So, after much soul-searching, and still more impressive heights of pointless procrastination, I decided to start another blog. I’m not quite sure why it’s taken me so long, having been immersed in the Reactosphere for several years now, but it’s probably got something to do with being generally exhausted following my extremely pointless, but equally economically necessary day job. It’s also probably because I am unsure whether I have much of value to contribute to the discourse surrounding what has come to be known as the Neoreaction. But since I am currently on holiday from the former, and the only way to test the latter is to start writing, I thought now was probably as good a time as any to make a start…
I would have liked my inaugural post to be my version of A Formalist Manifesto, but since I haven’t quite finished constructing my own ideology, I thought I would begin with a repost of something I originally wrote as a comment over at Outside In, which, along with Unqualified Reservations, has probably been the most important place for encountering, digesting and internalizing the Red Pill wisdom necessary to throw off the shackles of the progressive-miasma in which everything is marinated:
The service provided — and demanded — is the deceit. If the people see through the lie, the resulting dissatisfaction will not stem from the fact they have been lied to, but from the revelation that they have not been lied to well enough – Nick Land.
I work as a lecturer in a small, insignificant outpost of the Cathedral. I have no reason to believe that my experience within pseudo-Education is anything other than typical in its near total dysfunction. Institutions like as the one I work at are inspected by the governmental body Ofsted under what is known as the Common Inspection Framework. The ostensible function of Ofsted is to improve standards and raise attainment through a rigorous inspection process, which identifies problems and diagnoses solutions.
However, the actual function of Ofsted is to maintain the status quo by suppressing the truth that the system, of which it is an important and deleterious part, is completely dysfunctional. I could go into a lot more detail in support of this claim, and intend to do so in future posts, but the key point is that the standards demanded by Ofsted are completely unrealistic and therefore inherently unachievable. The only way that individual lecturers, departments, colleges, and indeed the sector as a whole, can ‘achieve’ them is to fake them. Of course, this is implicitly understood by Ofsted because the inspection framework is set up in just such a way that it (a) makes it necessary for people to game the system, and (b) is built upon a method of inspection that provides them with the opportunity to game the system.
Just like a beautiful woman, it demands to be seduced by the perfectly orchestrated performance of a ritualised dance, which is purely symbolic and has nothing to do with education or raising the actual standard of attainment. As an individual lecturer, department, or college you fail an inspection only if Ofsted concludes that it has not been lied to well enough.
At the same time, as a lecturer, to become aware of this deeper level reality is to see that you are trapped in a cave without Exit. The more you learn the better illuminated the cave becomes and the better you begin to understand the mechanism which is trapping you. Over time its infernal aspect becomes increasingly brilliant. You come to wonder: how can something so obviously dysfunctional, so clearly held together by nothing but chewing gum and degenerate spittle, persist? And not just persist, but hold you ever tighter in its grasp while it pushes down on you – crushing the breath from your body – filling the surrounding air with the infernal stench of shambling zombie decrepitude…
(Much) more thought on this area – the mechanics of the Cathedral within the Further Education system – will (hopefully) follow, but if there is currently a kernel to my thinking on this matter, this is it.
Pyrrhic Victories 