(personal underlines)
The questions Cambridge still has to answer about Jason Arday
If poor Jason Arday killed himself, it will be necessary to work out why. To do so, it will help to know why he resigned his professorship. It seems highly unlikely he resigned if Cambridge University did not want him to. It had defended him in public throughout, after all. Yet if he had been confident of Cambridge’s continuing support, why did he sacrifice the benefit of its protection? If Cambridge suggested to him that its protection would, for whatever reason, shortly cease, what caused its change of mind? What a terrible shock for him if the institution which had raised him so high was now ready to cast him out. Is the institutional attack on the press over this matter a deflection from the truth?
Professor Hilary Cremin is head of the Faculty of Education which bestowed on Arday the chair from which he eventually resigned. She recently published a book called Rewilding Education which ‘calls for a new educational model for a new kind of future – one shaped by the climate crisis, downward mobility, Generative AI and post-truth politics’. Looking at the Cambridge situation, I would sorrowfully say her dream is coming true.
Everyone is ‘rewilding’ everything. The National Trust has taken it as an excuse to cut back on gardening and stop mowing the lawn. Councils let verges grow full of litter. The Rewild the Church movement seeks to impoverish clergy earnings further by ceasing to cultivate 30 per cent of church land. ‘Rewilding’ now stretches way beyond its original link with nature. There is a book called Rewilding the Corporate Mind; there is rewilding general practice, rewilding finance, rewilding law and even talk of rewilding brain surgery. Linked is the current use of the word ‘wild’, given a new magic, like that which ‘organic’ attained 25 years ago. Sometimes there is a real meaning to what is wild – the difference, for example, between wild and domestic animals or wild and garden strawberries. But often it currently means occupying places which belong to somebody else and not paying for them – as in ‘wild swimming’ and ‘wild camping’. In theory and practice, that is highly antisocial. ‘Born to be mild’ would be a much kindlier aspiration for the human race.
For more than 20 years until 2025, Mark Easton was home editor for BBC News. Most correspondents like to big up their subject, but he has made it his mission to say crime is going down, presenting entire programmes about this. The first episode of his latest, The Great Crime Mystery, appeared on Radio 4 this week. There have indeed been reductions in violent and property crime, chiefly caused by better surveillance technology and the internet’s ability to trace objects and people. When I returned to living in the country 30 years ago, there was serious antique theft from large houses. This has now collapsed because antiques are too easily identified online and much less valuable than in the 1990s. But I notice Easton refers not only to violent and property crime but also states that crime in general is falling. His sources are police statistics and the National Crime Survey, based on interviews about individuals’ experience of crime. Do these capture modern reasons for not reporting crime? One will be that some crimes, notably drug-taking, are scarcely seen as crimes at all, because the police show no interest. Similarly, people suffer would-be scams online every day of their lives but I doubt they notice much unless successfully cheated. There is also a vast increase in road crimes committed by bikes and e-scooters. If you stand by the traffic lights of a main intersection in London for a few minutes you will always (yes, always) see such bikes breaking the law every minute. People notice that such infringements are not policed. Beggars, addicts, cyclists and, in London, constant protestors (usually about the Middle East or green stuff) unchecked by police, make people alienated from their neighbourhoods even if such behaviour would not normally end up in court. Combine that with the sense that iPhone and computer privacy is compromised, and so bad actors (even foreign regimes) can cheat you, spy on you and steal, sell or abuse your data, and you feel unsafe indoors and out.
I hope Easton addresses this in future episodes. At present, his programme is a procession of interviews with professors who imply the public are stupid.
I recently received an invitation to address (remotely) a large book club in Missoula, Montana, to discuss one of my Thatcher volumes. The email was so polite as to be suspect, but I attributed that to the natural courtesy of Americans. I wanted to accept because our dear daughter-in-law has family connections with Missoula, and I once had a delightful visit there. I replied, expressing interest. The courteous follow-up added that ‘Because every Author Showcase is individually planned and moderated, we do request a moderation and logistics contribution’. I had never previously been asked to pay to talk about my books. I wrote back: ‘I assume that means money! How much?’ The answer, sugared with more flattery, was $272. I was contemplating whether my fondness for Missoula would persuade me to cough up when I received an invitation from another book club, this time in Singapore. The wording was spookily similar, and again, amid much buttering of my paws, contained a request, on the second email, for ‘a small support contribution associated with the feature’. My ensuing ‘How much?’ question elicited: ‘in the range of $150-$300’. I wrote to Singapore to say I had received a comparable invitation from another book club in another country. It answered: ‘We have also been made aware that there are other book clubs using similar approaches and language, which is precisely why I understand your caution.’ All the same, I refused Singapore and have left poor Missoula unanswered. I apologise to both if their use of AI has made me unduly suspicious. Have other authors received such things?
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário