I was a mature-aged student in the late seventies, and loosely associated with one or two members of a communist student group - I was a sort of arm's-length communist.

At the time, Hans Eysenk was due to come out from the UK to Australia to give talks on the heritability of IQ. I asked one of my communist friends what they should do about his visit, thinking - being quite naïve, especially for somebody of mature age - that he might suggest that, armed with superior knowledge, he might suggest that Eysenck (and by extension, Jensen and Burt) be defeated in robust and open debate. No. He quickly suggested "Smash him !"

So, to the chapters in my draft 'Idiot's Guide to Useful Idiots', I should add another one:

* where possible, use violence: violence cleanses, it purifies, it purges. Discussion and debate are for pussies. Even the Nazis knew all that.

Your suggestions gratefully accepted.

Joe

Loudmouth, add Daffy Duck to your list of useful idiots along with anyone who votes for the major mistakes parties.

The author fails to convince me of a need for protest at universities as proposed, as a right.
In fact, my reasoning tells me that what is actually wrong with protesting, and from where the protesting movements are initiated, says much more about the protester than his cause.
Universities have only ever assisted the well off, to maintain the status quo In their position of authority.(elitism).

Gough Whitlams veiled attempt to appear egalitarian by offering fee-free tertiary education, was actually a farce in disguise!
There is no evidence that free university education will improve the lot of the disenfranchised uneducated masses.

It is actually union movement protest, which achieved the greatest tangible improvements to the majority of society, not university protests.
Unfortunately the union movement has been violated by the input of the tertiary educated into its ranks. This move alone has relegated the successful nature of this movement, to a state of irrelevance.

The Humanities and Social Sciences haven't been affected by the corporatism the author speaks of. Generally, there are two streams of thought taught in the Humanities - Marxism and Foucauldianism. Both are anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-Christian and anti-conservatism. Perhaps if the author directed his critique toward the business departments he would have a point.

The Humanities and Social Sciences have only themselves to blame for their irrelevance. Their perpetual critique of anything to do with Western culture does not resonate with those who fund it: the tax payers. Perhaps if conservative and libertarian views (there is some liberalism taught in the academe, I'll admit that) were taught at the same volume as leftist ones, there may not be the backlash or current irrelevance of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The article though, with its opening paragraph, seeks to highlight the ability of the market to manipulate minds; then proceeds to exemplify the point, using universities as its model. This is a very narrow focus!

Blind Freddy from a long distance, can see the problems associated with the University structure operating as it is.
Universities are not, and never were built on the base of egalitarianism. They were always a place in the world designed and structured for outcomes of privilege for the privileged!

It is somewhat tongue in cheek to level criticism against the Humanities (poster above), as rebels to the cause of elitism, when the Humanities actually attract the poorer "class" of student using market forces of price to attract them; and signed off with a ho hum, such as, maybe the cancer of egalitarianism is spreading (God forbid), through academe. Jesus, what arrogance

Hi Dan,

I'm not so sure that universities, for all their faults, are elitist these days. I've been collecting data on Indigenous student and graduate numbers for around twenty five years (all on a Database, on my web-site: www.firstsources.info) and it would appear that the equivalent of one and a half young-adult age-groups are currently enrolled: more than sixteen thousand enrolments, as compared to 10,500-11,000 24- or 25-year-olds across the country.

Around forty thousand have graduated by the way - the equivalent of nearly four age-groups. Two-thirds female, overwhelmingly mainstream and urban.

Since 2007, Indigenous commencements in Bachelor-level courses has doubled, i.e. increasing around 7 % p.a., to about 4,800 - the equivalent of about 45 % of a mid-twenties age-group. But not all of those were strictly first-time commencements: some may be on their second degree, some are returning to study, some are switching courses, or course codes, or campuses. But apart from those, the equivalent of around 33-35 % of young Indigenous people are starting university courses for the first time these days.

i.e. from now on, a third of the Indigenous population are enrolling, or will enrol, at some point in their lives, at university. 20 % will go on to post-graduate study, and around a third or more of those will go onto Master's or Ph.D. study. Some may even do genuine research. The vast majority of graduates inter-marry with non-Indigenous colleagues, social companions - not with welfare recipients. They will work in cities. What impact might that make on Indigenous society as whole ?

From Commonwealth Education Department records [cf. https://www.education.gov.au/student-data], it seems that around 120,000 Indigenous people have been, or are currently, enrolled at universities since 1980. About one in every eight Indigenous adults is a graduate and that will rise to one in six in ten years, when there are around 70,000 graduates - you know, enough to nearly fill the MCG.

Dan, you can call that elitist, but it sure beats the one in every hundred white Australians ever enrolled at universities of sixty years ago. Now THAT was elitism.

Cheers,

Joe