wrote, "is that the Americans American division of the world ments have been so absurd and on Federal Government in the he has written, one wonders demic virtue. Only a university ing Max Bauer, Saint Max; now Beloff. Professor Max Beloff, for colonial job properly and doing more devoted it badly." ("The Great Powers," eleven years Gladstone ProfesUp. 213), sor of Government and Public Administration at the Univer- When the U.S. opposed the sity of Oxford. Beloff has long been known as a fervent sup- a stern lesson in their imperialist duty from Beloff. porter of British foreign policy, "Englishmen will not easily for. the NATO alliance and get", he thundered, "... the American imperialism. In the indifference to our national 1950s he had the engaging habit of criticising the U.S.A. needs and those of our French the allies that these actions showed" for not accepting their colonial ("The Great Powers, p.189). responsibilities: the U.S., he argued, had the same "destiny" as the colonial nations this. "The important thing," he open plea for the chauvinism has never had a is known in though many have been more attacked progressive students of and teachers for being "unsuited" and "ill-equipped" for His recent outbursts against academic life; and has invoked Suez intervention, they received student power have occasioned the "disciplines" of his profesthe argument that American sion ("Sunday Telegraph" students in Britain who oppose June 9th, 1968). the Vietnam war and evade the draft should be deported to the The fact is that no-one is U.S.A. Would he have favoured more "unsuited" and equipped" than Beloff himself.
German students in the 1930s?
A professor of politics, he spent the first fourteen years of his His latest offering, a rather has emerged, on television and academic life studying and of slight collection of essays on in the press, as a hysterical teaching history; of the thirteen Europe and they should realise The Balance of Power, is an opponent of student power, or more books he has written Russo- although many of his argu- only one, a collection of lectures student's best friend". He has reveals a complete ignorance that he is a safe man, and that and Berlin could choose or susacademic system science. He has attacked other tends to appoint safe men. It is better to appoint an unimaginacommitment" to teaching: tive and mediocre impressario one who has attended Beloff's than a man whose ideas might lectures, I can say that they established were ill-prepared, and tediously unoriginal. party.
The only "discipline" Beloff's It is no wonder that Beloff is works reveal is a singular devoso terrified of university change tion to one, unerring formula:
A man so devoid of qualificatorpor interspersed with a dash tion would quickly be exposed of hysteria. The only "commitfor what he is if students were ment" he has is to imperialist ideology. allowed to challenge their teachers, and if conformism Leafing lengthy treatment - nor does tain such a man. he get it from any of his academic colleagues. His works are Beloff has attacked the largely ignored. Every society Chinese for their "threadbare throws up its apologists, and ideology and an overweening every society ignores them national pride"; but Beloff's when their quality becomes too own ideology is more than obvious. readbare, it is transparent; his The time has come to deitional pride gives the lie to canonise Saint Max II, and any claims about "academic those like him. A student movedetachment". While his stvle ment should combat the strucand principles are those of the tures and ideological content of most tawdry nineteenth-century university teaching of the kind liberalism, his politics are that that Beloff represents; and there of a NATO adviser.
could be no more cogent arguMarx devoted 277 pages of ment for the existence of such through the books were not the number one aca- his German Ideology to attack- a movement than a man like
13.6 THE BLACK DWARF