Charles Clarke is [possibly] an ignorant moron?
2007-Dec-03, Monday 00:34![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matgbWords fail me. Clarke dismisses medieval historians (Friday May 9, 2003):
I've just finished reading a book, a damn fine book. It was about the events of 1688 and surrounding years, the Glorious Revolution. It has inspired in me ideas for many posts, all of which would be relevent to today, the here and now. If there's any one period of history that I can say is 'mine' it's 17th century English constitutional history. I don't care much for the medieval period, it's not for me. But to dismiss it as irrelevent and not useful?
ETA: Um, yeah. Shows me for posting late at night and not checking the date or checking the Cabinet membership, my brain forgot he's not in the cabinet any more. Ah well. Still should never have been said.
ETA2: Clarke defends himself and denies making the statement. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bagrec in the comments.
Not long after expressing the view that he didn't think much of classics and regarded the idea of education for its own sake as "a bit dodgy", Mr Clarke, who read maths and economics at King's College, Cambridge, went one further.Who the hell [was] he? you ask, and why should we care about his dismissive opinions when it comes to education policy? He [was]'s the Secretary of State for Education, the guy in charge of setting education policy. As my friend Alix puts it:
"I don't mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but there is no reason for the state to pay for them," he said on a visit to University College, Worcester. He only wanted the state to pay for subjects of "clear usefulness", according to today's Times Higher Educational Supplement.
History is relative. No one period of history has innately more value than any other. Not a single person born during the twelfth century is any less complex, any less deserving of study and understanding than a person alive today. No common experience - be it in the form of a shared pop culture, the self-promotion of an expansionist nation state or the song of a victorious warrior band - is inherently superior to any other. You learn as much about human beings, law, society, constitutions, institutions and ideology from studying medieval history as any other sort. Any historical studies teach you to build your own skeletal way of understanding a society. After you’ve learnt to do that, you can flesh out the skeleton an infinite number of times in any way you wish.Putting Ruth Kelly, an avowed extremist Catholic member of Opus Dei, in charge of equality was bad enough, but putting someone who doesn't believe in the value of education in charge of education? Words fail me.
I've just finished reading a book, a damn fine book. It was about the events of 1688 and surrounding years, the Glorious Revolution. It has inspired in me ideas for many posts, all of which would be relevent to today, the here and now. If there's any one period of history that I can say is 'mine' it's 17th century English constitutional history. I don't care much for the medieval period, it's not for me. But to dismiss it as irrelevent and not useful?
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat ithas never been more true today. But then, we are talking about Charles Clarke here.
ETA: Um, yeah. Shows me for posting late at night and not checking the date or checking the Cabinet membership, my brain forgot he's not in the cabinet any more. Ah well. Still should never have been said.
ETA2: Clarke defends himself and denies making the statement. Thanks to
bagrec in the comments.
