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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day Dominic Cummings was completely right in his belief that ‘Generally, the better educated are more prone to irrational political opinions and political hysteria than the worse educated’. The history of communism is the most obvious example, Bolshevism being a student cult that was passionately believed in by some very intelligent, brilliant people long after it was exposed as a disaster.
– Ed West
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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And they continue to be a menace to society to this day. Their social engineering ideas in the region of ‘science’ education and social reform have brought us, in the West, to the brink of ruin.
Labour’s electoral support is strongly dependent on the votes of the less well educated.
@Pete
Contrary example: Guardian readers. 🙂
Less arts & PPE, more real world subjects: meat comes from animals grown on farms and killed, not a plastic tray in a supermarket, power comes from power stations, not a socket in the wall. Supply and Demand. Law of Conservation of Energy. 2+2=4. EV come from starving kids in the Congo. Simple stuff that even a politico should be able to grasp.
From the same article. 🙂
Writing as someone who is scientifically literate and numerate, I confirm that these traits are indeed associated with a decrease in the perceived risk of climate change. In my case, the decrease is not slight.
By putting this paragraph early in his article, Ed does lend unconscious humour to the rest of it. The yet deeper message is to the rest of us: maybe all of us should reread our every article several times for typos, and just once thinking, “Is there anywhere here that I could be making myself the unwitting joke?”
Bolshevism being a student cult that was passionately believed in by some very intelligent, brilliant people long after it was exposed as a disaster.
Was?
LOL. pete didn’t notice that Labour became a party of middle-class woke cunts
Bulldog Drummond – I have never known Pete to be correct about any subject. But whether he is accidentally wrong or deliberately wrong, is something I have never been able to work out.
Niall yes “to be wrong about the issue” – people with more scientific knowledge and better mathematical skills are “wrong” because C02-is-causing-terrible-harm is a religious doctrine and to be critical of the doctrine is heresy and, therefore, “wrong”. If the theory was scientifically sound then American government agencies (and others) would not need to CHANGE THE DATA – which they do (relying on people to just stare at computer screens, rather than check the original records), and the Greens would be ardent supporters of nuclear people – not, generally (there are some exceptions – such as James Lovelock), opponents of it.
As for Dominic Cummings – he proves his own theory (in a bad way), he is highly educated – and he believed the “Lockdown” doctrine.
Indeed it was the “scientific” Mr Cummings who pushed Prime Minister Johnson into supporting the international Lockdown doctrine.
Mr Johnson went along with the demands of Mr Cummings (and others) – and this Lockdown policy did terrible harm.
But in spite of Mr Johnson giving in – Mr Cummings later stabbed Mr Johnson in the back anyway.
I learn two lessons from this – that Appeasement is a bad policy, and that Mr Cummings is a bit of a shit.
Nominate Paul Marks for a SQOTD:
It’s quite a good paraphrase of Kipling.
I wish they’d done a split comparison between the STEM-educated and the non-STEM-educated. I’ll predict there would be a large difference.
The more STEM education you have, the more you become convinced that you’ll never know more than a fraction of what is knowable. The more non-STEM education you have, the more you become convinced you know everything.
That is quite a gracious admission, from a lawyer.
I note that Hayek’s position was close to the opposite; although he was perhaps more cautious.
A STEM education is ambivalent: it teaches critical thinking (and does not indoctrinate about political issues); but it also teaches that there is a definite solution to problems, if one just thinks hard enough about it.
Did ANY of these psychotics ever actually “believe” any of the bulltish doctrine, or were they ALL just “playing the game” to maintain a seat at the “head table”.
Attributing any remotely redeeming characteristics is foolishness; at best it is closer to complicity.
Well, isn’t there? (I was STEM in undergrad.)
(Of course, I mean testable problems, like how far away is the sun, or why did that attack fail, not “why am I sad and unfulfilled?” Non-STEM revels in such “problems”, because their solutions are non-falsifiable.)
I’m not sure where I’d place law school in this dichotomy. It’s more like trade school for smart kids than higher ed. It’s not STEM, but it’s also not “feelz.”
pete: Labour’s electoral support is strongly dependent on the votes of the less well educated.
Bulldog Drummond: LOL. pete didn’t notice that Labour became a party of middle-class woke cunts
I’d suggest that there’s not necessarily a difference. The key here is pete’s use of the word ‘well’, which possibly says more than he had intended.
Middle class Guardianista types with their nostalgic posters and t-shirts of Che Guevara (who mysteriously evades cancellation despite a famously disobliging quote about people of colour) and their FBPE Twitter handles are certainly educated, even highly educated – but can they truthfully said to be well educated? To equate spending additional years in ‘higher education’ after the end of formal schooling, with being well educated is, I suggest, to risk mistaking quantity for quality.
“Che” thought that black people were subhuman monkeys, he thought that homosexuals should be murdered (indeed he murdered them himself), and he thought that women were just for sexual amusement.
The fact that the left reveres “Che” shows that their Frankfurt School Marxism, their “anti racism”, “anti sexism” and “Gay Rights”, is utterly insincere – just a WEAPON to attack the West with.
The Frankfurt School Marxist thinkers (who created what we now call “Woke” doctrine) were insincere from the start – they did not really care about the groups they pretended to care about.
In this they followed Dr Karl Marx himself – whose Communism (his belief in an egalitarian collectivist society) came BEFORE his “scientific” economic and historical theories (this is clear from the early philosophical manuscripts).
Just as Dr Karl Marx pretended to care about industrial workers, so the Frankfurt School Marxists pretend to care about black people, or homosexuals or women – yet their insincerity becomes obvious when one notes how they supported people such as “Che” (who regarded black people as monkeys, murdered homosexuals, and thought that women were just for sexual amusement). The OBJECTIVE (Collectivism) is all that has ever mattered to them – the excuse “the exploitation of the workers” or “the persecution of black people by capitalism” (or whatever) is just an excuse they trot out.
I am reminded of Dr Klaus Schwab (founder of the World Economic Forum) with the bust of the “Lenin” on his shelf.
Dr Schwab (and the rest of the international establishment) pretends to care about “man made climate change” and Covid 19 – but if one checks, all his political objectives were written out (in such books as “Stakeholder Capitalism” – some 50 years ago) long BEFORE these things.
The international establishment USE things such as C02 emissions or Covid 19 for policies they ALREADY WANTED – the Collectivism (the tyranny) is not a tool they use to achieve an end (an objective – say curing Covid 19), THE COLLECTIVISM IS THE END – IT IS THE OBJECTIVE.
Not a means to an end – it is the end. Tyranny is the objective – just as it was with Dr Karl Marx.