Thoughts on this man?

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>>8413909

For real though, both Hitchens brothers are attention-seeking contrarians.

>>8413909
I like him, but wherever he is his intellectual competition are complete morons so it's hard to really understand if he's a simple pseud or knows what he is talking about.
I remember a panel with 4 people in America, one feminist and one flamboyant faggot, those two should be fucking shot.

>>8413927
What's the panel you're thinking of lad? There's been a few where he's up against faggots and feminists. The QandA one in Australia is decent, but as you said he very rarely debates anyone on his level. Check out his books if you truly want to see what he has to say, although as sound as his critiques of the modern world are he's not a fantastic writer.

>>8413909
He's clearly very intelligent, but he is too conservative to be taken seriously in this day and age. People hear his views and tune him out before even listening to his rationale. I like him though. He'd be great to have a conversation with.

>>8413930
It's the one that had the world's most dangerous idea where the feminist rambles about some kind of "true freedom", the faggot that abortion should be manditory and forced upon women after going on a rant that there is nothing wrong about him adopting or fucking men and Peter says that it's the idea Christ rose from the grave.

>>8413935
Yeah that's the QandA episode. Truly infuriating.

He's a bit of a sophist if I'm being honest. I like him, but if you look at his twitter feed he comes off as a bit silly. He apparently poses question to twitter as part of his journalistic research and some of them are so blatantly misguided I'm not sure what to make of them.

"Can anyone tell me the operative difference between Ritalin and the amphetamines?"

Just as an example, here we have a guy who we know is anti-drug, and is likely trying to come up with a hit-piece of pharmaceutical treatment of mental-disorders (how original), but so obviously has no clue what he's talking about, and worst of all his first thoughts are to ask twitter about it.

Furthermore, he repeats his cute little qips often enough to be annoying if you follow his media presence at all.

Like I said, I like the guy and I do think he is smarter than 99% of the politicians and journalists he gets put on stage with but he is not as intelligent and clever as he makes himself out to be.

I have often said the Blair Creature is the re-embodied spirit of Antonio Gramsci, whose corpse was dug up by the unscrupulous Blairite faction. Of course the diabolical complacent smoothies stupefying themselves with decriminalised mind-altering drugs and wicked poisons such as Leon Trotsky resurrected him. It is obvious in their egalitarian social engineering.

>>8413909
embarassing

He's just another public "intellectual"

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>>8414011
Who are you quoting?

>>8414015

This.

His travel memoirs are really interesting - Short Breaks in Mordor. I haven't read anything else he's written.

>>8414017
none of your business boy

>>8414015
>ignore these people because I personally dont like them
eat shit, autist

>>8414015

My nigga.

Sophist.

>>8414015
Thomas Aquinas, Scaruffi, Pope Francis, Hegel, Nikola Tesla don't belong on there.

every single opinion he has relating to drugs is actually a fact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcQddzH3Ug

>>8414040
Milo too

>>8414047
No it isn't. His weighs in on subjects which are heavily ambiguous. No one can properly describe the nature of addiction because the brain itself is very poorly understood. No one can explain the nature of the correlation between drug use and crime because, again, it's poorly understood. He's right to call attention to these facts, but these issues are very emotive, and he acts in a deliberately incendiary manner. For him to act like a persecuted right wing martyr is disingenuous. He criticised Enoch Powell for "paddling in sewage" because Enoch was too intelligent to not know what he was doing, and the same accusation is applicable to Peter.

>>8414033
yes, let the buttmad flow through you

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>>8413955
>he doesn't understand sarcasm

Sad

>>8414015
bait

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>>8414060
>No one can explain the nature of the correlation between drug use and crime because, again, it's poorly understood

>>8414083
*violent crime

I would've assumed anyone posting in this thread would understand the point I'm making because it's one of Peter Hitchens' hobby horses along with Grammar schools and Tony Blair. Your eagerness to post a funny image and some green text lets you down.

>>8414088

Grammar schools are/were an objectively good thing, though.

Comprehensives are dog shit, and have made education more of a class warfare battleground than ever before - whereby the rich price the poor out of the catchment areas for good schools.

>>8414092
I know a lot of buttblasted older people who failed their 11+ and never got over it. Grammar schools were surely worth it if only for their function as a salt manufacturer.

>>8414092
>>8414095
There is not a bit of evidence which doesn't show them increasing the class divide. The most educationally successful areas of Britain are fully comprehensive and Kent, which still has a grammar system, is rated low. Also Finland.
You've been fucked by education ministers who either don't want the underclass to be too clever or mobile (why else would they continually denigrate language teaching?), or because they were educated at private schools and grammars, which through tuition become proxy-privates, they simply think the vast majority of the nation are incapable.

>>8414108

>Muh Finland

Every fucking time. Don't concern yourselves with the immense differences in culture/etc, we're all the same! All children are blank slates, tabula rasa, who can be thrown into a foreign education system with ease!

>>8414108
>the class divide

Only people who are at the top of the class divide even care about the class divide. Meanwhile the rest of society is wondering how to get there.

>>8413916
They were so contrarian to one another it was ridiculous. And in the end nobody really wanted them because of their childishness, Peter is too hard line for the conservatives that would accept him and too touristy for the ones he wants to join. The other one had to move to America and was such a non entity generally that I've actually forgotten his name.

>>8414109
Stephen Hawking went through a very similar early years education to what they do in Finland. He didn't learn to read until he was 8 or something.

I agree in broad terms tho, English people in general are too retarded from all that inbreeding and any decent education would be wasted.

>>8414117
>Meanwhile the rest of society is wondering how to get there.
Middle class worldview. Go fuck yourseld braaaah

>>8414117
Its true. Rather than helping poor students receive a better level of education grammar schools tend to widen the gap between middle class kids and the poor. Just look at the relatively small number of poor pupils accepted to grammar schools where they still exist. By the time children are sitting their 11+ those from middle class families are already ahead academically of the poor kids, so it tends to be the middle class children that get in.

>>8414202
Londoner detected.

>>8414206
That doesn't make sense.

>>8414215
Or does it?

Peter Hitchens' foreign reporting us excellent and he's got a lot of good things to say about civil liberties. On the other hand he's far too pessimistic when it comes to subjects like drugs and teen sex where he comes across like some confused old man.

>>8414015
We need to go deeper, I still know faces that I don't see there.

>>8414060
I agree on the 'paddling in sewage' point but the correlation between drug use and crime, including violent crime, is pretty clear. The less of that stuff kicking around the better.

>>8413909
I got no idea who the fuck that is, so judging by his picture alone, I'm gonna guess he's some pretentious pseudo-intellectual wanker.

>>8414202
>Middle class worldview

How can it be? I'm poor, in fact I'm almost destitute.

>>8414296
The fact there is a correlation is clear. The nature of the correlation isn't. There could be any number of things causing the correlation, and Peter Hitchens is right to draw attention to it, particularly when it's ignored everywhere else. But you just state "drugs are bad" it does the argument damage, as it places you on the side of emotionalism and kneejerk reaction rather than understanding.

But this thread is testament to my point about Peter's own paddling on sewage. He invariably targets issues with a high degree of ambiguity and emotion attached. It's clickbait disguised in respectable journalism. He is an intelligent man with a lot of experience, but he doesn't seem like he's trying anymore.

yep

>>8414184
>and was such a non entity generally that I've actually forgotten his name.
Read his literary criticism. Knowing Christopher only via his views on religion is like knowing Nabokov only for his crazy opinions of other authors.

>>8415926
All his journalism and speaking was a pile of shit. Nabokov isn't a bad comparison tho, outside of flowery language and structuring they were both plebemaxes.

>>8415961
Nabokov aesthetic proficiently can't be denied. The novel is an art; form is almost everything, and it's something that Nabokov was better at than all of his contemporaries.

>>8415987
*aesthetic proficiency

>>8415961
I bet you like Chomsky and Zizek you fucking pseud

>>8415987
True, I am cheapening that somewhat. But his analysis and academic shit is mostly terrible. I mean that fucking annotated metamorphosis is the worst fanfiction tier.

>>8415996
Hit a nerve?

>>8413909
He doesn't say that the war on drugs is lost by the states. He says that the UK state didn't even try.

So if it didn't try, then why has they blown so much money on it. And moralizing a medical issue is soo productive.

>>8413955
He isn't intelligent. He compensates with an animalistic energy.

>>8414060
The correlation between crime and drug use is simple to understand. The state pushes up the price of drugs and pushes down the quality.

>>8414060
>He criticised Enoch Powell for "paddling in sewage" because Enoch was too intelligent to not know what he was doing
>reading on Wikipedia on Enoch Powell
>tfw finding this gem
>Powell's ambition to be Viceroy of India crumbled in February 1947, when Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that Indian independence was imminent. Powell was so shocked by the change of policy that he spent the whole night after it was announced walking the streets of London.[9]:51 He came to terms with it by becoming fiercely anti-imperialist, believing that once India had gone the whole empire should follow it.[citation needed] This logical absolutism explained his later indifference to the Suez crisis, his contempt for the Commonwealth and his urging that Britain should end any remaining pretence that it was a world power.

>>8414052
brilliant

>>8414092
all that happens is that the upper middle classes stop paying for private education and buy houses near catchment areas for grammar schools, pricing out the working classes. it already happens for state primary schools nowadays

>>8413909
Forgettable prig

>>8413955
I couldn't agree more about the way he tends to overcook so many of his little 'witticisms'. I remember after his brother died, the first thing he wrote was a bizarre hit-piece on Stephen Fry which had resulted from, get this, the latter having come up to him during the wake to offer his commiserations, and Peter the autistic Christian getting all pissy for no reason whatsoever. He's way too proud of having thought to describe Fry as "an idiot's idea of an intellectual" or whatever.

>>8414015
B-but I happen to like Herman Hesse. What'd he do to you?

>>8414052

beautiful

>>8416392
>He's way too proud of having thought to describe Fry as "an idiot's idea of an intellectual" or whatever.
I guess a broken clock is right sometimes.

>>8416441
That doesn't make it right to smugly milk your punchlines for everything they're worth, like an Anglican, priggish Paulie Walnuts who has nightmares about children straying from God's path.

> Heh heh, hey Christofuh. I told him that he was an idiot's idea of an intellectual heh heh heh. Pretty funny hey Chris.

>>8416445
>Heh heh, hey Christofuh. I told him that he was an idiot's idea of an intellectual heh heh heh. Pretty funny hey Chris.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Christian Hitchens died and left Atheist Hitchens instead. I suspect some kind of religious epiphany just to keep their stupid sibling rivalry going.

Christopher was the greatest philosopher of the last 100 years. Peter is a giant cuck

>>8416030
>The correlation between crime and drug use is simple to understand
No it isn't. Everyone has a different interpretation of what the correlation means, and the shit you spouted is proof of that. Everyone thinks they know what it means but no one actually does, and that's what makes it harder to understand - people spouting so much shit, with their theories they are emotionally attached to.

>>8416480
Christopher was a well-read journalist. Tony Robbins is more of a philosopher than he was

>>8414015
>Aquinas
You did not just do that.

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>>8413997

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>>8413909
When I was younger I agreed more with his brother, as I grow older I find myself agreeing more with him.

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>>8413909
Underrated whilst his brother is overrated.

His writings on the decline of Britain are brilliant on their own. I truly believe, in this topic, he is right where few others are.

I like his story of transitioning from a revolutionary to a conservative.

His public debate skills capabilities are questionable. To be fair he is often (as he claims) put on panels with everyone "out to get him." The question time in Australia is an extreme version of this. But often in one-to-ones and occasions where he is not deliberately balanced out, he retains this thinking and therefore comes off as overbearing.

He is however very measured and respectful of public debate, I think people too often equate him with American conservative lunatics who just shout a lot and hate liberals.

His opinions on drugs and some other topics are very silly and often questionable, built too much around feelings than facts.

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He's great, always stands out on whatever panel he is put on and can talk for hours but never seem to lose things to talk about. However, since he believes that his soul will be saved by his Christian faith, he no longer seems to care about earthly politics too much, at least not to the extent that he will go out of his way to advocate for anyone, he doesn't even vote anymore.

>>8418963
What are the main points of his argument about the decline of Britain?

>>8413909

Hates freedom (transparent ressentiment towards his brother's greater succes), nonentity, indifferent towards him.

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>>8418989

Look around you, wankah.

>>8419005
I'm not british

>>8418989
It's kind of a long and multifaceted argument that you need to have an understanding of British postwar history to truly appreciate. It's also been a while since I read it.

But the basic points are that since the Second World War, Britain has declined on account, in many respects, as a result of liberal elites imposing their agenda on it entwined with the postwar decline of Christian values.

Such imposed ideologies as multiculturalism, sexual liberation, etc., have made Britain a nation cut off from its history and culture, and increasingly becoming bland and money-driven.

His arguments are often subject to pigeonholing, you'll often find people accuse him of being Thatcherite, racist, etc., when he is none of these things.

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>>8419053
<<<A good summation of his ultimate beliefs.

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>>8419014

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>>8419063
>Reading Peter instead of Chris

>>8419053
That's pretty retarded t b h
It's obvious that the peak of influence that Britain ever had was a massive overextention and that ultimately it's not that significant of a country

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>>8419072

>Not reading both and coming to your own conclusion
>Not appreciating both brothers respectively

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>>8419072
>Reading Chris instead of Peter

>>8419073
I'm not sure what you point is.

His argument does not especially concern the decline of Britain as a world power, but rather the decline of British society.

>>8419084
Oh
Well that's still pretty retarded t b h
Society is constantly in flux and the sense of decline seems to be ubiquitous.

>>8414344
>I'm poor, in fact I'm almost destitute.
In other words "the threat of social benefits hangs over me!". This is fine, so long as you have somewhere to keep the rain off and can buy a small amount of food to keep you going you're alright.

However, being middle class even fairly meagre restrictions on your resources threatens your lifestyle and so is the end of the world.

>>8419142
You can argue that, it's a fairly objective argument from him. Perhaps "decline" is the wrong word - more negative change.

It's just worth noting he doesn't romanticise the past so much as believe, in his words, we "chose the wrong future."

>>8419072
>>8419075
>>8419077
>reading either
Falling at the first jump tbph. Both are obviously wastes of time/space/air.

>>8419171
*subjective I mean

On a similar note are there any other British political/cultural commentators you guys would recommend reading? (They don't have to have the same of even similar views to Peter)

>>8419446
Andrew Neil and Rees-Mogg.

>>8419455
I love Neil on the Daily Politics and Rees-Mogg seems like a nice guy though I haven't really read much by him, only seen a few videos here and there. Was more requesting something along the lines of highly opinionated columnists, that kinda thing..

>>8413909
I like him

>>8414015
alex jones does NOT belong there

>>8414204
That's because only the rich can afford to live in areas where grammar schools still exist. Apart from Northern Ireland, where there are grammar schools everywhere and education is better

The same is true of the best comprehensive schools in England too

>>8414204
>>8421274
The fact is comprehensives are even worse because the rich move to the best ones, and there isn't even a system of selection where they actually have to be intelligent

>>8413916
Should've formed a wrestling due, desu.

I like Hitchens but I feel like Ive either grown out of him or become bored. He doesnt have a very long field of vision.

I disagree with him and think that people should be able to take hypothetical harmless mind numbing drugs in their own home if it doesnt affect anyone else (although how can self harm through drugs be reconciled with socialised healthcare? Then your behaviour does harm the public who has to subsidise you. This is never brought up). Although he brings up indisputable facts that are really inconvenient for people. Marijuana really is de facto legalised. If only awful criminals and murdering cartels supply drugs then why is it immoral to currently prosecute people who buy drugs? Addiction is something that should be under more scrutiny. This current path of glibly saying "mental health" will lead to more government power (e.g., bureaucrats saying that disliking Islam makes you crazy). It seems that these "mental health" sympathisers wouldve agreed with Alan Turings treatment if they were born 60 years earlier.

He is small minded in some respects, although he doesnt get fooled by most bs false narratives created by the politicians and media.

I think grammar schools are not worthwhile because 11 year olds should not have the ability to seriously affect their futures. Its as simple as that. Hitchens is seriously small minded and ignorant with respect to education (thinks that maths tests without calculators are automatically harder and tests with calculators proof of intellectual degradation). The reason he puts such huge importance on school education (and I say this as someone with perfect school grades) is because he has been a journalist / writer all his life and therefore has not had to use any skills other than literacy and logic / critical thinking (which are innate to people). He simply has no clue that school maths is trivial compared to what youre taught in university. And so on for the sciences.

Also the 50s are not coming back.

>>8416566
>muh interpretation
Even though alcohol is heavily regulated it is not criminal. The price is not in a constant flux because of sporadic cop crackdowns, if you buy a bottle of Jim Beam from a legit store you can be sure it is not tea mixed with glycol etc etc and et fucking c.

Also: The age of prohibition in the US.

>>8418985
>since he believes that his soul will be saved by his Christian faith, he no longer seems to care about earthly politics too much, at least not to the extent that he will go out of his way to advocate for anyone, he doesn't even vote anymore
Good fucking riddance.

>>8421308
>I think grammar schools are not worthwhile because 11 year olds should not have the ability to seriously affect their futures. Its as simple as that. Hitchens is seriously small minded and ignorant with respect to education (thinks that maths tests without calculators are automatically harder and tests with calculators proof of intellectual degradation). The reason he puts such huge importance on school education (and I say this as someone with perfect school grades) is because he has been a journalist / writer all his life and therefore has not had to use any skills other than literacy and logic / critical thinking (which are innate to people). He simply has no clue that school maths is trivial compared to what youre taught in university. And so on for the sciences.
Lovely!

And it's fun that Arne Beurling (1905-1986) reconstructed the Enigma machine with only pen, paper and mental arithmetics in two weeks.

>>8421335
>reconstructed
Sorry, reverse-engineered it.

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>>8421308

>I think grammar schools are not worthwhile because 11 year olds should not have the ability to seriously affect their futures.

You can get rid of one and keep the other.

Grammar schools are (or were) and indisputable good thing. What age do you think people SHOULD have the ability to seriously affect their futures? There are those who claim we aren't seriously mature until our late 20s, after all.

Academic selection is invaluable. Without it, you get dogshit comprehensives.

>He simply has no clue that school maths is trivial compared to what youre taught in university. And so on for the sciences.

Yeah, but you obviously need school maths to get that shit. There are very few subjects in life that allow you to jump in the deep end and not sink.

>Also the 50s are not coming back

Yes, and he doesn't want them back. You misunderstood him if you think so.

Pic related.

>>8421375
Imo, unless you're getting them on a fast track to university now it's useless. If you do well at the 11+ or equivalent that should mean something like you get your GCSEs out the way by 13 and A-levels done by 15 or 16 or something. Weirdly that was how some comprehensives were going until this bizarre move back to a """linear""' system. The issue with the 11+ is it tries to predict performance around another half a lifetime away.

I don't believe this is possible with how the teaching profession is now tho. Way too much shit teachers becoming shit managers, while good teachers who like the craft have to jump through inane hoops.

>>8421335
>pen, paper and mental arithmetics
Think about what you've written for a second there.

>>8419455
Rees-Mogg is worse than Hitchens for all show and no substance.

>>8421375
>Academic selection is invaluable. Without it, you get dogshit comprehensives.

And with grammars you get comprehensives that are even worse. Grammars make things better for those at the top and worse for those at the bottom (on account of 'subpar' kids being lumped together and teachers migrating to selective schools). If there were a way of solving this then most people would be behind grammar schools. Not sure how you'd go about it though. Maybe 'hands-on' trade schools for those less academically inclined.

>>8421412
>Grammars make things better for those at the top
This is debatable.

>>8421412

>Grammars make things better for those at the top and worse for those at the bottom

And? Stop with the ressentiment.

>>8421419
Nietzsche's an interesting one on this sort of thing. Something in a similar vein to a grammar system he probs would have advocated, but I doubt he'd have liked the actual grammar school system.

>>8421419
You said "Without it, you get dogshit comprehensives." I'm telling you that with grammars you'll still get dogshit comps, they'll just be even more dogshit. Do you dispute this?

>>8421433

Yes, because comprehensives are worse since we started scrapping grammar schools.

>>8421443
How would reintroduction of grammars make comps better? Surely it's the equivalent of a brain drain with comps being the party worst off.

>>8414184
0/10 post

>>8414015
>unemployed 20 year old in charge of determining who's a pseudo intellectual

>>8413909
Literally a meme.
He is worth shit as an intellectual.

>>8421399
Beurlings tool's was pen, paper and his mind, his head, his thoughts.

>>8414015
Brother Nathanael is a real intellectual.

>>8421274
I agree that grammar schools to tend to be in more affluent areas, but even when you have grammar schools and comprehensives in the same area the grammar school will take a far smaller proportion of poor students than the comprehensive because middle class parents have more time, money and inclination to educate their children than poor pupils. So even at 11 years old there is an achievement gap which grammar schools will widen, not close.

>>8414060

This is what degenerates actually believe

>>8414054
A faggot repeating antisjw rethoric while being an ultimate cockwhore does not belong on the list? Are you sure??

As for Hitchens I like him.

>>8422763
Then build more grammar schools you idiot. At least bright but poor children have a chance to get a good education with grammar school.

With comprehensives, you get segregation by money since poor people can't even live in the catchment areas of good comprehensives.

>>8423467
>Then build more grammar schools you idiot.
So grammar schools make things better so more grammar schools make things more better?

The anon who talked about a brain drain above isn't wrong, a lot of education goes on between students. This is where comps excell. The other issue with grammars is the whole parents paying to have their stupid kids coached. So you end up with idiots in grammars too.

And on top of all that there are grammars around right now and they are shite.

>>8423899
>The other issue with grammars is the whole parents paying to have their stupid kids coached. So you end up with idiots

This is already happening with comprehensives. Except rich kids don't even need to be coached, they just need to live in the extremely expensive catchment areas where the good comprehensives are located. How is that better? At least a poor bright kid can possibly hope to attend a grammar school and get a decent education. With the comprehensive system, they don't even get this chance.

>And on top of all that there are grammars around right now and they are shite.

They are not. Look at Oxbridge student schools. They are either public (which had almost disappeared thanks to grammar schools) and grammar schools, especially from Norn Iron. Look it up, Northern Irish students are dramatically overrepresented in the good universities. The government has been forced to impose quotas on universities to take in students from comprehensives, and even then, they are from the few comprehensives in expensive catchment areas where the average kid has no hope of attending because their parents can't even afford to live there.

For all the faults of the comprehensives, it did promote better social mobility than the current system. The comprehensive experiment has failed and it's time to recognize it.

And about coached kids, you can address this issue by building more grammar schools. More grammar schools, more room to accommodate poorer students. Less comprehensives, less exclusive catchment areas only the ultra rich can attend.

The comprehensive system is the worst because it is entirely segregated by money. Rich kids don't even need to be coached. They just have to live in the right neighbourhood.

>>8424219
*All the faults of the grammar schools

>>8424219
>Except rich kids don't even need to be coached, they just need to live in the extremely expensive catchment areas where the good comprehensives are located.
I think you're talking about faith schools and needing to live within the historical area of a parish. They are different to comprehensives in a number of ways. Many comprehensives do not operate catchment areas as part of their admissions and I believe it's less and less prevalent now as part of the whole acadamies thing. I never had to worry about it at school a decade ago. So really a non issue.

Further to that, rich parents ship the kids off to a private school mostly. Historically and even now where they still are you find a large proportion of grammar school students have gone straight in from a prep school. So it ends up as state funded education for people that would otherwise use the private system and doesn't help the less well off. In fact when you start controlling for class grammars have always failed on pretty much every front.

>They are either public (which had almost disappeared thanks to grammar schools)
You're now confusing public schools with private schools in general. I'm afraid I'm going to have to assume you're retarded and point out that very few private schools are public schools like Eton, Harrow and the handful of others with that historical designation.

>Northern Irish students are dramatically overrepresented in the good universities.
That's more down to their secondary education system as a whole, not down to them having grammars. You can't point out another area with grammars and the same sort of claim since it doesn't happen elsewhere. N Ireland has good grammars and good comps too, it isn't merely separating the wheat and chaff or some other nonsense.

>For all the faults of the comprehensives, it did promote better social mobility than the current system. The comprehensive experiment has failed and it's time to recognize it.
The Gurney-Dixon report and Robbins report found that controlling for class this wasn't the case. In the latter, while the children of unskilled working class made up over a quarter of the student body at grammars, in the end they represented less than half a percent of those achieving 2 or more A-levels. Which is bloody useless.

>And about coached kids, you can address this issue by building more grammar schools. More grammar schools, more room to accommodate poorer students. Less comprehensives, less exclusive catchment areas only the ultra rich can attend.
The morer is betterer approach eh? Here's a solution: rebrand all comps as grammars and be done with it.

>>8424370
>I think you're talking about faith schools and needing to live within the historical area of a parish.

No? Location gives "priority access" to any child living in the catchment area of a comprehensive school. I don't know the impact of academies, but about 80% of all students still go to comprehensives in England and Wales.

>You're now confusing public schools with private schools in general.

Call them whatever you like. Fee-paying independent schools is what I am referring to.

>N Ireland has good grammars and good comps too, it isn't merely separating the wheat and chaff or some other nonsense.

You appear to be high on the spook of equality. Segregation by academic merit is exactly why they have a better overall system.

>The Gurney-Dixon report and Robbins report found that controlling for class this wasn't the case. In the latter, while the children of unskilled working class made up over a quarter of the student body at grammars, in the end they represented less than half a percent of those achieving 2 or more A-levels. Which is bloody useless.

First, look at the definition of skilled and unskilled in the report. Skilled includes carpenter, postmen, bus-drivers, etc. These people do not fall in the category of "wealthy". All and all, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled (the working class) make more than 60% of the students attending grammar schools. Semi-skilled is mostly blue collard jobs too.

Second, you must keep in mind the era at which this study was conducted. We're talking about an era where jobs in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy would land you in the middle class. The reason why so few of the "unskilled" students completed their A levels was because of social pressure from their direct environment. Good paying jobs that didn't require a university degree were plentiful. It's no surprise that so few of them did not pursue academic ambitions when a blue-collar job could quickly be obtained and help them provide income to their less-fortunate family.

The point is that a majority of the students attending grammar schools were of "working class" background and that A-levels were accessible to them because thanks to the good education provided by grammar schools. In our current times, these kids would not even stand a chance to attend good universities, despite their huge expansion.

>The morer is betterer approach eh? Here's a solution: rebrand all comps as grammars and be done with it.

You are definitely high on the spook of equality. The whole point of grammar schools is that they segregate based on academic merit. It's not just a brand, you stupid idiot. And the goal of having more grammar schools is that you can accommodate more children with superior academic abilities, as opposed to leaving them behind in comprehensives, with no academic future.

>>8413909
An anti-life sophist who thinks he was born in the wrong generation, though about one hundred years later than most 14 year olds lament about.
The conservative Piers Morgan, a pompous idiot that deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

>>8424709
>The whole point of grammar schools is that they segregate based on academic merit.
Almost every school does this anyway. And where you do have mixed ability classes, they have their benefits too. You're stuck on the banking model of education here I think. Because you are stuck on the spook of segregation or grammar schools or something.

Maybe if the case was being made for all students to leave with something like a pass/fail for secondary education you could claim a "spook of equality" or some shit, but the actual arguments have been that comps improve academic achievement while grammars even in their golden age were a bit shit unless you were affluent.

In my own experience, the actual quality of comps seems generally superior to that of grammars, privates and generally selective schools. The impression I get is the core teaching paradigm there is rote learning. Knowledge tends to be very shallow. The IB seems to do some good to counteract that but not all that much. Because teacher assessment and quality is mostly results based, when you introduce competition like with grammars they tend to work to the test from what I've seen. Which is shit.

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>>8425550

>And where you do have mixed ability classes, they have their benefits too.
>In my own experience, the actual quality of comps seems generally superior to that of grammars, privates and generally selective schools.

>>8425550
>And where you do have mixed ability classes
We only have those and it is very problematic for everyone above average. If you want to improve you need to have a teacher who will help you in his or her free time. When there is one either mentally challanged person it's often damaging for everyone else because you must focus much more on him or her than you would on the average kids.
But discipline is the biggest problem. If the teacher had the authority to beat the children the system would work much better. A bit hard to reintroduce now tho.

>>8425557

I know, right? I was laughing my ass off at that too.

Fuckin' trolls.

>>8425561
>We only have those
You don't even have those for many GCSE exams, don't make shit up brah.

>>8425570
I'm from an excommie slav country, just ranting because high school was awful because of retards, or rather, chads, they were as disruptive as niggers in USA.

>>8419446
this >>8419455 and Starkey and Scruton.

>>8414015
Fuck I hate mrrepzion
Also why is ethan klein on there, he's hardly atempting to be an intellectual

>>8424370
>You're now confusing public schools with private schools
In Britain, 'public' means 'private' and 'state school' means 'public'. In a British public school you'll still pay fees. Get the language right, then you won't have half the problems you're arguing about at the moment.

>>8425550
>they have their benefits too
ikr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aeH4vB37l0

>>8416041
The man must have had a complete breakdown.

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>>8425550
>In my own experience, the actual quality of comps seems generally superior to that of grammars, privates and generally selective schools. The impression I get is the core teaching paradigm there is rote learning. Knowledge tends to be very shallow

>>8425550
>Almost every school does this anyway.
?

>And where you do have mixed ability classes, they have their benefits too.
What are does benefits?

>You're stuck on the banking model of education here I think. Because you are stuck on the spook of segregation or grammar schools or something.
It's not a spook. Mixing abilities means going at the learning speed of the slowest students. There is no way this is beneficial for the brightest students. They will not learn as much as they could have learn had they been segregated and given classes to match their abilities. There are such things as good and bad students. How about making sure the brightest have access to the best schools instead of the richest (the current system)?

>comps improve academic achievement
Students from comprehensives are drastically underrepresented in Oxbridge, or any sphere of influence in society (parliament, industry, media, etc.). What are you rambling about?

>while grammars even in their golden age were a bit shit unless you were affluent
I explained this before. More than 60% of grammar school students were "working class". They received an excellent education, but did not pursue their A levels because, at the time, well-paying jobs did not require a university degree. The point is that they did attend grammar schools, and would have had a much better chance at attending university, thanks to that fact because they received a superior education.

Even today, grammar school students are overrepresented in Oxbridge, as opposed to comprehensive students who are underrepresented.

>In my own experience, the actual quality of comps seems generally superior to that of grammars, privates and generally selective schools.
Care to elaborate on your experience?

>The impression I get is the core teaching paradigm there is rote learning.
Learning by heart is absolutely necessary in primary school. Children don't have the academic curiosity to learn why 4x4 = 16.

>Knowledge tends to be very shallow.
More spook. What does it mean for knowledge to be shallow? Because something is learned by heart, it is somehow invalid?

For all the wrongs of the grammar schools, they are still part of a system that was better than the current comprehensive system, which has failed on all its promises and is now being quietly reformed before the UK sinks any lower in terms of education quality.

Fuck him

>>8425669

pump your brakes kid

>>8423467
>At least bright but poor children have a chance to get a good education with grammar school

They don't though, because the bright poor kids usually don't have educated parents who will in turn encourage their children to be educated or pay for tutors for additional teaching. Which means that most of the grammar school places will still go to middle class kids.

If you build a really good grammar school in a poor area all that will happen is that the richer families will commute or actually move into the area to take advantage.