University decline is like climate change. It has multiple causes… [and] each cause works slowly enough to allow most people to stay in denial about their effects.
We talk a lot about the limits of critique. I’m more worried about the absence of critique. I mean institutional critique, including self-critique. That’s how professions get out of blind alleys and advance.
Stuart Hall’s Voice – David Scott
For several generations to come Stuart Hall’s voice will remain a key part of conversations on the left.
I think it’s safe to say that, at this moment, where we find ourselves now, we need good reggae more than ever.
I think that understanding a particular philosophical position means that you try your best to understand the particular geographical and cultural space it emerges from.
I often have to think about Brecht: “Ah, what an age it is / When to speak of trees is almost a crime / For it is a kind of silence about injustice!”
The default world of literary fiction is a very professional class, with occasional sprinkles of They Closed the Mill and Now We’re All on OxyContin. I wanted to be more matter of fact about post-industrial small town life.
Paradoxically one way to cover a conspiracy is to present it as a conspiracy theory and count on the fact that it will not be taken seriously.
I spoke of the exodus and of the repatrination. I quoted Prince Far-I: ‘We’re moving out of Babylon/ One destination, ina Ithiopia …’, I quoted. ‘Ithiopia, the tyrants are falling/ Ithiopia, Britain the great is falling…’
Friedrich Nietzsche: Edu-hater
Why offer a set of reforms when your goal is to tear down the whole system of values upon which your current society is built?