Though Cowards Flinch

A new elite university, set up by such academic stars as A. C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins, to compete with Oxbridge universities will be set up to offer more ‘direct teaching’ to students.

The New College of the Humanities, which will  be based in Bloomsbury, aims to “make a profit”, according to the Guardian, and charge a whopping £18,000 in fees.

Before last year this might have conflicted with Dawkins’ party commitments, being a long time Liberal Democrat supporter, but now it seems rather coherent. As for Grayling, things are rather different.

In a piece about university contact hours in November 2009, Professor Grayling commented, against the plans of Lord Manelson at the time, that university should not be about “spoon-feeding and hand-holding”‘ students, but about “autonomy in thinking, reading and writing”.

Neha-Tamara Patel, in a Guardian piece in 2010, disagreed with Grayling at the time, saying: “University lecturers are experts in their fields, so the more contact there is with students, the richer their degree experience will be.”

It would seem that Grayling has come round to this thinking, as his “college aims to educate a new British elite with compulsory teaching in science literacy, critical thinking, ethics and professional skills on top of degree subjects taught in one-to-one tutorials.”

Fair enough, but he’ll have to face up to the consequences. In the same piece Grayling noted that: “The more contact hours imposed on students, the less time they have to read, think and write, these being the three crucial elements of higher study.”

Perhaps he doesn’t believe in the best for elite students!

But that isn’t the real scandal.

In a piece for the New Statesman in October 2010, expressing concern for the cuts to arts and humanities subsidies, Professor Grayling said:

increases in tuition fees will not only fail to compensate fully for the cuts but will act as a brake on student recruitment, too, and the net impending effect will be a shrinkage in higher education, with the greatest shrinkage in the humanities.

Does Grayling mean fee rises will have negative effects on student recruitment? It would seem so, and it ties in with other noises he has made on this subject. In the same piece on contact hours Grayling stated:

University education should be provided free of charge to all those suitably qualified for it, as a national investment that goes far beyond its benefit to the offices and factories of the land.

How on earth does this justify charging £18,000 for direct higher university education?

Furthermore still, on October 4, 2007, Professor Grayling gave a lecture to the North East Humanists (NEH) on its 50th anniversary. The NEH became a registered charity in February 2006 and supports the Isaac Newton High School at Kateera Village near Masaka, Uganda. According to its wikipedia page, a ‘major aim of the school is to help disadvantaged children who cannot afford to pay fees for secondary education’ and by ’2006 the school had over 80 pupils, of whom only half could afford tuition fees.’ The NEH does this in accordance with the principles “of the philosophy of humanism”. Is Grayling forgetting his own humanist principles?

Only in deed does A. C. Grayling support free education, but in practice, so it appears, for the elite the charge of great sums will suffice.

There is an emergency meeting on Monday June 6, located at room B111, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, to oppose the new college. You can visit the Facebook page here.

An hour ago, the press association ran a piece entitled “Ed Miliband: I don’t believe in God”. This relates to an interview with Nicky Campbell on Radio 5 Live, where the question was raised, and the answer carefully noted how important it is to be tolerant of people whatever their view.

This will not stop the insults unfortunately. Nor will it help matters much that Miliband is the son of a Marxist heathen, unmarried, and the brother of an atheist who at least did his best by sending his child to a Roman Catholic school.

None of these things matter of course; and as Miliband said in his interview, his views should be a private matter, much like the atheism of our deputy Prime Minister.

But remember it is not just believers who have over-fetishised God in politics. Few may remember two years ago, when David Miliband was thought to be brewing a leadership bid, the philosopher and atheist A.C. Grayling making a plea in the Guardian for an atheist Prime Minister.

It levelled many ridiculous claims that should divide a believing PM from a non-believing one; atheists will not receive messages from beyond if going to war; they will be sceptical about giving special privileges to religious organisations; sectarianism through faith schools will be a thing of the past; neutrality between religious pressure groups will be the order of the day; and they’ll take more “down-to-earth” views.

Let’s throw this nonsense out of the water, just in case Grayling tries to write it again.

Of course, nobody can actually receive messages from beyond, but if we are dealing with stupid reasons to go to war here, suggesting this is the preserve of the religious is to forget the wars authored by such tyrants as Stalin and Mao.

This might evoke the redundant reaction given by the new atheists, usually that Communism is merely a demi-religion without supernatural Gods, and thus subject to the irrationality reserved by the religious (nb it also helps the “Ditchkins’” out in their mission to single religion out as only evil; secular reason as bringing only good).

Will an atheist be any more or less sceptical about giving privileges to religious organisation? The infection that says some religions are more evil than others strikes through even the most ardent atheist too. Christian schools have long been a feature in the UK educational system, yet Islamic schools still have the effect of discomfort for some people, whether that person is religious or not. This may be more political than theological, but then many attitudes on religion today are.

By no means am I saying that Ed Miliband will come to favour one religious institution over another, but what I will categorically suggest is that his atheism will not de facto ignore the level of favouritism or ill-feeling that is levelled at some religions, or even the level at which some secularists believe certain religions are far less compatible with secularism than others.

Furthermore, on the question of educational sectarianism, such institutions do not have a state sanction to be sectarian, but to open a school with a certain religious value system. I’ve little doubt that Ed, even as an atheist, will be happy, or even indifferent, to religious values being attached to schools. Sectarianism in schools, where it exists, is kept quiet, and is certainly not allowed as such – in fact admissions in most schools are still subject to anti-discrimination measures.

Moreover, this accusation, made by A. C. Grayling was made about David Miliband; who, as mentioned, did send his son to a Roman Catholic school.

On possible neutrality between faiths, Ed Miliband has already upset Israeli supporters by speaking at at a Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East reception. It is inevitable that a political position will eventually upset faiths when politics and faith have become so intertwined. It is quite clear, therefore, that an atheist is just as liable as a believer – a further element overlooked by Grayling.

And as for the point about Miliband being more level headed, this remains to be seen, but frankly the dividing line is not drawn between believer and non-believer, only in Grayling’s black and white mind.