Julian Huxley, UNESCO, and Eugenics

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“It is, however, essential that eugenics should be brought entirely within the borders of science, for, as already indicated, in the not very remote future the problem of improving the average quality of human beings is likely to become urgent; and this can only be accomplished by applying the findings of a truly scientific eugenics.”

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley
From UNESCO Its Purpose and Its Philosophy

unesco
Hitchner, D. G., & Huxley, J.. (1948). UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy. The Western Political Quarterly

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2307/442317
DOI URL
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Darwin-Huxley-Garlton-Wedgewood ‘s genealogy

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Family-pedigree based mapping

Family based QTL mapping, or Family-pedigree based mapping (Linkage and association mapping), involves multiple families instead of a single family. Family based QTL mapping has been the only way for mapping of genes where experimental crosses are difficult to make. However, due to some advantages, now plant geneticists are attempting to incorporate some of the methods pioneered in human genetics.[20] Using family-pedigree based approach has been discussed (Bink et al. 2008). Family-based linkage and association has been successfully implemented (Rosyara et al. 2009)[21]

Francis Galton (cousin of Huxley) – eugenics

Huxleys bulldog
Galton created biometrics

“A pedigree of the Galton–Darwin–Wedgwood families that was exhibited as a poster at the Third International Congress of Eugenics in 1932 at the American Museum of Natural History has been located in the archives of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. This pedigree was prepared by Harry Hamilton Laughlin, Director of the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institute. The pedigree shows consanguineous marriages within the three families. A special collection of rare Darwin family photographs assembled by Leonard Darwin has also been found in the Truman State University archives. These photographs were exhibited as a poster alongside the pedigree at the 1932 Eugenics Congress. The poster of the Galton–Darwin–Wedgwood pedigree is published here, together with a tabular version providing ready access to the information contained in the pedigree. Also included are the Darwin family photographs and a biographical sketch of Laughlin.” (Berra, et al., 2010; see references below)


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Further References

Berra, T. M., Alvarez, G., & Shannon, K.. (2010). The Galton-Darwin-Wedgwood Pedigree of H.H. Laughlin. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01529.x
DOI URL
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Berra, T. M., Alvarez, G., & Ceballos, F. C.. (2010). Was the Darwin/Wedgwood Dynasty Adversely Affected by Consanguinity?. BioScience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1525/bio.2010.60.5.7
DOI URL
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Golubovsky, M.. (2008). Unexplained infertility in Charles Darwin’s family: Genetic aspect. Human Reproduction

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/humrep/den052
DOI URL
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Oswald, F.. (1930). Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. American Journal of Sociology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2307/2767224
DOI URL
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Plutocracy/Elitism

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A plutocracy or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy.More at Wikipedia

In a “plutonomy”, according to Citigroup global strategist Ajay Kapur, economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.

plutonomy
Littler, J.. (2013). Meritocracy as Plutocracy: The Marketising of “Equality” Under Neoliberalism. New Formations

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3898/NewF.80/81.03.2013
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Reiner, R.. (2013). Who governs? Democracy, plutocracy, science and prophecy in policing. Criminology and Criminal Justice

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/1748895812474282
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Kuhner, T. K.. (2015). American Plutocracy. SSRN

doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2581556

Ashford, R.. (2010). Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom: A Binary Economic Critique. Journal of Economic Issues

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624440226
DOI URL
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Macvarish, J.. (2014). The politics of parenting. In Parenting Culture Studies

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1057/9781137304612
DOI URL
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Green, R. T.. (2012). Plutocracy, Bureaucracy, and the End of Public Trust. Administration and Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0095399712436658
DOI URL
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Scruggs, L., & Hayes, T. J.. (2017). The influence of inequality on welfare generosity: Evidence from the US States. Politics and Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0032329216683165
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Morris, W.. (1883). Art under Plutocracy
Guédon, J. C.. (2003). Open Access Archives: From scientific plutocracy to the republic of science. IFLA Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/034003520302900204
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Alterman, E.. (2015). Invisible Plutocracy.. Nation

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1257/mac.20150359
DOI URL
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Amin, S.. (2008). “Market Economy” or Oligopoly-Finance Capitalism?. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine

Plain numerical DOI: 10.14452/MR-059-11-2008-04_4
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Kuhner, T. K.. (2015). The Corruption of Liberal and Social Democracies. SSRN

doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2691048

Finbow, R. G.. (2016). Restructuring the State through Economic and Trade Agreements: The Case of Investment Disputes Resolution. Politics and Governance

Plain numerical DOI: 10.17645/pag.v4i3.639
DOI URL
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Saith, A.. (2011). Inequality, Imbalance, Instability: Reflections on a Structural Crisis. Development and Change

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01705.x
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Genetic factors involved in psychopathy

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link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9780230307551_14.pdf

Psychopathy in Politics and Finance – Stefan Verstappen on GRTV

Official site of the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Justice

leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/the-corporate-psychopath

Further References

Sadeh, N., Javdani, S., Jackson, J. J., Reynolds, E. K., Potenza, M. N., Gelernter, J., … Verona, E.. (2010). Serotonin transporter gene associations with psychopathic traits in youth vary as a function of socioeconomic resources. Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1037/a0019709
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Dadds, M. R., Moul, C., Cauchi, A., Dobson-Stone, C., Hawes, D. J., Brennan, J., & Ebstein, R. E.. (2014). Methylation of the oxytocin receptor gene and oxytocin blood levels in the development of psychopathy. Development and Psychopathology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/S0954579413000497
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Yildirim, B. O., & Derksen, J. J. L.. (2013). Systematic review, structural analysis, and new theoretical perspectives on the role of serotonin and associated genes in the etiology of psychopathy and sociopathy. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.04.009
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Beaver, K. M., Barnes, J. C., May, J. S., & Schwartz, J. A.. (2011). Psychopathic personality traits, genetic risk, and gene-environment correlations. Criminal Justice and Behavior

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0093854811411153
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Sadeh, N., Javdani, S., & Verona, E.. (2013). Analysis of monoaminergic genes, childhood abuse, and dimensions of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1037/a0029866
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Hicks, B. M., Carlson, M. D., Blonigen, D. M., Patrick, C. J., Iacono, W. G., & Mgue, M.. (2012). Psychopathic personality traits and environmental contexts: Differential correlates, gender differences, and genetic mediation. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1037/a0025084
DOI URL
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Glenn, A. L.. (2011). The other allele: Exploring the long allele of the serotonin transporter gene as a potential risk factor for psychopathy: A review of the parallels in findings. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.07.005
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James, M. G.. (2010). Investigating dimensions of psychopathy in an adjudicated adolescent sample: The role of race, sex and disruptive family processes. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

doi.org/10.3109/14397595.2014.899178

Ponce, G., Hoenicka, J., Jiménez-Arriero, M. A., Rodríguez-Jiménez, R., Aragüés, M., Martín-Suñé, N., … Palomo, T.. (2008). DRD2 and ANKK1 genotype in alcohol-dependent patients with psychopathic traits: Association and interaction study. British Journal of Psychiatry

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.107.041582
DOI URL
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Garcia, L. F., Aluja, A., Fibla, J., Cuevas, L., & García, O.. (2010). Incremental effect for antisocial personality disorder genetic risk combining 5-HTTLPR and 5-HTTVNTR polymorphisms. Psychiatry Research

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2008.12.018
DOI URL
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Euphemisms/Orwellian Newspeak

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A euphemism is a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms are used to refer to taboo topics in a polite way, or to mask profanity.More at Wikipedia

Newspeak is the language of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state ruled by the Party, who created the language to meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism.More at Wikipedia

Orwell, G.. (2000). Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak. In Nineteen Eighty-Four
Bergman, J.. (1994). Totalitarian language: Orwell’s newspeak and its nazi and communist antecedents. History of European Ideas

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/0191-6599(94)90522-3
DOI URL
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Joseph, J. E.. (2000). Orwell on Language and Politics. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics
Buchen, I. H.. (1984). The future of 1984. Technology in Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/0160-791X(84)90036-8
DOI URL
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Waters, A.. (2015). “Orwellian” discourse in ELT: A threat to professional diversity. RELC Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0033688214555354
DOI URL
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CIA program MK-Ultra

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Orwell’s unpublished preface to Animal Farm

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The Freedom of the Press
Orwell’s Proposed Preface to ‘Animal Farm’

Excerpt
Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think… I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs[*]. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

* It is not quite clear whether this suggested modification is Mr… ’s own idea, or originated with the Ministry of Information; but it seems to have the official ring about it. [Orwell’s Note]

This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian ‘co-ordination’ that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you arc not allowed to criticise the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticise our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.

The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, but it evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader. The Russians, who had their own Jugoslav protege in Marshal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with the Germans. This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were simply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germans offered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich. The British press ‘splashed’ the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libelled in the English leftwing [sic] press, and any statement in their defence even in letter form, was refused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trotsky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — 1 believe the review copies had been sent out — when the USSR entered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn. Not a word about this has ever appeared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its suppression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.

It is important to distinguish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia voluntarily impose upon themselves, and the censorship that can sometimes be enforced by pressure groups. Notoriously, certain topics cannot be discussed because of ‘vested interests’. The best-known case is the patent medicine racket. Again, the Catholic Church has considerable influence in the press and can silence criticism of itself to some extent. A scandal involving a Catholic priest is almost never given publicity, whereas an Anglican priest who gets into trouble (e.g. the Rector of Stiffkey) is headline news. It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholic tendency to appear on the stage or in a film. Any actor can tell you that a play or film which attacks or makes fun of the Catholic Church is liable to be boycotted in the press and will probably be a failure. But this kind of thing is harmless, or at least it is understandable. Any large organisation will look after its own interests as best it can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to. One would no more expect the Daily Worker to publicise unfavourable facts about the USSR than one would expect the Catholic Herald to denounce the Pope. But then every thinking person knows the Daily Worker and the Catholic Herald for what they are. What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal [sic — and throughout as typescript] writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941, but it had operated, to a greater extent than is sometimes realised, for ten years earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly me whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the international situation, and me urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalisation. The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had developed a nationalistic loyalty towards me USSR, and in their hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on me wisdom of Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in me purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in me Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.

But now to come back to this book of mine. The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: ‘It oughtn’t to have been published.’ Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not me whole of the story. One does not say that a book ‘ought not to have been published’ merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did me opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, the Left Book Club over a period of four or five years shows how willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slipshod writing, provided that it tells them what they want to hear.

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ‘Yes’. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ‘How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?’, and the answer more often than not will be ‘No’, In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street-partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them-still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they ‘objectively’ harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.

These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalisation of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the ‘anti-Fascism’ of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?

It is important to realise that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World — first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution — the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or [sic = of?] plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilisation over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:

By the known rules of ancient liberty.

The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals arc visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.

Aldous Huxley – The Ultimate Revolution (Berkeley Speech 1962)

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Related References

Baker, R. S., & Bedford, S.. (1975). Aldous Huxley. Contemporary Literature

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2307/1207614
DOI URL
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Kooistra, J.. (1931). Aldous Huxley. English Studies

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00138383108596583
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Huxley, A.. (2015). Brave New World By Aldous Huxley. The Independent

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/503338a
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Huxley, G.. (1965). Aldous Huxley. Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/002216786500500202
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Postman, N.. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death.. ETC: A Review of General Semantics
Meckier, J.. (2016). Aldous Huxley: Satire and Structure. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/S1048-4736(04)01506-1
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Lester, H.. (2012). Brave new world.. The British Journal of General Practice : The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3399/bjgp12X641609
DOI URL
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Seed, D.. (2007). Aldous Huxley: Brave New World. In A Companion to Science Fiction

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/9780470997055.ch35
DOI URL
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Trivium & Quadrivium

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The quadrivium (plural: quadrivia) is the four subjects, or arts, taught after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning four ways, and its use for the four subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century.  Together, the trivium and the quadrivium comprised the seven liberal arts (based on thinking skills), as distinguished from the practical arts (such as medicine and architecture).

Etymologically, the Latin word trivium means “the place where three roads meet” (tri + via); hence, the subjects of the trivium are the foundation for the quadrivium, the upper division of the medieval education in the liberal arts, which comprised arithmetic (number), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time). Educationally, the trivium and the quadrivium imparted to the student the seven liberal arts of classical antiquity.[1]

Grammar teaches the mechanics of language to the student. This is the step where the student “comes to terms,” defining the objects and information perceived by the five senses. Hence, the Law of Identity: a tree is a tree, and not a cat.

Logic (also dialectic) is the “mechanics” of thought and of analysis, the process of identifying fallacious arguments and statements and so systematically removing contradictions, thereby producing factual knowledge that can be trusted.

Rhetoric is the application of language in order to instruct and to persuade the listener and the reader. It is the knowledge (grammar) now understood (logic) and being transmitted outwards as wisdom (rhetoric).

One can utilise a computer analogy to conceptually explain the Trivium. Per analogiam, input (via input channels such as the senses/sensors, or any other form of information transmission ) refers to grammar, processing to logic (thought & analysis), and output to rhetoric (written words & spoken language).

Sister Miriam Joseph, in The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric (2002), described the trivium as follows:

Grammar is the art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought; logic is the art of thinking; and rhetoric is the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.

. . .

Grammar is concerned with the thing as-it-is-symbolized. Logic is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known. Rhetoric is concerned with the thing as-it-is-communicated.[4]

John Ayto wrote in the Dictionary of Word Origins (1990) that study of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) was requisite preparation for study of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). For the medieval student, the trivium was the curricular beginning of the acquisition of the seven liberal arts; as such, it was the principal undergraduate course of study. The word trivial arose from the contrast between the simpler trivium and the more difficult quadrivium.[5]

Quadrivium

The quadrivium consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These followed the preparatory work of the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. In turn, the quadrivium was considered preparatory work for the study of philosophy (sometimes called the “liberal art par excellence”)[5] and theology.

These four studies compose the secondary part of the curriculum outlined by Plato in The Republic and are described in the seventh book of that work (in the order Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music). [4] The quadrivium is implicit in early Pythagorean writings and in the De nuptiis of Martianus Capella, although the term quadrivium was not used until Boethius, early in the sixth century.[6] As Proclus wrote:

The Pythagoreans considered all mathematical science to be divided into four parts: one half they marked off as concerned with quantity, the other half with magnitude; and each of these they posited as twofold. A quantity can be considered in regard to its character by itself or in its relation to another quantity, magnitudes as either stationary or in motion. Arithmetic, then, studies quantities as such, music the relations between quantities, geometry magnitude at rest, spherics [astronomy] magnitude inherently moving.[7]

Medieval usage

At many medieval universities, this would have been the course leading to the degree of Master of Arts (after the BA). After the MA, the student could enter for bachelor’s degrees of the higher faculties (Theology, Medicine or Law). To this day, some of the postgraduate degree courses lead to the degree of Bachelor (the B.Phil and B.Litt. degrees are examples in the field of philosophy).

The study was eclectic, approaching the philosophical objectives sought by considering it from each aspect of the quadrivium within the general structure demonstrated by Proclus (AD 412–485), namely arithmetic and music on the one hand[8] and geometry and cosmology on the other.[9]

The subject of music within the quadrivium was originally the classical subject of harmonics, in particular the study of the proportions between the musical intervals created by the division of a monochord. A relationship to music as actually practised was not part of this study, but the framework of classical harmonics would substantially influence the content and structure of music theory as practised in both European and Islamic cultures.

Modern usage

In modern applications of the liberal arts as curriculum in colleges or universities, the quadrivium may be considered to be the study of number and its relationship to space or time: arithmetic was pure number, geometry was number in space, music was number in time, and astronomy was number in space and time. Morris Kline classified the four elements of the quadrivium as pure (arithmetic), stationary (geometry), moving (astronomy), and applied (music) number.[10]

This schema is sometimes referred to as “classical education”, but it is more accurately a development of the 12th- and 13th-century Renaissance with recovered classical elements, rather than an organic growth from the educational systems of antiquity. The term continues to be used by the Classical education movement and at the independent Oundle School, in the United Kingdom.[11]

see also: www.oundleschool.org.uk/Trivium-and-Quadrivium


Further References

Bugliarello, G.. (2003). A new trivium and quadrivium. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0270467603251296
DOI URL
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Etzkowitz, H., Ranga, M., & Dzisah, J.. (2012). Whither the university? The Novum Trivium and the transition from industrial to knowledge society. Social Science Information

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0539018412437099
DOI URL
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Bordieu’s Habitus & Hexis

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The term habitus (/ˈhæbɪtəs/) refers to ingrained habits, skills, and psychological/behavioral  dispositions. It is the way that individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it. These dispositions are usually shared by people with similar backgrounds (such as social class, religion, nationality, ethnicity, education, profession etc.). The habitus is acquired through imitation (mimesis) and is the reality that individuals are socialized, which includes their individual experience and opportunities. Thus, the habitus represents the way group culture and personal history shape the body and the mind, and as a result, shape present social actions of an individual.

Pierre Bourdieu suggested that the habitus consists of both the hexis (the tendency to hold and use one’s body in a certain way, such as posture and accent) and more abstract mental habits, schemes of perception, classification, appreciation, feeling, and action. These schemes are not mere habits: Bourdieu suggested they allow individuals to find new solutions to new situations without calculated deliberation, based on their gut feelings and intuitions, which Bourdieu believed were collective and socially shaped. These attitudes, mannerisms, tastes, moral intuitions and habits have influence on the individual’s life chances, so the habitus not only is structured by an individual’s objective past position in the social structure but also structures the individual’s future life path. Pierre Bourdieu argued that the reproduction of the social structure results from the habitus of individuals (Bourdieu, 1987).


References

Reay, D.. (2004). “It’s all becoming a habitus”: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research. British Journal of Sociology of Education

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/0142569042000236934
DOI URL
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Lyons, A. P., Bourdieu, P., & Nice, R.. (1980). Outline of a Theory of Practice. ASA Review of Books

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2307/532672
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Bourdieu, P.. (1969). Structures, Habitus, Practices. In The Logic of Practice

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2307/2804264
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Lizardo, O.. (2004). The cognitive origins of Bourdieu’s Habitus. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2004.00255.x
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Jason D. Edgerton, & Roberts, L. W.. (2014). Habitus. In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1519
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Wacquant, L.. (2007). Esclarecer o Habitus. Educação & Linguagem

Plain numerical DOI: 10.15603/2176-1043/el.v10n16p63-71 M4 – Citavi
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Crossley, N.. (2013). Habit and Habitus. Body and Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/1357034X12472543
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Silva, E. B.. (2016). Habitus: Beyond sociology. Sociological Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.12345
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Gaddis, S. M.. (2013). The influence of habitus in the relationship between cultural capital and academic achievement. Social Science Research

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.08.002
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Thomas, L.. (2002). Student retention in higher education: The role of institutional habitus. Journal of Education Policy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/02680930210140257
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Mutch, A.. (2003). Communities of practice and habitus: A critique. Organization Studies

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0170840603024003909
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Bordieu, P., & Bourdieu, P.. (1968). Outline of a Sociological Theory of Art Perception. International Social Science Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1590/S0103-20702013000100001
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Bourdieu, P.. (1986). Habitus, code et codification. Actes de La Recherche En Sciences Sociales

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3406/arss.1986.2335
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Hanks, W. F.. (2005). PIERRE BOURDIEU AND THE PRACTICES OF LANGUAGE. Annual Review of Anthropology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143907
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Bourdieu, P.. (2000). Making the Economic Habitus: Algerian Workers Revisited. Ethnography

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/14661380022230624
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King, A.. (2000). Thinking with Bourdieu against Bourdieu: A “practical” critique of the habitus. Sociological Theory

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/0735-2751.00109
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Crossley, N.. (2001). The phenomenological habitus and its construction. Theory and Society

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1023/A:1011070710987
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Sewell, W. H.. (1992). A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation. American Journal of Sociology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1086/229967
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Nash, R.. (1990). Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction. British Journal of Sociology of Education

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/0142569900110405
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