The British news has been filled with the trump of doom - some of the world's leading academics have gotten together and called themselves an institute, as Paul Simon might have said - a private university in London set to charge twice the amount allowed for public universities: £18,000. What no one seems to have remarked upon is that several of the key figures in this extraordinary move are also the leading British atheist-intellectuals, A.C. Grayling, Richard Dawkins; also to teach is Ronald Dworkin, not known for his support of religious beliefs, to put it mildly. Also to be teaching is famous atheist and psychologist Stephen Pinker. The distinguished astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss, a top American atheist, will teach science. Historian Niall Ferguson, the famous atheist from Harvard, will also teach. Steve Jones, the controversial atheist scientist, is also on board. Indeed, it is striking how little has been made of this intellectually homogeneous group of thinkers - what sort of Liberal Arts education can such a group offer, with such little sympathy for one of the key cultural forces in human culture? Atheists like Dawkins always promise a better world free from religion, but his first major move to create a new form of education in the UK is the least charitable ever announced, and its dog-eat-dog elitism smacks of the worst sort of conservative social Darwinism, despite the claim of the "pink tinge" among the professors. (note: due to helpful comments, I have edited out the reference to Ferguson being Irish; I should also note, these professors also all appear to be white, older, and male, a rather unwelcoming patriarchy for the heart of multicultural London).
When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?
Comments
Niall Ferguson is actually Scottish but you make some good points here. My nephew is going up to university fairly soon and when I asked my sister whether or not she approved of this new academy she just laughed.
Best wishes from Simon
Simon @ Gists and Piths
Well, a lack of sympathy for or belief in sny religion shows an improvement on the traditional cultural attitude of complete faith in the True Religion and little sympathy - often absolute hatred and contempt- for all its false rivals.
Being one of the key cultural forces in human culture doesn't necessarily make somethimg an admirable quality. Racism and sexism are also key cultural forces in human culture.
As an Atheist myself, I don't know that there is cause to fear that a nontheistic faculty would fail to kindle students' appreciation for what religion is and what it has done.