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Some Campus Politics

— Wikileaks for university campuses? There is much to uncover. Tidbits alluding here to Washington University’s dysfunction. —

«Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.» Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
«Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off. » Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
«Le barbare, c’est d’abord l’homme qui croit à la barbarie. – A barbarian is first of all someone who believes in barbarity.»
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), Race et histoire, 1952.

In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it. — Leo Tolstoy

DIVIDE ET IMPERA/DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Strategists of war like Sun Tzu and Machiavelli mention these words; Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, and Caesar were inspired by them, and they were essential to the governing of Napoleon and many other dictators.

Besides the manufacture of enmity, often a prerequisite for power to sustain itself (see The Face of the Enemy* below), Stephen Colbert’s definition will remind you of how some academic circles and other workplaces are run:

Politics means I am not telling you my intentions.
I  am showing you an action that is causing a reaction from you while I am playing another chess piece over here.
And I will triangulate some secretive way where I will achieve power over you.

Before all else, be armed. N. M.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. N. M.

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli

After reading these student testimonies: 1, 2, 3 & 4 (an unanswered petition to Washington University),
you may understand why Machiavelli is still relevant:
Bill McClellan on Pier Marton
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Labor Day 2011
(a PDF)
• • •
On the Campus of Washington University, the Commencement speaker, Elie Wiesel, had just previously asked
“Not to Stand Idly While Witnessing Injustice”

My last posting on my office door - I had screened the film The Witness/A Tanu in vain. Apparently it is possible to laugh without understanding.

More words from my office door.

The Hungarian cult film, The Witness/A Tanu, had been screened in vain on the campus;
from the reaction of some of the audience, it is apparently possible to laugh at Stalinism without understanding what the film decries.

What is left undone one minute, is restored by no eternity. Friedrich Schiller

*Faces of the Enemy is also a book. Below are offshoots from it:

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