Tea at Trianon: A New University

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, November 13, 2021

A New University

From The Daily Wire:

A group of former university administrators, professors, authors, and entrepreneurs is seeking to challenge the American higher education system, founding a university dedicated to freedom of thought and academic diversity.
In an op-ed for the New York Post Monday, venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir Technologies Joe Lonsdale introduced the University of Austin, a new university attempting to reclaim the academic rigor and prestige of the American university. Lonsdale opened his column by explaining that American universities had significantly deteriorated from the achievements they made in the 20th century. “Our universities drove scientific progress, pursued truth, and cultivated an intellectually courageous and competent elite,” Lonsdale wrote. “They helped make the United States the most innovative, prosperous and powerful nation in history.”
“But today, our universities are failing to live up to that legacy.”
Lonsdale blames two factors for this. First, he says institutional structures have hampered university achievement by turning specialization into hyperspecialization, allowing scholars to close off their work to scrutiny, and the abandonment of enlightenment values in favor of “uniformity of viewpoint.” Second, he attributes “new ideologies of intolerance that order subservience and quash those who think differently” to the decline.
“The combined effect of these structural and cultural problems is that the elite universities aren’t attracting the best talent as often, nor producing the type of leaders we need,” Lonsdale wrote. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: They are in the forefront of molding Socialist ideals and attitudes which oppose the foundational ideals of this Country.; November 13, 2021 at 1:12:00 PM EST