Pano Kanelos: 'Ideology Is the Death of Ideas'

The president of the new University of Austin wants to reverse the decline of higher education in America.

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Pano Kanelos: 'Ideology Is the Death of Ideas'

Pano Kanelos is the president of the University of Austin, which will be admitting its first class of 100 students this fall. The college was founded in 2021 as an antidote to left-wing monoculture in academia and is committed to free speech and the pursuit of truth. Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with Kanelos, a Shakespeare scholar and first-generation college kid who grew up in a Greek diner in Chicago, about how the University of Austin will be different from virtually every other college around, why the humanities have virtually disappeared from higher education, and how a chance encounter with Nobel laureate Saul Bellow changed his life. He also does a quick, improvised close reading of the poem "Ovid in the Third Reich," by Geoffrey Hill, one of his major intellectual influences.

• Audio Production: Ian Keyser

Comments

[LIBertrans]

So is this an attempt to equivocate the study of ideas with the study of myticism?

[SQRLSY One]

Random thought, since you mentioned mysticism:

Badly-behaved Russian Cossacks carried on and raped young Native American women in Alaska way back when. When asked about their bad behavior, they were known to respond: "The Czar is far away and God is far above!"

[LIBertrans]

That is one of the setbacks to making values contingent on the whims of invisible and undetectable imaginary entities, like Russell's teapot. Such women were historically raped on the Atlantic side of both continents by Spaniards with similar if not identical superstitions. Since belief shorn of verifiable fact can neither be proved nor falsified, there is no limit to the violence and coercion it can be called upon to justify. Mencken's Treatise on Right and Wrong abdicated all claim to knowability either way.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Those superstitious Spaniards put an end to a bunch of superstitious human scarificers. Damn white people mess up everything.

[SQRLSY One]

Today we are SOOO much further advanced than that! We, instead, sacrifice fartility doctors and womb-slaves in defense, instead, of the Sacred Fartilized HUMAN Egg Smells!!! The fartilized egg smells of ALL other species may go to Hell in a handbasket, thank-you-very-much!!! 'Cause God told me so!!!!

[Truthfulness]

What is a woman? Maybe, just maybe, those “superstitious Spaniards” weren’t as dumb as Hank claims they were.

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

Of course if a man can become a woman then there is no such thing as either because we don't know what we are looking at if they themselves are on the way to being truly that 'other thing" 🙂

IF I am a man and become a woman and then --- follow me-- I de-transition, am I now truly a man whereas I wasn't before. See, it undoes the entire premise

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

THe best argument for what you oppose is how unhinged you've become for thinking pervertedly 🙂

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

No mysticism in that at all.That is evil folks explaining what they would have done anyway.

[SQRLSY One]

“The Czar is far away and God is far above!” Used ass an excuse by evil folks, granted. Also, when the cat's away, the mice will play!
Why can't we "be good for goodness's sake" alone? Frankly, twat I have seen is that the good will do good, and sometimes (in certain social circles at least) justify their good deeds from the Bible, or other Holy Book, if need be. And the evil will do the exact same thing!

"Holy Books" can be used to justify whatever you want! To wit:

God COMMANDS us to kill EVERYONE!

Our that them thar VALUES of society outta come from that them thar HOLY BIBLE, and if ya read it right, it actually says that God wants us to KILL EVERYBODY!!! Follow me through now: No one is righteous, NONE (Romans 3:10). Therefore, ALL must have done at least one thing bad, since they’d be righteous, had they never done anything bad. Well, maybe they haven’t actually DONE evil, maybe they THOUGHT something bad (Matt. 5:28, thoughts can be sins). In any case, they must’ve broken SOME commandment, in thinking or acting, or else they'd be righteous. James 2:10 tells us that if we've broken ANY commandment, we broke them ALL. Now we can’t weasel out of this by saying that the New Testament has replaced the Old Testament, because Christ said that he’s come to fulfill the old law, not to destroy it (Matt. 5:17). So we MUST conclude that all are guilty of everything. And the Old Testament lists many capital offenses! There’s working on Sunday. There’s also making sacrifices to, or worshipping, the wrong God (Exodus 22:20, Deut. 17:2-5), or even showing contempt for the Lord’s priests or judges (Deut. 17:12). All are guilty of everything, including the capital offenses. OK, so now we’re finally there... God’s Word COMMANDS us such that we’ve got to kill EVERYBODY!!!

(I am still looking for that special exception clause for me & my friends & family… I am sure that I will find it soon!)

[Uncle Jay]

'Ideology Is the Death of Ideas'

...and free speech is one of the leading causes of the death of tyranny.

[Vernon Depner]

Has any tyranny ever died without taking its entire society with it?

[Dan S.]

Of course. Portugal after Stroessner might be the cleanest example. Spain after Franco right next door, although that was pre-planned. Greece after the "colonels"? There are numerous examples in South America (like Brazil and Chile), although countries there often oscillate back and forth. In Africa, the worst tyrants (Amin, Bokassa, Mobuto) have been successfully overthrown, although the replacements may be less than ideal. Of course, there is Germany after Hitler, although they needed (massive) outside help. Even France, which I'm guessing you had in mind as an example of "taking its entire society with it", eventually became a functioning democracy (before as well as after Hitler) which still reveres the ideals of its Revolution. And does the U.S. count for overthrowing "British tyranny"?

Are you suggesting that people living under tyranny shouldn't even try to change their situation, for fear of taking down their "entire society with" the tyrant(s)? I hope not.

[LIBertrans]

When JFK was elected, nobody could say "pregnant" on any of the three networks. Today, fanatics of BOTH looter altruisms struggle to impose taboos on distributed electronic media. Of 240 million potential voters, half cast no votes whatsoever and only 3 to 4 million vote against the initiation of force. Ironically, the dog-eat-dog rapacity of both wings of the entrenched looter kleptocracy are what leverage those Libertarian spoiler votes, giving them fantastic law-repealing clout despite the Nixon law subsidizing only looters.

[Alan Vanneman]

Having read a few poems by Prez Kanelos, I would say that he wears his education on his sleeve. If I knew Latin, which I don't, I hope I wouldn't start off a poem with a few untranslated lines from Ovid--though I guess if I did know Latin, I might.

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

saw Horace quoted the other morning

“Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.”

— Horace

[Public Entelectual]

Kanelos sadly seems no more fluent in Latin as Nick.
The purpose of ths country's first university was clearly stated by its founders-
" one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.”

Classical illiteracy in a Harvard president trained as an MIT economist , like Larry Summers, is forgivable , if regrettable, but if Texas is going to save Western civilization, Kanelos will have to do better than butchering Ovid's love poetry.
The line from his R- rated Amores reads roughly:

"She sins not who can deny having sinned,
Only confessed guilt gains a woman fame"

[LIBertrans]

I searched their website. Nietzsche is mentioned en passant, even Orwell of the POUM. Ayn Rand and Tara Smith are, of course, unpersons. In Austin they teach math at the Community College and UTexas. The word mathematics appears on this new site, but I saw no particulars. It WOULD be nice if there were a math degree to be had that does not package-deal the Russian language.