Niall Ferguson on the bond between Palestine supporters and the authoritarian Left
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Published 2023-12-15
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All Comments (21)
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"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity" Martin Luther King Jr (A Proper Sense of Priorities speech delivered Feb 6, 1968)
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Listening from Israel and praying that the sane world will wake up in time.
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I was a graduate student at Brandeis in 2014. I was never more ashamed of my Alma Mater than when they decided to cancel Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s commencement speech. In my many years at Brandeis it was the only speech I was actually looking forward to. She’s a true cultural hero.
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A man with perception of the lessons of history and the awareness of the present. Bravo! May we begin to teach our children the lessons of history again without a political objective.
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Niall and his incredible wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali are the intellectual leaders the western world desperately needs right now! We have a long fight ahead of us.
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Dear Jewish Chronical, thank you for a heartfelt and insightful conversation with Niall Ferguson❤ We must stand together for what is right and protect Israel and preserve the Jewish people and their culture. May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob protect Israel❤
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Niall Ferguson is a superb articulate writer and commentator. I never get tired of reading his work or listening to him.
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I take Niall’s point that the horrors of totalitarianism/war/lack of freedom should be taught better in Western schools/universities, but the problem is that people find it all a bit abstract without actually experiencing it for real. Only then will people realise just how damn good everybody has it in the West.
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Excellent conversation and informative.Thank you.
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Excellent civil conversation.
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I have Ayan Hirsi Ali's books. Such an amazing woman. Followed her story for years, but lost her. So happy that she has a safe place and a great loving husband and her intellectual match. From Canada.
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The historical parallel between the institutionalized anti semitism in universities with the distinguished German universities of the 1920s-1930s is simply chilling.
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Thank you for this fascinating discussion. These double standards and protests against Israel that threaten Jewish students on University campuses is horrifying . Another way to help these students stand up is through SSI..students supporting Israel. They are helping to get the other side of the message accross.
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Somebody said that intellectual’s education greatly surpasses their intelligence.
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An excellent conversation. Thank you! This is among the very best explanations of how and why that toxic bond has developed between the authoritarian left and other groups opposed to Western concepts of society, ethics and liberty.
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Thank you. I learn much from you. I was shocked when just a day after Oct 7 all this anti Israel stuff was all over. I did not realize my country was like this, let alone the universities. I’m saddened.
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I attended university in the 80’s. I remember ”still” having to put up with the odd (but compulsory) course in Marxist theory and some pathetic remnants of the 60’s in the form of grey-haired hippie professors. But, in honesty, it was on the way out. Then I returned for two years in 2001, and BANG! Suddenly there they were: Foucault, Barthes, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Bourdieu, Lyotard, Giddens, Rorty… Everywhere! But it took me another few years to understand what it all meant, and to see the effects.
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I like the opening "Let's start by talking about the increasingly bizarre world of academia...". A hundred years ago intellectuals in the west were attracted to communism and it flourished for a good 30 years until after Stalin died. I wonder how long this new attraction will last.
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At 23:14 Ferguson mentions a “curious” identification of Jews, with Capital in Marxist ideology. Marx associated Jews with Capital in his work On the Jewish Question. Marxism has always been intensely antisemitic.
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I am a liberal progressive, and havw stopped listening.also to NPR, stopped reading the NYT and others because the anti Israeli, anti semitic bias is so pervasive and repellent.
