June 10, 2014
UCLU’s apparent commitment to PC orthodoxy extends beyond banning a few bright kids from reading difficult books. They have “Liberation Sections,” for example, where allegedly oppressed minority groups can air their perceived grievances.
The group’s political campaigns have a decidedly leftist bent, including a strong position in favor of the global war against fire. Film screenings showcase, without a hint of conscious irony, a film “exploring the nature of fascism” alongside one about “climate activists” who physically attack coal plants and banks in a manner befitting (actual, historical) brownshirts.
The struggle is real at one of the UK’s most selective universities.
Mencius Moldbug proposed measuring the slaughters of the 20th Century using Olympic swimming pools filled with blood. I am not now, nor have I ever been a neoreactionary, but I have always liked the cut of Moldbug’s jib, not least for his striking talent for shattering warm and fuzzy Whig poppycock with bare-knuckled Tory truths.
By any intellectually honest measure, the deadliest force of the 20th century was not fascism (a specifically Italian movement) and its variants (including Godwin’s favorite), but big-C Communism and its third world tributaries. Presumably we are to be more troubled by a largely extinct ideology which dare not speak its name than we are a robust and resurgent leftist totalitarianism, adherence to which is de rigueur on the 21st-century campus.
The road to egalitarian hell on earth is paved by too clever by half college students hopped up on “Yes We Can.” My heart goes out to the Nietzsche Club. I sympathize. Even idle curiosity about traditionalism is a tough row to hoe these days.
Though, in fairness and with respect, I can”t think of any worse way to spend college than laboring over Heidegger for fun. Maybe if you take a shot every time you don”t understand something. Seriously, kids, you”re 20 years old. Live a little.
