Students of the damned

IF I WERE A SIXTH FORMER, preparing for university I would inform my parents that I did not wish to associate myself with these academic institutions, as they no longer tolerate tolerance of an individual's opinion. The message seems to be that if you come here you either fall into line or you keep your mouth shut. You either follow the prevailing agenda whether it is the nuances of ultra-orthodox feminism, or support for the Palestinians to the extent of turning away Israeli academics and closing down any union debate that invites an Israeli to participate in; or in the latest case of the removal of Cecil Rhodes from his plinth.

                

                What are the various university authorities doing about this kind of student hyperactivity deficit disorder? Well, it seems nothing; for the inmates appear to be in charge of the asylum: either that or the faculty have sympathy with them and will bow down to their demands. What is the betting that Cecil Rhode's plinth will be empty by the end of this year? And who will be next – Churchill?

                

                 The university ethos is being allowed to wither on the vine. The ethos of an open mind ready to be challenged by opposing ideas in order to sharpen or change your own: this is the methodology of the highest education at the best of this country's universities. This is why Oxbridge has their union debates; students can sympathise or support either side of the debate before it begins; and through the course of the arguments made, perhaps change their minds. This is the dialectic of any university in a free society.

                

                  When a student at university the mind should be open to all knowledge as it comes before him or her, whether in the lecture theatre or the library, no knowledge should be out of bounds. If you have a brain worthy of the name (which you would of course if you were attending an Oxbridge college) then your cerebral sponge should be open to all forms of ideas and arguments: and have the capacity to oppose in argument or debate those ideas you take exception to.

                

                 The capacity to defeat an argument you take exception to depends upon an open mind; or if not an open one, then a fair one. But what is inexcusable is to railroad and shout down, or even going to such lengths as banning people from whatever country that you do not have any sympathy for; because you support what you perceive to be their country's 'victims'.

                

                  I refer of course to the state of Israel. The flood of opposition to Israel in modern academia goes beyond the juvenile practices of students. As far as the state of Israel is concerned many of some universities faculties also sympathise with the censoring of Israeli academics, politicians, authors, or any kind of Israeli associated with academia.

IT NOW APPEARS that if you wish to have an open mind at many of our universities; you have to self-censor your tongue if you wish to complete your course. The power of students has grown since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then, it was the Vietnam War that lit the blue touch paper on our campuses. The 1960s was the decade when student power took its first awkward footsteps to rebellion. In 1968 we had the assault on the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square; followed by the student protests in Paris. They were happy times for students, and no doubt those who participated in such events eventually went on to become part of the educational establishment; who in turn passed on their leftist liberal ideas to generations to come; and then in turn passed the liberal baton on to other generations.

                

                I think it is the case that there is a trajectory that has ended in the students of the damned that we now see governing our university life; a trajectory that began its journey in the 1960s. The intolerance shown by student bodies today toward those who oppose their thinking is anti-intellectual. Such students do not have the confidence in their own argument to tolerate any kind of opposition to it; so they ban the opposition from what were once the pillars of free thought and expression – our university campuses.

                

               Can it be said that these young people who declaim their opposition to whatever they espouse; who then shut down any form of contrary argument, be regarded as truly and fully moulded in the art of debate or free speech – well yes, they can; but only if they had attended Moscow University under communism: it is an appalling situation; a situation where our elite university campuses are infected by such intolerance to free debate.

IF, AS I SAID AT THE beginning of this piece, I would wish no association with Oxbridge because of this kind of intellectual Ebola that is now doing the rounds; then I would have to choose a university deserving my qualifications – so where to look? Not in this country or in Europe. It would be America and Harvard in the hope that the virus had not spread to such an august institution.

                

               I would tell my parents that Harvard was my preferred university and would apply for membership in the hope that intellectual Ebola virus of political correctness had not yet corrupted the Harvard faculty and some of its students; as is the case in the UK.