The big decline in the birth rate

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A study published in the Lancet shows that in half the countries of the world there has been a remarkable decline in the number of children women are having, which means that in over half the countries of the world, particularly in economically developed countries (Europe, the US, South Korea and Australia) there are insufficient children to maintain population size. In many societies there are more grandparents than grandchildren.

In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime. Last year the fertility rate had all but halved to 2.4 children per woman. There is a huge variation between nations: in Niger, the birth rate is 7.1, while in Cyprus women are having one child, on average. In the UK, the rate is 1.7, similar to most Western European countries.

As for China, since 1950, the Chinese population has increased from around half a billion inhabitants to 1.4 billion, and is also facing lower fertility rates (only 1.5 in 2017). It has recently moved away from its famous one child policy. For
every 100 Chinese girls born there were 117 boys which “implies substantial sex-selective abortion and even the possibility of female infanticide”. This means even more children need to be born to have a stable population.

Whenever a country’s average fertility rate drops below approximately 2.1 populations will eventually start to shrink. This does not mean the number of people living in these countries is falling, at least not yet, as the size of a population is a mix of the fertility rate, death rate and migration. Half the world’s nations are still producing enough children to grow, but as more countries advance economically, more will have lower fertility rates.

The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility. Instead it is being put down to three key factors:

Fewer deaths in childhood, meaning women have fewer babies
Greater access to contraception
More women in education and work

The answer? Without migration, countries will face ageing and shrinking populations, which might not be so bad as long as society can adjust to it. For instance, the idea of retiring at 68, the current maximum in the UK, will be unsustainable and will have to change. Another possibility is encouraging women to have more children, although this has not been historically very successful (Italy, for instance). On the plus side a smaller population would benefit the environment.

(Based on a World Health Organisation report called “Global Burden of Diseases” that has been running since the 1990s)

A Poem : The Strangler Tree at The Moorings, Islamorada FL

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Were you a harmless, nameless tree, just standing there,
Motionless and proud, your boughs spread wide,
The product of a hundred fruitful summers,
Surviving the convulsions of Caribbean hurricanes,
Cold fronts and brisk north winds,
You might neither notice nor much care about
The arrival, perching quietly, of yet another bird.
Thousands stop from year to year,
Resting on their pilgrimage
To Antigua or St. Kitts and back.
You welcome them.  They chatter. It passes time.
 
But be alert! One single bird could be your nemesis,
Sitting, resting, eating lunch – –
A juicy fig from some distantly related tree.
The bird pecks. It flies.  You give it no more thought.
But resting in a crevice between your trunk and bough
It might have left behind a single seed,
Worried fiercely from the dark, ripe fig,
Falling ignored and overlooked.
Beware! This solitary seed in good conditions sprouts
And little tendrils grow, vertical and true,
Descend beside your trunk and seek the soil below.
 
Well, no problem.  All are welcome here.
These are the tropics, just hang out, relaxed.
Trees have a long perspective and are cool.
This is not the first parasite you’ve met – –
Vegetable, animal, lichen, fungus.
All in all they bring some mutual benefits
In the relentless struggle for survival.
Lulled into a sense of false security,
You’re pre-occupied with problems common to your kin – –
Nutrients, moisture, humidity, all aspects of dendrology,
Not to mention the weather and condition of your bark.
You fail to see the lurking danger till it’s right upon you.
 
Suddenly you do become aware!
The roots of your tenant tree have dropped and rooted in the soil,
Thickened and become a tough and healthy wood,
Like pinions or cross-braces screwed into the earth.
Where the aerial roots cross, they fuse and merge,
Creating a hard, thick lattice of stout roots.
It cribs, confines you like a prison.
On windy days you barely move or sway.
You struggle like a ship against a hawser,
Trying to break the bonds that hold you from the sky.
Yes, this crafty Strangler Fig is now in competition
For the nutrients, light, and water you have taken for granted.
 
You panic, struggle, but to no effect.
You stand there, bound, a prisoner in chains,
Making small, if any gains.
Your visitor’s no vampire, sucking at your blood,
But battens on you, using up your vigor and your strength,
In fruitless struggle, using little effort of its own.
You cease protesting, give in, weaken, rot away.
Where once you stood, a proud and flourishing tree,
There is in time a poor and rotting hulk,
Gently decaying in the Florida half-light,
Attracting the attention of beetles, grubs and other mites,
The vultures and hyenas of the vegetable world.
 
In your place, your very own spot,
Now stands a sinister, shapeless mass of crisscross roots,
Huge and spreading, center-less, without a form,
Impenetrable, jungle-like and dense.
The irony is that this triumphant Strangler Fig,
By its very nature a thousand rather shallow roots,
Is itself vulnerable, in dire and imminent danger.
Whereas you, its host, withstood the weather for a century,
A serious hurricane might well uproot it, blow it down.
Its roots are insubstantial faced with wind and rain;
They loosen in the meager soil, become unstable and give way.
Thus all will be to no avail; the Strangler strangled where it lies,
Bloated and overgrown, a victim of its own success.
Would it had stayed modest, or remained that single seed,
Worried fiercely from a dark, ripe fig,
Falling ignored and overlooked, not so reckless and ambitious.
Too late! It cannot be revived or disentangled now.
Maybe there is some crude justice in the natural world.
 
Robert Hanrott                   
 
The Strangler Fig is also called the Banyan tree.  In India it is called the kalpavriksha, or the wish-fulfilling tree, representing eternal life, because of its host of ever-expanding branches.

India No.2: Vanishing children

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Official figures from India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) show that more than 240,000 children were reported missing between 2012 and 2017. While some run away, the majority are taken by human traffickers,

Victims are either kidnapped or lured away from their parents with promises of jobs and education. These children are trafficked to Delhi and other metropolitan cities, where they are placed as domestic help or child labour, or even prostitution.

But it can still be hard to get these children back to their families even after they are rescued. Years may have passed since they were kidnapped, so they often don’t remember details that could help reunite them, such as their address. The sheer number of records also makes it near impossible to search the database manually. It is possible to search what is known as the TrackChild records using names, physical characteristics and the date when the children went missing. But the size of the database and the patchiness of the records make this a daunting task.

However, photos of missing children are held on the TrackChild database, and these photos are now being shared with the Delhi police, who procured commercial facial recognition software and are now creating a system that will allow officers to upload photos of rescued children to see if they have been reported as missing. Subject to feasibility the ministry will integrate facial recognition software directly into the TrackChild portal to allow records to be automatically matched. Trying to connect them using parameters like height or age takes a lot of time, but with facial recognition it’s instant. Over the course of four days, the software compared photos of around 65,000 missing children against roughly 40,000 living in care homes. It matched 2930, who hopefully will be returned to their parents.

That so many children go missing and that all this worthy effort has to go into finding them tells a story about Indian society. On the other hand, at least modern technology is being used by the (very smart) Indian techies to find the children. One up to modern technology.

Thanksgiving

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Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We should give thanks for the clever system of checks and balances that the Founders, and those who came after them, devised under the Constitution, and which, hopefully, will protect every man, woman and child from the lurch towards what looks like autocratic and unconstitutional political behaviour that is roiling this (and other) country. In particular, we give thanks to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who has defended the independence of the judiciary, which protects our freedoms. Let us hope that the system is robust enough to let us successfully get through this current outburst of partisanship and resume normal service – quickly.

I wish I could be as positive about the robustness of the British system which, with Brexit, is currently in the middle of the most threatening crisis since (fill in your own date – I choose the Norman Conquest!). There the system is under threat, supposedly concealed (but not very well) from an extreme right-wing group who are hoping to seize power and undo all the social good (health, pensions, unemployment pay, assistance to the poor and homeless etc) built up over many years, and to install an oligarchy based on the personal wealth of a few. May Big Business cease its pathetic silence, do something at last and point out that Brexit will impoverish the country. To avoid this disaster would be an Epicurean outcome.

India No.1: Violence against women

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Several factors have been blamed for the rise in crimes against women in India. Some say it’s connected to the skewed sex ratio that has resulted from families selectively aborting female foetuses. This, and India’s “cultural prohibition against dating”, means that there are a multitude of sexually repressed young men roaming around, many of whom, as the writer Rajni George recently put it, “don’t know how to get close to a woman without assaulting her”.

Another factor is India’s governing party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, whose arrogant leaders have failed to address the problem seriously and to “set a moral tone”. On the contrary, they’ve often shown contempt for the law, have condoned violence, or refused to act. especially when co-religionists are involved and accused of assaults and rape.

More horrific still is a case that recently came to light in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It involves an eight-year-old girl, who, while out grazing her family’s horses in January, was kidnapped, drugged and locked inside a Hindu temple. Over the next several days, she was raped repeatedly by at least four Hindu men before being murdered. Police say the perpetrators wanted to terrorise the girl’s ethnic group, Muslim Bakarwal nomads, into leaving the area. The “sheer evil” of the crime is bad enough. But what makes it even worse is that locals have rallied around the suspected killers. A crowd of Hindu lawyers tried to stop the police from filing charges, claiming the suspects were being discriminated against because of their faith. Two state BJP ministers joined the protest. How appalling that the bigotry of these people could blind them to the suffering of an innocent child. India has a rape problem all right. But this murder also shows “just what a hate-filled communal cauldron” the country has become. (Amrit Dhillon, The Sydney Morning Herald.)

We get so little news from India and other non-US and non-European countries that we tend to myopic about the rest of the world. But India has a massive population and some outstandingly good technical people of all disciplines. It is quite probable that India will be a great power by the end of the century. Its problem is extreme poverty, an uncontrolled increase in population, an obscene attitude among some towards women – and competing, pre- historic religions. That crowds of Hindus spend their time beating others up about cows tells you why it will be tough to compete with China.

Is the internet destroying society?

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I have to confess, I’m a big fan of technology. I own a MacBook Air, an iPad, a smartphone, a digital camera, a speaker system and much else besides. Every time Google or Apple announce the release of a new product, I’m always amongst the first to hear.

But recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that technology is playing a crucial role in the destruction of social institutions. In the UK, so much of our public life is under threat from technology. Pubs and bars are closing down fast as people prefer to socialise online and drink at home. Curry houses are closing down as people order takeaways online. The traditional retail sector is under considerable pressure as people increasingly shop online. Independent book retailers cannot compete with the likes of Amazon. None of this is unique to Britain; witness the decline of the once-mighty American shopping mall.

Of course, the internet alone isn’t to blame for the decline of these institutions. Our tax system favours online businesses. Young people nowadays aren’t as outgoing as previous generations were. Licensing laws often presume guilt on bars and clubs which attract a supposedly disreputable crowd. Globalisation was always going to expose traditional enterprises to new forms of competition. There are also industry-specific problems, such as pubs faced with the threat of cheap supermarket alcohol.

The point is, it simply isn’t good enough to write off the decline of social institutions as ‘changing habits.’ There are fewer and fewer decent places in which to socialise in the real world. In the UK, the only places which are doing well are those that either cater to the very rich or the very poor; high-end restaurants and gastropubs are thriving alongside fried chicken shops and cheap takeaways. Some young people may be content to watch Netflix instead of go to the cinema, or stream music instead of go to a live music venue, but I’m not. The internet is wonderfully convenient, but it doesn’t replace the joys of engaging in sociable activities with others in person. The decline of such places does not bode well for those of us who want our social institutions to thrive alongside the widespread use of technology. Epicurus would have been appalled at how alienating and atomised modern life has become. The solution surely rests in our society rediscovering the simple love of spending a bit of time and money with friends away from home.

Extreme economic concentration creates the conditions ripe for dictatorship.

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In fascist regimes the leader seeks alliances with giant corporations, as long as they obey him, and in return they avoid democratic accountability and can continue growing. Maybe you can guess where I might be going with this?

In the last few years the US has virtually ignored the anti-trust laws that helped the country avoid a concentration of economic power. This is not just a Trump phenomenon – it was occurring under Obama, who seemed oblivious to it (or frightened of standing up to it?). I remember being introduced to a neighbour who was a senior staff member of the Justice Department (responsible for mergers and acquisitions). I told him I thought the number of giant mergers of big companies was crazy, damaging and undemocratic. I said I hoped he was busy doing something about it. The withering look he gave me told me everything I needed to know. (Sigh! From my worms-eye view I try to take advantage of opportunities, rare though they are).

We now have monopolies and oligopolies in finance, media, the airlines (Oh, dear!), telecoms, chemicals, hospitals and pharmaceuticals, and, as a result, Government has already, to a degree, lost influence over economic policy. The titans have created stagnant wages, pay little tax, give mind-blowingly dreadful service and lousy value for money. All over the world people feel frustrated and helpless, and not just in the US (Orban in Hungary, Bolsonoro in Brazil, even arguably Brexit, are symptoms of the same problem)

Apparently the US Anti-Merger Act of 1950 is still on the books and hasn’t been repealed. It is ignored by the judges and lawyers. Congress is a pushover, dependent on election money from – guess who?, overwhelmed with lobbyists from the giant companies, blind to the dangers of unaccountable private power.

This is a situation where more people should turn to Epicureanism – how can we have peace of mind and a pleasant life when our democratic rights are stolen from us and when gormless officials, lawyers and congressmen cave with every giant merger?
(Inspired by an article in the New York Times by Ti Wu, author of “The Curse of Bigness: anti-trust in the new Gilded Age”.

A quote that resonates

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“Il vecchio mondo sta morendo. Quello nuovo tarda a comparire. E in questo chiaroscuro nascono i mostri.“  Antonio Gramsci

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.”

(Thanks to Dan Dolan, a reader of this blog, for this apposite quotation)

Upheaval seems to be the order of the day all over the world. We have seen this before, and the results were horrendous. But we will get through it, and the perpetrators will eventually exit right. Meanwhile, modern followers of Epicurus have to keep the faith and carry the torch as examples to the young: think for yourself, be calm, thoughtful, polite, generous and caring, while rejecting the coarseness and vulgarity that has exploded around us.

A brief rundown on Epicureanism for those new to it

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Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 B.C. It teaches that the greatest good is to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquillity, freedom from fear (“ataraxia”) and absence from bodily pain (“aponia”). This combination of states is held to constitute happiness in its highest form. Some people consider Epicureanism to be a form of hedonism, but differs in its conception of happiness as the absence of pain, and in its advocacy of a simple life, and its desire to get along amicably with everyone and have many good friends.

Epicurus directed that this state of tranquillity could be obtained through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limiting of desires. Thus, pleasure was to be obtained by knowledge, friendship and living a virtuous and temperate life. He lauded the enjoyment of “simple pleasures”, by which he meant abstaining from bodily desires, such as sex and appetites, verging on Asceticism. He counselled that “a cheerful poverty is an honourable state”.

He argued for moderation in all things, so that when eating, for example, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to indigestion or the grim realization that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner, and Epicurus himself remained celibate. Even learning, culture and civilization were discouraged, as they could result in disturbing one’s peace of mind, except insofar as knowledge could help rid oneself of religious fears and superstitions, such as the fear of the gods and of death.

Generally speaking, Epicureans shunned politics as having no part in the quest for ataraxia and aponia, and likewise a potential source of unsatisfiable desires and frustration, which was to be avoided.

Like Democritus and Leucippus before him, Epicurus was an atomist, believing that all matter, souls and gods are all comprised of atoms, and even thoughts are merely atoms swerving randomly.

Epicurus was one of the first to develop a notion of justice as a kind of social contract, an agreement “neither to harm nor be harmed”. He argued that laws and punishments in society are important so that individuals can be free to pursue happiness, and a just law is one that contributes to promoting human happiness. In some respects, this was an early contribution to the much later development of Liberalism and of Utilitarianism.

A subsidised CEO takes aim at an impertinent media

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Those reporters have such nerve! Last month, a BBC reporter in London asked Jeff Fairburn, the CEO of Britain’s largest homebuilder and the nation’s highest-paid corporate chief exec, about the $98-million “performance” bonus the 52-year-old had pocketed earlier this year. A peeved Fairburn called the reporter’s question “really unfortunate” and abruptly walked out of the TV interview.

Last week, the UK homebuilder Persimmon abruptly fired Fairburn, citing the public outrage over his windfall. Among the reasons for that outrage: the tax pounds that ordinary Brits contributed towards Fairburn’s record bonus. Persimmon’s share price — and the size of Fairburn’s bonus — only started soaring after the government put in place a “help-to-buy” subsidy for homebuyers. About half the homes Persimmon sells take advantage of this subsidy. Lawmakers intended the subsidy, says Labour MP Rachel Reeves, to aid homeowners, “not reward executives with multi-million-pound payouts.”

Entitlement, entitlement. These pampered, greedy CEOs cannot understand why taxpayers shouldn’t subsidise their exclusive lifestyles. After all they have worked for it, haven’t they? Actually, for what it’s worth, my personal experience of dealing with CEOs (I worked for the Confederation of British Industry at one point, and had to attend numerous meetings with the bosses of the largest British companies of the time). I concluded that they were company politicians first and smart businessmen second. The bigger the company the more they were politicos, even presentable actors. Disillusioning. I have remained hostile to these huge incomes ever since.

Trump’s sanctions on Iran pose a threat he never thought of

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Sanctions are used by the US to punish rivals and discourage challenges to American power. The US has imposed (by executive order only) sanctions on a record 944 individuals and entities in the last year. This year it could reach 1000. Such carrots as aid, investment or diplomacy are not even discussed. Sanctions are widely regarded in other countries as assaults on sovereignty and as American coercion and bullying, and because the US dollar dominates international finance the US, with the cooperation of its European allies, has been able to wield the weapon of sanctions effectively. (Actually, the word effectively is misleading – historically, sanctions often backfire.)

Following Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear deal, European diplomats are now apparently completing work on a payment system that Iran can use, that will allow the Iranians and others to bypass America and its sanctions. Among the participants are China, Russia and India. If it can be successfully set up it could make countries like Iran politically independent and reduce the ability of the US to fight terrorism.

More worrying still would be a decline in the value of the dollar as the main currency of reference and trade. I well remember the time when the British pound was top dog. When it lost that status Britain lost mightily by no longer profiting from seigneurage, or the ability to create value simply by printing currency. That a single person, deeply ignorant as he is and unwilling to listen to any experienced advice, can be allowed to put the dollar at risk just shows how debased the system has become, threatening the very security and wellbeing of the country. Those who support Trump seem to be happy with swagger but know nothing about finance.

By the way, Iran is an example of how some Americans have a desperate desire for bogeymen. It was the Americans and the British who originally put the Shah in power by force. All these years later we are still scrapping with Iran, withdrawing from the only agreement we have had that might have improved relations. Isn’t it time to do a deal that would at last put history behind us? (the Epicurean way) Of course any deal needs two participants, but isn’t reconciliation what diplomacy is about? Or are four syllable words tough to understand?

Taxing meat?

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In the past 50 years, per capita meat consumption across the world has nearly doubled, from 23kg a year to 43kg, while total consumption has risen fourfold. And although there are signs that some higher-income countries have reached “peak meat”, the UN has estimated that global consumption will rise a further 76% by around 2050, owing to growing demand from middle-income countries such as China. Livestock farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; it leads to biodiversity loss, as wild land is cultivated to grow animal feed – which in turn puts a strain on water resources.

The fact is that there is a limited amount of grazing land, and the world is going to have a problem feeding a predicted 9 billion human beings with a diet as rich in meat as we currently enjoy. Meat production creates greenhouse gases, and its spread leads to deforestation, water shortages, and vast ocean desd zones from pollution. Moreover, meat is not even healthy, and livestock generate 14.5% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions. In the West beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses. Is the answer to tax meat? We have been successful in stopping smoking, more or less.

One option is to tax fossil fuels in order to keep global temperature rises to under 2%, the thinking being that higher oil prices would be accompanied by higher prices for nitrogen fertilisers. Since this is not politically on the cards, scientists suggest differential taxes for different animals, the problem with this being that they don’t agree which species is the most harmful in terms of methane emissions, nitrogen and phosphate pollution, effects on biodiversity and carbon stored in the soil. One group recommends a 40% tax on beef and an 8.5% tax on chickens, whereas another group advocates a 40% tax on chickens and 28% on beef.

All sorts of issues make a flat tax on all meat simpler, and this could be done by imposing VAT (or sales tax)on all meat, with exemptions for small farms in order to encourage entrants into farming. (Guardian 28/4/17)

I must declare an interest: I am personally a virtual vegetarian, and haven’t eaten beef or pork for ages, just some chicken for the protein. I am in favour of a programme for building more fish farms and encouraging people to eat a Mediterranean-style diet, including fish. We cannot for much longer over-fish the seas, or overfill the fields with grazing cattle and pigs. Put sales taxes on beef, pork and mutton, and apply the proceeds to counter global warming.

George Orwell, where are you now?

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A CNN reporter has been denied access to White House Press briefings on a trumped up charge of manhandling a White House staff member, shown on video. The video indicated absolutely no “inappropriate behaviour” – on the contrary, the inappropriate behahiour was on the part of the Assistant to Sarah Sanders, a shocking suppression of free speech and freedom of the Press. (But who cares (WE DO!)

“We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s Press pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video.” Sarah Sanders, White House Press Secretary.

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth.” — George Orwell, 1984

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your own eyes. It was their final, most essential command”. – George Orwell 1984

If you sincerely follow Epicurus then you will be deeply disturbed by the hard right’s cynical misrepresentations and straight lies

Let’s get back to teaching some practical skills!

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75% of English and Welsh children aged 11-16 say it is important to go to university, down from 86% in 2013. The proportion who are “very likely to” actually go to university has fallen from 38% to 32%. (Ipsos Mori/The Guardian)

Why should anyone be surprised? University is too expensive, and whitecollar job prospects poor. On the other hand, there are too few colleges where people can learn real-world skills like carpentry, electrics, plumbing and bricklaying. Now, in their “infinite wisdom” the “people” (a bare majority) have voted both to discourage immigrants from coming to the UK and to endanger the economy, our houses will begin to fall apart, our computers pack up, our cars malfunction, our food will rot in the fields, and no one will know how to mend a fuse.

Meanwhile, the universities take huge fees from youngsters, who have to borrow the money to be (in some instances) indifferently taught. The winners are the university administrators, who are paying themselves Big Company salaries, while many teaching staff haven’t seen a raise for years (exactly the same in America!).

The loser in all this is the nation. Never mind, I hear the old guard say, we have used the money saved to buy a big, beautiful aircraft carrier (any aircraft on it yet?) and are paying a fortune for a Chinese nuclear power plant (instead of investing in clean energy). Surely, on top of the Brexit fiasco all this has to mark the death throes of a centralizing government that is simultaneously incompetent. Disraeli will be groaning in his grave!

Jordan Peterson and the rise of conservative pseudo-intellectualism

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Jordan Peterson is a Canadian professor of psychology, who has recently become famous because of his critiques of political correctness, post-modernism and left-wing notions of cultural appropriation and gender theory. His rise to prominence has been sudden: he is now ubiquitous on television, newspapers and magazines. Peterson is particularly popular amongst educated young men, frustrated with the prevailing progressive culture in academia and respectable society more broadly.

But despite his academic credentials, Peterson’s ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny. He argues that men are victims of the feminisation of culture and public policy, when women are still more likely to be victims of gender-based discrimination. His climate change denial is repudiated by the overwhelming majority of scientists, and his obsession with ‘Cultural Marxism’ is both highly conspiratorial and borderline anti-Semitic. And while he views even mildly leftist views as a stepping stone to totalitarianism, he turns a blind eye to the far more blatant authoritarianism of the contemporary political right.

However, Peterson’s gravitas shouldn’t be viewed in isolation, but as part of a broader trend. It’s undeniable that most professors are on the liberal side of the political spectrum, even if they aren’t the raving Marxists in Peterson’s imagination. There is clearly an awful lot of dissatisfaction with what is often a narrow spectrum of views on college campuses, and demand for a greater degree of intellectual curiosity, where taboos are broken and a wider range of ideals explored. Conservative notions of hierarchy, order and discipline ought to be debated thoroughly, not dismissed as antiquated prejudices.

Peterson also inadvertently reveals the poverty of contemporary conservative thought. Rather than debating progressive ideas rationally and factually, today’s conservatives increasingly prefer to indulge in conspiracy theories, ad hominem attacks and playing the victim card. For instance, instead of simply explaining why social constructivism isn’t a good theory for understanding human institutions and behaviour, conservative pseudo-intellectuals attack constructivism’s proponents as evil post-modernists who lack morality and wish to bring down Western civilisation.

So while I agree with Peterson insofar as I think popular left-wing ideas ought to be scrutinised and debated freely, engaging in paranoia only emboldens Peterson’s critics. Conservative professors, however few there are, should be given more publicity. But only if their ideas are grounded in facts, and if they have a basic regard for the legitimacy of their opponents. If the likes of Jordan Peterson were to become the face of conservative academia, universities will become even more of a progressive echo chamber than they already are.