RIP VUW

Dear Sirs/Mesdames

Thank you for the invitation to comment on the University’s new name.  I was a student at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in the early 1970s.  I do not approve of the name change or its visual identity.

There are several reasons for this, and they relate mainly to ideological trends which have markedly progressed in recent decades.   They have suffused the Weltanschauung to an extent where the majority of commentators seem unaware of it. The changes to the University’s identity follow these trends diligently.

Its close identification with Maori culture is perhaps the most incongruous facet.  Maori culture is primitive, and lies in sharp contrast to developed cultures.  By that I mean that it is tribal, with no national or overarching identity, and has collective land ownership gained by conquest.  It rejects rule of law and the state’s monopoly on violence.  It exhibits lower levels of the value of human life along with cannibalism, and higher levels of violence, often practiced as retributive subsidiarity since the rule of law is not part of primitive cultures.  It is hierarchical and includes slavery.  It is highly spiritual but low on analysis or development.  Its traditions are oral which limits its transmissibility.  While its culture has sufficient breadth to cover the needs of its members, it is shallow, and thus has limited artistic development and shows a low tendency to refinement. It appears loath to adopt external influences, and of late, to share their own with other cultures.   Primitive cultures’ education process is that of informal enculturation, a simple one-on-one process which does not lend itself to accumulation and advancement, which is in antipodal contrast to the sine qua non of universities’ purpose.

Maori culture’s move away from its worst features is solely due to the civilising influence of Western migration.  Western culture’s move towards Maori culture is more complex and imbued with ideologies.  One is a nod to anarcho-primitivism, manifest in forms such as ‘paleo-diets’, ‘rewilding’, and the elevation of primitive culture and beliefs to an equal basis with advanced cultures, as an imaginary age of Rousseauian innocence against Hobbesian evidence.  Since primitive culture and universities are antithetical, the true reason for VUW’s increased association with Maori culture is obscure and can only be guessed at.  Is it pandering?  Is it a morally-anachronistic judgment on civilisational expansion?  Is it a way of destroying the status ante, and with nothing significant to identify with, it attaches itself to a culture of convenience?

Another ideology which could have affected VUW Council’s proposal is Marxism, in its neo or Gramscian cultural mode.  Plenty has been written about the shift from political neutrality to the far Left and its damning results.  For example, Kenneth Westhues on academic mobbing, Frank Furedi with Free Speech on Campus, Langbert, Quain and Klein’s paper on Faculty Voter Registration, research and commentaries by Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt and Camille Paglia, the Adam Smith Institute’s paper Lackademia, Brookings Institute’s findings on ‘positive’ as opposed to ‘open’ learning environments, and much more.  There are commonplace events such as no-platforming (Don Brash, Roger Scruton, Heather MacDonald), disinvitation, hecklers’ veto, smear and jeer, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and capitulation to student demands in a form of liberum veto.

Conservative institutions such as The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation has great difficulty in finding a campus to host it.  Islamic institutions have no such difficulty, despite being extremely conservative and financed from overseas, because the neo-Marxist influence on universities blind them from seeing it as an ally in Marxism’s near-term goal.  Academia’s creation of an Islamic imaginary is something it should have to answer for, but it won’t need to in the current environment. 

 TO BE CONTINUED...