McClean whinging again.

[vaterland_miller]

Sorry, I just picked up on this extraordinary line.

You're the one that is sharing the idea that Marxists have literally conspired to achieve their aims through woke culture wars instead because their initial attempts failed.

That's the very definition of a conspiracy.

Do you disagree?

Where did I say "Marxists have literally conspired to achieve their aims through woke culture wars"? I said Marxist academics have pushed their agenda on young people (who have incidentally been increasingly subjected to left wing political agendas from teachers at school before getting to university - I remember that from when I was at school) and revolutionary ideas have traditionally appealed to the young. They always did come out of university with lots of half-baked ideas of how they can improve the world. Over the last 40 or 50 years the whole environment outside university has been moving relentlessly to the left largely as a result of this. Our education system no longer teaches people to think - these days it teaches them what to think. There is little opposition to the process and the wokes are very vocal whilst conservatives are traditionally reserved. And tedious discussions such as this one merely depress those of us who can still think for themselves.

[mellowmiller]

Diversity at its finest.....a woman prime minister and a black chancellor. That worked well......oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that?

[vaterland_miller]

Herein lies the problem.

Your entire argument centred around diversity statements being a "bad thing" without any justification of why, or evidence you understand what they even are.

In any job, employers have a duty to find the right person for the role.

I don't think a diversity statement is at all what you think it is or has the effects you think it has.

If you don't even care what's in them and are willing to be spoonfed opinions by people espousing marxist-culture war propaganda... how can you be so sure they're a bad thing?

You know as well as I do what is meant by "diversity" and it is not academic diversity. It is social, ethnic and cultural diversity they are obsessed with and such concepts have no place in the selection processes for jobs or places at university. The only diversity that matters at university is diversity of ideas and opinions and that type of diversity is constrained by compulsory "Diversity Statements".

I wonder if the late great Roger Scruton's "Diversity Statement" was the reason he couldn't get a tenure position in his later years - a great loss to the students he would have shared his remarkable wisdom and knowledge with.

To satisfy you I have looked at a random selection of example "diversity statements" on the Internet and tedious it was but it was exactly as I expected. I didn't find any mention of academic diversity or diversity of opinions/ideas. I didn't expect to. I think you are deliberately wasting my time so that I'll eventually just go away and take my inconvenient "out-dated" opinions with me - and I probably will.

Why would you assume I can't think for myself just because I don't subscribe to the currently fashionable political ideas (ideas that are assumed by their proponents to be sacred truths that are the only mark of a good person)? I have never been "spoonfed opinions by people espousing marxist-culture war propaganda" nor have I ever been "spoonfed" anything that I taken on face value - I have always thought about it and read up on it (well that wasn't always very easy before the Internet but we did have books and magazines and journals and newspapers). I have spent a lifetime of active interest in science and technology and I have a diverse set of interests in the Arts and Humanities that have been informed from a wide range of sources. Where have you acquired your trendy, left-wing ideas John?

I don't suppose Putin's armed forces are very worried by the prospect more black lesbian RAF pilots but they are probably pleased that the RAF is wasting its resources and time on "diversity" nonsense.

[vaterland_miller]

Diversity at its finest.....a woman prime minister and a black chancellor. That worked well......oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that?

According to Cummings she's mentally ill too (well "mad as a box of snakes") so that ticks another diverse characteristic.

[great_fire]

According to Cummings she's mentally ill too (well "mad as a box of snakes") so that ticks another diverse characteristic.

He doesn't exactly come across as the most stable individual.

[vaterland_miller]

He doesn't exactly come across as the most stable individual.

Good point great_fire

[John2]

Where did I say "Marxists have literally conspired to achieve their aims through woke culture wars"?

I said you were sharing materials advocating as such. Did you watch the video you shared?

0:00
yeah this is this is there's a pattern
0:02
in all of this as I say in that chapter
0:05
you can you can see the intellectual
0:07
underpinnings and they come from this
0:10
idea that if it's a it's a Marxist idea
0:13
but it's just transferred to the modern
0:15
era where instead of talking about
0:17
society and class structures you talk
0:19
about in minority interest group
0:21
structures and you lump people like this
0:23
what what is what is the primary aim of
0:25
this among other things it is a
0:29
different interpretation of society
0:32
which is therefore intended to segregate
0:35
and pull apart societies as you and I
0:38
might understand them so that people's
0:40
primary affiliation is not that I'm an
0:43
Australian but or I'm British but I'm a
0:46
member of the LGBT community in the
0:48
greater Sydney area for instance you can
0:54
predict with 100 percent accuracy the
0:58
people who encourage this the people who
1:02
will grab the latest claim by an
1:06
interest group and run with it and it is
1:09
always people always people who in the
1:14
past had another way of trying to attack
1:16
our societies had a radical Marxists
1:19
view of the world for instance we know
1:21
this with the green issue where and
1:24
again like like the rights issues I
1:26
write about in this book they succeed
1:29
because they're not on to nothing you
1:31
know the green movement is on to
1:36
something with the environment and with
1:38
our planet but it has this hideous red
1:42
interior which keeps exposing itself as
1:45
desiring not not a better relationship
1:50
between ourselves in our environment but
1:51
for instance the end of capitalism yeah
1:53
and it's the same with this I expose in
1:58
each of the chapters that the people who
2:00
make it repeatedly and desperately plain
2:03
that they believe for instance that
2:06
being a woman is should be [b]merely the
2:10
first step in a wider mission to
2:13
down capitalism now I don't think most
2:16
women on board with that and most we
2:18
would be rather surprised to be utilized
2:20
in this fashion
2:21
hmm but that is very clearly and
2:24
explicitly and I quote the the various
2:27
scholars and writers who've been pushing
2:29
us for years
2:30
this is explicitly the aim

[John2]

Our education system no longer teaches people to think - these days it teaches them what to think. There is little opposition to the process and the wokes are very vocal whilst conservatives are traditionally reserved. And tedious discussions such as this one merely depress those of us who can still think for themselves.

You talk very authoritatively on the state of our Universities system.

How much time have you spent at University and when that has led you to these conclusions?


You remind me of one of my uncles who is in his 60s and tells me what schools are like these days and how bad they are, in ways that are in contradiction to what I get told by my friends who are actually teachers.

He's never even had any kids, and I can't help but wonder what makes him so confident he knows the day to day reality of what's going on in our schools.

I look forward to hearing about how you've come to understand our Universities so well. My experience of being a student at University 16 years ago differs from the picture you paint.

[vaterland_miller]

You talk very authoritatively on the state of our Universities system.

How much time have you spent at University and when that has led you to these conclusions?


You remind me of one of my uncles who is in his 60s and tells me what schools are like these days and how bad they are, in ways that are in contradiction to what I get told by my friends who are actually teachers.

He's never even had any kids, and I can't help but wonder what makes him so confident he knows the day to day reality of what's going on in our schools.

I look forward to hearing about how you've come to understand our Universities so well. My experience of being a student at University 16 years ago differs from the picture you paint.

I'm sorry John. I don't like talking about personal details - largely because of the "cancel culture". There is no place in this world for people like me so I don't bother participating in discussions much any more. You will be quite safe to say what you believe but spare a thought for others who need to pay their way in life and cannot afford to be as candid about their views - at the moment. Things change and those who are the prey today may well be the hunters in the future - who knows in this crazy world.

I am sure we can agree that Matt Taylor is a wonderful replacement for that remarkable manager and all-round decent chap, Paul Warne. And that Tony Stewart is doing a marvelous job of keeping our beloved club safe for us to enjoy.

UTM!

[John2]

I'm sorry John. I don't like talking about personal details - largely because of the "cancel culture". There is no place in this world for people like me so I don't bother participating in discussions much any more. You will be quite safe to say what you believe but spare a thought for others who need to pay their way in life and cannot afford to be as candid about their views - at the moment. Things change and those who are the prey today may well be the hunters in the future - who knows in this crazy world.

Sounds like a cop out.

Are you saying you work as an academic?