Cambridge University is now essentially a laughing stock. Its DEI poster-boy, Jason Arday, whom they appointed Professor of the Sociology of Education in 2023 (aged just 37), was revealed, rather predictably, to have plagiarised much of his doctoral thesis, to have produced woeful publications and to be a complete fantasist — and then committed suicide following his exposure. Cambridge continued to defend Arday and doubled down as he was turned into a Woke martyr. Because they are in the thrall of Woke, and his elevation seemed to challenge the ‘harmful stereotypes’ which challenged their ideology, his being a professor symbolically asserts power over their enemies. Nathan Cofnas, meanwhile — who had made some of the earlier plagiarism allegations against Arday, was effectively forced out of the University just two years ago by the machinations of Emmanuel College staff hostile to his academic work, and is currently at the centre of another free-speech battle at the University of Ghent — has become even more a boogeyman for the left internationally.
What a ridiculous university, you might think. What is the point of Cambridge University? Genuine scholarship, should it collide with doctrinal stipulations, risks endangering the livelihood of those pursuing it. Asking this question, you may be surprised that only 160 years ago, Cambridge was in a similar position.
During the eighteenth century, Oxford and Cambridge’s purpose was to promote Anglicanism, for which attendees had to be confessing Anglicans. Though it had a strong record of schooling in mathematics and natural philosophy, by the nineteenth century scholarship remained embedded within a clerical and classical conception of a liberal education, narrowing the social and intellectual constituency of the universities, precisely at the moment modern science was becoming a specialised and international profession.
Fast forward to 2015 – the University of Warwick introduced its own confessional requirements. In the aftermath of a students’ group chat scandal, the University was forced by its own institutional actors to adopt the ‘Dignity at Warwick’ policy, which mandated that attendees signing on to the university and academic staff alike would have to sign a document pledging commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policies. Policies of this kind were replicated across the Higher Education sector.
Oxford and Cambridge have, in fact, been relative outliers, at least in their strictly ‘confessional’ basis, and haven’t to date imposed a mandatory pledge acknowledging DEI principles for their student intake. Will Cambridge make active confession of Woke part of the student onboarding process in the aftermath of the Arday saga?
In my book The Past Is a Future Country: The Coming Conservative Demographic Revolution, I discussed the idea that universities go through a ‘priestly cycle’. In England, geniuses with outlier high intelligence and autistic traits that render them utterly focused on the truth founded the great universities. They became prestigious, which attracted those of normal-range high intelligence who were motivated by status and tended to be socially conformist. They understood the social benefits of conforming to the dominant or soon-to-be dominant ideology, convinced themselves to believe it, and then competitively signalled their adherence to it.
The universities became decreasingly academic. Geniuses moved elsewhere; the universities declined. Eventually they reformed, began nurturing new geniuses, and the process repeated itself. Hence you see Homerton College, Cambridge . . . a Dissenting Academy absorbed, after religious requirements were dropped in 1871, into Cambridge University.
This describes universities in England between the Middle Ages and the late 19th century. Scholastics who strongly focused on logic and truth founded Oxford and Cambridge. They were called to understand God’s creation, so to lie would be blasphemous. However, in the mid-17th century, the Church of England controlled both. They were allowed to monopolise degree-granting as long as they upheld the state ideology. This is another means by which the ideology can take over universities, by offering money and monopoly in exchange for doctrinal conformity. This was vital because so many Protestant heretics, for example, had emerged from the universities and especially from Cambridge.
Innovative research increasingly took place outside the universities by gentleman scholars, including Charles Darwin (1809-1882), scholar-rectors like Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and power loom inventor Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823); enthusiastic amateurs such as the Aberdeenshire shoemaker and scientist Thomas Edward (1814-1886).
The most intelligent students increasingly went abroad to universities in Scotland or the Netherlands, where real thinking was allowed, and the latest science was explored. A number of 18th- and 19th-century British Prime Ministers were educated at Scottish, Dutch or German universities, often after the rite of passage of Oxbridge. The Earl of Bute, regarded as very scholarly, exclusively went to Dutch universities.
For Dissenters such as Unitarians and Methodists who could not afford a university abroad, about 100 dissenting academies proliferated across England between 1750 and 1850. They could not grant degrees, a right limited to Oxbridge, but they could provide higher education. They ranged enormously in size and standard, from one tutor with access to a library to multiple tutors in different subjects.
Some were simply dissenting versions of Oxford or Cambridge, focused on training ministers and on doctrinal conformity. But others, especially Warrington Academy and Hackney New College, were important centres of learning. With a brilliant reputation for teaching science and for preparing young men for business and legal careers, Warrington, which became Manchester Academy, was probably the most prestigious. One of Warrington’s tutors, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), an eminent chemist, discovered oxygen. Some of the academies were considered so superb that even Anglicans, such as Thomas Malthus and Benjamin Disraeli, attended them.
By the mid-19th century, Oxbridge was under serious pressure. Responding to a public mood of religious tolerance, the government permitted the secular University College London to grant degrees. The ancient universities were compelled by the state to reform or die. They begrudgingly, and slowly, chose the former. Competition against the German research universities, whose specialised research structures made academic freedom more central to the function of the institution, continued to wear away at the prestige of the universities – and in 1871 the state finally explicitly prohibited the imposition of religious tests for any degree (other than in divinity) at Oxford, Cambridge or Durham. The dissenting academies closed down or, in some cases, became Oxford or Cambridge colleges.
We should not be surprised, therefore, by similar developments today. With universities becoming Woke madrassas out of lockstep and besieged by the thrust of public opinion and prevailing political trends, we see more and more independent scholars, especially in ‘controversial’ areas. We also might see scholars flee to non-Western universities. Demands from the public have long been growing for the country’s premier establishments of learning and research to be cracked out of their institutional-ideological bubbles.
Especially with the rise of the Internet, some are beginning to seek an education in unrecognised online ‘universities’ with non-Woke syllabuses. Could this lead to a hi-tech version of the dissenting academies – with all of the variation in quality that was also suggested in the past? As AI, the academic competency crisis and credential inflation all degrade the value of the existing international accreditation system, it is not inconceivable that real alternatives become available. But perhaps the most interesting question remains – when will the state impose tolerance?
Of course, the Priestly Cycle, and the state’s ability to manipulate it, are not the only reasons for what has happened at Cambridge and elsewhere. The universities today are perhaps more insular and doctrinally self-reinforcing than at any other time before us. Universities have grown into massive bureaucracies, which entrench rule-following and consensus that is antithetical to the ever-questioning genius and minimisation of risk. Unlike in the nineteenth century, women are in the leading role in universities and across numerous social institutions. Compared to men as a group, they are highly socially conformist, conflict-averse and risk-averse, turning universities into nursery schools and pushing out the anti-social types that dare to question things and, so, upset people. This sociological transition is increasingly recognised in mainstream political debate — such as by Helen Andrews in her ‘Great Feminization’ thesis. In the universities, this all helps to contribute to an environment in which ideology, not rocking the boat and simply ‘feelings’, are more important than truth. In this muddle, the rise of Jason Arday was just as predictable as his fall and ultimate suicide.
The question is, will this be so humiliating for Cambridge, that Cambridge – the home of Isaac Newton and Watson and Crick - will begin to reform, let the serious scholars back in, and focus on original scholarship once more? If it does not do so on its own, what kind of intervention by the state will be necessary to set the university right?
This article was written by Prof. Edward Dutton, a writer, YouTuber, and evolutionary anthropologist. Have a pitch? Send it to submissions@pimlicojournal.co.uk.
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Very interesting discussion, thanks. Your book also made it to my reading list immediately.
Given the false faith of the contemporary priesthood is widely held, the state intervention may be long time coming, if ever.