Published on 12, July, 2020
Did you see the news story last week about the students union that wanted to ban clapping because it might cause distress to sensitive souls like myself. It was the cause of much hilarity on various topical comedy shows. But I thought it was a thoughtful and well-meaning attempt to be a bit more inclusive and maybe a hopeful sign for the future.
Hi. Here is my problem with the debate in general. Am I particularly worried about 1 University bringing in “Jazz Hands?” No.
Nus debates don’t get large audiences and once they leave Uni they will be genuinely shocked at the the visceral nature of the world. Once the students are on the treadmill of work and debt, “jazz hands” will probably end up an amusing anecdote.
A more and less widely publicised worry that I am concerned about is the rise of the far-right. They use the same grooming techniques as extremists to influence young and vulnerable teenagers.
The Government is so worried about them, MI5 has taken over monitoring them from the Police.
Indeed debate is about Critical Theory and other theories is great. But the most immediate danger is not from the left, but the far right.
At no point did I imply that you were. You were concerned with the use of satire though. I see nothing unhealthy in that either.
Nus debates don’t get large audiences and once they leave Uni they will be genuinely shocked at the the visceral nature of the world.
Students leaving NUS debates sometimes do get into positions where they influence people further on in life, after indoctrination. Some of the students will go on to positions where they themselves indoctrinate the next generation of students through being part of the faculty. This is clearly evidenced by this generations academic climate. Shouldn't University be a place that actually prepares them for "the visceral nature of the world". With all of the time and money they invest, it should. Universities should be a place for open discussion, but anyone who stands outside of the group think that is basically the culture are lambasted, ridiculed, and ultimately bullied. Sad really considering that it should be a place for mutual exchanges of ideas.
Once the students are on the treadmill of work and debt, “jazz hands” will probably end up an amusing anecdote.
So they will probably discard the "well meaning" so called "inclusivity" of the "request", and it will be relegated to an anecdote once they enter the arena of society outside of the climate promoted or enforced, depending on your opinion. So in essence they were doing it for no reason, other than to fulfill the "request". They will be ironically be ridiculing something "well meaning".
A more and less widely publicised worry that I am concerned about is the rise of the far-right.
It's more (or less?) widely publicised as you say, so logically it is more noticable. The far-left has basically now infiltrated academia so deeply that Universities are state backed indoctrination centres, with departments entirely dedicated to indoctrination to radical leftist thinking, which leave the unfortunate students in massive debt for their troubles. There is such a thing as "Horseshoe Theory", which is criticised by a majority of academia (I wonder why!), even though it was expanded on out at respected institutions such as Stanford and Harvard, that espouses the theory (backed up by factual evidence) that the radical left and right bolster each others support, and mirror each other in many ways. It's a symbiotic relationship of sorts.
They use the same grooming techniques as extremists to influence young and vulnerable teenagers.
As do the radical left. Indoctrination of the young is absolutely wrong whoever is carrying it out. I briefly attended SWP meetings in my younger days. My ex was Marxist because of her university indoctrination, she's no longer subscribed to it all, she owns her own business. Trust me I heard a lot of stuff that was as hateful as any right wing rhetoric. The turning point for me was when they wanted only women to hand out leaflets at a demo because "They could take the moral high ground if there was any physical stuff", it ended up in a pretty nasty confrontation when I called them out on it. I also saw a guy get more or less excluded because he had left the Trade Unionists because he'd worked and saved for years to start his own business. He was bullied and called "petit bourgoise" because he had started his own business. He still was loyal to their cause though. Disgusting, and these meetings were full of youngsters. It really opened my eyes. All sour grapes, hate, jealousy, infighting, bullying, planning public disorder and violent confrontation.
SWP, ANTIFA, The British Communist Party, ILP, The International Marxist Party, Red Action, I could carry on, have all been monitored by the Police or MI5. So the Govenment are equally concerned about them. It seems a bit weird that the Government are openly admitting to spying actively on a group during an operation. I'm not disputing it, but it usually takes time for them to release details.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2018/oct/15/uk-political-groups-spied-on-undercover-police-list
Looking at that list everyone is being watched!
I'm not talking about the left, you are reframing my points, a bit misleading really. The radical left is just as dangerous. It's subscribed to an ideology that has killed many times more people than Facism. I'm not defending Facism, it's deplorable, I'm making a factual statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes?wprov=sfla1
We aren't going to be in a Communist Regime any time soon but after a few generations of the torch currently being carried in academia being passed on (remember these are the teachers, lawyers, politicians, scientists, doctors, of the future), anything is possible.
I think the radical left and right are equally dangerous. I have a problem with any young mind being radicalised.
This got kind of long, lol. Anyway, all the best!
My hypothesis is that nothing taken to extremes works really well. So the sort of ultra-capitalism we seem to be heading to now is just as flawed as the sort of Soviet era ultra-communism, albeit in a different fashion.
I don't know if anybody is interested, but talking about left and right, has anybody seen:
https://www.politicalcompass.org/
?
I find their way of looking at things a bit more real and nuanced than the straight left/right that people refer to now.
Windscale said:I believe they analysed their political choices etc. to try and work out where to put famous people on the chart.
I was just making a joke about it. I'd imagine what they did was close to that, but some cherry picking must have been involved. There are some very contradictory results. For instance Gandhi was quite nationalistic and authoritarian. He was hardly liberal either. He ignored or sometimes offended a lot of the other religious groups of India (even some of the other subdivisions of Hinduism) and almost dogmatically practiced as a Vaishnava, this was also reflected in his political decisions. His position against Colonialism was a standout point in his political career, he is viewed with mixed opinion in India. His time in South Africa was disasterous and filled with vitriol, and action against the Chinese and Bantu. He was very partisan in his views. I'd say he is somewhat romaticised due to the dim view of Colonialism, even though he milked it dry in South Africa. I'm pretty opposed to the caste system, it's ******. Gandhi was pretty comfortable with it, in the Indian sphere of his public relations. The Dalit haven't forgot.
http://velivada.com/2017/06/30/beware-claiming-gandhi-caste-gandhism/
I'm not picking Gandhi because he fell close to you on their estimation. I've read quite a lot about him. It seems to me that the metrics they probably used aren't accurate. I wouldn't say he was a person who was a man of the people, there were caveats to a lot of his decisions. More personal freedoms for his very specific part of society, the others were just there to swell the numbers. I think that some of that stuff is "Cult of Personality", that they have used. He was a very naughty boy, as a lawyer, as a politician, and as a spiritual leader. As for his personal life, he was a total ***. I'm not being a revisionist proponent of critical theory, ***, it sounds like it! Seriously though Gandhi wasn't near to the alignment they have.
Windscale said:Seems I'm in the same quadrant as you, but maybe a bit more (personal) liberal and a bit more in favour of economic regulation (i.e. less economically liberal). That's not state control of the economy for me - just I believe there needs to be adequate legal regulation to limit the worst excesses of "the market" etc. For me the argument about "free markets" has been lost a long time ago - we know completely unregulated markets just don't work, so the real question is only about how much regulation markets need to work efficiently, fairly and with limited injurious impact.
That's the danger of these tests in my opinion. You can often think that you are constantly going to have to think from that position. I'm very liberal in a personal sense. Personal freedoms can often be different from political freedoms. Some of the questions in that test weren't really about political freedoms. There were some very stand out political issues that were ignored.
I think most of us are in agreement about that. Even pretty dyed-in-the-wool economists are starting to have some deviations from hypercapitalism. Free trade has it's advantages and disadvantages. I think that the adverse effect on small to medium sized businesses has been telling. They are dying. British industry has been switched from tradable commodities to abstraction, especially with the destruction of many national industries like farming, fishing, and manufacturing. If a corporation is acting with responsibility, we can't cast aspersion on them just because they are successful. When they start dicatating the rules and start acting like nation states, then it's really ludicrous. The abolishion of the "gold standard" has been the start of a slippery slope over the past 100 or so years. When commodity becomes only an abstract concept, countries, coroporations and financial institutions can dictate rules more freely. With money becoming a more abstract concept, anyone can define the value of it. The larger regulatory bodies are the most dangerous in this sense. Lebanon are the only country that have kept a gold standard in operation, they operate at 50% of cash to gold. Unfortunately their debt is well over their GDP, so goodbye gold! Interestingly, Mongolia which has opened up its resources for sale, and has lots of nouveau riche influence internally, has been buying gold in. Mongolia is very nationalist, and I think they intend to keep the international finance at bay by doing this. Ironically they were the first country to spreat the FIAT system! China invented it but Kublai Khan implemented it in a massive international format. I think that things are so entrenched in the current system that the only way to avoid it would be to go "off grid".
Windscale said:I wouldn't say that the chart shows the Dalai Lama as almost an anarchist, I would say it shows him as being strongly in favour in personal liberty. That doesn't sound unreasonable from what little I know of him. I would guess an out and out anarchist would be similarly keen on personal liberty, but also very keen on economic freedom, so would probably be more in the extreme bottom right corner?
Please don't spoil it for me! I would like to imagine him in a full riot. Besides I think they will revise his position after his comments in Sweden recently. I don't think they will like to be painting him in a good light, he's probably an ultra-nationalist to them now!
[*Edited by Moderator]