The Marxist capture of knowledge

Claire Lehmann is the founder of the wonderful magazine Quillette and a very good thing. She is a genuine liberal and a few years ago I'd have thought real conservatism and real liberalism were very close - now, in the era of Brexit, Trump, Merkel and Salvini they are obviously very far away. She is an instinctive internationalist, admires the EU and dislikes populists intensely.


I enjoy her stuff very much and urge you to watch this interview about the way in which a form of Marxism has taken over academia and public discourse and turned arts disciplines into examinations of power and oppression, centred on class, feminism and post-colonialism.


Her hope is that new forms of university education on the internet will take over from conventional universities. I have long argued that this is inevitable, desirable and needs to be hastened (to break down the academic closed shop and the use of degrees to strengthen class barriers). Rather obtusely of me, I did not make the connection between breaking up the academic industry and the restoration of freedom of thought.