Here are some letters I wrote and sent to a publication in 1999.
When is an MA not an MA?
Oxbridge gives out fake degrees.
Dear Editor,
I "dropped out" of a B.A. degree at Cambridge University back in 1992, after 10 weeks of the course. My "dropping out" had a little measure of the Sixties meaning of the phrase.
The unthinkable Gulf "War" of the year before had made the bottom "drop out" of my world.
I was of course told that I could return when I "felt better". The technical term for "to leave with the intention of returning" at Cambridge University is, perhaps deliberately, "to degrade". At the time I didn't feel degraded, I in fact felt quite relieved.
Today I am very thankful to be alive and not to have gone back to live in that beautiful city full of rather inanimate people. I was very lucky that I later was able to come to Southampton, which, so far, seems to have been the best thing I have ever done. Recently, I was quite surprised to receive a letter asking me if I wanted to come up to Cambridge University to receive a Master of Arts degree. Obviously there was some kind of mistake and I seemed to still be on the college roll, and since three years had passed since I would have completed my B.A., it was, of course, time for me to get my M.A. Perhaps the letter was some kind of sick "joke". Well, I haven't completed my B.A. yet, and I do not intend to receive an M.A. until I have actually done one.
You see, I don't know if you know, but those "in the know" know that if someone obtains a B.A. degree at Oxford University or Cambridge University, or "Oxbridge" in English class jargon, then they have the automatic right to obtain an M.A. degree if they pay a small fee and attend some kind of ceremony three years later. They can also signal this by referring to it as an M.A. (Cantab.) or M.A. (Oxon.), just so people know. If more people knew that it didn't necessarily signify an M.A. degree at all, then maybe some Oxbridge graduates wouldn't be quite so keen to do so. I think it is an outrage that someone can get a Master of Arts degree for quite simply paying 20 pounds (I see it's gone up) and then having a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich. It's sickening.
Also, at "Oxbridge, " people who do science degrees get B.A.s and M.A.s when they studied science and not arts, which is incidentally highly unscientific. I personally believe that it cannot be contended that a Cambridge or Oxford B.A. course confers anything special or different on someone who completes it that hence warrants a further special award. Besides all this, if you are awarded a master's degree you should have done a master's degree, which of course usually involves independent research of some kind. I am pretty sure that nothing quite like this anachronistic 'automatic M.A.' phenomenon exists in any other country's university system.
If English Universities want to be elitist, or have an American-style "Ivy League" (just like we seem to want an American political system with two identical political parties) or even an American-style everything, well that's their problem. But please, for once, make it fair and logical! I personally think it is typical of the class system rubbish that still pervades English culture. It really is high time it all went.
Let's hope Tony Blair gets rid of the House of Lords soon too. This was incidentally promised in the 1911 Act of Parliament that reduced the hereditary element of our Supreme Court of Law to half the seats. Look at your calendar. It is now 1999. The House of Lords is quite uniquely and obscenely outdated and no comparable institution exists in a democracy anywhere. And this is in the "mother of parliaments". I could, of course, go on but I will just say "Hmmm... "
Yours truly,
Anon.
The Editor replied as follows:
While I am full of sympathy for Anon's position, I can afford to be such a patronising b*st*rd because I actually have one of those Oxbridge things, and I don't think anyone is fooled by them in any way that really matters, since a real M.A. usually relates to a very specific course and the acquisition of a particular skill, so people will want to know what you did your M.A. in and where you did it. Universities, to this very day, are based on tradition (though unfortunately no one shows you how to wear those bizarre hoods they put round your neck at graduation as proper mediaeval garments, which is a pity, otherwise it could all turn into the opening of The Hobbit, where the coat-hooks in Bilbo's hall are filled with all manner of hoods, varying widely in colour, size and shape!) Let's be clear that the Oxbridge M.A. replaces the B.A., whereas the modern one is additional to it.
Oxbridge promotes people from Bachelors to Masters for having survived for a year after their first degree no mean achievement if you consider the nature of life in a mediaeval university! The extra maturity means (in Cambridge, anyway) better borrowing rights from the University Library. In the same way, the degrees of B.A. and M.A. are left over from the Middle Ages, when no real division was made between the Sciences and the Arts, it was all Knowledge, and the liberal arts included arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy and Chaucer, the poet, knew enough about science to write a book teaching his kid to use the astrolabe.
Oxbridge did it all first, and hasn't bothered to change. If a degree is a degree, and indicates the same level of skill in each discipline, does it really matter what it's called? Since the English Parliament really is a bit older, as an effective entity, than anyone else's, it's not surprising it has traditional elements like the House of Lords still hanging on to it. No particular defence springs to mind, except that you can actually see who the b*gg*rs are that want to defy the will of the people's duly elected representatives, which is not always the case elsewhere.
I daringly replied to the Editor as follows.
Anon again: is England in Europe?
Dear Editor,
Thanks for your sympathy, which is much appreciated. I would like to reply to your reply if I may. I am sorry but it does matter what you call things. It does matter what you call degrees. It really does matter. If a spade is called a spade it ought to be a spade. I am convinced that the anomalous "Oxbridge MA" phenomenon, which engendered the ire of my last letter, should be reformed in some way, like so much else, if only because I am unfortunately a rational human being who is capable of elementary logic. If it "fools no one" then what is the point in it? If it doesn't matter what it's called then why are you so keen for it to continue being called what it is obviously not?
I really do think it is a class-culture issue too because Oxbridge is still dominated by Public School pupils (or, to use a more logical term, Private School pupils). On the subject of secondary education, England is perhaps the only country in Europe in which if parents want to guarantee a quality education for their child they have to pay through the nose for it. To me this is barbarism.
It really isn't fair that some duffer who went to Eton (believe me, I have met them) can just scrape an Oxbridge degree and automatically get an M.A., when someone who gets a decent degree anywhere else in England ends up with a B.A. or B.Sc. It's just a perpetuation of this ridiculous accent-obsessed class culture that England has. Thankfully it seems to be dying out.
Apart from any of that it must be said: if, by convention, in every single other university in England an M.A. means one thing, why must it mean, by convention, something completely different at Oxbridge??! What a bunch of tossers!
I think tradition is a very good thing, but not when it makes no sense whatsoever. I am thoroughly on the side of challenging the distinction between Arts and Sciences, and of making universities less specialised. Chaucer et al. no doubt have much to teach us today in this respect. It's just that whatever system is chosen, we ought to try and make it consistent. My brother did a 3-year degree in Engineering (and nothing else at all) at Cambridge and now has an M.A. He certainly didn't study the wonderful mediaeval plethora of subjects that you described. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded. The Oxbridge system is not logical in its present form. In many European countries you most usually go to your local university or a university that is good for your course.
The hierarchical hit parade system of English universities that mirrors the U.S. system is to me a very regrettable set-up. Many other Europeans would not only find the hit parade silly, but would not actually comprehend it. Is it really true that Oxbridge did it all first? Oxford and Cambridge were the first universities in England, and so in England they did do it all first. But the oldest university in Europe is in Bologna in Italy, a country from which, let's not forget, much of European civilisation springs. I suspect that Bologna, for example, no longer awards the mediaeval-style qualifications that, as you so clearly explained, Oxbridge, for some reason, or perhaps for no reason, still does award.
It would be interesting to find out. In your reply you wrote that the English Parliament really is a bit older, as an effective entity, than anyone else's. Is that really true? What about that Icelandic parliament which is rather old? What about the Ancient Greek assemblies?
Were these not, in their own contexts, effective entities? I concede that it may well have been the first body that at least claimed in some abstract sense to represent the entirety of the common people, as opposed to elite groups. We should ask a mediaeval historian.
England may possess the Mother of Parliaments, though to me this is rather dubious rhetoric. England certainly wasn't the first to come up with some form of the idea of democracy, which, like so much else, is an Ancient Greek word and an Ancient Greek invention.
As far as I am concerned, England has never been a true modern democracy, since it has never had proportional representation, which is that strange continental and Scandinavian thing in which votes actually count, as once upon a time John Cleese so wondrously explained.
Margaret Thatcher, for example, never received more than 43 per cent of the UK vote. Her government did not carry out policies that conformed to the views of a majority of voters. Is that a true democracy? The answer, of course, is "No".
I personally think that, in the case of Thatcher's 1979-1990 reign, this was rather unfortunate, since her government was by far the most right wing since 1945. You wrote that "...it's not surprising it [the English Parliament] has traditional elements like the House of Lords still hanging on to it." No it's not surprising, it is more than that, in 1999 it is absolutely staggering and incredible. Some other European countries did have hereditary chambers in this century, but I am pretty sure that they all went before about 1950. Is England in a continent called Europe? I personally like to try and believe that it is.
Yours truly and respectfully,
Even more Anon.
[1] "Probably the oldest educational institution in the world is the University of Karueein, founded in AD 859 in Fez, Morocco. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088....," The Guinness Book of Records, 1983 edition.
[The Athenian Academy and other ancient places of learning are, I assume, in the eyes of the wise Guinness brewers, not strictly educational institutions.].
[2] "The earliest known legislative assembly was a bicameral one in Erech, Iraq c.2800 BC. The oldest legislative body is the Althing of Iceland founded in AD 930....restored by Denmark to a...legislative status in 1874.", ibidem.
The Editor replied again:
An Editor is someone who always has to have the last word. A teacher is someone who is prepared to work hard in order to win an argument. A researcher is someone who has to look things up. The nearest approach to a degree which is recognised and acknowledged throughout Europe (as far as I know) is a doctorate, whether it's called a Ph.D. (at the one I went to) or a D.Phil. (at the Other Place). French universities qualify people as Licencie' es Lettres (Licensed to Use Letters French ones, perhaps, but then, if we're talking about Licenced To Do Anything Else, it's worth remembering that in France 00 as a prefix is what you find on the door of the lavatory.) German and Austrian universities have no degree qualification before the Magister (and they, as you will notice, stick to the Latin terminology at least we've got beyond that!).
Arguments at the Althing were often settled by force of arms (see Egil's Saga) or at least the very visible threat of violence from a strong power-base (how unlike our own Senate!), and, as is evident from the note, the Althing ceased to have real power for a lot longer than the years during which the unrepresentative Father and Mother of All Parliaments did the Iron Lady's bidding. Padova certainly preserves all the picturesque mediaeval ceremonies, and I imagine Bologna displays a similar amount of sauce. The pecking order of Continental European universities indubitably exists, though it's probably slightly less devious and antiquated than in this country, but then they don't have an RAE. All in all, Anon's trouble in coming to grips with reality is easily diagnosed: s/he is a self- proclaimed rational human being. I rest my case.
----------------
Fair point that:)
------
No it's not actually.
"All in all, Anon's trouble in coming to grips with reality..."
Who is to say I have no grip on reality?
Is it not on the contrary England that has no grip on reality?
*text deleted* (count yourselves lucky)
--------
Post script. 9th March 2007.
There is a problem with people buying fake degrees from the internet and from US universities of dubious standards.
It's hard to criticise them when the English-speaking world's two most august institutions give out what are in effect fake degrees.
Oxbridge is not a particularly civilised educational system. It's the educational equivalent of a battery farm.
Oxbridge still dominates the upper echelons of English/UK society. Oxbridge graduates dominate the legal and political worlds.
Whilst there is no attempt to make these instiutions fair, civilised and genuinely open to those who have ability rather than those with money and connections, this, like so much else in England, is a disgrace.
The Editor mentions German universities, but neglects to point out that many Germans spend much longer at university than UK students. One reason is that university is not seen there as just something you do in order to get a job.....
Also at continental universities it's quite OK to fail a year, repeat a year, change course and things like that. In England such things are something akin to the end of the world.
This is even more the case now that the prison of fees has arrived.
------
Another thing I didn't like about Cambridge was that I was forced to do many things I didn't want to do, which had nothing whatsoever to do with my studies.
Truly going to Oxbridge can be a bit like joining a cult or joining the Masons. Things I don't want to do.
Also, it should not be forgotten that Universities originated largely in the Islamic world.
This is not nearly well enough recognised or appreciated.
-----
After nearly a century of trying, it looks as if the House of Lords will be fully rid of it's hereditary element. Why is there no debate or democratic consultation about what to put in its place?
....
NOTE ON Anti-French RACISM 2008:
Note the unsubstantiated and insubstantial dig at the French in the Editor's response above.
Similar to the one made by Richard Dawkins in his famous book (cited elsewhere in this think tank).
But that's par for the course in England.
Anti-French racism is so acceptable in England as to be allowed as part of national life.
The Daily Torygraph has regular features on things like "100 Reasons to Hate the French".
Or if it doesn't it would love to.
Anne Robinson was nearly arrested when she put Wales into Room 101 on BBC TV.
Not long afterwards Desmond Lynam put France into Room 101 and the whole place arose in cheers. No police called on him. Why not?
If we hate the French so much why is the motto of the monarchy - and by extension the motto of our so-called "country" - in French?
But as an editor is someone who always has to have the last word, I will let the Editor have the last word. See if you can understand what he's saying, because I know I can't:
French universities qualify people as Licencie' es Lettres (Licensed to Use Letters).
French ones, perhaps, but then, if we're talking about Licenced To Do Anything Else, it's worth remembering that in France 00 as a prefix is what you find on the door of the lavatory.)
---------------------------
P.S. (again:) February 2008.
Apparently a similar arrangement exists at Trinity College, Dublin according to Wikipedia.
I still stand by what I say here and look forward to the day when the hallowed institutions that we are taught all our lives to idolise desist from giving out fake degrees.
I am proud to have dropped out of a University that gives out fake degrees, and I am proud to have pissed on the college library.
There's an "intellectual secret society" - that's a contradiction in terms if you ask me - at Cambridge Uni' called "The Cambridge Apostles".
Giving out fake degrees isn't very intellectual.
Other points about my brief time at Cambridge:
- I was never ever told exactly what "degrading" meant. What my rights and responsibilities were.
- I was never ever told how Cambridge and studying at Cambridge worked.
- I was often made to feel that I had to talk at Cambridge supervisions when I had nothing to say. I was encouraged to waffle. I had nothing to say partly because it was me who was being taught and I was waiting to be taught.
- It was just assumed that I would know what to do and any divergence from this meant that I was lazy or avoiding work or set upon enjoying myself rather than studying. Enjoying yourself in Cambridge was a hard task indeed. Not something I ever achieved.
- The pastoral care was awful. No care or compassion at all. Stony faced survival of the fittest.
- The hypocrisy about sex was disgusting. I was regarded as odd for wanting a relationship while everyone shagged like bunnies. But that's England not Cambridge.
- There are loads of upper class twits there who in all justice and if the place had a truly meritocratic entrance system, shouldn't be there but are there because they went to a posh school that prepares you for "Oxbridge". E.g. Brainless Boris Johnson.
- I once saw Stephen Hawking whizzing around whilst I was there. I can't help thinking that it is possible that he is the most passionate and animated person in Cambridge, and he can hardly move and is in a wheelchair.
.....
....
More carping to follow.
----
June 08.
There has been talk of reforming the anomaly of the "Oxbridge MA."
The impetus seems to have come not from those in the academic world who may simply believe in fairness and logic, but from people in the business world who seek qualification transparency etc.
---
I received a letter from the college apologising for sending me the letter asking me to come and get an MA, saying that my views on the existence of this "qualification" had been taken into account, and furthermore assuring me that I should not be bothered by them again.
Well I am going to bother them until they stop giving out fake degrees, and employing idiots as academics amongst other things!
I met quite a few academics at Cambridge, and many of them were idiots.
When is an MA not an MA?
Oxbridge gives out fake degrees.
Dear Editor,
I "dropped out" of a B.A. degree at Cambridge University back in 1992, after 10 weeks of the course. My "dropping out" had a little measure of the Sixties meaning of the phrase.
The unthinkable Gulf "War" of the year before had made the bottom "drop out" of my world.
I was of course told that I could return when I "felt better". The technical term for "to leave with the intention of returning" at Cambridge University is, perhaps deliberately, "to degrade". At the time I didn't feel degraded, I in fact felt quite relieved.
Today I am very thankful to be alive and not to have gone back to live in that beautiful city full of rather inanimate people. I was very lucky that I later was able to come to Southampton, which, so far, seems to have been the best thing I have ever done. Recently, I was quite surprised to receive a letter asking me if I wanted to come up to Cambridge University to receive a Master of Arts degree. Obviously there was some kind of mistake and I seemed to still be on the college roll, and since three years had passed since I would have completed my B.A., it was, of course, time for me to get my M.A. Perhaps the letter was some kind of sick "joke". Well, I haven't completed my B.A. yet, and I do not intend to receive an M.A. until I have actually done one.
You see, I don't know if you know, but those "in the know" know that if someone obtains a B.A. degree at Oxford University or Cambridge University, or "Oxbridge" in English class jargon, then they have the automatic right to obtain an M.A. degree if they pay a small fee and attend some kind of ceremony three years later. They can also signal this by referring to it as an M.A. (Cantab.) or M.A. (Oxon.), just so people know. If more people knew that it didn't necessarily signify an M.A. degree at all, then maybe some Oxbridge graduates wouldn't be quite so keen to do so. I think it is an outrage that someone can get a Master of Arts degree for quite simply paying 20 pounds (I see it's gone up) and then having a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich. It's sickening.
Also, at "Oxbridge, " people who do science degrees get B.A.s and M.A.s when they studied science and not arts, which is incidentally highly unscientific. I personally believe that it cannot be contended that a Cambridge or Oxford B.A. course confers anything special or different on someone who completes it that hence warrants a further special award. Besides all this, if you are awarded a master's degree you should have done a master's degree, which of course usually involves independent research of some kind. I am pretty sure that nothing quite like this anachronistic 'automatic M.A.' phenomenon exists in any other country's university system.
If English Universities want to be elitist, or have an American-style "Ivy League" (just like we seem to want an American political system with two identical political parties) or even an American-style everything, well that's their problem. But please, for once, make it fair and logical! I personally think it is typical of the class system rubbish that still pervades English culture. It really is high time it all went.
Let's hope Tony Blair gets rid of the House of Lords soon too. This was incidentally promised in the 1911 Act of Parliament that reduced the hereditary element of our Supreme Court of Law to half the seats. Look at your calendar. It is now 1999. The House of Lords is quite uniquely and obscenely outdated and no comparable institution exists in a democracy anywhere. And this is in the "mother of parliaments". I could, of course, go on but I will just say "Hmmm... "
Yours truly,
Anon.
The Editor replied as follows:
While I am full of sympathy for Anon's position, I can afford to be such a patronising b*st*rd because I actually have one of those Oxbridge things, and I don't think anyone is fooled by them in any way that really matters, since a real M.A. usually relates to a very specific course and the acquisition of a particular skill, so people will want to know what you did your M.A. in and where you did it. Universities, to this very day, are based on tradition (though unfortunately no one shows you how to wear those bizarre hoods they put round your neck at graduation as proper mediaeval garments, which is a pity, otherwise it could all turn into the opening of The Hobbit, where the coat-hooks in Bilbo's hall are filled with all manner of hoods, varying widely in colour, size and shape!) Let's be clear that the Oxbridge M.A. replaces the B.A., whereas the modern one is additional to it.
Oxbridge promotes people from Bachelors to Masters for having survived for a year after their first degree no mean achievement if you consider the nature of life in a mediaeval university! The extra maturity means (in Cambridge, anyway) better borrowing rights from the University Library. In the same way, the degrees of B.A. and M.A. are left over from the Middle Ages, when no real division was made between the Sciences and the Arts, it was all Knowledge, and the liberal arts included arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy and Chaucer, the poet, knew enough about science to write a book teaching his kid to use the astrolabe.
Oxbridge did it all first, and hasn't bothered to change. If a degree is a degree, and indicates the same level of skill in each discipline, does it really matter what it's called? Since the English Parliament really is a bit older, as an effective entity, than anyone else's, it's not surprising it has traditional elements like the House of Lords still hanging on to it. No particular defence springs to mind, except that you can actually see who the b*gg*rs are that want to defy the will of the people's duly elected representatives, which is not always the case elsewhere.
I daringly replied to the Editor as follows.
Anon again: is England in Europe?
Dear Editor,
Thanks for your sympathy, which is much appreciated. I would like to reply to your reply if I may. I am sorry but it does matter what you call things. It does matter what you call degrees. It really does matter. If a spade is called a spade it ought to be a spade. I am convinced that the anomalous "Oxbridge MA" phenomenon, which engendered the ire of my last letter, should be reformed in some way, like so much else, if only because I am unfortunately a rational human being who is capable of elementary logic. If it "fools no one" then what is the point in it? If it doesn't matter what it's called then why are you so keen for it to continue being called what it is obviously not?
I really do think it is a class-culture issue too because Oxbridge is still dominated by Public School pupils (or, to use a more logical term, Private School pupils). On the subject of secondary education, England is perhaps the only country in Europe in which if parents want to guarantee a quality education for their child they have to pay through the nose for it. To me this is barbarism.
It really isn't fair that some duffer who went to Eton (believe me, I have met them) can just scrape an Oxbridge degree and automatically get an M.A., when someone who gets a decent degree anywhere else in England ends up with a B.A. or B.Sc. It's just a perpetuation of this ridiculous accent-obsessed class culture that England has. Thankfully it seems to be dying out.
Apart from any of that it must be said: if, by convention, in every single other university in England an M.A. means one thing, why must it mean, by convention, something completely different at Oxbridge??! What a bunch of tossers!
I think tradition is a very good thing, but not when it makes no sense whatsoever. I am thoroughly on the side of challenging the distinction between Arts and Sciences, and of making universities less specialised. Chaucer et al. no doubt have much to teach us today in this respect. It's just that whatever system is chosen, we ought to try and make it consistent. My brother did a 3-year degree in Engineering (and nothing else at all) at Cambridge and now has an M.A. He certainly didn't study the wonderful mediaeval plethora of subjects that you described. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded. The Oxbridge system is not logical in its present form. In many European countries you most usually go to your local university or a university that is good for your course.
The hierarchical hit parade system of English universities that mirrors the U.S. system is to me a very regrettable set-up. Many other Europeans would not only find the hit parade silly, but would not actually comprehend it. Is it really true that Oxbridge did it all first? Oxford and Cambridge were the first universities in England, and so in England they did do it all first. But the oldest university in Europe is in Bologna in Italy, a country from which, let's not forget, much of European civilisation springs. I suspect that Bologna, for example, no longer awards the mediaeval-style qualifications that, as you so clearly explained, Oxbridge, for some reason, or perhaps for no reason, still does award.
It would be interesting to find out. In your reply you wrote that the English Parliament really is a bit older, as an effective entity, than anyone else's. Is that really true? What about that Icelandic parliament which is rather old? What about the Ancient Greek assemblies?
Were these not, in their own contexts, effective entities? I concede that it may well have been the first body that at least claimed in some abstract sense to represent the entirety of the common people, as opposed to elite groups. We should ask a mediaeval historian.
England may possess the Mother of Parliaments, though to me this is rather dubious rhetoric. England certainly wasn't the first to come up with some form of the idea of democracy, which, like so much else, is an Ancient Greek word and an Ancient Greek invention.
As far as I am concerned, England has never been a true modern democracy, since it has never had proportional representation, which is that strange continental and Scandinavian thing in which votes actually count, as once upon a time John Cleese so wondrously explained.
Margaret Thatcher, for example, never received more than 43 per cent of the UK vote. Her government did not carry out policies that conformed to the views of a majority of voters. Is that a true democracy? The answer, of course, is "No".
I personally think that, in the case of Thatcher's 1979-1990 reign, this was rather unfortunate, since her government was by far the most right wing since 1945. You wrote that "...it's not surprising it [the English Parliament] has traditional elements like the House of Lords still hanging on to it." No it's not surprising, it is more than that, in 1999 it is absolutely staggering and incredible. Some other European countries did have hereditary chambers in this century, but I am pretty sure that they all went before about 1950. Is England in a continent called Europe? I personally like to try and believe that it is.
Yours truly and respectfully,
Even more Anon.
[1] "Probably the oldest educational institution in the world is the University of Karueein, founded in AD 859 in Fez, Morocco. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088....," The Guinness Book of Records, 1983 edition.
[The Athenian Academy and other ancient places of learning are, I assume, in the eyes of the wise Guinness brewers, not strictly educational institutions.].
[2] "The earliest known legislative assembly was a bicameral one in Erech, Iraq c.2800 BC. The oldest legislative body is the Althing of Iceland founded in AD 930....restored by Denmark to a...legislative status in 1874.", ibidem.
The Editor replied again:
An Editor is someone who always has to have the last word. A teacher is someone who is prepared to work hard in order to win an argument. A researcher is someone who has to look things up. The nearest approach to a degree which is recognised and acknowledged throughout Europe (as far as I know) is a doctorate, whether it's called a Ph.D. (at the one I went to) or a D.Phil. (at the Other Place). French universities qualify people as Licencie' es Lettres (Licensed to Use Letters French ones, perhaps, but then, if we're talking about Licenced To Do Anything Else, it's worth remembering that in France 00 as a prefix is what you find on the door of the lavatory.) German and Austrian universities have no degree qualification before the Magister (and they, as you will notice, stick to the Latin terminology at least we've got beyond that!).
Arguments at the Althing were often settled by force of arms (see Egil's Saga) or at least the very visible threat of violence from a strong power-base (how unlike our own Senate!), and, as is evident from the note, the Althing ceased to have real power for a lot longer than the years during which the unrepresentative Father and Mother of All Parliaments did the Iron Lady's bidding. Padova certainly preserves all the picturesque mediaeval ceremonies, and I imagine Bologna displays a similar amount of sauce. The pecking order of Continental European universities indubitably exists, though it's probably slightly less devious and antiquated than in this country, but then they don't have an RAE. All in all, Anon's trouble in coming to grips with reality is easily diagnosed: s/he is a self- proclaimed rational human being. I rest my case.
----------------
Fair point that:)
------
No it's not actually.
"All in all, Anon's trouble in coming to grips with reality..."
Who is to say I have no grip on reality?
Is it not on the contrary England that has no grip on reality?
*text deleted* (count yourselves lucky)
--------
Post script. 9th March 2007.
There is a problem with people buying fake degrees from the internet and from US universities of dubious standards.
It's hard to criticise them when the English-speaking world's two most august institutions give out what are in effect fake degrees.
Oxbridge is not a particularly civilised educational system. It's the educational equivalent of a battery farm.
Oxbridge still dominates the upper echelons of English/UK society. Oxbridge graduates dominate the legal and political worlds.
Whilst there is no attempt to make these instiutions fair, civilised and genuinely open to those who have ability rather than those with money and connections, this, like so much else in England, is a disgrace.
The Editor mentions German universities, but neglects to point out that many Germans spend much longer at university than UK students. One reason is that university is not seen there as just something you do in order to get a job.....
Also at continental universities it's quite OK to fail a year, repeat a year, change course and things like that. In England such things are something akin to the end of the world.
This is even more the case now that the prison of fees has arrived.
------
Another thing I didn't like about Cambridge was that I was forced to do many things I didn't want to do, which had nothing whatsoever to do with my studies.
Truly going to Oxbridge can be a bit like joining a cult or joining the Masons. Things I don't want to do.
Also, it should not be forgotten that Universities originated largely in the Islamic world.
This is not nearly well enough recognised or appreciated.
-----
After nearly a century of trying, it looks as if the House of Lords will be fully rid of it's hereditary element. Why is there no debate or democratic consultation about what to put in its place?
....
NOTE ON Anti-French RACISM 2008:
Note the unsubstantiated and insubstantial dig at the French in the Editor's response above.
Similar to the one made by Richard Dawkins in his famous book (cited elsewhere in this think tank).
But that's par for the course in England.
Anti-French racism is so acceptable in England as to be allowed as part of national life.
The Daily Torygraph has regular features on things like "100 Reasons to Hate the French".
Or if it doesn't it would love to.
Anne Robinson was nearly arrested when she put Wales into Room 101 on BBC TV.
Not long afterwards Desmond Lynam put France into Room 101 and the whole place arose in cheers. No police called on him. Why not?
If we hate the French so much why is the motto of the monarchy - and by extension the motto of our so-called "country" - in French?
But as an editor is someone who always has to have the last word, I will let the Editor have the last word. See if you can understand what he's saying, because I know I can't:
French universities qualify people as Licencie' es Lettres (Licensed to Use Letters).
French ones, perhaps, but then, if we're talking about Licenced To Do Anything Else, it's worth remembering that in France 00 as a prefix is what you find on the door of the lavatory.)
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P.S. (again:) February 2008.
Apparently a similar arrangement exists at Trinity College, Dublin according to Wikipedia.
I still stand by what I say here and look forward to the day when the hallowed institutions that we are taught all our lives to idolise desist from giving out fake degrees.
I am proud to have dropped out of a University that gives out fake degrees, and I am proud to have pissed on the college library.
There's an "intellectual secret society" - that's a contradiction in terms if you ask me - at Cambridge Uni' called "The Cambridge Apostles".
Giving out fake degrees isn't very intellectual.
Other points about my brief time at Cambridge:
- I was never ever told exactly what "degrading" meant. What my rights and responsibilities were.
- I was never ever told how Cambridge and studying at Cambridge worked.
- I was often made to feel that I had to talk at Cambridge supervisions when I had nothing to say. I was encouraged to waffle. I had nothing to say partly because it was me who was being taught and I was waiting to be taught.
- It was just assumed that I would know what to do and any divergence from this meant that I was lazy or avoiding work or set upon enjoying myself rather than studying. Enjoying yourself in Cambridge was a hard task indeed. Not something I ever achieved.
- The pastoral care was awful. No care or compassion at all. Stony faced survival of the fittest.
- The hypocrisy about sex was disgusting. I was regarded as odd for wanting a relationship while everyone shagged like bunnies. But that's England not Cambridge.
- There are loads of upper class twits there who in all justice and if the place had a truly meritocratic entrance system, shouldn't be there but are there because they went to a posh school that prepares you for "Oxbridge". E.g. Brainless Boris Johnson.
- I once saw Stephen Hawking whizzing around whilst I was there. I can't help thinking that it is possible that he is the most passionate and animated person in Cambridge, and he can hardly move and is in a wheelchair.
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More carping to follow.
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P.S. May 2008.
As George Monbiot has pointed out in a recent article, in 2008 the "most right-wing government since 1945" is the present 97-08 NewLabourUSDemocratPartyofEngland government.
There has been talk of reforming the anomaly of the "Oxbridge MA."
The impetus seems to have come not from those in the academic world who may simply believe in fairness and logic, but from people in the business world who seek qualification transparency etc.
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I received a letter from the college apologising for sending me the letter asking me to come and get an MA, saying that my views on the existence of this "qualification" had been taken into account, and furthermore assuring me that I should not be bothered by them again.
Well I am going to bother them until they stop giving out fake degrees, and employing idiots as academics amongst other things!
I met quite a few academics at Cambridge, and many of them were idiots.
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Seeing as it's Cambridge's 800th Anniversary this year I think a good gesture for the future would be the scrapping of the fake MA.
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P.S. Re: Qualifications. 2009.
I stand by what I say here about the "Oxbridge" "MA".
(Western) European places of secondary and higher education - generally speaking - almost all traditionally recognise three levels of qualification in some way, shape or form:
bachelor, master and doctor.
In England, by accident, tradition and possibly snobbery, they are confused by the "Oxbridge" "MA".
Further, I don't think it is a trivial issue; and it goes to the heart of the problems that many people still have with these snobbish institutions.
The "Mother of All Parliaments":
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is subtly pointed out in my second letter above that the oldest assembly in the world is not in England but was in Iraq, a country England has been helping to destroy for 17 years.
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Another glaring and highly relevant omission from the above tussle is the fact that Oxford University - England's oldest university - was founded by refugees from the University of Paris - English students who were barred from studying there by an English king. Oxbridge is an off-shoot of the University of Paris.
This doesn't really sit well with the anti-French sentiment shown above. Nor with the anti-French animus shown elsewhere in English-speaking culture.
The arrogance shown here and at Oxbridge itself is such that such people would probably not want to be reminded of the fact that Oxbridge is an off-shoot of the University of Paris, nor that Oxford and Cambridge are not the oldest universities in the Known Universe; not to mention - though it sometimes seems that it does need to be mentioned - that they are not the only universities in the Known Universe.
:)
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UPDATE RE:LINGUISTICS. 2012 (Wow!).
When I attempted the Cambridge BA/MA??? way back in 1991, the Language degree was totally literature focused.....
When I eventually gained a BA at Southampton I was taught a fantastic year long basic Linguistics course - funnily enuff:) mainly by his saintliness "The Editor" writing above. :)
This was along with European History and Cultural Studies courses in the same first year. These three courses were excellent and COMPULSORY for all languages BA undergrads.
Nothing like this was provided at Cambridge. Not sure if that is the same today.....