Almost 5 years ago, I started my undergraduate degree at St Andrews. In 2018, it was the highest-ranked university in Scotland for Physics and in the top 5 of the UK universities. Having 600 years of rich history, a tumult of traditions like May Dip, academic families, Raisin weekend and the distinct red gowns, I had the impression online that this town was rooted in history, traditional values and culture, thinking that these would seed through in my academic work. Although St Andrews University is seen as offering one the highest educations in the world, I learned they have neglected all intellectual and moral values.
On reflection, people initially judged you based on only a few key criteria:
“What’s your name? Where’re you from? What do you study?”
But simultaneously, there were other orientations that people would compare you against:
[Gender] [Ethnicity] [Nationality] [Religion]
After my lectures and tutorials, I went to way too many parties which diverged me from my studies. Clubbing, drinking, partying and fun was the aim of the game. Being someone who had not reflected on their values and opinions, I began to adopt the values of the group around me, without thinking that the group of millennials around me had also never reflected on their values and opinions. When you have heaps of alcohol in your system, it didn’t give you time to genuinely reflect.
Being dismantled and confused, I quickly understood that the Sciences wouldn’t provide the value structure I needed to live a directional and purposeful life. It was a science after all. It was not a moral compass or a structural guide. I was incredibly hungry for purpose, and so I sought groups to fulfil that purpose. I joined societies, clubs and discussion groups, all centred around activism, diversity, inclusion and equality. Being white and male, what I took from these groups was that I had something — historically and biologically — that I needed to prove.
One idea which was perpetuated amongst students, lecturers, and group leaders, was that everything is relative. Specifically, there is no right or wrong in anything. Instead, our moral values are just based on our personal opinions. And what governs this personal opinion? One’s ethnicity, one’s upbringing, one’s culture, and the historical time and place someone is born. Therefore, different religions, tribes, nations, and ethnic groups will always and can never agree with each other. In fact, that is why university students first ask you where you are from, so they can quickly establish differences and progress the conversation along the same two avenues you entered with, without stepping on anyone’s toes.
St Andrews is an extremely diverse place with students from all over the world. Forming friendships with people who are out with all the physical parameters (e.g. sex, race, religion) is bound to happen. When you want to have a romantic relationship with somebody who is not your skin colour, not your ethnic group, not your religion and not your nationality, good luck convincing the ideologues around you that there is a value structure you and your loved one occupies. How could you agree on what food to eat when she’s black and you’re white? How could you agree on how to raise children when she’s Chinese and you’re American?
On the other hand, there was a continuing claim that my own moral judgement — which was dulled to absolute silence — is nothing but an attempt to use power over another minority. Namely, my liberty, freedom of speech, the individual, historical and scientific validity, and familial structure, all of which are nothing but oppressive tools to crush other groups. Therefore, the best thing for me to do— as a straight, white, male — is to be tolerant and silent.
The worst thing you can be is intolerant. Acting out your beliefs, standing up for what’s right, and saying the most important things is just another way to exert power and is indistinguishable from colonisation and control. At university, the lowest form of character is to be judgemental, regardless of how degenerate or destructive someone’s behaviour is. Since the universities have established that there is no right or wrong, and everything is relative, the worst thing you could do is give somebody wisdom or advice to be a better person.
Claiming that everything is relative has further consequences for the student’s thinking. It leaves a vacuum of relativism, it leaves students powerless to say how they feel and think what they mean. If you disagree with the Diversity Officer or your Renaissance Literature lecturer’s political viewpoint, who are you to disagree? You’re just a timid little first-year who knows nothing. And besides, everything is relative, including your measly little viewpoint that is no more important than anyone else’s.
Dr Aidan Naughton, who gave lectures on first-year mathematics, would stop his lectures halfway through to discuss the gender-pay gap among university faculty members. As someone who claims to be an expert on statistics and mathematics, he claimed male faculty members — on average — earn more than female faculty members, without realising that men in academia continue on track to take up higher, more responsible positions (in the upper quartile [1]), whereas the women in academia tend to pursue other interests such as maternal care, hobbies, and community activities. This might sound a little crazy to Aidan Naughton, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile for a mother in her mid-40s to work 70 hours a week, flat-out, just to make up the statistical difference to please a few social activists. But what should I have done? What do I know about statistics and mathematics that Naughton doesn’t?
If a mathematician like Aidan Naughton takes strikes and is possessed by these ideologies, so much so that he is willing to dismiss basic statistics and abandon his students, would it be a stretch to say that these incorrect facts are purported throughout the university?
Lecturers such as these have chosen to devalue thousands of years of human knowledge and intuition, dismissing even the fundamentals of law, liberty, science and culture as “oppressive” and “irrelevant”.
By understanding the great works of the last millennium, I was able to understand my culture. During my years at university, I made a lot of mistakes and developed a lot of bad habits. The thing which picked me up to get my life on track wasn’t a tolerant mindset, a tolerant community or even diversity quotas. I read ancient religious texts from Tao Te Ching, The Bible and The Holy Quran. I read other works from across time: from Marcus Aurelius to Dostoevsky, Freud and Nietzsche. What got me out of bad situations was the courage to tell myself what I was doing was wrong and to aim to be a better person. I didn’t cling to my race. I didn’t cling to my gender. I didn’t blame it on the patriarchy. I held onto my beliefs which I inherited from my culture and traditions, which I thought would be upheld by a university as old as St Andrews.
Despite there being no evidence that universities tolerate — or even encourage —racial or gender discrimination, boards, meetings, resources, funds and scholarships are being enforced in the name of inclusion and virtue.
Universities today are doing their absolute best to control the thinking of students. We have LGBTQ+ officers, Diversity officers, and Equality officers [2], all of which are deciding the opportunities of students based on their gender, ethnicity, and background. (I use the word “officers” here because to call these staff members and students “teams” or “leaders” is to lie about how they strive to degrade Western culture.
Further to the degradation of the student community, the academic staff has been completely overpowered by the administration. The administration staff has surpassed the academic staff —being around 1,700 and 1,360 respectively as of 2021. This means that the control over knowledge, organisation, enrolment and finance of the university is not in the hands of your academics, but in the hands of the least qualified, least intellectual, and least experienced who are possessed by tolerant ideologies.
The administration are the gatekeepers of knowledge and research. They finance research based on what the research is saying, rather than on the validity or peer-review, or even whether or not it’s the truth. The paper which sends virtue signals, creates a brand image of tolerance and agrees with the postmodern agenda is the paper you’ll hear about first. The research which reveals the truth about human behaviour, mathematics, physics or biology is “dangerous” and “intolerant” and “could risk the well-being and safety of our students”.
The university of today has completely failed in developing the adults of tomorrow. The quotas and “safe spaces” have made university into an extended nursey. Until my final year, I didn’t know what a university actually does. In times of uncertainty, I did what any student does today when they are unsure of anything: I asked ChatGTP.
What should a university do:
Offers a wide range of academic programs, typically at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Provides higher education and conducts research in various fields of study, such as sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, medicine, and more.
Universities are responsible for educating students, awarding degrees upon successful completion of programs, conducting research to advance knowledge in various disciplines, and providing a platform for intellectual discourse and critical thinking.
Engage in community outreach, cultural enrichment, and professional development activities for their students, faculty, and staff.
Play a vital role in advancing knowledge, fostering innovation, and preparing individuals for careers and leadership roles in society.
Despite the fog and lack of clarity, I’m grateful for the opportunities I had in my undergraduate. I’m tremendously grateful for the support in my science and my project within the Physics department. Although you can get distracted by a lecturer or a professor purporting his ideology, the endless emails about inclusion from BAME, LGBTQ+ and RERBG, or the requirement to be tested on racial biases before matriculating [3], you have to remember what you came here to do. There is wealth of knowledge right at your fingertips. There is a rich culture and history to be explored. There are tools you can use, and tools you can create for yourself. I didn’t come to university to argue with blue-haired feminists or debate trans pronouns, I didn’t come to fill out petitions or show solidarity for the black community. I came to the university to learn about Physics.
Despite the "dangers to the well-being of students", pursuing a degree in Physics is one of the most worthwhile pursuits one can do. Each School, in fact, has a lot to be proud of when it comes to the historical achievements of the university, so why do we need to change or degrade our institutions?
The purpose of the university is to understand the world, the purpose of a tyranny is to change it.
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