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What a PhD on the “Politics of Smell” Tells Us About How Elites Use Obscure Woke Gobbledegook to Exclude the People From Power

by Steven Tucker
20 December 2024 7:00 AM

In Thomas Hardy’s classic Victorian novel Jude the Obscure, the titular Jude Fawley, a low-born but intelligent working-class young man, has ambitious visions of entering into the dreaming spires of Christminster, a fictional institution of learning standing in for the real-life Oxford University. Yet Jude is aware that, no matter how promising the raw material of his innate intelligence, he would be ineligible for entry: for he is unable to recite or read the Gospels in Greek.

Jude’s plight was based upon genuine Oxford entry requirements during the period Hardy’s novel was set. Well into Hardy’s lifetime, it was not possible to qualify for a BA Degree from Oxford without demonstrating close knowledge of the Good Book in Greek translation, together with the 39 Articles of the Church of England.


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Tags: AcademiaCambridgeGeorge OrwellHumanitiesNew EliteOxfordThomas HardyUniversitiesWoke Gobbledegook

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42 Comments
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WillP
WillP
5 months ago

She left out crossmodal visual bigotry.

2
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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
5 months ago

SELECT ud.StudentKey, ud.StudentName, ud.DegreeYear, COUNT(DISTINCT(ud.DegreeKey)) OVER (PARTITION BY ud.StudentKey) AS StudentWokeScore
FROM Data.Academia.Degree ud
GROUP BY ud.StudentKey, ud.StudentName, ud.DegreeYear
ORDER BY StudentWokeScore DESC, ud.DegreeYear ASC

Unlike Ally’s drivel and all the other drivel by her type and of all the types desirous of inhabiting that world of drivel, the above might actually do something useful.

So there.

Last edited 5 months ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
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Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
5 months ago

It was Foucault who admitted to John Searle: “In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won’t think it’s deep–they won’t think you’re a profound thinker.”

Unfortunately the French practice has now become the modus operandi of the entire world.

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
5 months ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Yeah but it bears constant reminder that they do do things well in France. And they don’t do “running around looking busy”.

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Kiwi53
Kiwi53
5 months ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Butler and Spivak spring to mind. Of course Sokal and Bricmont ‘took the piss’ out of it back in the day with their Fashionable Nonsense book and, more recently, as did Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose with their grievance studies papers hoax.

I am minded of something someone said in a podcast after listening to a description of paradigm shifts in physics, that they hadn’t understood a word of that and that science was uninteresting and boring whereas their preference was culture and discourses etc.

“In many academic fields, technical jargon has a genuine legitimate utility: you don’t want quantum physicists inefficiently talking about “those funny little particles with the funny little charge”. But the specialist jargon of Leftism-derived Critical Theory which dominates our humanities syllabuses today is obscurantist and obfuscatory for its own sake”.

I think the specialist jargon being “obscurantist and obfuscatory” is not a 1st order motivation. I think it might, in certain instances, be a perverse consequence of the need for highly concentrated technical jargon with a genuine legitimate utility in the sciences. Maybe those with no bent for science find such language a mystification akin to a spell that carries genuine power as they see it, and inappropriately concluding that speaking in such a manner conveys some of that power and legitimacy?

Last edited 5 months ago by Kiwi53
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RTSC
RTSC
5 months ago

Get a life, luv.

4
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Smudger
Smudger
5 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

The world is her oyster after producing this magnum opus.

0
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Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
5 months ago

Or, as Stephen C Allen put it:

[P]ostmodernism, as others have attempted to define it, is literally impossible. It is the worldview of self-contradiction. It rejects becoming and replaces it with simply being. Who can have no point of reference and still manage to get anyplace? The goal of postmodernism is to not have a goal. The strongest conviction of postmodernism is not to have a strong conviction about anything. It is open to anything except dogmatism. It is only consistent in being inconsistent.

The one who prides himself on having no prejudice to his thoughts, words, and deeds, is at the same time equally guilty of the deliberate selectivity of his prejudice – he has created an even more malicious and bracketed epistemology in an attempt to arrive at a true one.

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
5 months ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Indeed. I am proud of being opinionated. My opinion of people who think being opinionated is bad is not good.

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Mogwai
Mogwai
5 months ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

🎯 Yes, agree. My opinionated self seems to have a knack of attracting a certain type of, er…’people’ on here over the years. 😁 To which I say “cope”, basically. One should have the courage of their convictions and never apologise for one’s opinions, to my mind.

Last edited 5 months ago by Mogwai
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Mogwai
Mogwai
5 months ago

It just amazes me that somebody would be able to find enough research and general relevant material in order to complete a thesis in something so incredibly random and obscure. This person just screams ”Hard-Leftist Mega Woketard” to me. Speaking of Leftards, are some of them actually mentally ill?

”Do people on the radical left demonstrate a mental disorder? Most people on the right roll their eyes at the hysteria and fears of the left, but what’s to be done?
Given that there were major shifts on the left in the 2024 election, is it possible that somehow sanity is breaking through? With the ongoing polarization that has burdened this country, it’s worthwhile to examine the psychological framework of leftists; both how they see themselves and how they see others. The results may also indicate whether the changes in voting behavior might continue, or whether they were situational.
A phrase that’s been coined is “Left-Wing Authoritarianism” (LWA) or Left-Wing Extremism. A report from last year shed some light on this mentality of the left:

Narcissistic individuals and those with psychopathic tendencies are more likely to strongly endorse left-wing antihierarchical aggression, according to new research published in Current Psychology.

[snip]

‘Based on our results, we introduced a new contribution to the literature on dark personality traits, coining the term dark-ego-vehicle principle (DEVP),’ [researchers] Krispenz and Bertrams explained. ‘According to this principle, individuals with dark personalities – such as high narcissistic and psychopathic traits – are attracted to certain forms of political and social activism which they can use as a vehicle to satisfy their own ego-focused needs instead of actually aiming at social justice and equality.’

What are some of the conclusions we might draw from a better understanding of those with LWA?

A good place to start is a shared understanding of the meaning of “psychopathology.” Here is one definition: “Psychopathology describes a wide array of mental health conditions, including but not limited to depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and various personality disorders.” Another way to define psychopathology is the term “abnormal behavior.” We could explore what the word “abnormal” means, but most people would likely agree that participation in violent protests against innocent parties is not the norm.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/12/are_leftists_mentally_ill.html#ixzz8usu14mtF

3
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MajorMajor
MajorMajor
5 months ago

Her Ph.D. might be gobbledegook but personally I think she looks quite attractive.

1
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Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
5 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Undoubtedly, and that quality will be very useful to her.

I would imagine speaking with her at any length is utterly soul-destroying, however.

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Cotfordtags
Cotfordtags
5 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Bugger what she looks like, does she smell nice. Hopefully a nice political career is ahead of her to allow her to buy nice smelling perfumes for the rest of her life.

3
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Climan
Climan
5 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Lets give her the benefit of the doubt and blame her adviser and the bloated budget for “social science”. It must be tough to find PhD topics for all the youngsters keen to avoid real jobs.

2
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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
5 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Worth a squirt.

0
0
Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
5 months ago

Well. What a colossal waste of time. As someone apparently said below her post, she’d have done far better (and undoubtedly been far happier) if she had used her time to find a decent bloke and have a sprog.

Congratulations to the decipherer “hoe_math” who summed up the situation perfectly.

I do hope the good doctor finds a fulfilling career with Costa or Starbucks.

2
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Mogwai
Mogwai
5 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

How are you confident she’d be undoubtedly ”far happier” settling down and having babies? She’s obviously young and has many reproductive years ahead of her in which to make that decision. And if somebody really was adamant they wanted to pursue a Ph.D in anything, good luck doing that once you’ve young kids to prioritize. Parenthood is a choice, after all, and ”undoubtedly” it is not for everyone.

1
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Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
5 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Wait til she discovers that her “doctorate” is as useful as a bicycle to a fish, and realises that she has wasted years of her life on pseudo-academic fluff that will have no positive effect on humanity.

Then, she will see that doing literally anything else would not have brought her to that unhappy point of clarity.

1
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
5 months ago

Yesterday people kept telling me I had missed the point, and apparently I am an “imbecile”, but I am afraid I have missed the point of this article. I don’t really get the connection with Hardy nor do I see much in the article that backs up the title.

What this woman studied sounds like a load of nonsense, but as long as I am not paying for it (which I probably am…) I don’t care. I’m not sure how it’s relevant to university and PHDs in general or to “excluding the people from power”.

Hopefully everyone else here, who is cleverer than I am (not hard) will explain.

0
-3
Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
5 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Basically, to sit on any kind of influential public body these days, you need to speaka da lingo, i.e. buzzword-laden bolleaux, to stand any chance.

1
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
5 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

Possibly, though I can’t see much connection between that and the article and the title and Hardy. But that’s imbeciles for you!

1
-2
Dinger64
Dinger64
5 months ago

There must be more important and relative things to write about than this pap surely!

1
-1
DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
5 months ago

Way back in the day my Grammar school insisted on people passing a GCSE in Latin because a qualification in Latin, or Greek, was a requirement for entry into Oxford or Cambridge.

You can see this as a charming throwback to a different age (I am now officially OG – Old Git) or just then current ‘comb’ to separate the worthy from the unworthy for the sake of a later career in Academia or the Civil Service.

Not ‘class’ or ‘politics’ as such, just a thinning out process to prepare the right sort of people for life within the Establishment. As such learning Woke Speak is just another ‘comb’ to survive the selection process.

2
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jsampson45
jsampson45
5 months ago
Reply to  DiscoveredJoys

I have always assumed that being able to read Latin or Greek showed an ability to think clearly, which is rare.

0
0
FerdIII
FerdIII
5 months ago

Phd:

Pretty Happy Dude
Piled on High and Deep
Painter and House Decorator
Pretty Hapless Degree

High priests of the word salads.

1
0
Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
5 months ago
Reply to  FerdIII

That’s it in a nutshell, she would have done a PhD in literally anything, the prime objective was so that she could title herself “Dr”, and therefore posture as an “academic”.

1
0
JXB
JXB
5 months ago

”To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

5
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Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
5 months ago
Reply to  JXB

I’m with him!

0
0
Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
5 months ago

Universities are in terminal decline. Real progress happens elsewhere these days.

This particular University (I used to work there) just hasn’t realised yet, despite the fact that it’s broke.

The individual in question will likely proceed through life on the basis of having a PhD from Cambridge (I’ve met lets of them), but it’s an increasingly devalued currency.

The purpose isn’t to acquire erudition, it’s to obtain an entrance ticket to the smugocracy.

Last edited 5 months ago by Howard Arnaud
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Ardandearg
Ardandearg
5 months ago

In the words of the prophet (as we used to say without specifying which one), “Good Grief, Charlie Brown”.

1
0
Tom Lyons
Tom Lyons
5 months ago

Love the puns.

Lingua Wanka was particularly funny!

2
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
5 months ago

If you start using fancy language you ultimately come across as being mean-spirited. And you can’t really get away with that now like you could before. These people are very self-conscious and they will be aware of the public mood even if they laugh nervously and pretend it doesn’t exist.

2
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
5 months ago

Like Joyce said, I fear those big words which make us so unhappy. Especially in a time like this where solace is required more than anything.

2
0
MouseWorqs
MouseWorqs
5 months ago

I need saving, I am beyond redemption

I actually understood the ‘extract’ as cut+pasted in the article

I will enrol in a suitable Correction Centre forthwith

0
0
wryobserver
wryobserver
5 months ago

In medicine we are advised to try and avoid obscure language but the rise of academese as I have called it for some years seems unstoppable. Mind you, the smell thing works both ways. My father, who was a GP, told the story of a West Indian origin patient who said that white people smelled like dead bodies. That was in the 1960s. Nothing new here then, but perhaps the wisdom of Kemi Badenoch in appointing Young and Biggar to the Lords marks another big step along the anti-woke path.

0
0
Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
5 months ago

Wasn’t it Einstein who said if you can’t explain your ideas in a simple way that people can grasp, you don’t understand them yourself?
or something like that?

2
0
WillP
WillP
5 months ago

Woman discovers reference to the filth sense can enable description in literature.

0
0
gadgetgal
gadgetgal
5 months ago

Absolutely hilarious and very well written. I wonder if the elitist universities like Cambridge are different to other Universities in the way they examine PhDs. In the more mundane unis where candidates are encouraged to write abstracts that are comprehensible, a PhD is examined by an external academic and an internal academic who has had no involvement with the student’s work. There is an independent Chair in the room and one of the candidate’s supervisors attends to support them and take notes. If the supervisor feels that the examiners are being unreasonable they can intervene. This ensures quality. Being examined by the supervisors who have guided your work for 3 or 4 years is, I would think, lacking in rigour, as the supervisors approve the PhD draft before it goes to examination. It all sounds a bit academically incestuous 😁

0
0
coviture2020
coviture2020
5 months ago

Though seemingly well qualified the life of shelf stacking awaits pungently

0
0
The Enforcer
The Enforcer
5 months ago

I always try and read Steven’s articles in the Daily Sceptic as they always have an interesting title but I rarely read them in their entirety because they are always too long. However, I read the whole of this article and may I suggest that it says a great deal about our society in 2024. This young lady will, no doubt, secure an inane and unproductive job which will pay a great deal to produce nothing of consequence – a complete waste of my taxes and her inevitable student debt.
As an ex dairy farmer, I might suggest that she could have written a useful thesis on why dairy cows and human females are so alike in every way. That thesis, I would read and be able to comment on given my love for both!!!

1
0
Simon MacPhisto
Simon MacPhisto
5 months ago

Love these articles. Lingua Wanka – genius !

0
0

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