I wasn’t. You asked me whether I was happy that most academics are left-wing - and I immediately replied by placing the question in historical context - referencing the French Revolution and 13th century Paris in my first reply. I don’t believe anything of this kind can be understood without historical context.
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And I would suggest that this assertion should and does apply inevitably to the concept of reasonable doubt. I think jury verdicts, fortunately, are susceptible to this too.
Left or right; - most people are centrist with a slight leaning to left or right - at least according to many reports, studies etc.
My original point was that there is a small and very vocal group of extreme left-wingers who believe in ‘cancel culture’, safe spaces, no platforming - who are destroying peoples’ lives, careers, and reputations. They are so extreme that there is no longer any possibility of nuance or understanding from them to the mainstream views of centrists - ie most of us.
How can universities stiffle discussion, ban people from giving a lecture - where’s the freedom of speech there ?
I can’t debate at the clever, and learned, level some of you are able to. It is just as an ordinary centrist I find the extreme left-wing shutting down of viewpoints with which they disagree to be extremely worrying… doesn’t anyone else ?
One of my old lecturers many years ago used to say ‘history is everything’ - and would elaborate that whatever subject you’re studying you’re really studying the discoveries of those that have studied before you.
Even apparently timeless discoveries like mathematical proofs are actually shaped by historical context - which is clear enough in Kuhn, etc - but my favourite example is Godel’s incompleteness theorem, which was contemporary with relativity theory and the dissolution in the arts of the single perspective ‘omniscient author’ into multiple points-of-view narratives, cubism, etc.
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I’ll be interested to follow your line of thought, Anne, so can you direct me to the most prominent or powerful individual extreme left-wing writers, thinkers or speakers who are destroying the lives, careers and reputations of others; and details of the vulnerable unfortunates (just a handful would lead my further investigations) who are victim to this very vocal persecution?
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The point of the Guardian article I linked earlier in the thread Anne was that ‘cancel culture’ doesn’t really exist. Academics - outside a tiny number of extreme right-wing activists given a high profile in right-wing media - do not feel any threat to academic freedom or freedom of speech.
What’s really happening here is that - as usual - the right is trying to create a ‘culture war’ very much like it succeeded in doing over brexit (the mythical ‘remainer elite’, etc). It’s the same-old, same-old tactic.
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Good point Peter - my guess is that those victims the links lead to will be precisely those whose voices are all over the media!
Yes, I’m pretty confident Toby Y and Melanie P will be high in the list. They both looked pretty robust last time I saw them, thank goodness! My constituency MP Mark Francois is keeping a low profile, though. He may have had his plug pulled by Dom, temporarily though, he’ll be back in the New Year.
Peter, interestng tha you should refer to Francois as ‘my constituency MP’
Would you have a French equivalent to that?
On apersonal level I have had neither cognisance of, or interest in any constituency MP from the UK for almost 50 years now.
Is this a sign of 'not letting go of the UK? I wonder how far many contributors to SF also feel about the UK in this regard? Probably more than I care to think about.
A residual fifth column?
When I took French Nationality I asked myself a silent very personal question not listed. This was 'If the UK declared War against France would I be prepared to take up arms against them?
My answer was very clear.
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Mine will be clear.
My wife and I have adult children in Britain, the land of my birth. I have a strong residual interest in how the land of my birth is governed.
My wife and I have a second home in Rayleigh which is home to our two unmarried sons, one of whom is disabled. His brother is his protector.
I trust that our sons (and our daughter) will inherit the family home in which they have grown up. They know no other.
You may feel uncomfortable with this our POV but it transcends political allegiances to the State.
If war were declared against France I would not take sides, nor allow myself to be coerced into doing so by war-fever; and I would not take up arms on principle. The principle is mine to know and observe and I am not inclined to share it with you.
Remind me not to go out for a drink with you, @Geof. Not because you wouldn’t be charming company - I think you would be - but because …
“What are you having, Geof?”
“You’re over-simplifying the situation again. The question of what I would like to drink must be seen and set against the historical context of the development of the hospitality industry. We must go back to the thirteenth century and …”
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Drink you say? Well you might think the English ‘binge drinking’ culture is a recent phenomenon - but in his French Wine, A History Rod Phillips records that in the Carolingian period (around the 9th century) ‘the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England were the worst offenders of all: there are more references to intoxication there than to drunkenness in the rest of Europe combined’!
Best of all worlds Peter? It is obvious from your reply where your loyalties lie, and that’s fair enough, and it is not or me to try and change that or be condemnatory in any way.
I chose an extreme situation deliberately to come to my decision, although I have never made any secret of my general antipathy towards the UK, as you and others well know.
However history does show us that being neutral in a war situation whilst being a ‘National’ of that country is a pretty hard act to achieve, however laudable.
Anyway as I stated, this was my own definitive question, and not suggested for anyone else.
My circumstances, my decision.
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Yet the groups that you use as examples are all paid from the public purse so can’t “generate” wealth to go to fund that purse.
Most “wealth” in the first world is actually debt - which accounts for something like 80% of the money supply.
Almost all money (at least in developed economies) is created as debt by private banks.
The reason I put ‘wealth’ in inverted commas was that what this word means is precisely what’s in question - not only because if it means anything it means things like education and health - what contributes more to our wellbeing? - which in most developed economies are provided by the public sector, along with basic utilities, transport, etc - but also because without this state infrastructure the creation of any money-measured private wealth would be almost impossible. The UN itself has calculated that no major industry is actually profitable without public subsidy.
Who is really generating the most ‘wealth’? There’s a fascinating comparison in Rutger Gregman’s book Utopia for Realists of the 1968 New York refuse collectors’ strike with the Irish 1970 bankers’ strike. You guessed it - the refuse collectors brought the city to a state of emergency in 6 days; after 6 months hardly anybody was even noticing the bankers’ strike - fascinatingly people still even wrote cheques, which were ‘cleared’ by the pubs!
Well it’s fair that where my loyalties lie is my business, and you know that I have a residual interest in British polity. But beyond that it should be obvious thatyou can only guess about my loyalties to France or anywhere else. I don’t “want the best of both worlds”, I work for the best for both worlds, all worlds.
But I concede that when I have lived in France beyond the age 130 I may be closer to your own allegiance whatever it may be. I’m none the wiser about where you would pin your escutcheon if the cards fell that terrible way. But your resolve is admirable one way or another Norman.
Not directed to you Peter - but I think could resonate with some on SF and elsewhere? I admit to trying to find a spot to use this!
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@Norman_Clark what a find!
Wow and a thousand times wow! 
Back to my book A History of Propaganda, as I can now type reasonably again, plus rediscovering my own reference file.
Great fun!
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Sure you don’t, but does your dispassionate thinking entertain the thought that BAME people do experience racism on the part of their white compatriots on a daily basis and - if they draw attention to this fact - tend to be patronised by people who say they haven’t a racist bone in their body; that it’s all a matter of over-sensitivity on the part of people who are in any case totally indistinguishable from white people; and should get over it and stop seeing racism where it doesn’t exist.
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