Dear All,
I have just been sent an article published recently (I don't know exactly when,
but it must have been this week) in the Daily Telegraph. It goes something like
this...
"*MARX SEIZES THE RIFT VALLEYS*
*Ross Clark reveals how Left-wing ideology has taken control of our geography
departments*".
After headlines like that, you won't be surprised to find that his opening
sentence is: "History is about chaps and geography is about maps...". He
continues "But anyone who followed the goings on at the Royal Geographical
Society's annual conference in Exeter last week was left in no doubt that the
adage is out of date ... Geography, literally "study of the earth", has
abandoned its original territory in favour of people and politics".
No bad thing, you might think. But Ross Clark is, I'm afraid to say, somewhat
incensed by studies of female domestic labour (by Rosie Cox), of miners (by Emma
Hollywood) and death rates amongst voters (by Danny Dorling). It is not that it
is clear exactly what Ross Clark would prefer -- he's too inconsistent -- but it
appears that he is terrified by the idea that the take over of geography by
"politicos" will filter down into school geography. Gone are studies of capes
and bays, he is horrified to hear that children now learn about environmental
degradation and economic deprivation. He concludes: "Next time you receive a
questionnaire through the door from a GCSE geography student asking you how many
cars you own and when you last went to the cinema, it is worth asking him
exactly what point he has been told to prove by his teachers".
So, where did Ross Clark learn that geography is irrelevant, arcane, populated
by sundry malcontents, useless, unscientific, too scientific, too theoretical,
ahistorical, Marxist, snobbish but with an inferiority complex, and without a
proper object of study?
He is a Cambridge graduate (mid-1980s?).
Good luck with your letters to the editor...
Steve
P.S. Ross claims that someone was nicknamed "O Level" at Cambridge because of
the [quote] primitive quality and content of his research... surely not in a 5*
department?!
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