US Human Experimentation: 1

Paul Brown, ‘Rainforest Indians infected to test genetics theory, book alleges,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 26.09.00

Thousands of South American Indians were infected with measles, killing hundreds, so that American scientists could study the effects on primitive societies of natural selection, a book to be published soon in the United States says.

The astonishing story of genetic research on humans, uncovered over 10 years, is likely to shake the world of anthropology, Professor Terry Turner, of Cornell University, who has read the proofs, says.

“In its scale, ramifications, and sheer criminality and corruption it is unparalleled in the history of anthropology,” Professor Turner says in a letter to the American Anthropology Association (AAA). 

Darkness in El Dorado, by the investigative journalist Patrick Tierney, accuses James Neel, the geneticist who headed a long-term project to study the Yanomami people of Venezuela in the mid-’60s, of using a virulent measles vaccine to spark an epidemic that killed hundreds and probably thousands.

Once the epidemic was under way, the book says, the research team “refused to provide any medical assistance to the sick and dying Yanomami, on explicit order from Neel, He insisted to his colleagues that they were only there to observe and record the epidemic, and that they must stick strictly to their roles as scientists, not provide medical help”.

Professor Turner was trying to warn the AAA of the impending scandal so the profession could defend itself. Although Neel died last February, many of his associates, some of them authors of classic anthropology texts, are still alive. They have been invited to defend their work at the AAA’s annual meeting in November.

One of the most controversial aspects of the research that allegedly culminated in the epidemic is that it was funded by the US Atomic Energy Commission, which was anxious to discover what might happen to communities when large numbers were wiped out by nuclear war.

While there is no “smoking gun” in the form of texts or recorded speeches by Neel explaining his conduct, Professor Turner believes the only explanation is that he was trying to test controversial eugenic theories like the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele.

He quotes another anthropologist who read the manuscript as saying: “Mr Tierney’s analysis is a case study of the dangers in science of the uncontrolled ego, of lack of respect for life, and of greed and self-indulgence. It is a further extraordinary revelation of malicious and perverted work conducted under the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission.”

Professor Turner says Neel and his group used a virulent vaccine called Edmonson B on the Yanomami, which was known to produce symptoms virtually indistinguishable from cases of measles.

“Medical experts, when informed that Neel and his group used the vaccine in question on the Yanomami, typically refuse to believe it at first, then say that it is incredible that they could have done it, and are at a loss to explain why they would have chosen such an inappropriate and dangerous vaccine,” he writes.

“There is no record that Neel sought any medical advice before applying the vaccine. He never informed the appropriate organs of the Venezuelan Government that his group was planning to carry out a vaccination campaign, as he was legally required to do.

“Neither he nor any other member of the expedition has ever explained why that vaccine was used, despite the evidence that it actually caused or, at a minimum, greatly exacerbated the fatal epidemic.”

Professor Turner says Neel felt “natural” human society, as seen before the advent of large-scale agriculture, consists of small, genetically isolated groups in which dominant genes - specifically a gene he believed existed for “leadership” or “innate ability” - have a selective advantage.

In such an environment, male carriers of this gene would gain access to a disproportionate number of females, reproducing their genes more than less “innately able” males. The result would supposedly be a continual upgrading of the human genetic stock.

He says Neel believed that in modern societies “superior leadership genes would be swamped by mass genetic mediocrity”.

“The political implication of this fascistic eugenics is clearly that society should be reorganised into small breeding isolates in which genetically superior males could emerge into dominance, eliminating or subordinating the male losers in the competition for leadership and women and amassing harems of brood females,” Professor Turner adds.

In the memo he says: “One of Tierney’s more startling revelations is that the whole Yanomami project was an out-growth and continuation of the Atomic Energy Commission’s secret program of experiments on human subjects. Neel, the originator of the project, was part of the medical and genetic research team attached to the Atomic Energy Commission since the days of the Manhattan Project.”

James Neel was well known for his research into the effects of radiation on human subjects and personally headed the team that investigated the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on survivors and their children.

Professor Turner says the same group also secretly carried out experiments on humans in the US. These included injecting people with plutonium without their knowledge or permission.

“This nightmarish story - a real anthropological heart of darkness beyond the imagining of even a Joseph Conrad (though not, perhaps, a Josef Mengele) - will be seen, rightly in our view, by the public, as well as most anthropologists, as putting the whole discipline on trial,” he says.

On NSW Universities: Part 3

Gerard Noonan and Aban Contractor, ‘The third degree’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24.08.02

Universities are reluctant to accept that corruption might taint their ivory towers.

The fiercely independent world of academia has received a rude shock. The state's corruption watchdog has issued a startling 56-page report, Degrees of Risk: A corruption risk profile of the NSW university sector, warning that universities are more vulnerable to corruption than almost any other taxpayer-funded agency or authority in the state. And there is more. The sector does not have a properly developed sense of public duty, according to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and other state watchdogs.

When the ICAC report appeared, just over a week ago, heavyweights from the universities bristled at the characterisation of their sector as bordering on the corrupt.

To clear the air, ICAC and its fellow watchdogs, the NSW Ombudsman and the NSW Auditor-General, organised a get-together on Wednesday to proffer advice and outline their concerns. The five-hour session turned out to be an ill-tempered affair, with heated outbursts from at least one vice-chancellor and a chancellor from two of the state's biggest universities.

Experienced ABC journalist Geraldine Doogue, who'd been brought in by ICAC to "moderate" what it clearly thought was going to be a tough session, commented on the tension in the room. The body language wasn't a good sign; arms were crossed tightly across besuited chests; heads were shaking repeatedly.

Doogue pointed out the obvious: the people who run the state's public universities clearly resented being called in.

The chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney, Sir Gerard Brennan, strongly disputed the watchdog's claim that the university sector had a poor sense of public duty. "I don't see it," Brennan said. "One hopes the role of watchdogs is never used to diminish the reputations of institutions they are there to serve."

Brennan had several things to say: universities would accept "practical assistance" in the quest to become more corruption-resistant, but they were not part of the public service, they had unique obligations and an independent role to perform.

As the former High Court judge sat down, the room erupted into applause from the gathered academic suits as the panel of officials from the government agencies sat stony-faced, caught between bemusement and incredulity.

The assistant Auditor-General, Tom Jambrich, bit back. "I have a different view - this is public money," he said. "Universities are in the public sector and receive taxpayer money."

Earlier Jambrich had said the number of complaints against universities made under the protected disclosure "whistleblower" laws had increased sharply in recent years. "The culture of academic freedom has perhaps led to inappropriate devolution of powers and lack of internal control," he said.

At one point, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Professor Gavin Brown, took umbrage at comments by the assistant NSW Ombudsman, Greg Andrews who, during his speech, had cited - among others - a case involving sexual harassment and the marks awarded a female honours student at the University of Sydney. The case, which received wide publicity at the time, had ended up in the Supreme Court.

Brown dubbed Andrews's address to the gathering "disgraceful" and "almost wilfully misleading". Andrews, clearly taken aback, responded by saying he did not want to engage in debate on the issue.

ICAC's report, following a survey of 262 public sector organisations, showed that the state's 10 public universities repeatedly underrated the risk of corruption, and found that the universities consistently under-reported corrupt practices.

It identified eight tiers of "corruption risk". They included cheating, falsifying results, misuse of research funds, financial fraud, accepting bribes, misuse of resources, abusing confidential information, falsifying academic credentials, universities investigating themselves, and a lack of transparency in outsourcing contracts and other commercial activities.

There was at least one conciliatory influence: the state's newest vice-chancellor, Professor Rory Hume, of the University of NSW - fresh from the University of California (Los Angeles), where he was president - felt the universities were not being pushed into anything "catastrophic and different".

Hume said there had always been a degree of stupidity and dishonesty at universities - as elsewhere - but universities should disclose everything and get on with their core business.

In the midst of yet another review of its activities, and with poor prospects of gaining additional funding from Federal Government largesse, the university sector is already feeling beleaguered. Being told they needed to pull up their socks and become a great deal more "corruption resistant" was probably the last thing the universities wanted to hear.

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The Lucky Country: Part 9 - A Laid-Back, Happy People and Their Friends

David Wroe, ‘Asylum seekers intercepted on unseaworthy boats could be sent back to Indonesia on large, engine-powered lifeboats’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 08.01.14

Asylum seekers intercepted on unseaworthy boats could be sent back to Indonesia on large, engine-powered lifeboats, in an escalation of the Abbott government's turn-back policy.

Fairfax Media has learnt the government is buying up to 16 hard-hulled lifeboats - similar to those carried by cruise ships and oil tankers - to which asylum seekers can be transferred and returned to Indonesia if their own vessels are unseaworthy.

The revelations came as Indonesian police said Australia had turned back two asylum-seeker boats in recent weeks, prompting Jakarta to once again voice its condemnation of the policy.

Defence sources said the purchase of lifeboats was designed to thwart the tactic of using rickety fishing vessels and sabotaging them at sea, leaving Australian border protection authorities no choice but to rescue them. When a boat is intercepted, the asylum-seekers could be transferred on to the lifeboats close to Indonesian waters with enough fuel and supplies to reach land.

The high-visibility, engine-powered lifeboats, which have roofs, can carry dozens of passengers, and food and water for at least a week.

In a standoff at sea in November, Indonesia refused to take back an asylum-seeker vessel on the grounds that it was unseaworthy.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison refused to confirm or deny the purchase of the lifeboats, citing the need to ''protect the security of our operations''.

The Abbott government also maintained its silence over claims that Australia had turned back at least one asylum-seeker boat to Indonesia in recent weeks, in a move that could increase tensions.

A Defence source confirmed to Fairfax Media reports in the Indonesian press that a boat had been turned back. The source said the frigate HMAS Stuart carried out the turn-back in the past week.

The asylum seekers aboard the boat were given lifejackets and communications equipment.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, while refusing to comment on any turn-backs, repeated Jakarta's general condemnation of the policy on Tuesday.

''The policy itself, the so-called tow-back [policy] - let me put it once more on the record: our rejection of such policy is because it's not a conducive and comprehensive solution to the issue,'' he said.

Indonesian water police told Fairfax Media that two boats had been turned back, one on Monday and one on December 19. The sources said a boat turned back on Monday carried 45 passengers, 36 male and nine female, mostly from Africa though with several from the Middle East. Another boat turned back just before Christmas carried 48 asylum seekers from Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Iran.

Both were found at Rote Island, Indonesia's southernmost point.

Rote police chief Hidayat told Fairfax Media: ''The asylum seekers' boat was stranded near a small village called Lengu Tepu, around 4am yesterday … They were rescued by the locals, because the boat engines were dead. The boat now is a wreckage, near some reefs.''

Dr Natalegawa said he believed relations between Australia and Indonesia would return to normal following stoushes over asylum seekers and revelations that Australian spies targeted the phones of senior Indonesian leaders.

* * *

From Andrew Wu, ‘Peter Siddle says Australia’s bowlers are best in world as David Warner baits Proteas’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 08.01.14

Perhaps it was the hangover talking or a result of the confidence gained from belting England 5-0, or maybe a combination of the two, but Australia are talking a big game before taking on world No.1 South Africa next month.

Basking in the afterglow of an Ashes success as glorious as it was unexpected, Australia have warned the Proteas to brace for a repeat of the sledging that saw tempers threaten to boil over during the Ashes. ...

Just two days after Michael Clarke's men settled their differences with the vanquished English over a few quiet beers in the SCG dressing rooms, David Warner started baiting Australia's next opponents. ''On the field you don't cross that line,'' he said.

''We nudged that line a couple of times but I think we really got into their heads. Especially with Johno [Mitchell Johnson] and the pressure of the other bowlers up the other end to allow Mitchell to come out and fire like that is awesome and we need to do that. We need to do that to the South African guys. We know a couple of their blokes are probably on the back foot. I know our bowlers are ready to go over there and give it to them.''

* * *

Trevor Marshallsea, ‘Bucket tipped on Australian sledgers’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30.05.02

The image of Australia's world champion cricket team has again been tarnished, this time by a uncommonly detailed account on sledging by South African rookie Graeme Smith.

With Australian cricket officials already in damage control over Adam Gilchrist's labelling of Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan as a chucker, a new sledging controversy has emerged after Smith broke the traditional reluctance of elite players to bring on-field sledging incidents into the public domain.

Smith, 20, emerged from his first two Tests and four one-dayers at home in February-March complaining of "below the belt" verbal assaults from his rivals but vowing: "I cannot repeat what the Aussies said."

Now he has - in explicit detail - in the South African edition of Sports Illustrated, with an account unlikely to be well-received in the offices of the Australian Cricket Board at a time when its emphasis on image has never been higher.

As the ACB mulls over what to do with renowned cleanskin Adam Gilchrist for his honest admission at an AFL lunch on Sunday that he believed Muralitharan's bowling action was illegal, Smith's claims may surprise many, if not for their content then for some of the characters he names.

He said Australian Test opener Matthew Hayden, not renowned for on-field antics, had greeted him at the crease before his second Test innings in Cape Town with a two-minute tirade.

He claimed fast bowler Brett Lee had threatened to "f---ing kill me" after a mid-pitch collision, and described Glenn McGrath as "a grumpy old man" after a prolonged verbal campaign, even when the pace spearhead was fielding near the boundary.

Smith said Hayden had followed him to the crease in his second innings and "stood on the crease for about two minutes telling me that I wasn't f---ing good enough".

Smith told the magazine: "'You know, you're not f---ing good enough,' he told me. 'How the f--- are you going to handle Shane Warne when he's bowling in the rough? What the f--- are you going to do?'.

"And I hadn't even taken guard yet. He stood there right in my face, repeating it over and over. All I could manage was a shocked, nervous smile. I'd taken a bit of banter before but this was something else. Hayden had obviously been told that his job was to attack me."

Smith said he was then subjected to more of the same from a ring of close-in fieldsmen - Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Gilchrist, Mark Waugh and Shane Warne.

While sledging, or "mental disintegration" as Steve Waugh calls it, is accepted as an unsettling tactic, Smith's claims suggest some Australians may not be as imaginative as they once were.

"All Warne does is call you a c--- all day," said Smith, who tangled with the leg-spinner early on after one edged single.

"When he walked past me he said: 'You f---ing c---, what are you doing here?' And I remember looking at [umpire] Rudi Koertzen and he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'I know it's rough, kid, but that's the way it is'."

Smith also clashed with Lee after they collided on the pitch, which led to a pack of Australians allegedly hounding him.

"On the way back I apologised, but he said nothing. Then I hooked him for four and then a one and then it was drinks. As he walked past me he told me that he would f---ing kill me right there if I ever touched him again," Smith said.

Of McGrath, Smith said: "He's like a grumpy old man. He doesn't stop cursing you. He called me a f---ing c--- and told me go away, that I didn't belong there.

"He starts off quietly, but the minute you hit him for a boundary he loses the plot and it never stops."

Smith eventually chirped back at McGrath during a one-dayer, asking if he was "constantly on his period". "It caused a massive fallout. After that he never stopped hurling abuse even when he was fielding at third man."

Smith's verdict was that there was "never anything funny about the sledging. It was all just harsh". He didn't want to see sledging banned but "maybe certain things need to be monitored".

ACB chief executive James Sutherland last night said that while the Board "does not condone sledging or verbal abuse", monitoring provisions contained in the International Cricket Council's player code of conduct were adequate to police the practice.

"If Australian players are breaking the code of conduct, I'm sure the officials at the match would take appropriate action," he said.

The ICC code, while acknowledging verbal exchanges between players will always take place, includes fines for players for "using language that is obscene, offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another player, umpire, referee, team official or spectator." 

Hayden, who is on holiday, could not be reached for his reaction. His manager declined to comment.

Part Nine/To be continued…

On NSW Universities: Part 2

Editorial, ‘A big F for universities’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15.08.02

They once were icons of integrity, citadels of civilisation, bastions of benevolence. But universities have fallen on hard times and so, too, have their reputations. Put to their first comprehensive test of how they adapted to the “real world” of financial self-sufficiency, NSW’s 10 public universities scored poorly in report cards marked by the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption. The failings were due as much to poor attitude as to inadequate management, but both were responsible for tilling a ground fertile for corruption.

Having surveyed 262 public sector organisations on their preparedness to anticipate, detect, prevent and prosecute corruption, the ICAC found universities consistently lagged. Worse still, some universities do not acknowledge their poor preparation and thumb their noses at public accountability requirements. As a result, they are vulnerable to an array of potential corruption, from cheating and plagiarism to the falsification of results and academic credentials, financial fraud and bribery.

The consequence, of course, is diminution of public trust in these once august institutions. Where does that leave university qualifications? Corruption not only rewards cheats; once its odour has penetrated public consciousness, it devalues the efforts of those who strive for and those who achieve excellence. Such are the shortcomings of some university record-keeping that forged paperwork for a degree, with inside help, can be reinforced by matching corrupted archive records. Already, one part-time worker is accused of deleting fellow students’ fail marks, and an Asia-based Web site promises “verifiable” Australian degrees for $18,000. Just how much corruption infects tertiary education is concealed by the propensity of some university management to breach statutory duties by not reporting it.

Is this a manifestation only of modern times? Is university corruption (or, at least, a climate for it) exposed only because the spotlight is finally turned on it? Without a comparative benchmark from earlier times, it’s difficult to be sure. But university cultures have changed dramatically since 1988, when the Federal Government began encouraging commercialism, and particularly since 1996, when the Government gave this reorientation a big nudge by announcing funding would be slashed by $1 billion a year.

Universities turned to overseas students, whose numbers have tripled to about 112,000 over the past decade and who pay more than $800 million a year in full fees. The overseas contingent makes up 10 per cent of a student population which has jumped by about a half to 750,000. That may ease some of the immediate financial pain but it seems to have convinced some administrators, now forced to act as entrepreneurs, that standards sometimes needed to be compromised to maintain the student flow. This is just one way corruptibility dug in.

Some blame lies with the Government for pushing universities too quickly on alternative funding. But some university management has been naive and incompetent and must get its head out of the sand before reputations are battered forever. Co-operation in the development of a national and secure records archive would be a good starting point.

Part Two/To be continued…

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On NSW Universities

Aban Contractor, ‘Uni the perfect place for cheats, says watchdog’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14.08.02

The state’s universities might be a breeding ground for corruption, according to a stern warning by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

The state’s watchdog tagged them “high risk” after a survey of 262 public sector organisations revealed universities were more vulnerable to corruption than almost any other taxpayer-funded agency or authority.

Grant Poulton, the executive director of corruption prevention, education and research, said the survey showed NSW’s 10 public universities repeatedly underrated the risk of corruption.

In the Federal Government’s sixth higher education review paper, released last night, the watchdog said it was “entirely appropriate that universities be regulated and monitored to ensure public accountability”.

But the paper also flagged more freedom for commercial activities, a reduction in the size of university governing bodies, and increased flexibility in the workplace.

The ICAC is concerned there is serious under-reporting of corruption in universities, five of the universities surveyed filed only one report of suspected corruption in the last 10 years and one has never submitted a report.

The areas the 56-page report - Degrees of Risk: A corruption risk profile of the NSW university sector - said needed addressing were: cheating, falsifying results, misuse of research funds, financial fraud, bribery, misuse of resources, abuse of confidential information, falsifying academic credentials, self-investigation, and lack of transparency in commercial activities.

Mr Poulton commended the universities on the honesty of their answers but said the ICAC was troubled by their failure to see they were behind the broader public sector in some areas of corruption prevention.

“For instance, only three of the 10 [universities] rated as a major risk Internet and email usage, only five of the 10 rated as a major risk how staff are accountable for the time worked, only five of the 10  rated as a major risk confidential information and how it was used,” he said.

“And, quite astonishingly, only one of the 10 universities rated grants administration as a major corruption risk.”

He added that four out of the 10 rated revenue collection and assessment as a major risk, and three highlighted staff with a second job.

The ICAC has called all NSW universities to a summit on August 21 to strengthen controls against corrupt behaviour by university staff. It is also developing the first profile of the public sector, how vulnerable it is to corruption and the strategies it uses to prevent it.

The president of the National Tertiary Education Union, Carolyn Allport, said the ICAC report was of national significance.

“It needs to be recognised that there can be conflicts between chasing the dollar and speaking the truth,” she said.

“In the current climate it may be useful to survey all Australian universities.” 

The executive director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, said: “The new commercial ethos invites crooked practices and universities will have to respond with more rules, stricter policing and harsher penalties.”

* * *

A case of second degree corruption

Two former academics graduated will full credit in a degree course they neither enrolled in or did any course work for.

The degree was from the same university faculty in which they had been lecturing. One of the academics was the course co-ordinator and, in that capacity, had signed his/her own application to graduate, as well as the other academic’s. The head of school countersigned both applications.

The case came to light when another academic at the university tried to do the same thing.

The degrees were rescinded but no disciplinary action was taken as both academics had left the university.

Another university reported their computers were hacked into and data tampered with, incurring significant losses.

The culprits also downloaded confidential university files, erased university data, illegally copied CDs and downloaded offensive and pornographic material on to university computers.

A member of staff resigned and another was disciplined after an investigation into the breach. A new IT policy was also developed by the university.

Part One/To be continued…

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Email sent to Phillip Adams 06.09.09 - Adams vs. 'god'

To Phillip Adams, host of Late Night Live, ABC Radio National, copied to John McDonald

Hi Phillip, 

Would you be interested in delivering a very serious blow against 'god', against time-serving academics in a dozy, servile culture and in so doing, delivering an immense blow for intellect, the love of knowledge and the freeing-up of the potential of the most advanced organisation of matter yet known to us in the universe - what we all have between our ears?

If so, I strongly urge you to consider contacting and interviewing on Late Night Live William Franke from Vanderbilt University regarding the 2 vol. anthology he edited - 'On What Cannot be Said'. 

Despite one student posting on RateMyProfessors.com 'Dr. Franke is the most boring professor I have ever had. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I sit in the back of Benson 200 and wait for death. Also, he answers every question with "Yes, that's a question, isn't it?"' and despite his intent in his editorship being far more limited than the result he achieved, he has compiled a body of texts from Western religion, philosophy and arts that, together, have the potential to contribute most significantly to the above.

In his anthology Franke presents the history of mysticism in Western culture till now, the evidence that clearly indicates the degree to which it suffuses our culture and underlies and informs the work of many of our culture's most significant figures and particularly, he addresses how it functions now, despite the denials of those who would be thought of as representatives of intellect and the new - when in fact they argue for mysticism and the ancient. Franke himself believes his anthology comfortably extends the academic corpus - he does not see the former's liberating potential.

The teaching of mysticism is rejected from Australian universities - 'If you want that' those in ivory towers behind cloistered walls believe, 'do not even stop at religious studies, go straight to a college of theology - you will find one at the dead end of the street.'

As a materialist (those who describe themselves as 'physicalist' or 'realist' cause me to think of a mouse trembling before a trap, the cheese on which is 'materialist', the trap being 'communism'...) I argue that the failure to even know about and understand this theological current let alone to teach it (not to advocate it but to teach the analysis of it, the understanding of it) as fundamental to our culture, which analysis and understanding is again fundamental to moving forward in the most rounded way, is the most massive failure, the most massive display of determined ignorance, dishonesty and servility to the dominant ideology by generations of academics - those in philosophy and the arts hold the greatest responsibility.

In relation to 'god', the most sound way for knowledge to progress is not to deny the concept, to dismiss it, to mock it. Doing this rejects engagement with it and does not show respect either for the religious who believe in that concept (for the a-theists who reject it - because they describe themselves against it) or for the cultural achievements made in its name. It is to do as Franke has done. He not only traced the history of mysticism in the West, but thereby showed how the arguments in its maintenance developed. He let 'what cannot be said' speak for itself. To fully understand the work of so many, particularly those in philosophy and the arts who dissemble about their sources and influences, would be impossible without such work.

Of the greatest importance, in his two volumes, Franke has unerringly and unintentionally flushed out a concealed priesthood, a priesthood that argues it is doing nothing other than the most principled and often most abstract reasoning - a priesthood that often denies its belief. With this priesthood, Franke has flushed a living 'god' into the open. And behind this 'god' there stands the most fundamental question of all - which precedes which - consciousness/thought or 'matter' (that which exists independently of consciousness/thought)?

I have tried for 25 years to get academic support towards my analysis and exposure of the impact of this mystical current on the visual arts - and to date have met, in the end result, with the most adamantine commitment to the dominant bourgeois ideology re- this crucial subject from academics in the visual arts and philosophy. 

I know of no university in this country where one of the greatest philosophers and aestheticians in the West (in terms of an impact comparable with that of Plato and Aristotle) - Plotinus - is taught. It is an outrage against intellect, an utter failure in social responsibility by time-serving academics in their guardianship of a crippled and crippling understanding of 'reason'. To expose and exemplify the extent to which mysticism pervades what they believe to be the products of the best 'reason' and what it has inspired in philosophy and the arts must challenge their understanding of 'reason' itself - an understanding increasingly at odds with the exponential growth of knowledge in brain science.

A couple of weeks ago you interviewed Jane Montgomery Griffiths re- the Neoplatonist Hypatia. For the sake of doing something truly new for philosophy and the arts in this country - and that to begin with, I urge you to expand that focus immensely, beyond Hypatia, to address the current of which she was a part, and interview Franke on your program.

Regards,

Philip Stanfield

Emails sent to ABC Radio National

I did not receive a reply to either.

To Alan Saunders, ‘The Philosopher’s Zone’ ABC Radio National, 03.09.09: ‘Knowledge or “god” ’

Hi Alan,

On 18.10.08 Graham Priest said on your program:

'I mean one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century had a definite mystical overtone to what he was doing. So you may or you may not have heard of Wittgenstein, certainly one of the greatest twentieth century’s philosophers. If you read the only book that he published in his lifetime, the Tractatus, that ends by saying “I've shown you all I can show; there's more but you can't say it.” So it's a direct appeal to the ineffable. Ineffability and direct experience is not alien to the Western philosophical tradition. So to say that these things have religious aspects or some mystical aspects, therefore they're not philosophy, is just a non-sequitur.'

On 01.03.09, in reply to a question from you, Stephen Gaukroger said:

'I think a lot of the motivation for developments in science in the seventeenth century, particularly the late seventeenth century, are driven by developments in natural theology, that's to say particularly in England for example, and this is a view to which Newton was very sympathetic, the idea is that you have these two sources of knowledge, still unreconciled from the beginning of the thirteenth century, namely religion and science, and the thing to do is to triangulate them so that you can sort out the wheat from the chaff, and the idea is that there is just a single truth: both these discourses aim at truth, so let's triangulate them, get them fixed on the same thing so that we can work out what's true and what's false in each of them, and in the process, build up something that's much stronger than either of them taken individually.'

Your program on 04.04.09 was on Hypatia of Alexandria and Neoplatonism. The blurb stated:

'This week, we look at the woman and the heritage of what is probably the longest-standing philosophical tradition in Western civilisation: that rational yet mystical, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian, body of doctrines known as Neo-Platonism.'

On 11.07.09 Moira Gatens said of George Eliot:

'I think at the time that she's writing and Feuerbach are writing, the relationship between theology...and philosophy was much stronger than it came to be in the twentieth century.' A week later Clive Hamilton argued for a mystical view of the world.

Just as Gatens gave the standard and profoundly incorrect assessment of the current relationship between theology and philosophy, Priest, Deakin and Wildberg addressed elements of a theological current that suffuses Western philosophy and arts - that of apophatic or negative theology - mysticism. It is one of the two great pathways to 'god' in our culture ('great' because of their impact and because of the contributions to the arts done on their basis). The other, from which it is inseparable, is the crippled and crippling understanding and application of ‘reason’ (or as the Christians believe - 'Reason') which in the twentieth century was revealed in academic philosophy as ‘the linguistic turn’, divorced from a basis both in materiality and practice.

As a materialist (those who describe themselves as 'atheist' require 'god' for their self-description no less than do theists, while those who describe themselves as 'physicalist' or 'realist' cause me to think of a mouse trembling before a trap, the cheese on which is 'materialist', the trap being 'communism'...) I argue that the failure to even know about and understand this theological current let alone to teach it (the understanding of it, the analysis of it) as fundamental to our culture, as fundamental to moving forward in the most rounded way (distinct from Lloyd's Man of Reason) is the most massive failure, the most massive display of determined ignorance, dishonesty and servility to the dominant ideology by generations of academics - those in philosophy and the arts hold the greatest responsibility.

Guthrie wrote that the strict meaning of 'philosophy' is 'the search for knowledge' and it is to knowledge not to a subject pervaded by a concealed priesthood (or in the case of Gaukroger - overt) that my allegiance lies. If you have a similar regard for knowledge and would like to contribute to the exposure of timeservers on a narrow goat-track leading from ivory towers behind cloistered walls, if you would like to use your program to contribute something truly new in this country to knowledge and philosophy, you might do your best to get Wiilliam Franke from Vanderbilt University on your program and interview him regarding his two volume anthology On What Cannot Be Said. These two books clearly reveal the impact of 'god' and mysticism on our culture, on academic philosophy - right up to the present.

Franke, himself imbued with academicism, does not realise what he has done. Rather than, as he sees it, taking philosophy into 'new areas', he has laid bare the priesthood of an ancient current.

I urge you to interview him, and by so doing, contribute to doing likewise.

I have tried for twenty five years in this dozy and servile culture to get academic support towards my analysing and exposing the impact of this current on the visual arts - and to date have met with consistent ignorance and had very qualified success. I know of no university in this country where (in terms of an impact comparable with that of Plato and Aristotle) one of the greatest philosophers in the West - Plotinus - is taught. It is an outrage against intellect, an utter failure in social responsibility by time-serving academics.

Kant wrote in the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason that he had found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith. I recall Wittgenstein, in an even more miserable tenor, writing in the Foreword to his Philosophical Remarks that he would have dedicated it to God but people would not have understood. Is this acceptable to you?

In the Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion excerpted in the reader for this year's 'Christianity as a Global Religion' course at the University of Sydney it states: ‘One cannot ‘study’ mystics, except to the extent that they are prepared to write or speak about their experiences. There was however no lack of such material...’ True. This study is done in philosophy and the arts at every university in this country where these mystics are taught, but they are called 'great thinkers' and their experience is bounded by the limits of language banished from the Word.

Just as Cato the Elder argued 'Carthago delenda est', I argue that the concealed priesthood particularly in philosophy but also in the arts must be flushed into the open, to unshackle the potential of the most advanced organisation of matter yet known to us anywhere in the universe - what we all have between our ears. 

The title of your last Philosopher's Zone asks 'What makes a world class philosophy department?' You are in a position to contribute to that answer and thereby to those with a passion for knowledge and progress.

Regards,

Philip Stanfield

* * *

To Alan Saunders, ‘The Philosophers Zone’, copied to Phillip Adams, ‘Late Night Live’, ABC Radio National, 11.06.11: ‘Plotinus and what cannot (but must) be said’

Hello Alan,

Congratulations for having finally done a show on Plotinus. Now move from the safe and distant past to the present and do a show on the impact of Neoplatonsim and mysticism on modern and current Western philosophy and culture. You could take Kant and any of the German idealists, the 'genius' and mystic Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida etc. Take your pick. Contribute to exposing the concealed priesthood in philosophy - of which the Neoplatonic 'priest' Nietzsche wrote - and which is a massive impediment to the acceptance of our rapidly growing objective knowledge of the world. 

Interview William Franke of Vanderbilt University who wrote a groundbreaking two volume anthology On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, exemplifying the impact of mysticism on our culture up to the near present. Or perhaps Mark Cheetham at the University of Toronto, who in 1991 published The Rhetoric of Purity: Essentialist Theory and the Advent of Abstract Painting - on the impact of Neoplatonism on Cubism - the pivotal moment of modernist art - both books met by thunderous silence in this dozy, servile and provincial culture.

Regards,

Phil Stanfield