Step aside, Plato and Kant, make way for Anton Amo and Frantz Fanon! Academics at Durham University have been given a ‘Decolonising the Curriculum toolkit’ to cleanse their lessons of anything deemed insufficiently inclusive. The Mailhas more.
A leading university is encouraging academics to ‘decolonise’ degree courses, the Mail can reveal.
Teaching staff at Durham have access to a ‘woke toolkit’ aimed at ridding lessons of any content deemed to be insufficiently inclusive.
The material tells academics that decolonising is “essential” for a “well rounded education” and they should “re-examine their moral framework” if they view “equity as a threat”.
The ‘Decolonising the Curriculum toolkit’ offers resources for employees in the university’s business school, but can also be accessed by staff in other departments. Although not mandatory, it contains advice for subjects including anthropology, history, maths and philosophy. History courses include modules titled ‘Black British History’ and ‘History of Black Radical Thought’.
Philosophy staff are encouraged to ask why Plato or Kant are more important than African-German thinker Anton Amo or the Afro-Caribbean Frantz Fanon. The document titled ‘Decolonise Philosophy’ reads: “Philosophy and academia has purposefully excluded voices from marginalised people for years.
“To decolonise, we must discuss what it means for philosophy to be in fact colonised.
“At Durham, we must seek a philosophical education that is inclusive and wide ranging.”
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Hopefully. Safety critical stuff where people could die if you screw up should be the last bastion of humans being in touch with the world as it actually is. We’ll see.
You mean that point when people can no longer feed themselves, never mind their children? Because that is the depth to which things would need to sink in order to witness some sort of great awakening.
Until then, build your fortress and make sure your friends can find you and your enemies know you have the capacity to be very dangerous.
I was thinking or more immediate stuff – buildings falling down and planes falling out of the sky, surgeons killing their patients. But yes I agree it will take a long time before the frogs realise they’ve been boiled, who by, and why.
I think we should stop using the term “woke”. It’s too cheap and sounds like some trivial row over some funny ha-ha wacko extremist opinion.
It’s actually a war on European civilisation and on white people. I probably don’t have long left – not long enough to see us utterly defeated – but my kids or grandkids may well end up living in misery and subjugation as we will have given up our countries.
pgstokes
1 year ago
Something like this happened when I was at Uni in the late 90s. The social sciences department sent missives to the politics and pholosophy departments asking them to cut certain words from use in order to “address oppression and equality issue”. This happened every few years as someone tried it on. Needless to say the response was that neither department would restrict its discussions and analysis in this way in an attempt to “engineer” society. They were also point at George Orwell – although I suspect none of them had read his works.
pgstokes
1 year ago
…and their attempt ro replace giants of philosophy with fashionable marxist pygmies is laughable.
A colony is a settlement of foreigners in some place of a country. During so-called imperialism, it was also used to refer to conquered territories supposed to be permanently controlled by the conquerors but not supposed to become an integral part of their country. Gibraltar would be an example of something that’s a British colony in both respects. Considering this, referring to subject of philosophy as colonized makes no sense. Somebody wants to change the philosophical curriculum in a way many people, not the least many members of the university teaching community, consider highly inappropriate. In order to overcome this resistance, that someone thus refers to it as decolonization because Decolonization Is A Good Thing All Good People Ought To Support[tm] is an (American) political mantra originally formulated for the UN charter. That’s the opposite of guilt by association, so to say, namely, worthiness by association.
Aside: When and how did all these cargo cult primitives in spirit manage to get jobs in higher education? Should this at least require a minimum of, well, actual education and maturity of thought? Can’t we go back to Was geht mich das Geschwätz amerikanischer Wirr- und Flachköpfe an? (Nietzsche)
“Colonisation” is just a code word for anything white people did, and “decolonisation” is a code word for the destruction/suicide/murder of European civilisation.
Decolonization is part of the political agenda of the UN and it used to refer to voluntarily dissembling the European colonial empires, especially, the British empire. It’s also a catch-all insult for political opponents one cannot reasonably call Nazis even despite that’s what one really wants to.
It’s important (IMHO) to demask this nonsense as first step of getting rid of it. The ‘muricans can destroy whatever they want in the USA, I absolutely don’t care about that. But I don’t care about living in some second-rate USA imitation just because the ‘muricans’ die-hard fans absolutely want to reproduce their idol everywhere, either.
Totally agree. I am baffled as to why the US Democrats are so keen on this. I mean, I get wanting to hang on to power and this is a way to do it, but in the end their country will be ruined and having power in a ruined country doesn’t seem very appealing to me. They are playing with fire.
The demoocrats are the totalitarian left – they don’t think that anybody else has the intellect to run a country. Given a chance they would have another Killing Fields.
They seem to be getting much worse. But then so many things are getting worse.
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago
It is all bull. You can include allcomers without making it a matter of policy and law that the new fetish must be worshipped. You have ladyboys in Thailand but they don’t ask that the rest of the population adopt new words to accomodate them. If they did they would be met with ridicule and they would be unlikely to persist.
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago
The subtext is essentially the undermining of the whole western tradition of education.It is deeper than their understanding and it is sad that it can stand in such peril because our backbone doesn’t have the spiritual backing of the people of the country. They have gnawed at it every which way. Given the resources of the onslaught and the development of a scientifically crafted hundred year old propaganda model perhaps we should be happy at the level of dissent that we have. And despite the corporate crackdown it is beginning to grow. And these corporations don’t count for dick without popular support, try as they might.
RTSC
1 year ago
I’m beginning to think this kind of policy is being used as a test of potential students’ suitability for a university education.
Are you stupid enough to run up £50,000+ of debt in order to become unemployable? Yes? Great, come on in.
DevonBlueBoy
1 year ago
Scratch Durham off the list of universities my daughter will be applying to shortly
SomersetHoops
1 year ago
What we need is a new rating for Universities that identifies how woke they are, to the detriment of their learning content. The higher they are on the woke scale should equate to a much lower rating of their educational benefit. Then young potential students would know in advance what they are signing up to and apart from young people already infected with wokeness can choose a better environment to learn in.
GMO
1 year ago
“Philosophy staff are encouraged to ask why Plato or Kant are more important than…”
Western ideas have led to a rich, free society that billions would lke to move to and/or emulate.
Other philosophies have not created comparabe rich, free societies and civilisations.
That is one reason to focus on Western ideas and thought.
GMO
1 year ago
It’s like going to universiy in China and demandeding that all Chinese thought and philosopy be removed for ‘decolonisation’.
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Long and short, remove facts,
Replace them with beliefs and damnright lies!
Remove the achievements of white people.
STEM graduates from Durham will become unemployable
Hopefully. Safety critical stuff where people could die if you screw up should be the last bastion of humans being in touch with the world as it actually is. We’ll see.
You mean that point when people can no longer feed themselves, never mind their children? Because that is the depth to which things would need to sink in order to witness some sort of great awakening.
Until then, build your fortress and make sure your friends can find you and your enemies know you have the capacity to be very dangerous.
Plus ca change.
I was thinking or more immediate stuff – buildings falling down and planes falling out of the sky, surgeons killing their patients. But yes I agree it will take a long time before the frogs realise they’ve been boiled, who by, and why.
I suggest the decolonisation of Durham Uni by students who require a meaningful education.
I think we should stop using the term “woke”. It’s too cheap and sounds like some trivial row over some funny ha-ha wacko extremist opinion.
It’s actually a war on European civilisation and on white people. I probably don’t have long left – not long enough to see us utterly defeated – but my kids or grandkids may well end up living in misery and subjugation as we will have given up our countries.
Something like this happened when I was at Uni in the late 90s. The social sciences department sent missives to the politics and pholosophy departments asking them to cut certain words from use in order to “address oppression and equality issue”. This happened every few years as someone tried it on. Needless to say the response was that neither department would restrict its discussions and analysis in this way in an attempt to “engineer” society. They were also point at George Orwell – although I suspect none of them had read his works.
…and their attempt ro replace giants of philosophy with fashionable marxist pygmies is laughable.
A colony is a settlement of foreigners in some place of a country. During so-called imperialism, it was also used to refer to conquered territories supposed to be permanently controlled by the conquerors but not supposed to become an integral part of their country. Gibraltar would be an example of something that’s a British colony in both respects. Considering this, referring to subject of philosophy as colonized makes no sense. Somebody wants to change the philosophical curriculum in a way many people, not the least many members of the university teaching community, consider highly inappropriate. In order to overcome this resistance, that someone thus refers to it as decolonization because Decolonization Is A Good Thing All Good People Ought To Support[tm] is an (American) political mantra originally formulated for the UN charter. That’s the opposite of guilt by association, so to say, namely, worthiness by association.
Aside: When and how did all these cargo cult primitives in spirit manage to get jobs in higher education? Should this at least require a minimum of, well, actual education and maturity of thought? Can’t we go back to Was geht mich das Geschwätz amerikanischer Wirr- und Flachköpfe an? (Nietzsche)
“Colonisation” is just a code word for anything white people did, and “decolonisation” is a code word for the destruction/suicide/murder of European civilisation.
Decolonization is part of the political agenda of the UN and it used to refer to voluntarily dissembling the European colonial empires, especially, the British empire. It’s also a catch-all insult for political opponents one cannot reasonably call Nazis even despite that’s what one really wants to.
It’s important (IMHO) to demask this nonsense as first step of getting rid of it. The ‘muricans can destroy whatever they want in the USA, I absolutely don’t care about that. But I don’t care about living in some second-rate USA imitation just because the ‘muricans’ die-hard fans absolutely want to reproduce their idol everywhere, either.
Totally agree. I am baffled as to why the US Democrats are so keen on this. I mean, I get wanting to hang on to power and this is a way to do it, but in the end their country will be ruined and having power in a ruined country doesn’t seem very appealing to me. They are playing with fire.
The demoocrats are the totalitarian left – they don’t think that anybody else has the intellect to run a country. Given a chance they would have another Killing Fields.
They seem to be getting much worse. But then so many things are getting worse.
It is all bull. You can include allcomers without making it a matter of policy and law that the new fetish must be worshipped. You have ladyboys in Thailand but they don’t ask that the rest of the population adopt new words to accomodate them. If they did they would be met with ridicule and they would be unlikely to persist.
The subtext is essentially the undermining of the whole western tradition of education.It is deeper than their understanding and it is sad that it can stand in such peril because our backbone doesn’t have the spiritual backing of the people of the country. They have gnawed at it every which way. Given the resources of the onslaught and the development of a scientifically crafted hundred year old propaganda model perhaps we should be happy at the level of dissent that we have. And despite the corporate crackdown it is beginning to grow. And these corporations don’t count for dick without popular support, try as they might.
I’m beginning to think this kind of policy is being used as a test of potential students’ suitability for a university education.
Are you stupid enough to run up £50,000+ of debt in order to become unemployable? Yes? Great, come on in.
Scratch Durham off the list of universities my daughter will be applying to shortly
What we need is a new rating for Universities that identifies how woke they are, to the detriment of their learning content. The higher they are on the woke scale should equate to a much lower rating of their educational benefit. Then young potential students would know in advance what they are signing up to and apart from young people already infected with wokeness can choose a better environment to learn in.
“Philosophy staff are encouraged to ask why Plato or Kant are more important than…”
Western ideas have led to a rich, free society that billions would lke to move to and/or emulate.
Other philosophies have not created comparabe rich, free societies and civilisations.
That is one reason to focus on Western ideas and thought.
It’s like going to universiy in China and demandeding that all Chinese thought and philosopy be removed for ‘decolonisation’.