742
and his own blog
http://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2017/12/context-is-everythingsomething.html
Extracts:
' ... important complex and controversial
reflections about important complex and controversial issues (which alone
allow for both genuine mistakes to be made, genuine gains in knowledge to
occur and genuine forgiveness and understanding to develop) are increasing
difficult to have because they are constantly being threatened and sometimes
utterly derailed ...
'Well, a good friend and colleague of mine
experienced just such a deliberately destructive attack only a few weeks ago
at the start of term here in Cambridge. The Dean of Emmanuel College, Jeremy
Caddick, wanted in both his sermon and in the liturgy of the eucharist
to offer those attending the Welcome Service a set of reflections on a trip
he and the college choir had made earlier in the year to the concentration
camp in Auschwitz.
'Jeremy chose to put on the cover of the order of
service a picture of Auschwitz’s gates [image provided in the original
account - I've used a
different image of the same gate to be certain that any copyright
restrictions are observed]
and the point of doing this was, as he said, to
place before those present “an iconic image of evil” — an evil to which the
whole service was designed to be a powerful, healing, creatively restorative
and transformative response. In the presence of this challenging visual
image Jeremy pointed in his sermon to the example of the Polish priest
Maximilian Kolbe who was himself imprisoned at Auschwitz. In July 1941 three
prisoners disappeared from the camp and this prompted the deputy camp
commander to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in
order to discourage any further escape attempts. When one of the selected
men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!”, Kolbe, with
selfless bravery, volunteered to take his place alongside the other nine and
so lost his own life. It is remarkable to note that Gajowniczek survived the
horror and was present at Kolbe’s canonization in Rome on 10 October 1982.'
2nd meaning of 'innocent' (followed by 'of'): 'free of.'
Example 1
Jeremy Caddick isn't innocent of some significant
omissions which concern Maximilian Kolbe but the flaws are outweighed by the
good.
Sermons may amount to propaganda pure and simple,
they may involve gross omissions, distortions, mistakes of fact - and
concealment by incompetence or ignorance or design of the context. These
criticisms can't be applied to the sermon of Jeremy Caddick. Sermons aren't
well suited to arriving at the truth but there are limits to the detail
which can be included, of course. Selectivity is unavoidable.
He may well be aware of some flaws in the record of
Maximilian Kolbe before he came to Auschwitz. If he isn't aware of them, he
should be. I'd expect the writing of a sermon on the subject to include
research as well as reflection. In this case, as so often, some of the flaws
are alleged flaws, denied, with evidence, by some, defended, with evidence,
by others. All the flaws, alleged or more or less indisputable, even the
more serious of the flaws, are outweighed by some of Maximilian
Kolbe's actions before he came to Auschwitz and above all by his actions at
Auschwitz.
I myself have to simplify, drastically simplify, the
discussion here. A more adequate discussion would be prohibitively long.
He claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary
when he was 12 years old. In 1917, he founded the 'Militia Immaculatae'
(Army of the Immaculate One), to work for conversion of sinners and enemies
of the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the
intercession of the Virgin Mary.
In 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan
monastery at Niepkalanow near Warsaw. he and other friars provided
shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he
hid from German persecution in the Niepokalanów friary February 1941, the
monastery was shut down by the German authorities. That day Kolbe and four
others were arrested b and imprisoned . On 28 May, he was transferred to
Auschwitz.
At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from
the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved
to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts.
Kolbe has been accused of antisemitism. In 1926, in
the first issue of the monthly Knight of the Immaculate, Father Kolbe said
he considered Freemasons as an organized clique of fanatical Jews, who
want to destroy the church. Writing in a calendar that the publishing
house of his organization, the Militia of the Immaculate, published in an
edition of a million in 1939, Father Kolbe said: "Atheistic Communism
seems to rage ever more wildly. Its origin can easily be located in that
criminal mafia that calls itself Freemasonry, and the hand that is guiding
all that toward a clear goal is international Zionism. Which should not be
taken to mean that even among Jews one cannot find good people."
Newspapers he published printed articles about topics such as a Zionist plot
for world domination. A Slovenian sociologist criticized Kolbe's
activities as 'writing and organizing mass propaganda for the Catholic
Church, with a clear anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic edge.' However, a number
of writers pointed out that the 'Jewish question played a very minor role in
Kolbe's thought and work.'
Recognition of complexities, fair-minded discussion
of awkward facts and inconvenient evidence are amongst the duties of
scholarship. At Cambridge, as elsewhere, there's often not the least attempt
to be fair-minded. At Cambridge, as elsewhere, ideological scholarship,
pseudo-scholarship can be found, disguised by the apparatus of scholarship.
A sermon isn't a suitable means of bringing out these complexities and
difficulties, obviously. The kind of 'research' and 'scholarship' pursued in
the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity doesn't engage with complexities and
difficulties, where wider realities are concerned and not the narrower
issues raised by patrology, ecclesiastical history and the rest.
It's understandable that Jeremy Caddick chose a
Christian priest to illustrate his sermon on Auschwitz. Maximilian Kolbe's
sacrifice has tremendous impact. On my own visit to Auschwitz, I saw the
place where he sacrificed his life.
I would only point out that to emphasize the
sacrifice of a Christian priest is understandable in a sermon but that this
illustrates the limitations of sermons, the limitations of Christian
comment.
My page on Christian religion gives objections
to the Church of
England's dominant role in Remembrance Sunday commemorations.
I've never attended a Church service on Remembrance Sunday. If, in sermons
preached on Remembrance Sunday, the impression were to be given that
the sacrifices made by Christian members of the armed forces are by far the
most important, that Nazi Germany was defeated by Christian forces, then
this would obviously amount to gross distortion. The armed forces which
defeated Nazi Germany included Christians, agnostics, atheists, Jews,
Hindus, Moslems and others - which is a main reason for objecting to the
fact that on Remembrance Sunday, commemorations more often than not take the
form of a Church of England service.
But obviously, a very wide range of heroic
individuals opposed Nazi brutality by means other than armed struggle. When
Christians select Christians as inspiring examples, it's essential that they
should be aware of the sacrifices of people without Christian belief.
Martin Gilbert's magnificent book 'The Righteous'
documents the sacrifices made by these people - the Christians, agnostics,
atheists, Jews, Hindus, Moslems and others who saved Jews, so often
sacrificing their lives. The Chapter 'Poland: the General Government'
includes this:
'The memorial at Belzec death camp commemorates not
only six hundred thousand Jews but also fifteen hundred Poles 'who tried to
save Jews.' In as many as a thousand locations, often small, insignificant
places on the map through which today's tourist drives quickly, almost
without noticing them, someone, some family, was willing to risk their
life.' 'Documentation' is a poor word to describe the richness of the book,
the wealth of examples of human goodness, but the book also documents the
widespread indifference to be found in the countries occupied by the Nazis,
the barbaric behaviour of too many non-Germans.
Another magnificent book, John Bierman's 'Righteous
Gentile,' documents the story of the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg.
Yad Vashem, on the outskirts of Jerusalem,
commemrates the sacrifices made by non-Jews, people who risked their
lives or gave their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Raul
Wallenberg saved large numbers of Jews in Hungary. After the war, he was the
victim of the paranoid Stalinist system and disappeared into the gulags.
'Attorney Gideon Hausner, chairman of Yad Vashem and
the man who prosecuted Adolf Eichmann, expresses the special significance of
Raoul Wallenberg:
' 'Here is a man who had the choice of remaining in
secure, neutral Sweden when Nazism was ruling Europe. Instead, he left this
haven and went to what was then one of the most perilous places in Europe,
Hundary. And for what? To save Jews.
'He won his battle, and I feel that in thisage when
there is so little to believe in - so very little on which our young people
can pin their hopes and ideals - he is a person to show to the wold, which
knows so little about him. That is why I believe the story of Raoul
Wallenberg should be told and his figure, in all its true proportions,
projected into human minds.' Dr Hausner 'credits Wallenberg with
having saved the lives of thirty thousand Jews in Budapest. He may
underestimate. Some competent and guarded witnesses put the number who,
directly or indirectly, owe their lives to Wallenberg at up to a hundred
thousand. But whether it be thirty thousand, a hundred thousand, or
somewhere in between, Wallenberg must surely rank as the outstanding unsung
hero of World War II ...'
'As he advance guard of Marshal Rodion Malinovski's
army battered its way into the eastern and southern outer suburbs of
Budapest against stern Nazi resistancce, conditions for the capital's
inhabitants became desperate.'
...
' ... Wallenberg was a legend among the Jews. In the
complete and total hell in which we lived, there was a saviour-angel
somewhere, moving around. After she had composed herself, my mother told me
that they were being taken to the river when a car arrived and out stepped
Wallenberg - and they knew immediately who it was, because there was only
one such person in the world. He went up to the Arrow Cross leader and
protested that the women were under his protection. They argued with him,
but he must have had incredible charisma, some great personal authority,
because there was absolutely nothing behind him, nothing to back him up. He
stood out there in the street, probably feeling the loneliest man in the
world, trying to pretend there was something behind him. They could have
shot him there and then in the street and nobody would have known about it.
Instead they relented and let the women go.'
The Arrow Cross were the Hungarian Fascist
accomplices of the Nazis. This is the significance of 'they were being taken
to the river:'
Some of the Jews 'were horribly tortured before
being dragged down to the Danube and shot so that their bodies would be
carried away by the river.
'The standard Arrow Cross method for such executions
was to handcuff the Jews together in threes, strip them naked, line them up
facing the river, then shoot the middle of the three in the back of the
head. He would drag the other two with him when he fell forward into the
river. The Arrow Cross men would then amuse themselves by taking pot-shots
at the desperately bobbing heads of the two survivors ... The local party
headquarters would vie with each other in savagery; one party house was
especially notorious for its practice of burning out the eyes of its victims
with red-hot nails before taking them for execution.
'A particularly active "Death Brigade" was commanded
by a Minorite monk named Father Andras Kun. When he led his band of gunmen
through the streets he wore the cowl and cassock of his order, with a rope
and a gunbelt at his waist, and sported a death's-head arm-band. He was
personally credited with at least five hundred murders. In one night alone,
he and his men slaughtered two hundred Jews, invoking the name of the
Saviour as they did so. At Father Kun's trial before a People's Court after
the liberation, a witness described how, in conducting a mass execution of
staff and patients at a Jewish hospital in Buda, Kun had lined up his
victims in front of a mass grave and gave the firing-squad the order "In the
holy name of Jesus Christ, fire!"
The sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe is to the credit
of the Christian Churches, there are many others - but the Christian
Churches, or some of the Christian Churches - have reason for shame. The
catalogue of Christian persecutions of Jews is dismal and long. To give just
one:
When the Black Death devastated Europe in the middle
of the 14th century, Jews were often accused of being the cause. Jews were
accused of poisoning the wells. In Strasbourg, before the plague had even
reached the city, 900 Jews were burned alive.
3rd meaning of 'innocent:' naive
Jeremy Caddick has been a candidate for the Green
Party in Cambridge local elections. I've a page
Green ideology:
disadvantages and deficiencies which outlines my objections to
green ideology. It includes criticism of the Green Party. It also includes
information about my own practice, which I describe as 'green purist.' I
resist any suggestion that someone with green concerns should support the
Green Party, or the distorted reasoning put forward by so many green
advocates. Here, I only mention one aspect: the Green Party's disastrously
misguided attitude to armed conflict.
Here, the Roman Catholic Church has views which are
very much superior to the policies of the Green Party.
The just war doctrine of the Catholic Church in the
1992 Catechism lists four conditions for legitimate defence by
military force':
-
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or
community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
-
all other means of putting an end to it must have been
shown to be impractical or ineffective;
-
there must be serious prospects of success;
-
the use of arms must not produce evils and
disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
If, hypothetically, the Green Party had been in
power in this country at the time when the Nazis had invaded one country
after another and went on to invade others, it would not have made a stand
when Poland was invaded but have called for more negotiations, stressing the
need for co-operation, the need to maintain peace. It would have had a
policy of appeasement. Nazi executions, massacres, deportations and genocide
would have reached Great Britain. They would also have reached the Republic
of Ireland. The section 'The Second World War' in my page
Ireland and Nationalist Ideology
gives arguments and evidence.
Poland contains the Białowieża Forest
one of the last-remaining and largest parts of the immense primeval
forest which once extended across the European Plain. Its wildlife includes
many, many bison. Preservation of this wilderness, which isn't pristine but
far nearer to that state than any other in Europe, is of immense importance,
but the Green Party fails to recognize that places such as these are
vulnerable not only to threats such as pollution but threats which arise
from very different causes. After the Nazis invaded, the forest was used for
the execution of partisans.
I intend to add to
my page on Christian
religion a section on bread and wine, a discussion of the sacrament of
holy communion which will be very different from any Christian perspective.
Jeremy Caddick's sermon which discussed Auschwitz also mentioned holy
communion.
Jeremy Caddick is a very accomplished speaker, a
much more impressive persons than so many others to be found acting as
Deans or Chaplains at Cambridge. My disagreements with him are many but I
recognize his qualities. His first degree was in a field which is far more
demanding and far more worthwhile than theology: natural science.
Pastoral care: the
College Chaplains and Deans
My general page on the Church of
England contains general discussion and a concrete proposal, with arguments
and evidence: that the Church of England's present role in Remembrance
Sunday commemorations is indefensible and that the commemorations should
take a non-religious form.
Most of the Colleges have chaplains, ministering to the 'spiritual needs' of
a few hundred students and staff. This provision is grossly excessive.
Chaplains will have their ways of keeping busy, or giving the appearance of
keeping busy, but one of the most common justifications for their role can't
be accepted - the claim that they are there not just to minister to
Anglicans but to minister to people with other religious beliefs and to
provide pastoral care for people with no religious beliefs. People at a
College who belong to another Christian denomination - Methodists,
Congregationalists and the rest - have their reasons for not being Anglicans
and there's no reason why an Anglican Chaplain should be ministering to
them. There's even less reason to suppose that an Anglican can meet the
pastoral needs of non-believers.
This sub-section of the section on
Cambridge Christianity contains general discussion and a concrete proposal,
with arguments and evidence (dispersed, in the profiles of Chaplains and
Deans as well as in the main section) that the extension of their pastoral
care to the whole College community is badly mistaken. Individuals who are
non-believers or members of another Christian denomination or another
religion may choose to call on a Chaplain or Dean for pastoral care but the
College should not endorse it. College Websites should not publicize the
fact.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/27/christian-felix-ngole-thrown-out-sheffield-university-anti-gay-remarks-loses-appeal
'A devout Christian who was thrown off a university
social work course after branding homosexuality a sin on Facebook has lost a
high court battle.
'Felix Ngole, from Barnsley in south Yorkshire, was
removed from a two-year MA course at
Sheffield University in February
last year after writing what the university called “derogatory” comments
about gay and bisexual people.
Ngole, 39, wrote during a debate on Facebook that
“the Bible and God identify homosexuality as a sin”, adding that “same-sex
marriage is a sin whether we like it or not. It is God’s words and man’s
sentiments would not change His words.”
'He claimed that he was lawfully expressing a
traditional Christian view and complained that university bosses unfairly
stopped him completing a postgraduate degree. But after analysing rival
claims at a trial in London this month, the deputy high court judge, Rowena
Collins Rice, ruled against him.
...
' ... lawyers representing the university argued
that he showed “no insight” and said the decision to remove him from the
course was fair and proportionate.
They said Ngole had been studying for a professional
qualification and university bosses had to consider his “fitness to practise”.'
It's overwhelmingly likely that many College
Chaplains or Deans also believe that homesexuality is sinful. Above, I quote
the opinion of Professor John Milbank - not, of course, a Chaplain or Dean,
at Cambridge or another university. He states that he's 'against any idea
that homosexuality can be the subject of equal rights.'
The profiles of College Chaplains and Deans on this
page include people who are heavily influenced by Augustine and Thomas
Aquinas, or Conservative evangelicals. The Augustinian view, the Thomist
view, the Conservative evangelical view, is that homosexuality is sinful.
Many, many Christians who aren't Anglo-Catholic or evangelical believe that
homosexuality is sinful.
Women have been ordained in the Church of England
for a long time and of course, many of the College Chaplains (or Assistant
chaplains) at Cambridge are women. But they belong to a Church where
opposition to the ordination of women is strong. Anglo-Catholics and
Evangelicals are far apart, doctrinally, but many Anglo-Catholics and
Evangelicals have very similar views here.
The Anglo-Catholics who are Thomist are unlikely to
follow the teaching of Thomas Aquinas very consistently, but they express
their admiration for his teaching again and again. One of them is
Dr Andrew Davison of Corpus
Christi College. I quote his words, 'You will hear plenty from me about
Thomas Aquinas in the years to come, as the consummate Christian philosopher
... '
From the page 'What Aquinas really said about
women.' The author, Marie I. George, is a Christian believer and gives far
too sympathetic a view of Thomas Aquinas here, surely.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/12/what-aquinas-really-said-about-women
'In several passages in the Summa Theologiae and
elsewhere, Thomas Aquinas asserts that the inferiority of women lies not
just in bodily strength but in force of intellect. To top this off, he
maintains that feminine intellectual inferiority actually contributes to the
order and beauty of the universe. But he also affirms that in Heaven there
are and will be women who occupy higher places than men. What can we make of
this apparent inconsistency? Is he simply hedging on his seemingly
chauvinistic positions to accommodate Mary, Queen of Heaven? Or do his views
on women make sense only as part of his comprehensive view of the universe?
'To begin to understand his position, we must ask
why Aquinas thinks women intellectually inferior in the first place.
Scripture is likely his first guide. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:10
that “man was not created for the sake of woman, but woman was created for
the sake of man.” This passage echoes Genesis 2:18,19: “It is not good that
the man should be alone. I will give him a helpmate.” Aquinas reasons from
these scriptural passages that when one thing exists for the sake of
another, it is inferior to that other. Other passages indicate more clearly
that the intelligence is the seat of woman’s divinely ordained inferiority.
When in 1 Corinthians 11:3 St. Paul says that “man is the head of woman,”
and in Ephesians 5:22 that “a husband is the head of his wife,” Aquinas
takes it as evident that if men are meant to rule, it can only be by virtue
of intellectual superiority.
'Aquinas’ views on female inferiority were doubtless
influenced as well by Aristotle’s reproductive biology, with its
understanding of the relation between male and female as one of active
(perfect) principle to passive (imperfect) principle. Aristotle saw the
sperm as the formative agent; the mother simply supplied raw material to be
incorporated into the developing child. He also thought the sperm was
directed to producing only male offspring, and that when this did not result
it was because something interfered with the active principle within the
sperm.
Finally, however, Aquinas does not believe it matters very
much whether the particular causes involved in reproduction are to be
regarded as failing or not failing when women are engendered. God desires
that women be part of the universe, and He orders nature in such a way as to
insure that they are produced. (On the question of Aquinas’ biology, see
Michael Nolan, “What
Aquinas Never Said About Women,” FT, November
1998.)
'In addition to the testimony of Scripture and biology,
Aquinas probably took female intellectual inferiority to be plain enough
from experience. He points out, for example, that shysters prey on widows in
preference to men because “men are wiser and more discerning, and not so
quickly taken in.” He encourages widows to turn to prayer in their
desolation, lest woman’s “softness of soul” lead them to pamper themselves,
an occasion of serious sin. He also notes the difficulty women have in
sticking to their decisions, and how quickly they can change their minds out
of desire, anger, or fear.
'Aquinas does not mean, however, that all women or
only women are prone to these vices; he acknowledges that there are women
outstanding in self-control and men who lack it. He also points out that
being less intelligent, and thus less educable, can sometimes prove
advantageous from a moral and spiritual point of view. Devoutness is
frequently found more often in women and simple, uneducated men because
their lack of learning makes it easier for them to trust in God
wholeheartedly, rather than in themselves.
'But we cannot fairly address the question of
woman’s intelligence without considering Aquinas’ general views on the
perfection of the universe and on woman’s place in it. Following Aristotle,
Aquinas argues that “perfection” can mean two different things: first, that
a being has all the parts and powers it ought to have; and second, that its
parts and powers are greater than those of another being. A plant that has
all the attributes and abilities it ought to have (e.g., to grow, to
reproduce) is a perfect plant, but compared to a dog, which not only grows
and reproduces but also sees and moves about, it is a less perfect being. In
the same way, the general intellectual inferiority of women does not make
them defective or inferior simply speaking, but only in the particular
natural order, in comparison to most males and to beings with a more perfect
nature—namely, the angels.
Far from denigrating women because of their
intellectual imperfection, Aquinas sees it—and all imperfection—as an
instance of divine wisdom:
'God, through His providence, orders all things to
divine goodness as to an end; not however in such a manner that His
goodness increases through those things which come to be, but so that a
likeness of His goodness is imprinted in things insofar as it is
possible, for indeed it is necessary that every created substance fall
short of divine goodness, so that in order for divine goodness to be
communicated to things more perfectly, it was necessary for there to be
diversity in things, so that what is not able to be perfectly
represented by some one [thing] is represented in a more perfect manner
through diverse things in diverse ways. (Summa
Contra Gentiles, III, 97) '
From the Website of AMOSSHE, 'The Student Services
Onganisation,'
'In essence, a university has a general duty of
care at common law: to deliver its educational and pastoral services to
the standard of the ordinarily competent institution, and, in carrying
out its services and functions, to act reasonably to protect the health,
safety and welfare of its students. Generally, as a minimum a university
should offer a basic welfare service to students to provide confidential
guidance and support on health and disability as it may affect their
academic studies and progression. That basic service should include some
form of effective triage system by which the university can identify
those cases in which it is able to provide appropriate assistance
itself, and those in which it needs to direct / refer students to
external specialist and/or emergency support services.
'Institutions also have a duty under the Health
and Safety at Work Act 1974 to do everything reasonably practicable to
ensure the health and safety of their students.
'In order to assist it to discharge its duty of
care, a university needs to ensure that it has in place effective
and robust systems, policies and procedures for supporting and managing
students, and that training and awareness-raising is provided for staff.
'The group agreed that there is a balance
between what the university should do as a legal minimum and what they
could do based on a university’s perceived moral obligation to look
after and support its students. These days reputation more often plays a
part in university decisions regarding recruitment and retention of
students, and the potential negative publicity associated with high
profile student incidents - where it could be alleged that a university
should have provided greater support - may influence the services a
university chooses to provide. As student retention is an important
target for most universities, there may be an expectation that directors
of Student Services ensure students continue on their course until all
avenues of support are exhausted.
'Robust systems, a good clear audit trail
and consistent staff training is essential to help the university comply
with its legal obligations and to assist it to demonstrate compliance if
a case was brought against them by a student and/or their trusted
contact.'
Pastoral care involves an awareness of dilemmas and difficulties which are
very wide-ranging. Problems to do with an addiction are more likely than not
to be well beyond the experience of a chaplain. The background of many
chaplains, or most chaplains, doesn't equip them in the least to understand
these problems or to offer help. Their background tends to be predominantly
scholarly.
The difficulties of giving advice, whether the matter is relatively
minor or not in the least minor. Recommended to Cambridge college
chaplains who are trying to promote their pastoral skills, their willingness
to help all members of the College, including non-believers:
This is the French philosopher Sartre, writing in 1946, on a dilemma and the
difficulties of coming to a decision, the difficulties of thinking about a
dilemma and some ways of thinking about a dilemma, Christian and
non-Christian. I've divided the passage into shorter paragraphs.
'... I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who
sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling
with his mother and was also inclined to be a “collaborator”; his elder
brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man,
with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him.
'His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by
the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her
one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the
choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying
near his mother and helping her to live.
'He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and
that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would plunge her into
despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he
performed on his mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of
aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would
be an ambiguous action which might vanish like water into sand and serve no
purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait
indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in
England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms.
'Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very
different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards
only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely
greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and
it might be frustrated on the way.
'At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of
morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion
and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable
validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose?
Could the Christian doctrine?
'No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so
forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly
love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general
one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of
helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a
priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture.
'The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means,
but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be
regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in
danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the
converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be
treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If
values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the
particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust
in our instincts.
'That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw
him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which
it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love
my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be
avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If,
on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.”
'But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The
value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact
that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough
to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that
unless I have done it. I may say, “I love my mother enough to remain with
her,” if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength
of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and
ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I
find myself drawn into a vicious circle.'
The C of E: national decline and
Cambridge flourishing
Above, the Cambridge University Faculty of
Divinity Building. The wings could be interpreted as a reaching out to
people, the centre as drawing people into the building. This building is a
very successful piece of contemporary architecture, I think, but successful
architecture never guarantees the success of the human activities which take
place within the building.
The Church of England is in steep decline, but at
Cambridge, staff and students are shielded from the harsh facts more than in
most places. Here, the
provision for the Church of England is lavish - a Chaplain or Dean for
almost every College! And these Chaplains and Deans need have next to no worries
about criticism of their faith - the celebrated Cambridge rigour isn't very
much
in evidence. This is another Cambridge, a place which is parochial, far too
complacent, a place where
Anglicans can declare their belief in Adam's sin and original sin and
damnation as the punishment for sin, untroubled by scepticism or ridicule, a
Faculty of Divinity housed in a fine contemporary building which shelters
from the world far too many people who would prefer to evade some basic
questions about their faith. This is one such question - Do you believe in
hell for people who don't accept Christ as their Saviour?
Some information to deter people thinking of
ordination. The ones already studying Part 1 Divinity still have the chance
to change their course.
'Roger Harding, Head of Public Attitudes at the
National Centre for Social Research, said: “Our figures show an unrelenting
decline in Church of England and Church of Scotland numbers. This is
especially true for young people where less than 1 in 20 now belong to their
established church. While the figures are starkest among younger people, in
every age group the biggest single group are those identifying with no
religion.
'The most recent British Social
Attitudes survey [7 September 2018] reveals that the number of Brits who identify as Church of
England has more than halved in the last fifteen years.
'Although religious affiliation has dropped across
all age groups, young people are least likely to be religious. 70% of those
aged 18-24 say they have no religion. This is an increase from 56% in 2002.
2% of this group view themselves as Anglicans, down from 9% in 2002.
From:
http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2018/september/church-of-england-numbers-at-record-low/
From the front page of the Sheffield newspaper 'The Star' (March 1,
2019):
'Dwindling congregations and crumbling churches put C of E budgets into
the red.'
Number of clergy will fall from 103 to 75 ... '
The harmlessness of contemporary
Christians
As I explain, the harmlessness here is qualified
(subject to {restriction}) and comparative. Extract from the
introduction to my page on
Christian
religion:
There are still old-fashioned atheists who regard Christianity as the
most harmful force in the world today. In the twentieth century, fascism and Stalinism
and other forms of communism completely eclipsed Christianity as a threat to body and mind.
In the past, Christianity has often threatened mind and body. In the
section on
Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, I
discuss some of the people burned at the stake - by the Church of England
and by Calvin at Geneva - for disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity and
other failures of belief. The Christian churches have become less hideous.
Hume, writing in the 'Treatise concerning Human Understanding: 'Generally
speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only
ridiculous.'
A partial updating of Hume's view: the errors in
religion may be dangerous but the most dangerous errors now come from
non-religious ideologies. In the past, the most dangerous errors have been
Nazism and Communism, and of communist ideologies, particularly Stalinist
communism. The other-worldly aspects of religion, the stress upon ritual or
correct thinking or a holy book, and all the other varied characteristics of
religions, have lessened their capacity for causing harm. The cruelties of
Christianity, such as the Inquisition and the cruelties sometimes carried
out by Islamists, such as amputation of limbs and stoning to death, have
never been on the same scale as the savagery of Nazism and Stalinism, or the atrocities
committed by such regimes as those of Pol Pot in Cambodia.
There are still old-fashioned atheists who overlook the many, many
impressive Christians and followers of other religions. Their assumption
that non-religious people must always be superior to religious people could
be called childish, but I use the word 'unformed.'
In the twenty-first
century, Christianity is negligible as a threat to mind and body whilst the dangers of
Islamism have become obvious, to anyone with any sense, and
{adjustment} is needed to recognize these changing realities. But it isn't
enough to recognize the chief threats, there has to be quantification of the
threats. Even radical, terror-supporting Islamism is obviously far less of a threat to body than
Nazism in the past. Its outrages are horrific but generally localized. No Islamic state or
terrorist organization has perpetrated a fraction of the atrocities
inflicted by Nazi Germany, again, despite the horrific atrocities they have
inflicted, in part because radical Islamism generally seems to
be incompatible with highly developed economies, social organizations and
scientific and technological expertise. When an Islamic state is an
exception to this - Iran is the prime example now - then the potential
threat to the body is very great. If ISIS did have the power and the
resources, then its atrocities would equal those of Nazi Germany.
On this page, I criticize not just
the religious but some of their opponents, such as some humanists
(supporters of groups such as the British Humanist Association.) To see
through some illusions and forms of stupidity is no guarantee that someone
will not be subject to other illusions and forms of stupidity. Illusion
and stupidity aren't evaded too easily. A humanist who can see through the arguments intended to
show that the gospel records are largely reliable, that Jesus rose again,
that prayer works and is worthwhile (although not, nowadays, that praying for good weather works and is worthwhile), may well
be in the grip of delusions more harmful than any of these.
In various places in this site, I argue against pacifism. A Christian
who believes that Jesus rose again may well recognize the harsh realities
that make pacifism unworkable and disastrous in some circumstances, may have
delusions about prayer but recognize that to defeat Nazi Germany or the
Taliban requires practical action. The humanist who airily dismisses the
need for action by force of arms in some circumstances is suffering from a
more severe form of delusion. The believer's common sense and good sense may
be left unaffected by theological illusion but all too often they are badly
affected.
Alumni: how-to-give-to-cambridge and reasons not to
give
'Alumni of
Cambridge Colleges are regularly contacted with a request for donations.
Alumni who disagree with the University's support for political
correctness and restrictions on free expression should refuse.'
The site
https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk has a
page on giving to Cambridge and how to give to Cambridge
https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/how-to-give-to-cambridge
but the whole site is about giving and reasons to give. From the
Cambridge Philanthropy Contacts page:
Contacts in Development and Alumni Relations
We exist to create and support an educated and engaged global
community of advocates, ambassadors and friends. Please get in touch
if you would like advice about gift opportunities.
Contacts in Colleges
With each College uniquely distinctive from the next, the range
of gift opportunities varies from College to College. Please get in
touch with the College with which you are affiliated for details.
This page gives
reasons not to give to Cambridge, and in this section, I outline a few
of them.
My view is that Cambridge mediocrity and stupidity do outweigh Cambridge
excellence in some areas, not so in others. Cambridge mediocrity and
stupidity do provide ample reason not to give to Cambridge in many
cases. Alumni who are aware of the scale of political
correctness at Cambridge University and consider it completely
unworthy of a supposedly 'world class' university should give serious
consideration to withholding donations. Cambridge University should face
financial penalties until it shows sufficient improvement. The financial
losses brought by the decision of alumni and other voluntary donors may
not amount to a massive sum, but they demonstrate an important
principle.
The Cambridge Philanthropy site contains this sweeping, ridiculous claim
on the page
https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/explore-human-cultures
'Cambridge is where the best human minds gather to
study humanity itself. Its art, its culture, its philosophies, its
religions, the language and societies it creates, and destroys.'
The claim that Cambridge is where the best human minds
engaged in the study of humanity do study humanity would be
ridiculous. Obviously, the Cambridge appeal for money site goes much
further. The claim is that Cambridge is where the best human minds,
irrespective of the field of study, gather to study humanity. The best
human minds,' it's claimed, aren't to be found in the study of science,
mathematics, engineering and the rest. Of all human minds, the best of
them are engaged
in the study of humanity and the place where these best-of-all-minds do
that is at Cambridge.
Whatever the field - science, mathematics, engineering,
the study of the humanities and the rest - Cambridge advocates often
give the impression that Cambridge is pre-eminent, or far more than that
- Cambridge is so far ahead of the rest that it's almost advancing knowledge single-handedly.
Of course, almost always, Cambridge is simply advancing
knowledge as one of many.
From the section Emmanuel College:
Professor Catherine Pickstock and 'Radical Orthodoxy' in the column
to the right,
'The Cambridge philanthropy site ... has a comprehensive
view of Cambridge achievement, real and imaginary. It includes not just
Cambridge science and mathematics, for example, where the achievement is
almost entirely real but study of religion at Cambridge, where the balance
is very, very different, tilted firmly in favour of the imaginary.
'Cambridge is where the best human minds gather to
study humanity itself. Its art, its culture, its philosophies, its
religions, the language and societies it creates, and destroys.'
'Of course, in the process of studying religion or
practising religion, people often contribute to other spheres, such as
language. Language is listed as one of the 'Featured priorities' on the same
page:
'Understanding ourselves and the world around us
through language and culture.
'Language is fundamental to humanity's ability to
thrive.'
'At Cambridge, inability to detect inert or debased
or meaningless language and willingness to contribute inert or debased or
meaningless language are common. The biography Professor Pickstock wrote for the
Emmanuel College site includes this, on her book 'Repetition and Identity':
'Repetition and Identity engages with
literature and aesthetic theory to problematize the distinction between
hermeneutics and metaphysics, arguing that the aporias arising from the
necessity of repetition to constitute identity can be resolved
theologically.'
The section in this column
Dr Owen Holland and the English
faculty (one of the sections in 'Cambridge protest and Cambridge
English) gives farcical/disturbing instances of misuse of language.
Cambridge University Press
(CUP)
A
spokeswoman for Cambridge University said, in connection with the withdrawal
of an invitation to Professor Jordan Peterson to become a Visiting Fellow in
the Faculty of Divinity,
'[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and
we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no
place here for anyone who cannot.'
Surely there are some elementary errors here. The passage beginning
[Cambridge] should, of course, read, '
[Cambridge] is a non-inclusive environment and we expect all our staff
and visitors to uphold our prejudices.' There is no place here for
anyone who cannot support political correctness.'
Dr Mark Berry isn't a
member of staff or a visitor to Cambridge University, so perhaps he
isn't bound to honour The Cambridge Principle.
As my profile makes clear, he was educated at Cambridge and has taught
at Cambridge. He's the author of various articles for the Cambridge Wagner
Encyclopaedia and is co-editor, with
Professor Nicholas Vazsonyi, of the forthcoming Cambridge
Companion to Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'. The Cambridge
University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge. Dr Berry has described The Spectator as 'a cesspit of
unabashed Nazism' and referred to Jacob Rees-Mogg as a Nazi. Is this the
kind of language which causes any problems with the Cambridge
represented by the spokeswoman?
In the Roman Catholic Church, an imprimatur is an official
declaration by a Church authority that a book or other printed work may
be published and is usually preceded by a
favourable declaration called a nihil obstat by a person who
has the knowledge, orthodoxy, and prudence necessary for passing a
judgement about the absence from the publication of anything that would
'harm correct faith or good morals.
Perhaps Cambridge University Press could consider adopting the same
system for secular purposes. There are plenty of people at Cambridge
with the knowledge, politically correct orthodoxy and prudence necessary
for passing judgement about the absence from a publication of anything
that would harm correct faith in the doctrines of Political Correctness
and the behaviour which Jordan Peterson obviously lacks in their view.
Or perhaps the system would be superfluous. Cambridge University
Press manages to uphold the principles of Political Correctness
perfectly easily as it is, but of course there's very much more to
Cambridge University Press than its slavish adherence to these
'principles.' By any standards, its achievements outweigh the faults,
very much so.
It's impossible, of course, for any publisher which issues a very
large number of publications each year, over a very wide range, to
ensure that the publications are of a uniformly high standard but
the site has
a page
which reviews one CUP publication The Cambridge University Press
where the faults seem to me to be too many, even if this is far
from being a catastrophically poor publication in almost every way.
Extracts from the page, categorizing some of the very varied faults, as
I see it.
Susan McClary's CUP book
'Carmen: what's missing
See also the section 'San Francisco Opera, Susan
McClary and Carmen on the page
Bullfighting: arguments
against and action against.
Above, a bull about to be stabbed with the descabello. The bull has
already been stabbed two or three times with the lance of the picador,
six times with the banderillas - and with the matador's sword.. The sword which
was intended to kill the bull but failed to kill it is embedded in the bull's back, its handle
easily visible. Often, repeated stabbings with the descabello are
needed.
This is a proto-profile, for the time being: a preliminary look at a book published by
Cambridge University Press (CUP), 'Carmen,' written by Professor Susan McClary, a musicologist not at Cambridge but
Cape Western Reserve University in Ohio. (The site is where the
celebrated Michelsen-Morley experiment was carried out: using
interferometric methods, Michelsen, a physicist, and Morley, a chemist,
measured the speed of light in perpendicular directions, obtaining
results of great importance for the falsification of the aether theory
and also significant in the emergence of special relativity theory.)
I
also include here a brief discussion of Susan McClary's notorious comments on a passage
in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
An extract from the libretto of Act 4 of Bizet's opera
'Carmen.' The libretto is based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée.
ESCAMILLO (à Carmen)
Si tu m'aimes, Carmen, tu pourras, tout à l'heure,
être fière de moi.
CARMEN
Ah ! je t'aime, Escamillo, je t'aime,
et que je meure si j'ai jamais aimé
quelqu'un autant que toi !
TOUS LES DEUX
Ah ! je t'aime !
Oui, je t'aime !
ESCAMILLO
(to Carmen)
If you love me, Carmen soon
you can be proud of me.
CARMEN
Ah! I love you, Escamillo, I love you,
and may I die if I have ever loved
anyone as much as you!
TOGETHER
Ah! I love you!
Yes, I love you!
The bullfighter Escamillo is soon to fight in the
bullring. It's his prowess in the bullring which make Carmen proud of
him. This would be a bullfight taking place long before the horses of
the picadors were given a protective mattress, the peto. How many horses
were killed in each bullfight before the introduction of the peto? Many,
many horses, often as many as forty.
This is film of a bullfight which shows the horrific fate of those
horses - the gorings, the disembowellings, the intestines hanging
down, the dead horses lying in the ring - sights which didn't shock Prosper Mérimée in the least (before
writing Carmen, he wrote approvingly of bullfighting) and which didn't shock
the fictional Carmen in the least, it seems, judging by the love she has for
a man who took part in these spectacles and inflicted such suffering.
A
contemporary film showing similar scenes of disembowelling Before the film can be viewed, it's necessary to sign in.
An extract from the publicity material of Cambridge
University Press on Susan McClary's book Carmen:
"Whatever else it is, Carmen is emphatically
not a story about
fate" ... No critic has attempted to interpret Carmen without sexual
politics ... In this reclamatory project McClary follows Catherine
Clement, who has called Carmen "the image, foreseen and doomed, of a
woman who refuses masculine yokes and who must pay for it with here
life."
As well as this:
'McClary's mission is to rescue her from the
pejorative labels men have attached to her and to make of her a feminist
hero and martyr.' Feminist heroics isn't incompatible in the least with
complete indifference to sufferings which don't arise from within
patriarchy, which are the special province of women.
This is Catherine Clement on the opera Carmen.
I have always heard permanent
ridicule heaped on this opera; no music has been more mockingly
misappropriated. Toreadors, blazing music, and a gaudy Spain ... They
always forget the death ... But Carmen's
music, ridiculed by the North, in the south
of France has become the symbolic and ritual theme for bullfight
entrances, for paseos where, dressed in silk and gold, the still-intact toreros
parade. This is one of opera's inspired and unconscious transferences:
music devoted to a woman convokes virile heroes. And the heroes are just
as brilliant and combative as Carmen, playing with the lure and the
animal with horns as if they were daggers.
'Holiday in Seville. The bright
white arenas of Maestranza [Maestranza is the bullfighting arena in
Seville] are joyous; decorations painted in golden yellow trace baroque
arabesques on the walls; the tall red doors with their black nails are
wide open, and so are the black iron gates, enclosing the amphitheater
with a necklace of openwork. There is buying and selling: cakes,
cigarettes. It is noise and jostling, a humming, harmless festival.'
As well as this:
'the very pure, very free Carmen.'
Two accounts of the disembowelling of horses during a
bullfight, including the account of Prosper Mérimée.
See also the section on my page on bullfighting, 'horse disembowelling
and bullfighting's 'Golden Age.'
The events they witnessed continued unchanged
until the the protective mattress, the peto was adopted. It was first used
in 1927 and mandated by law in 1928.
The peto put an end to most of the horrific injuries to the
horses taking part in the bullfight, but not to all injuries, including
horrific injuries - horses have been severely
injured in the bullring ever since.
This account is by a spectator at a bullfight who was sickened by
what he saw: Sir Alfred Munnings. It comes from his autobiography, published
in 1955. The account is based on what he saw at a pre-peto bullfight.
'I have sat at dinners given by the American Ambassador in Spain with a
titled Spaniard as my neighbour, hearing things of bullfighting not written
in books. Have we read in those novels extolling the matador, of living
skeletons - once horses - ridden not only to slaughter but in a tawdry
procession? Have we read of punching, horning, or weeks of durance between
Sundays, with flies crawling over festered wounds, as the victims, not
killed, await in the stables NEXT SUNDAY’S SPORT? Watch such a procession,
and see some fifteen sorry steeds, doomed, starved, carrying heavy, stuffed
out picadors. No wonder the horses are hurled to the ground, overweighted,
weak and half-dead.
'Passing the tall archway, I had seen a little white horse. To my surprise
it was in the procession, carrying a great picador, and the next thing we
saw was the little white horse and another in the ring. This humble white
horse stood there blindfolded, his ears stuffed and tied, little knowing
what he was there for. Oh, little white horse; Little White Horse!’ I kept
repeating to myself, as the bull put a long horn right through the little
horses neck, just above the windpipe.
'Imagine the fright of the horse, blindfolded and deaf, at the sudden
stab. Then the bull, his horn through the neck of the horse began dragging
it slowly round with him, the picador dismounting and others in the ring
trying to free the horse, now no longer a horse, but a holiday victim, the
blood running down its white jaw and neck.
'When cleared, and the picador remounted, the bull charged, hurling man
and horse backwards with a crash against the wooden barrier. ‘Oh little
white horse.’ I said to myself and, the picador being rescued, and the bull
attracted away, they beat the horse to its feet with blood streaming from a
wound in its chest, down its white legs. The time was up for the horses, and
the white horse and the other - a starved emaciated bag mare were led out
to come in again. The little white horse’s end came later.
'The bay, its teeth chattering with fear, having been in before, stood
near the barrier below us, the motley red and white striped bandage over its
offside eye, its ears stuffed with tow, and tied with what seemed to be old
electric wire. The Bull made short work of the bay horning the horse from
behind. The picador cleared, and the horse beaten to its feet by red-shirted
attendants. There, from the underpart of its belly hung a large
protuberance of bowels. With head outstretched a man hauling it along on
the end of the rein, another hitting it with a stick, it was led out.
'Not a soul cared, excepting ourselves.
'But what of the white horse? He too was lifted and hurled on his back, to
the cheers of the crowd, and when beaten to his feet was stomping on
his own entrails, which stretched and split like pink tissue paper.'
A short extract from Prosper Mérimée's
book on bullfighting, published in 1830. He wrote the novel on which Bizet's
'Carmen' is based and he approved of bullfighting, he had a passion for
bullfighting.
Prosper Mérimée, on horses
which are injured and fall to the ground
'Once again
on his feet, the picador, if he can get his horse up, remounts. Though the
poor beast may be losing streams of blood, though its entrails drag on the
ground and twine about its legs, it must face the bull as long as it can
stand. When it is down to stay, the picador leaves the ring and returns
immediately on a fresh mount.
I also discuss the treatment of the bull, of course, in my page
on bullfighting. An extract:
When the bull is about
to be killed, it will already have had its back torn open by the lance of
the picador and will already have had its back lacerated repeatedly by the
barbed banderillas. By the time of the sword thrust supposed to kill the bull,
the bull will have two or three stab wounds inflicted by the picadors and
six stab wounds from the banderillas.
The sword often hits bone,
or goes deep into the animal but fails to kill. The bull, staggering, still
alive and conscious, with the sword embedded in its body - this is far more
common than an instantaneous death. A report by Tristan Wood in 'La
Divisa,' the journal of the 'Club Taurino' of London, on the bullfighter
Miguel Abellán: ' ... an excellent faena of serious toreo, only for its
impact to be dissipated by four swordthrusts.' The excellence and seriousness
found here are surely only an aesthete's response.
In the same set
of reports, on the bullfighter Morante de la Puebla: 'the swordwork
was very protracted.' Or, alternatively, the bull died a very slow death.
From the gruesome, matter of fact accounts of bullfights on the site 'La
Prensa San Diego'
http://laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/october04-02/sherwood.htm
'Capetillo received a difficult first bull and encountered big troubles
at the supreme moment, requiring 12 entries with the sword.' 'Moment' is
very badly chosen. The hideous writer is Lyn Sherwood.
Daniel Hannan, a Member of the
European Parliament and devoted aficionado: 'After the banderillas, as
the bull stood spurting fountains of blood ... ' there was 'a
miserable excuse for a sword-thrust into the bull’s flank.'
This shocking video
shows
the bullfighter Antoni Losada stabbing a bull with the 'killing sword' seven
times in the bullring at Saint-Gilles, France.
After the 'killing
sword' has been used to no effect, a different sword, the descabello, or a short knife,
the puntilla, is used to stab the spine, often repeatedly.
Alexander Fiske-Harrison saw a bull stabbed
three times with the 'killing sword' but still alive, and then stabbed
repeatedly with the descabello. According to the 'bullfighting critic'
of the newspaper 'El Mundo' who counted the stabbings, the bull was
stabbed in the spine seventeen times before it died. This experience had a
lasting effect on his girlfriend, 'her perspective on bullfights changed for
ever,' but Alexander Fiske-Harrison went on attending bullfights, went on to
kill a bull himself and opposes the abolition of bullfighting.
From my critical review
of A L Kennedy's On Bullfighting, quoting from the book. A L Kennedy is watching
a bullfight at the most prominent of all bullrings, Las Ventas in Madrid:
' At the kill, the young
man's sword hits bone, again and again and again while the silence presses
down against him. He tries for the descabello. Five blows later and the animal
finally falls.' The descabello, as the Glossary explains, is 'A heavy, straight
sword' used to sever the spine.
' 'I have already watched
Curro Romero refuse to have almost anything to do with his bull, never mind
its horns. (The severely critical response of a member of the audience to
a cowardly bull or a cowardly bullfighter.) He has killed his first with a
blade placed so poorly that its tip protruded from the bull's flank...As the
animal coughed up blood, staring, bemused, ['bemused?'] at each new flux the
peones tried a rueda de peones to make the blade move in the bull's body and
sever anything, anything at all that might be quickly fatal, but in the end
the bull was finally, messily finished after three descabellos.'
'The suffering of the
bull 'left, staggering and urinating helplessly, almost too weak to face the
muleta' wasn't ended by a painless and instantaneous death: 'Contreras...misses
the kill...Contreras tries again, hooking out the first sword with a new one
...Contreras finally gives the descabello.' So, the sword is embedded in the
animal, the sword is pulled out and thrust into the animal yet again, but
it's still very much alive, the ungrateful creature. The descabello is hard
at work in this book. People who have the illusion that the 'moment of truth'
amounts to a single sword-thrust and the immediate death of the bull are disabused
of the notion here. More often, the moment of truth is hacking at the spine
with the descabello.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t4HONQiAD4
The musical analysis in Susan McClary's book is impressive.
Much of the analysis is technical but this is an example of the
untechnical analysis to be found in the section 'Synopsis and analysis:'
The first section introduces the flashy, pseudo-Spanish music
that returns in the Bullfight Scene of Act IV (Ex. 1). Two features of
this segment seem noteworthy. First, it is composed of the four-bar
phrases typical of opera-comique. This regularity is violated only four
times in the entire prelude. Yet the expectation of four-bar phrases
becomes so ingrained that even a slight alteration constitutes a
dramatic event. An extraordinary degree of order is set up by this
phrasing - an order that is extremely resistant to change or difference.
Susan McClary has perpetrated pitiful garbage (or disturbing
dross) in connection with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:
In the January 1987 issue of Minnesota Composers Forum Newsletter,
McClary wrote of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:
The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is
one of the most horrifying moments in
music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up
energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a
rapist incapable of attaining release.
She later rephrased this passage in Feminine
Endings:
The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes
in the history of music. The problem Beethoven has constructed for this
movement is that it seems to begin before the subject of the symphony
has managed to achieve its identity.
She goes on to conclude that The Ninth Symphony is probably our most
compelling articulation in music of the contradictory impulses that have
organized patriarchal culture since the Enlightenment.
CUP: Bowdlerizing and Breartonizing
This section contains comments on Cambridge Political Correctness but
a great deal of the material is concerned with other faults. 'Breartoning'
refers to some examples of Fran Brearton's ideological interpretation,
discussed below. I'd use the word to refer to the removal of material which
isn't in accordance with an ideological viewpoint or censorship of material
which isn't in accordance with an ideological viewpoint as well as the
writing and publication of material in accordance with a viewpoint of this
kind. Bowdlerizing, of course, is the removal of passages or words regarded
as indecent. 'Breartonizing' is far more common than Bowdlerizing now, and
I'm sure that Cambridge University Press, like the majority of publishes, is
a frequent Breartonizer, even if so much of its output isn't Breartonized -
there are no opportunities for its use.
Amongst the associations of the Cambridge name -
better not to refer to the Cambridge 'brand' - are associations to do with
excellence. 'The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney' is hardly ever
excellent. Instead, the good, the not-so-bad, the bad and the
shockingly bad.
A candid, worrying admission by the Editor. Perhaps the book will
be too indulgent? I'm sure that it is. Too much in the book amounts to
Heaneyolatry.
In the Acknowledgements section, the editor, Bernard O' Donoghue writes,
'My primary thanks are to Seamus Heaney, for providing the incomparable
subject-matter and for his hallmark generosity and goodwill towards the
project.' 'Incomparable' is a glowing term of approval. Was such a cosy relationship between poet and
project healthy? Was there
any difficulty in maintaining critical independence and applying proper critical
standards when the poet showed such 'generosity and goodwill towards the project?'
The Heaneyolatry of Dennis O' Driscoll, one of the contributors
The claims made for Seamus
Heaney are often very radical, not including the power of miraculous healing
but including miraculous gifts of language and in the world of ideas. Dennis
O' Driscoll, in 'Heaney in Public,' one of the essays in The Cambridge Companion,
claims that 'Every idea is examined afresh, as every word is coined anew.'
Every idea is examined afresh! Every word is coined anew!
Are all these five words in 'Gifts of Rain,' 'could monitor the usual / confabulations'
coined anew? Bernard O' Donoghue ought to have had a few words with Dennis
O' Driscoll and made it clear that this claim couldn't possibly be justified
and shouldn't appear in any self-respecting book, and certainly not one published
by the Cambridge University Press. The Press had its reputation to consider,
and so did he, as editor, and as an academic at Wadham College, Oxford.
But he obviously didn't
even notice that Dennis O' Driscoll was practising a form of 'automatic writing.'
He was practising 'automatic editing.' In the 'Acknowledgements' section he
writes, 'I have drawn on Dennis O' Driscoll's noted infallibility more than
once.'
...
'Dennis O' Driscoll's claim is 'falsified' very quickly, with a quotation
from Seamus Heaney just a few lines later, one without any freshness or
originality in wording or in the idea: 'no poetry worth its salt is
unconcerned with the world it answers for and sometimes answers to.'
The dominance of recording and the lack of informed comment and
criticism.
So much in The Cambridge Companion is irrelevant for a
critical, fair-minded view of Seamus Heaney's poetry. The Companion is
sometimes good at
recording. A 'companion' should offer background information which
is useful and interesting, and some of the information in the book is genuinely useful and interesting. But H D F Kitto, a scholarly
critic from a previous generation, wrote in 'Greek Tragedy:' 'We observe that
during this period certain developments occurred in what we call the Greek
tragic form. We record them - a rational thing to do, certainly, but it is
not criticism, and if we are not careful it may impede criticism, that is,
understanding.'
A comparison with another editor
Bernard O' Donoghue's deficiencies as an editor can be appreciated
by comparing him with a very good editor such as Peter France, the editor
of 'The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation.' The Guide doesn't
contain very detailed discussion and couldn't be expected to. It's a survey
of a vast field, but a very interesting survey. He writes in his Introduction,
'Where translations are compared, there has been no attempt to impose neutral
description rather than critical evaluation. Nor is there any party line here.
Contributors have been discouraged from grinding their own axes too loudly,
but have felt free to offer judgments. This is a guide, after all, and anyone
offering guidance will be concerned not only with the nature of existing
translations but with what is perceived as the success or failure
with which different (often equally valid) translation projects have
been executed.'
The influence of the Cambridge scholarly tradition, excessive in
this case - a level of detail in some areas which isn't appropriate in a
general introduction like this.
Allusions:
The Greek Donkey
The references and allusions
in Seamus Heaney's poetry offer so many opportunities to commentators with
specialist knowledge, such as the editor of the Cambridge Companion. Seamus Heaney has overloaded his poetry so
much that it resembles a donkey carrying an immense load, staggering
along 'Greek roads ... 'looped like boustrophedon ... i.e. like that ancient
reading or writing style that alternates direction on every line, the word
itself meaning 'turning like an ox while ploughing,' ' [all quotations in
this paragraph are taken from The Cambridge Companion] he has piled it high
with 'Old Norse and Old English literary traditions,' including 'Old Icelandic
family sagas' and 'an Anglo-Saxon philological past,' has loaded it even higher
with 'The Latin and Greek classics ... a constant presence ... throughout
his writing lifetime: Hercules and Antaeus, Sophocles' Philoctetes and
Antigone, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the Virgilian Golden Bough,
Narcissus, Hermes, more recently Horace' (after a period in which he avoided
'the Theocritan-Horatian-Virgilian bucolic'), Virgil's Eclogue iv ('Heaney
explained to Cavalho Homem that the connection with Eclogue iv was
the pregnancy of his niece, particularly in the half-line 'casta fave
Lucina ...' ), other Eclogues ('The clinching reference connecting Heaney's
eclogues with Virgil's Eclogues i and ix then follows: the Synge word 'stranger'
followed by an italicized quotation'), not forgetting 'the Horatian metal
(an unlaboured aere perennius) of the implements in the translation
from Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin and in the hopeful
millennial anvil linked to it,' not to mention other weighty allusions, allusions to
Dante (as when 'Charon replaces Hermes'), allusions to Roman Catholic rites,
customs or piety, such as the breviary, soutane, scapulars, church-latin,
allusions to both of these at once, such as 'a Dante-influenced pilgrimage
to Lough Derg in County Donegal, a demanding penitential programme ...' Reading
some of the poetry of Seamus Heaney and some of the contributors to The Cambridge
Companion can seem a demanding penitential programme.
I'm well placed to
understand the references here, although not the references to Old
Norse, Old English and Old Icelandic matters. I've read Virgil and Horace in
Latin and I've read all the extant Greek tragedies in either English or Greek,
including Aeschylus and Sophocles. As part of a misspent youth, I spent almost
two years as a Christian. I'm well placed to understand
the Catholic allusions in Seamus Heaney's poetry. I read Dante in Italian
as well as in English translation. But I question the contemporary use of
these references on such a scale. See also my short section
knowledge
and learning in the poetry of Seamus Heaney
I do make detailed objections to some of the detailed material in
the book, together with the wider considerations which should have
played a much more substantial part in this Cambridge Companion:
The translation which Bernard O' Donoghue gives of the
opening of Eclogue iv 1 is poor. There's no word in the original which
corresponds to 'now' and 'paulo,' which means 'a little' or
'somewhat' should be taken as qualifying 'maiora,' 'greater things' (or
'more elevated things') and not with temporal significance. A simple,
literal translation: 'Sicilian Muses, let us celebrate somewhat greater
things.'
I could give a very extended discussion of the editor's
approach in this chapter, but I think it's essential to recognize that the
readership of the Cambridge Companion will generally be interested in much
more than the classical background. This readership is entitled to expect
much more, such as an examination of the artistic success of these three
poems and some of the other poems he discusses, and, in view of the fact
that Bernard O' Donoghue mentions modernism, an examination of Heaney's
relationship to modernism, or lack of relationship. What he does do is make
superficially impressive but spurious claims or arguments, ones which belong
only to the word-sphere ...
Ideological interpretation
Fran
Brearton: Bowdlerizing and Breartonizing
In 'Heaney and the feminine,' Fran Brearton interprets with great
freedom, irresponsibly.
The line 'O charioteers,
above your dormant guns' is given this interpretation by Fran Brearton ...
'the British 'soldiers standing up in turrets' are, in a sense, emasculated
- their 'guns' are 'dormant' ...' The fact that these British soldiers were
not firing their guns all the time, that almost all the time their guns were
'dormant,' unused, is obvious. To go from the obvious fact that the guns were
not being fired to emasculation 'in a sense' is ludicrous - and disturbing,
given the large number of British soldiers killed during the Troubles. This
is closer to sneering than responsible comment. There are many, many images
of Allied soldiers standing up in turrets as their vehicles entered the villages,
towns and cities they had liberated with such sacrifices at the close of the
Second World War in Europe. They had 'dormant' guns. Had these soldiers been
emasculated 'in a sense' too? She claims that in 'The Toome Road' there's
'a collision of versions of masculinity,' the soldiers representing one version
of masculinity. When allied soldiers fought against Nazi soldiers (and went
on to liberate Belsen and the other camps) was this too 'a collision of versions
of masculinity?' Or was there much more to it than that?
'Compare her interpretation
of the 'dormant' guns with her interpretation of the pen and the gun in 'Digging'
('Death and a Naturalist'): 'the implied association of pen, gun and penis.'
Did Seamus Heaney actually imply this facile association? Was it in his mind
as he wrote? Her method of interpretation allows her to find anything 'implied'
which suits her thesis, in defiance often of the clear meaning of a text,
common-sense, and sometimes human values.
Compare with this Freud's
facile interpretation of a miner's strike - the miners' unwillingness to use
their pick-axes (their penises) to penetrate the earth, regarded as feminine.
The strikes of miners have generally belonged to a world of almost unimaginable
harshness, concerned with very different matters. For example, at a meeting
before miners began strike action in Northumberland and Durham in 1842: 'They
catalogued the grim conditions in the mines, the bad air and long hours, the
unjust system of fines, the payment by measure where the measures were set
by the masters. They told of young children in the mines, of pay reductions
...' Or an earlier meeting before strike action began in Northumberland and
Durham, in which one of the demands was for 'the reduction of hours for boys
down the pit to twelve per day.' (Anthony Burton, 'The Miners.')
'Fran Brearton perpetrates
something similar. She admits that this is 'to take images out of context,'
but she seems completely undeterred, when she writes that 'in his criticism
and poetry we see the landscape penetrated by the (phallic) pump ... Digging
deeper into the ground simulates the sexual act ...' Has she found these images
in the criticism and poetry or has she imposed them? Were the images she finds
explicitly there implicit or not even implicit?
For other irresponsible interpretations, see the section of my
review
Guinn
Batten and the drowned sheep
Stylistic poorness
Many parts of Patrick Crotty's essay, 'The Context of Heaney's Reception,' have something of the
staleness of a stale sandwich, with the difference that whereas the sandwich
will still retain most of its nourishment, these have very little.
His style could be described
as pedestrian or soporific or lethargic or stultifying, or all of these. An
example: 'Corcoran
is ... ready to temper approbation with approval.'
Style is only one factor
and often not one of the important ones. Excellent scholars and commentators
often have a style which is no more than adequate, or less than adequate.
The style of some of the greater artists may be less accomplished than the
style of some of the lesser ones. But Patrick Crotty's style has a linkage
with the quality of his critical thought in this essay: both routine. Has
he ever read George Orwell's essay, 'Politics and the English Language?' It
contains this, ' ... it should ... be possible to laugh the not un-formation
out of existence' and the footnote, 'One can cure oneself of the not un-
formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing
a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.' On the first page of
his essay, 'While not inconsiderable, the varieties of official recognition
granted to Frost ... and Hughes ...'
CUP and China:
Censorship and Evasion
I was an active member of
Amnesty International for a long time.
For most of that time, I was the death penalty co-ordinator for the
group but I worked on a wide range of human rights abuses, including
China's disregard for human rights. I suggested to the group that we
should have a motion debated at the AGM of Amnesty International to
persuade the organization to make human rights abuses in China much
higher priority in its campaigning. We did that and the motion was
passed overwhelmingly. (I also instigated a motion concerned with an
issue in warfare, anti-personnel mines, and motion which urged Amnesty
international to examine its campaigning methods: some of the methods it
was using were demonstrably ineffective, I claimed. These motions too
were passed overwhelmingly.)
Extracts from the article 'Cambridge University
Press backs down over China censorship' by Maev Kennedy and Tom Phillips
(21 August, 2017.)
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/21/cambridge-university-press-to-back-down-over-china-censorship
Cambridge University Press has backed down and will immediately
re-post journal articles to which it blocked online access in China at
the request of the Beijing authorities.
The retraction was announced by Cambridge University, which owns the
publisher and the journal, China Quarterly, at the heart of the dispute.
It said the academic leadership of the university had reviewed the
publisher’s decision and agreed to reinstate the blocked content with
immediate effect to “uphold the principle of academic freedom on which
the university’s work is founded”.
The publisher’s change of heart followed growing international
protests, including a petition signed by hundreds of academics,
and the threat of having its publications boycotted.
James Millward, professor of history at Georgetown University – who
said he had periodically been refused entry to China because of pieces
he had written – published an angry open letter to CUP, accusing
it of overriding the peer review process and expert editing that had
gone into the original publication of the articles, without consulting
the authors.
“This comprises a clear violation of academic independence outside as
well as inside China,” he said.
Millward contrasted the decision with the stance of the New York
Times and the Economist, which are banned in their entirety rather than
agreeing to a censored Chinese version.'
Supporting academic and
non-academic publishing
I own a large number of books, in a wide range of subject areas. I see it as
important to buy books whenever possible, to support publishing - academic
and non-academic publishing - with obvious restriction. I haven't the
financial means to buy nearly as many books as I'd like to - and I live in a
small house and haven't the space to store nearly as many books as I'd like.
I don't take the view that because an academic receives a salary, then
buying an academic's book isn't important.
In some subject areas, such as music - baroque. classical, music of the
romantic and modern era - the books I have are by non-academics, to
give one example, 'The Classical Style: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart' by the
pianist Charles Rosen, and a very impressive book by a musicologist at Royal
Holloway, a colleague of Mark Berry. I've no wish to cause any difficulties
for the author. Mark Berry is criticized at length in the section to the
right. The Royal Holloway music department Website gives the information
that Dr Berry is at work on a new project:
'The next big project is a synoptic treatment in eighteenth-century
historical and intellectual context of Mozart's operas. It is envisaged that
this will appear in two volumes: one up to and including Idomeneo;
the second from Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.'
I intend to buy the second volume when it's published. These Mozart operas
are a central musical interest of mine - although the central musical ground
is quite crowded, with many other interests.
The books I have on engineering, science, mathematics and logic are all by
academics, in fields which include structural engineering, systematic
botany, physical chemistry, set theory, graph theory, group theory and
calculus. I emphasize the fact that I'm not an engineer, a scientist, a
mathematician or a logician.
'The History of the Countryside: The classic history of Britain's
landscape, flora and fauna' by the Cambridge academic Oliver Rackham is on
my shelves, together with many other books on natural history, gardening and
landscape by academics and non-academics.
I've written about activism in a number of different fields on the site. I'm
particularly indebted to academics for my work in opposing the death
penalty. I have two books, two massive achievements, by academics with
Cambridge University affiliations: V.A.C. Gattrell's 'The Hanging Tree:
Execution and the English People 1770-1868,' and 'Rituals of Retribution:
Capital Punishment in Germany 1600-1987. Both books are published by Oxford
University Press. I'm in no danger of overlooking the achievements of Oxford
University Press any more than the achievements of academics at Oxford.
Cesare Beccaria, the author of the magnificent 'Dei Delitti e delle Pene'
was a non-academic, of course.
In Philosophy, almost all the commentaries and other 'works about'
philosophy I have are by academics, to give just one example, Max Black's 'A
Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus.'
In art and architecture, there are works by academics and non-academics in
approximately equal numbers. The academic works include
Heinrich Wölfflin's wonderful 'Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Das
Problem der Stilentwicklung in der Neueren Kunst' and 'Renaissance und
Barock: Eine Untersuchung Uber Wesen und Entstehung des Barockstils in
Italien' (I have the English translations too).
The books I have on history cover a wide range, including Thucydides,
industrial history, the history of technology, and many books on military
history, particularly the history of the two World Wars. In this field, as
in so many others, so many non-academics have written works with the
academic virtues, including thoroughness, attention to detail and a concern
for accuracy,
I've many books on baking and cooking - none by academics.
All this amounts, of course, to a very patchy, necessarily inadequate
((survey)), of necessity omitting the titles of almost all the books I have
and so many other subject areas where I have books.
If a book is essential for my reading and research, I'll buy it even if I
loathe the author and loathe the book. This was the case when I bought
Alexander Fiske-Harrison's 'Into the Arena,' which amongst other things
describes the preparations he made to kill a bull in the arena and his
description of the actual killing. I made good use of this misbegotten book
in my sustained criticism of the author in the anti-bullfighting page on
this site. If I loathe the author I try to buy a second-hand book rather
than a new one. In the case of Alexander Fiske-Harrison's book I couldn't
find a used copy and so I bought a new copy. If I don't loathe the author
but respect the author or admire the author, I try to buy a new copy -
financial support for these authors is very important, as is financial
support for good journalism, good magazines, good causes ... but my
financial position doesn't allow me to give financial support on anything
like the scale I'd like. Personal finance has never been more than a minor
interest of mine and for long periods I've shown next to no interest.
Professor Priyamvada Gopal:
stoning to death and Iran
Dr Priyamvada Gopal of Churchill College Cambridge is now Professor
Priyamvada Gopal. I've left the wording of the original unchanged, as
originally written and published here.
Above,
at a demonstration in Paris against the death penalty in Iran. The
poster includes an image showing a woman being buried up to the waist:
the preparations to stone her to death, almost certainly for adultery.
According to the Iranian regulations, the
stones must not be so large that they cause death quickly.
When it was
announced that Brunei would be introducing death by stoning as the
penalty for gay sex and adultery, there was revulsion, there were calls
to boycott the country - completely justifiable.
Very, very
unwisely, Dr Gopal has commented on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President
of Iran from 2005 to 2013, and not at all to express revulsion against
the man and the policies he pursued. Her comments, quoted below, are
very disturbing.
Very, very
unwisely, Dr Gopal has commented on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President
of Iran from 2005 to 2013, and not at all to express revulsion against
the man and the policies he pursued. Her comments, quoted below, are
very disturbing. Whilst Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was President, men and
women were stoned to death in Iran and the death penalty was inflicted,
and still is, on a massive scale, for a very wide range of offences, and
against juveniles as well as adults.
Dr Gopal's twitter page
includes this, added very recently (6 April, 2019)
Am put in mind of the time Cambridge students were
punished, one of them severely, for reading out a poem to the then Minister
for Raising Tuition Fees. Very delicate thing, this 'Free Speech' and
absolutely only works one way.
In this section, more about Priyamvada Gopal's
attitude to free speech.
In the tweet, she's referring to the time when
the Conservative minister 'David Willetts' came to give a talk at Cambridge,
he was shouted down and not allowed to give his talk. Instead, Owen Holland,
a postgraduate student in the English Faculty read out his interminable
'poem' denouncing him. Recommended - strongly recommended - a viewing of the
video record of the event
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aco0zOFN8sA
This page includes detailed coverage of the 'poem'
reading incident and the disruption of the Minister's talk, in the section in the column to the left,
Cambridge protest and
Cambridge English. See in particular
the profile of Owen Holland,
the student who was punished 'severely.' I give the whole of his bizarre,
dreadful, propaganda-poem, with a commentary.
Dr Gopal must have a farcically bad view of poetic
language if she can seriously think that Owen Holland used poetic language.
The English Faculty at Cambridge may claim to be 'World Class' but it seems
it's perfectly possible for someone to graduate in English at Cambridge and
become a postgraduate student at Cambridge whilst accepting garbage as
'poetry.' The English Faculty at Cambridge may claim to be 'World Class' but
it seems it's perfectly possible for someone to teach in the Faculty of
English (Dr Gopal) whilst accepting garbage as 'poetry.'
A few assorted lines now from Owen Holland's 'poem' which may convey
something of its poetic worth (for people who share Dr Gopal's view of
its qualities) or worthlessness (for people whose view is nearer to mine):
We do not wish to rape our teachers
Your methodistic framework of excellence
We none of us believe
that any of our possessions
are our own [a blatant falsehood]
So we are
climbing into the driving seat
because your steering is uncomfortable
to us
... we do not respect your right
to occupy the platform.
Owen Holland is the postgraduate student and arbiter, who decided that
his views were so important that he had a duty to protect
Cambridge and the wider world from views not nearly so important as his
own, such as the views of David Willetts, Minister of a democracy, who had
been invited to speak at Cambridge but wasn't allowed to speak -
Owen Holland and his supporters - including Cambridge University
academics - had decided this should be so.
You can threaten to shoot at us
with rubber
bullets
You can arrest us.
You can imprison us.
but you cannot rape us
[Owen Holland obviously had not nearly enough understanding of the vast difference between threats which existed only in his own
hysterical imagination and the all-too-real threats faced by courageous
people in the dire dictatorships of the world.
My page
animal welfare and activism
begins with an account of my own arrest and my confinement in a police cell - as it
happens, I and the person who was arrested with me were innocent and
released without charge after a couple of hours. I don't make the mistake of
thinking that my activism needed any courage. There were no risks for me
except the most minor ones. As for Priyamvada Gopal, her call for
sympathy for Owen Holland is grossly excessive, ridiculous. How can his case
possibly be compared with the case of, to give one example, Nasrin Sotoudeh?
Amnesty International:
“It is absolutely shocking that Nasrin Sotoudeh is facing
nearly four decades in jail and 148 lashes for her peaceful human rights
work, including her defence of women protesting against Iran’s degrading
forced hijab (veiling)
laws.']
According to Amnesty International again, about 5000 men and women have been
executed for same-sex activity since the creation of the Islamic Republic in
1979.
A wide range of offences - and acts which aren't offences can be and are
punished by death in Iran.
Mohser Amir-Aslani was arrested for 'insulting the prophet Jonah' and for
making changes in religion. He was executed in 2014. States of mind may also
be punished with death in Iran.
Iran is the most prolific executioner in the world now, after China,
executing political prisoners, homosexuals, dissidents, people found guilty of 'enmity against God,' and a 16 year old schoolgirl, Atefeh
Rajabi Sahaaleh, on charges of adultery and 'crimes against chastity.' She
was hanged in public.'
This is
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust, in a statement of September, 2009):
'They [the Western powers] launched
the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they
support the Jews.'
He has blamed the
"Zionist regime" of Israel for starting both the First and Second World
Wars.
The section Dr Priyamvada Gopal's Rules of Etiquette
includes more detailed discussion of this prolific contributor to Cambridge
stupidity and the barbarism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
When Mahmoud Amadinejad came to give a speech at Columbia
University in New York City. Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia
University, referred to the President of Iran as a 'petty and cruel dictator.' Dr Gopal referred to this comment as 'demeaning.' She couldn't possibly
agree with this breach of decorum. She wrote,
'There is no excuse for inviting an elected leader
to talk at your university only to undermine him as lacking in 'intellectual
courage' before he has had a chance to speak.
When the Conservative Minister David Willetts came to
Cambridge University to give a speech, he was shouted down. Dr Gopal fully
agreed with the protest. The profiles in the section Cambridge protest
and Cambridge English in
the column to the left give a detailed account. (All the academics with
profiles in this section are members of the English faculty or, in the case
of Owen Holland, used to be a member.)
From the profile
Lornay Finlayson: Philospher-Queen:
In 'LF on free speech' she writes,
'... this is one very valuable outcome of forcing David Willetts off the platform: ' ... an act of destroying
certain possibilities' (the possibility of the government
minister David Willetts
speaking and the possibility that people who came to attend
a talk given by David Willetts could actually listen to a talk by
David Willetts) 'is always at the same time an act of creating further ones.
One valuable thing that came out of the whole episode, to my
mind, was that the idea of ‘freedom of speech’ got hauled
out of its hiding place ... '
'fter the
disruption of David Willetts' speech, there were now
new opportunities, not so much for 'uninformed' people to discuss free speech, but
opportunities to listen to people who do it 'properly,' such as Dr
Finlayson.
If radical Islamists
prevent a talk by a non-believer from taking place then this
too is creating new possibilities.
If 'advanced transgender advocates' prevent a
talk by someone they see as less advanced from taking place,
such as a feminist whose view of transgender people isn't
the same as theirs, if they force feminists 'off the
platform,' then this too would be viewed as
creating new possibilities, although it's obviously not
creating new possibilities for the person who is prevented
from speaking.
'Transgender activists who prevent feminists such as Julie Bindel and Julie Burchill
from speaking are badly mistaken but the defence of free
speech should go well beyond a single issue. Feminists who
object to the denial of free speech to some feminists but
see nothing wrong with the denial of free speech to
anti-feminists are badly mistaken too.
'Dr
Finlayson, philosopher, writes that 'in
the immediate aftermath of the Willetts action, there was
plenty of predictable, well-rehearsed, lazy, ‘free speech’-
themed noise-making.'
'In the the immediate
aftermath of the Willetts action, there were plenty of
predictable, well-rehearsed, lazy, noise-making
attempted justifications of shouting down a minister of a
democracy, such as 'LF on free speech.'
'She says
of the invitation to David Willetts to speak, 'we regarded the event itself as an improper
procedure.' She declares that it's improper so it
must be improper. The
dogmatic assumption, the unquestioned assumption of absolute
rightness is completely obvious.
In 2013 she contributed to an event in Cambridge on various
aspects of free speech. Her talk had the title, 'Free Speech as Liberal Fiction.'
'
When the invitation which had been made to Jordan Peterson
to become a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University was rescinded, Dr Gopal
was very pleased. On her Twitter page, she wrote, in the scathing and
sarcastic tones which she could have used in connection with
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but didn't, she wrote (20 March, 2019) this
'Jordan Peterson to be my colleague later this year? So EXCITED. So much
to learn, so much wisdom to glean. Well done, Cambridge, no better way to
signal our commitment to diversity and decolonization.'
and this
'The truth is Cambridge just doesn't have enough sage authoritative white
men who believe they know better than everyone else and can tell the world
how to run itself. We need to ship them in from outside.'
But surely, Priyamvada Gopal is a sage, authoritative
woman who believes she knows better than everyone else and can tell the
world how to run itself! She's set herself up as an authority, an arbiter. If Dr Gopal airily decides
that Israel is so much more cruel a country than Iran, why, this must be so.
This is simply a reality. If she accuses King's College porters of racism - after all, they didn't
show due deference, they didn't call her Doctor Gopal - then they
must be racists. She imagines that the only thing they can do is admit their
guilt and recognize her intrinsic superiority. The section which follows
this,
Dr Priyamvada Gopal's Rules of
Etiquette mentions Dr Gopal's outspoken but very brief
comments on me.
She would do well to use Twitter rather less and try to
bring forward argument and evidence rather more - much, much more. She likes
adding her name to those lists of names which demonstrate beyond all doubt,
or at least to the people who sign, that they belong to a higher plane. So,
she joined Dr Lorna Finlayson
and Dr Mark Berry in calling
for a boycott of Israeli universities and assuring the academic world, and
the wider world, that they personally 'have pledged to not accept
invitations to visit Israeli academic institutions, act as referees for them
or take part in events organised or funded by them.'
If they could take a closer look at Iranian universities,
they might well be surprised at what they found. A previous call for a
boycott of Israeli universities was signed by an international conglomerate
of academics and others associated with universities, including many Iranian
universities. Dr Gopal and others may not realize this, but academics and
students at Iranian universities are subject to the death penalty if they
engage in gay sex or commit adultery, just like other Iranians.
Dr Gopal and others could extend their search, although
the risks to their manicured self-images are substantial. Thy could
consider, for example, a Palestinian university. From my section on Lorna
Finlayson:
'The Nov. 5 demonstration on the Al-Quds campus involved demonstrators
wearing black military gear, armed with fake automatic weapons, and who
marched while waving flags and raising the traditional Nazi salute. The
demonstration took place in the main square of the Al-Quds campus, which
was surrounded by banners depicting images of “martyred” suicide
bombers.'
Also from this section on Lorna Finlayson:
'The statement signed by those academics made a comment on critics who
assert, correctly, that these people are 'singling Israel out’.
'As many have persuasively argued over the last few weeks, it is Israel
that singles itself out: through its claims to moral impeccability, its celebrated
status as a democracy, through its receipt of massive support from the
US and other nations, and through its continual abuse of the legacy of
the holocaust in order to deflect criticism and to discredit the
Palestinian struggle.'
'What? Its 'celebrated status as a democracy' is supposed to count
against it? 'Abuse of the legacy of the holocaust' is beneath contempt.'
I intended to include on this page a detailed record of some of the
Statements Attacking Israel signed by Cambridge University academics over
the years, and Statements to do with other issues, such as a Statement in
support of Owen Holland, with comments on some of the academics who signed. I decided not
to. It's possible that in some cases, their views have changed. I mention
some of these Statements on this page but otherwise, I'll let these
Statements remain in obscurity. Anyone who thinks differently can
rescue them from obscurity and 'celebrate' them. Future statements are a
different matter. I intend to provide detailed coverage if I think the
Statement is biased and obnoxious. Anyone who disagrees with my estimate is
welcome to challenge it. Anyone who disagrees with the views on this page
(or any other page of the site) is welcome to challenge them.
Academics and students in Gaza, like others subject to the legal system in
Gaza, at least are spared the death penalty if they engage in same-sex
relationships or have babies when unmarried. The maximum penalty
for gay sex in Gaza is a mere 10 years imprisonment, the penalty for having
a baby in the unmarried state in Gaza is just a few years imprisonment. If Dr Gopal
isn't aware that in Israel, gay sex and gay
relationships are completely legal and that there are absolutely no laws
against unmarried sex, then they are even more ignorant than I thought.
I
don't exclude the possibility that she can be critical of someone who
happens not to be white, but she'd probably prefer silence to criticism. So,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (non-white) is not just low censure on the censure scale but
seems not to register at all. Jordan Peterson and David Willetts are high
on the censure scale. So are those King's College porters who failed
to address her as Dr Gopal. This is a hideous reversal of the intuitive but
strongly based judgment that
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be the one singled out for condemnation. Whatever flaws Jordan Peterson and David Willetts and the King's
College porters may have or may not have, these flaws are minute in comparison with the
flaws of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Whatever flaws the state of Israel has, Iran is
vastly more deserving of censure. Priyamvada Gopal obviously thinks
differently.
What I refer to here as the 'censure
scale' could perhaps be named The Gopal-Berry Scale, full name
The Gopal-Berry Censure Scale, a system of hideously distorted censure,
after those academics Dr Priyamvada Gopal and
Dr Mark Berry, who is also
criticized on this page. Both of them believe that Israel is far more
deserving of censure than Iran. Here, the Gopal-Berry scale inverts. Dr
Berry calls Jacob Rees-Mogg a Nazi and refers to 'The Spectator' as 'a
cesspit of unabashed Nazism.' I'm sure that he does recognize that there are
differences between Nazis and Nazism on the one hand and the objects of his
scorn on the other, but he recklessly and stupidly expresses censure in a
way he can't possibly defend.
From the Home Page of this site:
'My approach is in part systematic and rigorous,
sometimes at a high level of abstraction, but I see no contradiction between
system and rigour on the one hand and on the other, passion, compassion,
activism, humour, an intense concern for the health of language and the
vitality of culture, a whole range of other concerns. A systematic study can
reveal gaps very clearly. The meticulous work of cartographers helped to
show explorers which regions were still unexplored, to suggest new areas for
risk and discovery.'
Ethical theory is a very strong
interest of mine - see the page
Ethics: theory and practice. Perhaps the term 'ortho-ethics' would be a
useful addition to the terms available to ethical theorists. An ortho-ethical
censure scale would recognize that the state of Israel has faults and the
state of Iran has faults but the state of Iran is vastly more worthy of
censure. It would recognize that any faults that the faults of Nazis and
Nazism are vastly more worthy of censure than any faults of The Spectator
and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Professor Priyamvada Gopal's Rules of Etiquette
Dr Priyamvada Gopal of Churchill College
Cambridge is now Professor Priyamvada Gopal. I've left the wording of the
original unchanged, as originally written and published.
Etiquette, entry in Collins English Dictionary: '1. The customs or
rules governing behaviour regarded as correct or acceptable in social or
official life.'
In this section, I mention Dr Gopal's very different views concerning
acceptable treatment of people belonging to very different positions in
society. To summarize:
The porters at King's College, Cambridge: obnoxious and baseless
accusations of racism.
Myself: (in an email to me) ' 'What a sad sack you
are ! Get a life, kid.'
David Willetts, who came to give a speech
at Cambridge and wasn't able to do that. He
was shouted down. Priyamvada Gopal fully agreed with the action.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then President of Iran, who came to speak at
Columbia University. He was described by Lee Bollinger, correctly, as a 'petty and cruel dictator,' but Priyamvada Gopal found that
shocking.
Priyamvada Gopal may not be cruel but she's petty, as well as smug
and snobbish, with a view of her own importance which is grotesquely
inflated. A perceived slight to herself becomes something of massive
importance. She really does seem to believe that when she uses the
accusation 'Racist!' then she's obviously right and the person she
accuses has no defence at all.
She claimed she was subject to 'racist' treatment from King’s College
porters. She said she would stop tutoring students at King's due
to “consistently racist profiling and aggression by porters” at the
college. Refusing to tutor students at the college was a ridiculous
reaction, over-the-top, indefensible.
'“I repeatedly asked them to address me as 'Dr Gopal' she says.
Anybody who demands this of porters is a fool with delusions of
importance.
“We have investigated the incident and found no wrongdoing on the
part of our staff,” a spokesperson said. We categorically deny
that the incident referred to was in any way racist.” The spokesperson
said it had completed its investigation and cleared its porters.
My employment has been quite varied over the years. My first job was
as a builder's labourer. My employment also included a year working 11
hours a night as a night porter in a four star hotel. I never
experienced obnoxious behaviour on the part of the hotel guests. None of
them tried to put me in my place. Dr Gopal, I think, does like putting
people in their place.
Very, very unwisely, Dr Priyamvada Gopal
made it completely clear her view of what was 'correct or
acceptable' when David Willetts came to speak at Cambridge University
and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to speak at Columbia University. David
Willetts was Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010 to
2014.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was President of Iran from 2005 to 2013. Whilst
he was President, men and women were stoned to death for adultery,
amongst other offences.
According to Amnesty International, about 5000 men and women
have been executed for same-sex activity since the creation of the
Islamic Republic in 1979.
On the Holocaust (statement of September, 2009):
'They [the Western powers] launched the myth of the Holocaust. They
lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews."
Mohser Amir-Aslani was arrested
for 'insulting the prophet Jonah' and for making changes in religion. He
was executed in 2014.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to give a speech at Columbia
University in New York City. Lee Bollinger had referred to the
President as a 'petty and cruel dictator.' Dr Gopal referred to this
comment as 'demeaning.'
She couldn't possibly
agree with this breach of decorum. She wrote,
'There is no excuse for inviting an elected leader to talk at your
university only to undermine him as lacking in "intellectual courage"
before he has had a chance to speak.
I emailed some members of the English faculty, including Dr Gopal,
to draw their attention to this material on Iran. After some time, she
sent me this email. It was obvious she didn't like what I'd written, not
one bit. She didn't offer any arguments and evidence. She wrote in her
email to me,
'What a sad sack you
are ! Get a life, kid.
The protest that gave David Willetts no chance to speak is
described in the section above on Owen Holland and the English
Faculty.
The YouTube video which records the protest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aco0zOFN8sA
She was completely in agreement with the protest, including the chant
beginning at 11.45.
What about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? In the image above, a woman is shown
about to be stoned to death in Iran. Whilst he was President, about 6
people were stoned to death. For example, in 2009, two people were
stoned to death in Mashhad for adultery. The 2008 Islamic
Penal Code specifies the size of the stones to be used - the stones are
not to be so large that they will kill quickly.
In 2005, Mohser Amir-Aslani was arrested
for 'insulting the prophet Jonah' and for making changes in religion. He
was executed in 2014.
Iran has been a prolific executioner of homosexual/gay people. Any kind
of sexual activity between two partners other than in a heterosexual
marriage is illegal. According to Amnesty International, about 5000 men
and women have been executed for same-sex activity since the creation of
the Islamic Republic in 1979. Female homosexuality is treated more
leniently than male homosexuality, but this is Iranian Islamist
leniency, not leniency as we know it. Lesbian acts (mosahegheh)
between people who are mature, of sound mind, and consenting can be
punished by 50 lashes. If the act is repeated three times and punishment
is enforced each time, the death sentence applies on the fourth
occasion.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to have overlooked the many people executed in
Iran for same-sex relations when he claimed,
"'In Iran we don't have
homosexuals like in your country ... In Iran we do not have this
phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this.'
On the Holocaust (statement of September, 2009.):
'They [the Western powers] launched the myth of the Holocaust. They
lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews."
Wikipedia is obviously a source of information which is vastly less
important than the sources of information available to Cambridge
academics - or is it? Not always. This is an invaluable Wikipedia article on the 'International Conference to review
the global vision of the Holocaust in Tehran.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International
Conference_to_Review_the_Global_Vision_of_the_Holocaust
The Iranian President's comment on the terrorist attacks of 9/11:
'Some segments within the American government orchestrated the
attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on
the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime.'
And, on a lighter note, in December 2005, he banned
Western music from state-run TV stations. In July 2010, he issued a
statement on the wearing of ties:
'The supreme guide [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] himself has said in a
fatwa that the wearing of ties or bow ties is not permitted.'
What does Dr Gopal's rule book have to say about the proper way to
receive such a guest speaker? Very, very unwisely, she put it in writing.
He came to speak at Columbia University. Lee Bollinger had referred to the
President as a 'petty and cruel dictator.' Dr Gopal referred to this as 'demeaning.'
She couldn't possibly
agree with this breach of decorum. She wrote,
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/priyamvada-gopal-a-shameful-silence/?print=pdf
'There is no excuse for inviting an elected leader to talk at your
university only to undermine him as lacking in "intellectual courage"
before he has had a chance to speak.
I emailed some members of the English faculty, including Dr Gopal, to
draw their attention to this material on Iran. After some time, she sent me this email. It was
obvious she didn't like what I'd written, not one bit. Instead of
defending her view of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and giving
her reasons why David Willetts should be treated much more harshly,
instead of opposing my arguments and evidence by giving arguments
and evidence of her own, she chose the easier way:
'I just thought you'd like to know that every time you send one of
these emails it causes huge ripples of merriment. What a sad sack you
are ! Get a life, kid.
PG'
I would have thought that 'Get a life' is a kids' phrase. Someone
with a PhD, a fellowship at Churchill College Cambridge and a post in
the Faculty of English at Cambridge can do much better than that. If they
can't, then so much the worse for the Faculty of English.
I sent her this reply:
Dear Dr Gopal,
I'm dismayed by your recent email:
'I just thought
you'd like to know that every time you send one of these emails it
causes huge ripples of merriment. What a sad sack you are ! Get a life,
kid.'
Most of all, this part, 'What a sad sack you are!Get a life, kid.'
I know there are many demands on your time, but I ask you to
retract this part of your email. I don't think you can possibly justify
it. If you're not willing to retract it, then I ask that you give me
permission to quote it.
You may wonder, why don't I
just go ahead and quote it? Why do I need to ask? For this reason, that
I've a policy on quoting emails sent to me, and this is it:
'Emails sent to me won't be released into the public domain,
including publication on this site, unless I have the permission of the
sender. Anyone who emails me can criticize me as much as they want and
the matter will remain private.'
You can do one of these things:
Email me to tell me
that I shouldn't quote the email. In that case I won't quote it. It will
remain private.
Email me to tell me that I can quote it. If so, then I'll quote it.
Or do nothing. If I don't hear from you in the next few days,
I'll assume that you don't particularly mind if I do mention it.
Best Wishes,
Paul Hurt
She chose the third option. I haven't heard any more from her, so I'm
quoting her email now.
She urges me to 'get a life, kid.' I don't have to painstakingly give
evidence to the contrary and then ask her to reconsider.
Dr Gopal seems to do a great deal of lecturing, apart from
lecturing her students in lecture theatres. If she's ever
inclined to lecture non-university people again, and particularly people
in an older age group, she'd do well to avoid phrases like 'What a sad
sack you are! Get a life, kid.' Otherwise, she may get a reputation for patronising and demeaning language, and even a reputation as a First
Class (not a 2: 1) Arsehole. I realize that according to one influential
view, very common in universities, only white males like me can use 'patronising'
and 'demeaning' language - so much the worse for ideology.
I don't know nearly enough about Dr Gopal to make sweeping,
wide-ranging criticisms. She didn't know nearly enough about me to make
the moronic comment 'Get a life, kid,' but went ahead anyway - and was
so clueless that she allowed the moronic comment to be put into the
public domain. All she had to do was email me to say that she didn't
want this comment of hers to be published. It would have taken next to
no time.
Dr Gopal may well be a delightful person with many strengths. All I
do here is point out some weaknesses which accompany whatever strengths
she may have.
I'm surprised that Dr Gopal and other people in the Cambridge English
Faculty found such 'merriment' in my emails. In almost all cases, these
people have received only one email. They were factual. I simply drew
their attention to the material on this page. I did, though, take the
trouble to find out more, sometimes much more, about the person I was
emailing, and changed the wording of the emails accordingly.
Clive Betts MP LFPME: Israel,
irregularities, expenses
Attribution
By Chris McAndrew
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61321513
Clive Betts MP was educated (or trained) at Pembroke
College, Cambridge. He's a member of Labour Friends of Israel and the
Middle East (LFPME) and one of the many MP's I list and discuss in my very
critical section on the group on my page on Israel.
Supplementary information, an extract from Wikipedia:
'Betts was suspended from the House of Commons for seven
days for irregularities involving the employment and visa of Jose Gasparo ... the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported
on 10 July 2010 that Betts' partner and parliamentary assistant, James
Thomas, had tried to edit this fact from Betts' English Wikipedia page in an
attempt to cover it up.
'Betts was found guilty of breaching the MPs' code of
conduct, with the Standards and Privileges Committee stating that he had acted "extremely foolishly" and had
risked damaging public confidence in the integrity of Parliament. Particular
concerns involved Betts' failure to disclose Gasparo's background to
Parliamentary authorities and the fact that Betts had knowingly photocopied
an altered document on Gasparo's behalf. Betts gave an
"unreserved apology" in a personal statement to MPs when the report was
published.
'In 2003, Betts was subject to criticism for his
accommodation expenses after he had previously campaigned for an increase in
MPs' entitlements on the ground of "hardship". It was reported by The Times
ythat Betts had "flipped" his designated second home to Yorkshire before
buying a 'country estate' there, before "flipping it" back to London and
taking out a larger mortgage on his flat there. Betts
denied wrongdoing, arguing the Yorkshire property had been 'two dilapidated
listed buildings' and that when he became a whip he had to declare his main
residence as his London flat.
...
'He faced further criticism in 2010 after it was reported
that he was one of eight MPs who were renting out a 'second home' in London
whilst claiming for the cost of renting a 'third home' in the city at
taxpayers' expense. Although legal, critics argued the 'loophole' was
allowing MPs to increase their income after the rules on parliamentary
expenses were tightened.'
'Betts employs his partner as his Senior Parliamentary
Assistant on a salary up to £45,000 ... Although MPs who were first elected
in 2017 have been banned from employing family
members, the restriction is not retrospective - meaning that Betts'
employment of his partner is lawful.'
Clive Betts was involved in an expenses scandal involving
colossal sums of money - the grotesque story of The World Student Games. At
the time, these games were described as second in importance only to the
Olympics, games which would put Sheffield on the map. The games are
forgotten, but the waste of money shouldn't be forgotten, and Clive Betts
was leader of Sheffield City Council at the time.
From the BBC report of 14 July, 2011:
The World Student Games which took place in
Sheffield 20 years ago ran up an overall debt of £658m.
Sheffield Council, which funded the 1991 games,
has revealed it will continue to repay £25m a year until the debt is paid
off in 2024 despite having to make savings of £80m this year.
Lib Dem group leader Shaffaq Mohammed branded
the games a financial disaster.
...
As part of the project for the World Student
Games, the council built large sporting facilities in Sheffield to host
events, including Don Valley Stadium, Ponds Forge, Sheffield Arena and
Hillsborough Leisure Centre.
Following a request by the BBC, the council
released figures stating that the cost of building the facilities totalled
£147m and a further £21.4m was spent on staging the games.
It said £297m has been repaid, however the final
amount will not be fully repaid until April 2024.
Daniel Zeichner MP LFPME
Daniel Zeichner is, of course, the MP for
Cambridge. He read history at Cambridge (Kings College). Like Clive
Betts, he's a member of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East
(LFPME). My page on Israel has information and opinion on this Society of
Friends (friends who in some cases hate each other.) In 2010, he used the
word 'fascists' of the Polish Law and Justice Party, which sits with the
Conservatives in the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. He
performed a Nazi salute during a debate at the Cambridge Union Society.
Rabbi Reuvan Leigh: ' 'To make light of the Nazi salute and to accuse these
parties, who are not anti-Semitic, is absolutely disgusting.' It may
be said that Daniel Zeichner is too dull and dismal to be capable of
disgusting behaviour, but I differ. His stupefyingly dull Website - standard
stuff from start to finish - shouldn't, I suppose, be blamed on his
Cambridge education. A comforting thought - not every constituency gets the
MP it deserves. The excellence to be found in Cambridge, sometimes in the
most unlikely places, such as the Faculty of English and even the Faculty of
Theology (but not for its thelogical work) deserves a far better MP than
this one.
Cambridge feminism
and slavery
My page on feminist ideology is
much
more comprehensive than this section. Underneath the image of a slave who
has been flogged and an image of a slave owner with her two slaves, there's
material on slavery which will raise very, very difficult issues for many,
many feminists, including Cambridge feminists. Whether they will be willing
to confront the issues honestly remains to be seen. (The same images are
used in my page on
Christian religion, with material on the Church of England's linkages
with slavery.)
From Sally Weales's article published in the Guardian (30
April, 2019).
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/apr/30/cambridge-university-study-how-it-profited-colonial-slavery
The University of Cambridge is to launch a
two-year academic study to uncover how the institution contributed to and
profited from slavery and other forms of coerced labour during the colonial
era.
Two full-time post-doctoral researchers based in
the university’s Centre of African Studies will conduct the inquiry to
uncover the university’s historical links with the slave trade.
Their brief is to find out how the university
gained from slavery, through specific financial bequests and gifts. They
will also investigate the extent to which scholarship at Cambridge might
have reinforced, validated or perhaps challenged race-based thinking at the
time.
Vice-chancellor Stephen Toope has appointed an
eight-member advisory panel to oversee the research and ultimately recommend
ways to publicly acknowledge the institution’s past links to slavery and
address its modern impact.
The way universities and museums deal with the
legacy of slave-owning benefactors has become a key area of debate within
academia, highlighted in recent years by protests from students such as the
"Rhodes must fall" campaign at the University of Oxford.
The history of slavery poses wide-ranging problems
for scholarship at Cambridge. Slavery poses very difficult problems for
Cambridge feminists. The extract:
'In North and
South America there were large numbers of women slave owners. The majority
of the slaves were men. In Britain there were many, many slave owners.
When slavery was abolished throughout the
British colonies in 1833, over 40% of the 46,000 people who claimed
compensation for their loss of property, and were generally successful, were
women. There was 'gender inequality' in this form of property ownership but
the 'gender property-gap,' the 'gender slave-owning gap,' was not so very great.
The feminist Caroline
Lucas of the Green Party wants to ensure 'that 40% of board members
(of companies] are women.' If this is a target for women's representation,
then women slave-owners met the target with ease.
'Of course, 40%
women, 60% men isn't 'gender equality.' 50% women, 50% men does amount to
gender equality - but to suppose that the mathematical concept of
percentage can be applied to these complex realities of human life is
ridiculously simple-minded. Even the ridiculously simple-minded Green Party
concedes that the 50% target may be unattainable, that strict equality is
unattainable.
These are
some reminders that women have often been immeasurably more fortunate than men
and that Professor Susan James' generalization and the generalization of
her husband, Professor Quentin Skinner
amount to gross
distortion. She claims
(in
the 'Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy')
' 'Feminism is grounded on the belief that women
are oppressed or disadvantaged by comparison with men ... '
'He claims
(in an interview)
' 'Everything remains harder for women, at every stage ... '
'What of slave men
and free women, such as the many free women who
owned slaves? (More information about these slave-owning women very soon.) Were these women 'oppressed' or 'disadvantaged' by comparison
with male slaves, such as the male slaves in the photographs here? Was
everything harder for these women? Did these male slaves have it easy?
'Below, and in other
places on the page, I give examples from many other fields which call into
question their ignorant generalization. Ignorant generalizations are
still ignorant generalizations when they're pro-feminist ignorant
generalizations.
'...
What do Susan James, Quentin
Skinner and others make of this, on the compensation
of slave owners, including women slave owners?
'On 28 August 1833, the Abolition Bill received the royal assent: slavery
would be abolished throughout the British colonies. Later in the year, the
Slave Compensation Commission was established. It awarded compensation to
the slave owners for loss of the property they owned - the slaves. The
slaves themselves, 800,000 in number, received no compensation. The
Commission paid out the staggering sum of 20 million GBP, the equivalent of
17 billion GBP in current values. The slave owners who were compensated so
generously - 3,000 of them living in this country - included many, many
women. Over 40% of the 46,000 people who claimed compensation for
their loss of property, and were generally successful, were women.
This is not so far from the all-important figure (for
gender theorists and feminist egalitarians) of around 50% of course.
'The section on 'Slavery and Serfdom' gives more information about the Slave
Compensation Commission. Its records give astonishing insights not only into
slavery and its horrors but the status of free women slave owners at the
time - the women who helped to nurture slavery. One of these is Dorothy
Little who showed great energy in pursuing her callous and self-seeking
interests.
'Women like Dorothy Little who had inherited slaves and lived off
the income from slaves until they were compensated for the loss of their
slaves - what is a feminist to make of this? Hugh Thomas, writing about the
Dutch trade in slaves, noted that 'planters preferred slaves whom they could
work hard and then discard, or leave to die, without the trouble of having
to rear their families.' (The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade 1440 - 1870.') Were
women slave owners, or many, many free women who were not slave owners, for
that matter,
'oppressed' or 'disadvantaged' by comparison with
the male slaves who were worked to death? Were these male slaves privileged?
'More on slavery in Brazil. Charles
Darwin, 'Voyage of the Beagle:' 'On the 19th of August [1832] we finally left the
shores of Brazil. I thank God I shall never again visit a slave-country ...
Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to
crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a
young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and
persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a
little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse whip (before
I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water
not quite clean ... Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a
cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of
the latter ... picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of
your wife and your little children ... being torn from you and sold like
beasts to the first bidder!'
'Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery, in
1888. (Not so long before abolition, four male slaves were flogged over
a period of six days. Each slave received 300 lashes.)
'The section includes this
testimony:
' '... She was a fearful woman, and a
savage mistress to her slaves.
' 'There were two little slave boys in
the house, on whom she vented her bad temper in a special
manner. One of these children was a mulatto, called Cyrus,
who had been bought while an infant in his mother's arms;
the other, Jack, was an African from the coast of Guinea,
whom a sailor had given or sold to my master. Seldom a day
passed without these boys receiving the most severe
treatment, and often for no fault at all. Both my master and
mistress seemed to think that they had a right to ill-use
them at their pleasure; and very often accompanied their
commands with blows, whether the children were behaving well
or ill. I have seen their flesh ragged and raw with licks.
They were never secure one moment from a blow, and their
lives were passed in continual fear. My mistress was not
contented with using the whip, but often pinched their
cheeks and arms in the most cruel manner. My pity for these
poor boys was soon transferred to myself; for I was licked,
and flogged, and pinched by her pitiless fingers in the neck
and arms, exactly as they were. To strip me naked - to hang
me up by the wrists and lay my flesh open with the cow-skin,
was an ordinary punishment for even a slight offence. My
mistress often robbed me too of the hours that belong to
sleep. She used to sit up very late, frequently even until
morning; and I had then to stand at a bench and wash during
the greater part of the night, or pick wool and cotton; and
often I have dropped down overcome by sleep and fatigue,
till roused from a state of stupor by the whip, and forced
to start up to my tasks.'
'The Rhodes Must Fall Group demanded the removal of a statue
of the colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the buildings of Oriel College, Oxford,
and 'a commitment from Oxford University to 'recontextualising iconography
celebrating figures of grave injustice' They added, 'Murderous colonists and
slave-holders belong in books and museums, not on the sides of buildings.
This requires the removal and rehousing of statues and portraits and the
renaming of buildings.'
The group seems to be unaware of the contribution of
black women to the injustice of slavery and the contribution of black
societies in Africa to the injustice of slavery. As a contribution to
freedom from illusion (not that I expect the ideologists of the Rhodes Must
Fall Group any more than ideological feminists to embrace freedom from
illusion), a quotation from
'Slavery and Free Women of Color in
Antebellum New Orleans' by Anne Ulentin. It gives information
which is resistant to feminist interpretation as well as the
activists of 'Rhodes must Fall:'
' 'My research shows that free women
of color traded slaves of all ages - from infants to 60 year-olds. The
majority were between the ages of 11 and 30, when they were the most
valuable ... Some documents show that slaves ... were to be handed down from
parent to child just like any other possession ... The free women of color,
for whom we have inventories, often owned significant property, including
slaves, houses, lots, and furniture ... It was very common for these women
to choose not to emancipate their slaves, and instead to pass them down to
children or other relatives ... it is difficult to ignore evidence that free
women of color, like whites, engaged in slavery for commercial purposes, and
that, in doing so, they prospered.'
'According to many gender theorists, of course, to be black and a woman is to
be doubly oppressed.
'From 'The Slave Trade: A Reflection' (the closing chapter of Hugh
Thomas' 'The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 140 -
1870'):
'Some slaves were stolen by Europeans ... and some, as occurred often in
Angola, were the victims of military campaigns mounted specifically by
Portuguese proconsuls in order to capture slaves. But most slaves carried
from Africa between 140 and 1870 were procured as a result of the African's
interest in selling their neighbours, usually distant but sometimes close,
and, more rarely, their own people.' And,
' '... most of the millions of slaves shipped from Africa were ...
ordinary farmers or members of their families, suddenly deprived of their
liberty by fellow Africans in response to what a modern economist might call
'growing external demand.' '
Professor
Rae Langton, WOWSER
Professor
Langton is a Fellow of Newnham College, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge
University and a WOWSER.
WOW stands for 'Women of the World.'
'Man of the world
ALSO woman of the world
Someone who has a lot of experience of life and can
deal with most situations
(Definition from the Cambridge Dictionary.)
Professor Langton took part in the 2015 and
2016 WOW festivals so I refer to her as a 'WOWSER' here. WOWSER has a
meaning she may not find completely to her liking. She has Australian
as well as British citizenship and Collins English Dictionary gives this for
'Wowser:' 'Austral. slang 1. A fanatically puritanical person.'
Feminists - fanatical? puritanical? This would irritate the people who took
part in the fun-filled feminist festival which is WOW, I think. But I don't
use WOWSER in this sense. I use it to mean 'Woman of the World' who supports
events like the Cambridge Woman of the World festival - but not a woman of
the world who 'has a lot of experience of life and can deal with most
situations.'
These women of the world aren't like that.
At the 2015 WOW Festival Rae Langton chaired
a panel calling for an end to all violence against women:
'Enough! Ending Violence Against Women.'
The programme explains: 'Gender-based violence in its many
forms seems to have become an almost accepted backdrop to society. This
session will challenge this 'normalisation' and put the case that to live in a world where women are not attacked
or hurt in their daily lives - physically, sexually or virtually is possible.'
Does she think that it's possible to end all
violence against women, physical, sexual and virtual? If she does, she's
disastrously misguided. Can we expect to see a world where Islamist suicide
bombers spare the women and only target the men, or people high on drugs
murder only men and never women? Is this an achievable objective?
If Rae Langton doesn't agree with those WOWSERS who
think that the utopian, impossible deluded, deranged dream of a world
without those harms is perfectly possible, after so many centuries, after so
many millennia of violence, cruelty and hurt, then she should put on record
her disagreement and the extent of her disagreement. She should make it
clear to other WOWSERS, other Cambridge 'Women of the World' that she
doesn't share the views of some of them, that she can't possibly endorse
them.
She chaired this panel. What did she say at the
time? Could she make clear what she said at the time? I've no record of the
outcome. It may be that the WOWSERS saw sense and rejected the programme's
claim, but why did Rae Langton, a Professor of Philosophy agree to chair the
panel at all?
By 'hurt in their daily lives' the programme refers,
of course, to a wide range of experiences, no doubt including 'everyday
sexism,' which also covers a wide range, including all sorts of slights and
irritations and annoyances - to be defined and interpreted by the feminist
philosopher-queens, of course. Is it a feasible objective to put an end to
these as well? What does Rae Langton think?
How is this miraculous transformation to be
achieved? How is the influence of the Cambridge WOWSERS and people who think
like them to reach every city, town, village and settlement in the land and
modify the words and actions of so many people - and and billions of people
in other lands, of course. If it's a realistic and not a deluded objective
in this country then it's a no less realistic objective in other countries,
including Islamic countries. If the lives of women in this country can be
transformed - and this would be the most radical transformation in the whole
of recorded history - then surely the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, for
instance, can also be transformed. What does Rae Langton think?
This is the Magic Wand school of thought. It may
flourish at Cambridge, or pass without comment, but it's contradicted by
reality, falsified by reality.
I've been an activist in very varied fields,
including human rights. For about twenty years, I was an active member of an
Amnesty International group, for example. For most of that time I was the
death penalty co-ordinator for the group but I worked on almost the full
spectrum of Amnesty International cases. The experience left me with an
overwhelming sense of the difficulties and disappointments which accompany
the successes of human rights campaigning, the enormous amount of work
needed to improve human rights, to help, it may be, just one person -
without any guarantee that the improvement will be long lasting.
If it's a perfectly feasible objective to bring into
being a world in which men never attack or hurt women - physically, sexually
or virtually - could WOWSERS please explain, could Rae Langton please
explain, why it's not a perfectly feasible objective to bring into being at
the same time a world in which women never attack or hurt other women -
physically, sexually or virtually. Could WOWSERS explain, could Rae Langton
please explain, why it's not a perfectly feasible objective to bring into
being a world in which women never attack or hurt men - physically, sexually
or virtually?
Are the WOWSERS thinking of - or rather imagining -
a partial utopia? To give only a single instance, Lavinia Woodward, an
Oxford student, stabbed her boyfriend whilst drunk - and was spared
imprisonment. WOWSERS imagine a world in which men no longer stab women,
drunk or sober, presumably, high on drugs or without the influence of drugs
(and never use 'sexist' language, whether drunk or sober, high on drugs or
without the influence of drugs, presumably.) Will WOWSERS prevent the
harmful actions of women as well as those actions of men?
Or do they think of women as weak, impossible to
control?
Another event: the Eighth Cambridge Festival of
Ideas. I couldn't possibly do justice to the wealth of ideas on offer.
Not so much wealth- the festival is very, very selective about the ideas on
offer. Don't expect to find any criticism of feminism or Islamism, for
example.
One of the events was concerned with 'The
politics of pornography, objectification of women and censorship.' As I
didn't attend, I can't say if any of the speeches or discussions had any
trace of puritanism or any trace of fanaticism. One of the WOWSERS taking
part in this event was Professor Rae Langton. On the question of censorship,
I do hope that, as a good philosopher, she pleaded for the right of
anti-feminists to have their voices heard as well as feminists, that she
pleaded with feminists not to make any attempt to censor the views of
anti-feminists.
And there was this event:
-
Rapping our way to Islam – spoken word artist
Tommy Evans' insight into his personal journey to faith and Islam via
his love of hip hop. The event will showcase The Centre of Islamic
Studies’ major research project ‘Narratives of Conversion to Islam in
Britain - Male Perspectives’, whose findings are published in October.
-
I don't know if the mention of Male Perspectives
bothered anyone who took part in the feminism-filled-Festival, such as
Professor Langton. I don't know if anyone who attended brought up some
difficulties, to give just one example, Sura 4:34 of the Quran. I know that
Tommy Evans has been spending a great deal of time studying the Quran. He
will have read and perhaps intensively studied this Sura.
It's interpreted by many, many people as sanctioning
the beating of wives. The man who appears in this video certainly seems to
think so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGA8i6scYY
An article in the New York Times has this:
'The hotly debated verse states that a rebellious
woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed and ultimately
"beaten" - the most common translation for the Arabic word "daraba" - unless
her behaviour improves.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/world/americas/25iht-koran.4.5017346.html
But many people at Cambridge,
including, perhaps, Rae Langton, may well think it's bad manners to mention
such things.
From the Website of Newnham College, Cambridge:
'I have been Professor
of Philosophy at Cambridge, and Fellow of Newnham, since September 2013. I
chose to join Newnham because of its people, its commitment to women’s
education, and its inspiring history. I’m delighted to be in this latest
chapter of a story that includes the heroic figures of Henry Sidgwick,
Virginia Woolf, and so many more.'
It may be that Professor Langton hasn't given nearly
enough attention to the feminism of Virginia Woolf. Here, I put the case
against:
Like so many feminists and proto-feminists, Virginia
Woolf's attitude to women not of her class, not at her level of
accomplishment, not at her level of sensitivity, supposedly, was completely
insensitive.
From an article in 'The Guardian,'
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/aug/05/biography.features
'In 1938, an unemployed weaver from Huddersfield
called Agnes Smith wrote to Virginia Woolf in angry response to her book
Three Guineas. She was scathing about the portrayal of the working class,
writing that 'to hear some people talk you would think that ... a kitchen
maid [was born] of a union between the cooking stove and the kitchen sink'.
'This is the rebuke that none of Woolf's servants
puts in writing; unlike the author, who scribbled furiously in private as
well as in print, their voices are harder to reconstruct. A writer who
attempted to put the hidden folds of consciousness on to paper none the less
regarded her servants as functions relating to herself. Their clamorous
demands and demurrals she found largely baffling and frustrating, and the
resulting friction generated screeds of writing, much of so crazily personal
a nature that they prompted Alison Light to explore this fraught psychic
territory in a scintillating meeting of biography, social history and
literary criticism.
'Until at least the Second World War, British
society ran on servants. Most British women, as Light explains, would either
have been in service or employed servants. She approaches this subject
through perhaps the most minutely examined psyche of British modernism.
Although Woolf devoted hours to probing her own consciousness, those of her
servants remained hazy to her: it's somehow symptomatic that Woolf always
misspelled her cook's first name as 'Nelly', rather than the actual Nellie.
Even though they were subject to terrible mental and emotional distress,
Woolf dismissed her servants' fury or misery as hysterics, as if sensitivity
only kicked in on a certain rung of the class structure.'
From the page
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/a-maid-of-ones-own/90303.article
' ... without all the domestic care and hard work
that servants provided there would have been no art, no writing, no
"Bloomsbury".
'Independence was the great goal of Woolf's
generation of feminists - economic, psychological, emotional. Woolf's
sympathies led her to champion the needs of women whose lives had long been
obscured from history ... Yet her polemical, political writing about women
sits uneasily alongside her obnoxious comments on Nellie and the spasms of
disgust that disfigure her responses to working women in the flesh.'
But again, we come back to the importance of
technology. From 'The Horror of Dirt: Virginia Woolf and her Servants,'
http://www.thenation.com/article/horror-dirt-virginia-woolf-and-her-servants/
'Technological
advances that Americans were quick to adopt–water heaters, vacuum cleaners
and other time-saving devices–crept very slowly into British homes. One of
the fascinations of Light’s book is its scrub-by-scour account of a
servant’s typical day–the beating of rugs and curtains, the emptying of
chamber pots, the carrying of buckets of boiling water up many flights of
stairs so that the employers could have warmish baths that servants did
without, and a great deal more, from dawn until late at night. The kitchen
was typically in the basement, which meant cooking with very little light,
often with no running hot water, on a temperamental range that needed
frequent fueling and stoking.'
Without technological advances, almost entirely the
work of men, as a matter of strict fact, contemporary feminists would have
hardly any leisure to write their condemnations of patriarchy. Technological
advances, such as the railway, had already benefitted Virginia Woolf and her
class to a massive extent. Virginia Woolf had no need to live in a shelter
made of branches and wash in a stream because of technological advance. For
Virginia Woolf's works to be printed, the printing press first had to be
invented. As a matter of strict fact, the original printing press and the
development of the printing press were the work of men.
I don't claim that Rae Langton is insensitive, only
that her sensitivity is subject to very severe {restriction}, like the
highly developed sensitivity of Virginia Woolf. The sensitivity of George
Orwell is of a different kind, a different order. George Orwell, writing in
'The Road to Wigan Pier:'
'This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold
and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly
through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey
slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of
the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the
leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was
blocked. I had time to see everything about her - her sacking apron, her
clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train
passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale
face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks
forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in
which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen. It
struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that 'it isn't the same for
them as it would be for us,' and that people bred in the slums can imagine
nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant
suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her -
understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling
there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a
stick up a foul drain-pipe.'
More on the WOW factor:
The Twitter page of WOW Cambridge (Women of
the World Festival, Cambridge)
https://twitter.com/WOWCambs?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
is referred to as twit-WOW here.
WOW Cambridge, which appears on some official
Cambridge University pages, including this one
http://www.wowcambridge.cam.ac.uk/
is referred to as official-WOW.
There are semi-scholarly and even scholarly pages on
this site, but this page isn't one of them. I hope that feminist academics
will be prepared to overlook the lack of scholarly citations here (such as
the year, month and day of twit-WOW quotations.)
Some Food for Thought from
WOW-twit.
'There's
no one better at being you than you, you are your own creativity'
This is Junk-Food-Thought, but not the kind of junk
food which does contain protein and vitamins and other very useful
nutrients.
FreddyHarrel (Frédérique
Harrel) endorsed it. She was obviously prepared to
overlook its deficiencies. She describes herself on Twit-WOW as a 'Top UK
Blogger/Stylist/Confidence Consultant/Digital Strategist' who provides
'Confidence & Style Workshops for women.'
Nothing so commonplace, but useful, as 'Top UK
roofing contractor' who provides 'repairs for your roof when the rain's
coming in.' (Contractors who amongst other things work outdoors in the
Winter with bankruptcy likely or inevitable if they don't work outdoors in
the Winter.)
For Freddy, it seems, work has to be fulfilling.
Work which isn't particularly fulfilling for the worker, work which isn't in
the least fulfilling for the worker, work which is difficult, dirty and
dangerous - even if the work is needed to produce materials essential to the
well-being of feminists or to take away the sewage of feminists, for that
matter - work which is essential for the whole of society, seems not to meet
her approval. The work of Care Home Assistants, who aren't able to skip work
on a Thursday, who aren't in the least willing to abandon the people they're
looking after on a Thursday - is work which seems to be just as much beyond
her comprehension.
Let's hang this Thursday! We're talking being
fulfilled at work with @StylistMagazine ...
Parents can be concerned about their own lack of
fulfilment and try to increase their fulfilment, but the dangers of paying
too much attention to FreddyHarrel or Stylist Magazine - or any attention to
them - should be obvious.
This is Paul, a male feminist, writing for twit-WOW:
"Pessimism is
passive, optimism is active", says Jude – we've all got to make changes
we want to see happen.
The threats to the steel industry in this country
(it's not likely that these threats have preoccupied too many feminists) are
immense. Have the steel workers and their supporters 'got to make changes
they want to see happen?' If they are pessimistic, are they in danger of
forgetting that 'pessimism is passive?' Or is it more difficult than that,
far more difficult than that? The extreme difficulties and dangers in Syria.
Do humanitarians, and the people they want to help, simply have to ensure
that they make the changes they want to see happen? If they are pessimistic,
are they in danger of forgetting that 'optimism is active?' Or is it more
difficult than that, far more difficult than that?
By the way, who is this 'Jude?' Could it be Jude
Kelly, of the South Bank Centre in London? The woman who founded WOW? I
haven't though, been able to confirm that she did actually say or write,
'Pessimism is passive, optimism is active.'
Official-WOW is different in tone but, like
twitter-WOW is complacent and evasive. Like twitter-WOW, it treats feminism
as established truth, beyond the petty sphere of argument and evidence.
Their mind is on other things, such as recruitment of 'WOWsers,' who
according to the Cambridge University site will have have the privilege of
'Managing WOW Cambridge's social media presence' and 'Escorting VIP's to
events.' Not only that, but 'All WOWsers gain a certificate of participation
from the University of Cambridge.'
Sorry to be pedantic, but on the page which outlines
the benefits of being a WOWser,
http://www.wowcambridge.cam.ac.uk/get-involved/wowsers
there's this, without a question mark:
'What is WOW'
For this question, I do supply a question mark,
'Is
Cambridge University an unimportant place for mediocrities as well as
a 'centre of excellence?'
The page 'Sessions'
http://www.wowcambridge.cam.ac.uk/wow-2016-0/sessions
includes this,
'Make way! Women in politics.'
'2015 saw the launch of the Women’s Equality Party
and new momentum to ensure women have a voice within politics and social
change. A discussion of changing times, chaired by journalist and Principal
of Lucy Cavendish College Jackie Ashley and featuring Halla Gunnarsdottir
from the Women’s Equality Party, Frances Scott of the 50:50 Campaign,
Priscilla Mensah, President of the Cambridge Student’s Union and Dr Helen
Pankhurst.'
Completely missing, any acknowledgment that women in
politics will again and again have irreconcilable differences - women in
UKIP, women in the Labour Party who support Jeremy Corbyn, women in the
Labour Party who oppose Jeremy Corbyn, Israeli women and Palestinian women,
women who admire Margaret Thatcher and women who loathe Margaret Thatcher
... and that the Women's Equality Party has to have, but doesn't have,
policies and expertise in all the areas which are essential for the survival
and success of a democracy, not forgetting expertise in defence of this
country against terrorists and other aggressors (aggressors which have many,
many women supporters, by the way.)
The section 'To infinity and beyond' (a title with
many philosophical difficulties, of course) includes this:
Are feminism and gender equality changing the
universe? A lively panel assesses the difference activism, science,
representation and comedy can make. With radical feminist Dr Finn Mackay ...
Finn Mackay's site is grotesque, listing
achievement after achievement, or her view of achievement, in a list which
isn't endless but seems it, appearance after appearance at some event or
other: the appearance is the achievement, it seems.
She'd claim, perhaps - or probably - that she's
deeply oppressed, but she can't possibly claim that life has been completely
unfair to her. She's a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of
England. This is her profile on the University site:
http://people.uwe.ac.uk/Pages/person.aspx?accountname=campus%5Cf-mackay
The 2016 sessions included some teaching on how to 'punch and kick like a woman!'
Dr Lauren Wilcox theorizes Embodied Subjects
Dr Wilcox is
a Fellow of Selwyn College and the Deputy Director of the University of Cambridge
Centre for Gender Studies. The director of the Centre is Jude Browne.
I can't write very much more about Lauren Wilcox because I still have to
study her book 'Bodies of Violence: Theorizing Embodied Subjects in
International Relations,' with particular reference to 'Explosive Bodies:
Suicide Bombing as an Embodied Practice and the Politics of Abjection,'
published by the prestigious (or Very Prestigious) 'Oxford Studies in Gender
and International Relations.'
By the standards of modern terrorism, the Provisional IRA were
ruthless terrorists but not the most ruthless. They gave warning to
civilians of bomb blasts, but sometimes, simple incompetence led to
unexpected problems - and people died and were horribly injured.
From my page Ireland and Northern Ireland:
distortions and illusions:
I lived in Northern Ireland during the
Troubles, when the Troubles were at their worst. My visits to Belfast left
an indelible impression but I was based in one of the safest areas of
Northern Ireland. Even so, a few days before I left
the Province for England, I heard a massive explosion in Coleraine which killed six
pensioners and injured 44 people, including schoolchildren.
Above, the effects of the car bomb planted by the Provisional IRA in
Coleraine, County Londonderry.
From the Wikipedia entry on the bombing:
'Several of the wounded were maimed and left crippled for life. The
bomb left a deep crater in the road and the wine shop was engulfed in
flames; it also caused considerable damage to vehicles and other buildings
in the vicinity. Railway Road was a scene of carnage and devastation with
the mangled wreckage of the Ford Cortina resting in the middle of the
street, the bodies of the dead and injured lying in pools of blood amongst
the fallen masonry and roof slates, and shards of glass from blown-out
windows blanketing the ground. Rescue workers who arrived at the scene spoke
of "utter confusion" with many people "wandering around in a state of severe
shock". Five minutes later, the second bomb went off in the forecourt of
Stuart's Garage in Hanover Place. Although this explosion caused no
injuries, it added to the panic and confusion yielded by the first bomb.
...
'In the immediate aftermath of the blast, there had been several
seconds of "deathly silence" before "all hell broke loose", with hysterical
people rushing from the scene and others going to tend the wounded who were
screaming in agony.'
See also my poem Sailing from Belfast, at the
time of the Troubles.
The IRA terror, for all its horrors, was
never unrestrained. That is, it was subject to {restriction}. The IRA never
carried out suicide bombings
I'm eager to find what Dr Wilcox has to say about the subject - or has to
theorize about the subject. Although I'm well read in the literature of the
subject - including Popper's works on theory - I'm not in the least convinced that
in the case of suicide bombing, theorizing can take the place of thinking in
terms of human values, practicalities, realism which takes account of hopes
that the harshness of reality can be made less harsh.
Some gender theorists seem to take a very earnest view of the 'theory'
that is gender theory, regarding it as akin to scientific theory or as truly
scientific, and offering the best, or only, way to solving many practical
problems. They are pathologists who examine the diseases caused by 'sexism'
and can cure the diseases.
An abstract of the book:
'The bodies produced by the violent practice of suicide bombing are
a source of horror and disgust. They are, in feminist psychoanalyst Julia
Kristeva's concept, abject: that which defies borders and is
expelled to create the self. As ‘abject bodies’, suicide bombers' bodies
frustrate attempts at calculation and rational control of security risks,
and, in their mutilated flesh, expose as unstable the idea of the body as a
whole with clearly defined boundaries between inside and outside. Female
suicide bombers, whose bodies are already considered ‘abject’, produce a
politics of the body that exceeds narratives of victimhood, and whose very
monstrosity symbolically threatens the foundations of the nation-state.
Attempts at constructing subjects out of the mutilated bodily remains of
victims and perpetrators of suicide bombings are key practices in the
production of the state and gendered subjects. The practice of suicide
bombing and efforts to recover and resignify bodies reveals how power molds
and constitutes the border of the body and state simultaneously. The
explosive body of the suicide bomber thus has destabilizing effects beyond
the motivations of its perpetrators and exposes the political work necessary
to maintain the illusion of secure, bounded bodies and states.'
A preliminary view: the author gives, in stilted language, a view of
suicide bombing which is deadly - deadly to the reputation of the writer,
that is - crystalline in superficial appearance, crude, vague, mushy and
confused in reality. What are efforts to 'recover' and 'resignify' bodies?
The border of the body and the border of a state are so different in kind
that 'molding' (or 'moulding') and constituting the border of the body and
the state simultaneously is without meaning - this comment from someone
whose site has linkage as a central organizing principle (but also
contrast.) The distinction is made between male and female suicide bombers (only the
female suicide bombers have bodies which are 'abject,' presumably because
the female suicide bombers, unlike the male suicide bombers, are
'oppressed.') The abstract is ideological rubbish which has no linkage with
the world of innocent people caught up in the deluded violence of fanatics.
At first sight, this is yet more writing which calls into question the
Cambridge reputation for excellence.
Professor Sandra Harding and the R word
Professor Harding was a Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge Centre for
Gender Studies for the Academic Year
2017 - 2018.
https://www.gender.cam.ac.uk/academicvisitors/vpfolder/visiting-professor-academic-year-2017-18
Sandra Harding's 'The Science
Question in Feminism' is the book that contains the deranged claim
that Newton's Principia Mathematica is a 'rape manual'
because, she alleges, 'science is a male rape of female nature.'
She regrets now this particular
claim - her regret may or may not be sincere - but her view of science is
still deeply disturbing. Cornell University Press, publishers of 'The
Science Question in Feminism,' includes this in its current promotional
material,
She regrets now this particular
claim - her regret may or may not be sincere - but her view of science is
still deeply disturbing. Cornell University Press, publishers of 'The
Science Question in Feminism,' includes this in its current promotional
material, 'science ...
steeped in Western, masculine, bourgeois endeavors ... ' Quantum mechanics,
then, is 'steeped in Western, masculine, bourgeois endeavors.' Sandra
Harding, of course, has a very comfortable 'bourgeois' income. The aircraft used
by Sandra Harding to get to get to places in England, such as the University
of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, do, as a matter of strict fact, make
use of innumerable scientific discoveries, mainly, as a matter of strict
fact, the work of men. This page discusses many, many other benefits of
'masculine, bourgeois endeavors,' such as the provision of safe drinking
water, the treatment of sewage - with benefits to the control of infectious
disease which are incalculable - and contraception: the ending of the
Malthusian nightmare of very high birth rates and very high death rates.
Sandra Harding obviously decided that the
pollution from jet travel - which of course has a great impact on arctic ice
- was unimportant when compared with the benefits of spreading the
feminist message in the Arctic. In 2012, she visited the Arctic Centre and
the University of Lapland to give lectures on topics such as 'methodologies
and postcolonial and feminist science.' Such is the determination of a
feminist missionary, eager to spread The Word about such things as
'methodologies and postcolonial and feminist science' to all corners of the
world. A feminist missionary has preached the Postcolonial word in the
Arctic then, although not yet in the Antarctic and the Amazon region, so far
as I know. For the time being, getting to the Arctic, the Antarctic, the
Amazon and Cambridge, England from California makes use of enormously
complex and enormously sophisticated technology based upon enormously
complex and sophisticated science, the product of gendered, colonized
thinking, according to so many feminists.
Dr Rachel Bower and the F word
Dr Bower isn't currently at Cambridge.
From her Website, 'Rachel has a PhD in English from the
University of Cambridge, and reviews regularly for
journals and magazines
including Stand and Wasafiri. Rachel is also the
founder of Verse Matters, a feminist arts collective in
Sheffield.' 'Rachel founded Verse Matters, an
intersectional feminist arts collective, in June 2015.
Verse Matters runs regular arts events in Sheffield,
creating a supportive space for people share poetry,
music, dance and stories.' (a 'to' is missing here,
obviously.) 'Rachel is a poet, academic and
editor. She is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the
University of Leeds.'
'The F Word' is a well known feminist Website. Rachel Bower
is a feminist but 'The F word here is 'fantastic,' not
'feminism' or 'feminist.'
To provide the best possible reading experience, this
section is presented in a larger font size than the
other sections on this page.
This is Dr Bower in full flow:
'Verse Matters is back tonight
(Thurs 7 April) for another FANTASTIC
night of poetry, music and solidarity at the
Moor Theatre Delicatessen ...
'There will be FANTASTIC
performances ... It’s going to be
FAB!'
Businesses who want to sell things don't usually have any
concern for the health of language. They've not in the least
bothered if the language they use is stale:
'Win a
FANTASTIC prize in our FANTASTIC
prize draw!'
Again and again, Rachel Bower's use of
language is just as mechanical and unthinking - the evidence
is overwhelming. Poets, at least poets like Rachel Bower,
can be abysmally bad users of language. The Website of
'Stand magazine' gives the information that she
'contributed six times between 2016 and 2017' - and the
information that 'Stand' 'is now edited from the School
of English at the University of Leeds.'
Much, much higher standards can be found in unlikely places.
Rachel Bower lives in Sheffield. If she ever reads
the football results in our local newspaper, 'The Star,'
she'll know that the language of the writers is far from
tired or debased. A report on a Sheffield Wednesday match,
for instance, will never include phrases such as 'FANTASTIC
match! FANTASTIC goals!' Instead, language which so often is
varied and interesting. Even people without much interest in
football can find interest in these reports. In football,
harsh realities intrude. Most football clubs can't possibly
satisfy the hopes of their supporters for any length of
time. It would be excessive to talk about 'the dark night of
the soul,' but football supporters are never likely to be
spared disappointment for long. In the world of feminist
poetry, it seems, there's relentless uplift. Everything is
'fantastic,'
Rachel Bower seems to live in a fantasy
world where 'fantastic' achievement is the norm -
provided that the 'achievers' are ideologically sound,
of course. She seems
to believe that because she calls something wonderful,
amazing - FANTASTIC - then it must be
wonderful, amazing, FANTASTIC.
Dr Bower's world isn't completely fantastic - for these
feminists, men are the problem, men are the difficulty, men
blight this carefree fantasy world - which would be
anything but carefree without the massive achievements
of men. in bringing safe drinking water to feminists, to
mention just one achievement. Feminists who find life
hideous in the world of patriarchy would find life
infinitely more hideous in a world of unsafe drinking water
and untreated sewage, a world of rampant disease and
premature death. The illusions of feminists are sustained by
massive engineering achievements which have solved problems
which are infinitely more serious than the problems which
preoccupy them.
So, some extracts from Rachel Bower's
pages.
This is the proof of a review that was recently
published in the FANTASTIC poetry
magazine, Stand 14.2 (2016) in Leeds ...
I have guest slots at two
FANTASTIC poetry nights this week ...
We had a wonderful first night at
the Moor Theatre Deli to celebrate
International Women’s Day 2016 as part of SheFest
Sheffield. Amy Kinsman (Poet) performed a FANTASTIC set of poems ...
I was recently a guest presenter
on Sheffield Poetry TV for a special
episode on Verse Matters. The Verse
Matters episode is now available to
watch online (https://vimeo.com/155382260).
Check it out for FANTASTIC
poems from Louise Clines ...
We had a brilliant last night at
the FANTASTIC Mugen
Tea House on Scotland St on Thursday
4 February ...
There are lots of
FANTASTIC events happening
at Universities across the North of
England which connect local and
international issues.
I’m excited to announce that we’re
moving Verse
Matters to the FANTASTIC Moor
Theatre Delicatessen in
March. We’re super happy about the move
...
We are, of course, very sad to leave Sarah
Haigh at the Mugen
Tea House who has been
AMAZING! Please come along and say
thanks to her next week at Verse
Matters – February at the Tea House
on Thursday 4 February. More details
about the next event, which includes
FANTASTIC performances
from Sai Murray (Tangled Roots Poet),
Hannah Chutzpah (Performance Poet) and
Arian Sadr (Musician) plus loads of
brilliant open mic performers can be
found on the Verse
Matters Facebook event page.
It was another full house at
Verse Matters in January, with 90
people squeezing into the Mugen Tea
House for a night of solidarity and FANTASTIC
performances.
Verse Matters is back this
Thursday (7 Jan) with another
FANTASTIC line
up! Sprinkle the start of 2016
with some solidarity star dust!
Don’t let January finances stop
you – it’s pay what you can on
the door. There’s
FANTASTIC comedy and
poetry from Chella Quint,
brilliant poetry from the
wonderful Gav Roberts and
exciting music…
My poem,”Soul Seed”
featured on Pankhearst’s
FRESH site yesterday.
Pankhearst is a
FANTASTIC
collective of independent
writers ...
It’s the last Verse
Matters of 2015
tomorrow! Join us at the
Mugen Tea House
(Scotland Street) for FANTASTIC
poetry from Kate Garrett
and Gina Elbow ...
There was a
FANTASTIC
mix of words and
music at Verse
Matters in October.
Verse
Matters was
back in
September
with a
fantastic
line-up.
Everyone
loved the
featured
artists:
After
another
FANTASTIC night
in August,
Verse
Matters is
back on
Thursday 10 September
with more
talented
artists. There’ll
be
FANTASTIC
poetry from
the
formidable
Toria
Garbutt (A
Firm of
Poets),
After
another
FANTASTIC night
in August,
Verse
Matters is
back on
Thursday 10 September
with more
talented
artists. There’ll
be fantastic
poetry from
the
formidable
Toria
Garbutt (A
Firm of
Poets),
The
launch
of Verse
Matters
was
wonderful.
Helen
Mort kicked
the
evening
off
by reading
a few of
her
FANTASTIC
new
poems,
There’s
some
FANTASTIC
spoken
word
and
poetry
events
going
on
in
Sheffield
at
the
moment
It’s a busy weekend in Yorkshire for poetry. Big ROMP kicked us off on Friday night in Rotherham with the usual warm welcome and FANTASTIC poetry.
There are some FANTASTIC events on this weekend in South Yorkshire.
We’re getting closer to going live with Verse Matters: a new feminist arts event that I am setting up in Sheffield. We’re teaming up with a FANTASTIC new cafe at The Hide on Scotland Street ..
