Leys’s essays often combine delicacy with deep irony — a combination that few writers, especially in our times of stridency and parti pris, achieve. Here, for example, is the beginning of his essay “An Introduction to Confucius”: “If we consider humanity’s greatest teachers of wisdom — the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus — we are struck by a curious paradox: today, not one of them could obtain even the most modest of teaching posts in any of our universities”. We laugh — which, of course, is the best tribute to the seriousness of the point that he is making. He goes on to explain, “The reason is simple: their qualifications are insufficient — they have published nothing”.
In two sentences, Leys has pinned, like a butterfly to an entomologist’s board, the bureaucratic sickness that has overtaken our institutions of higher learning (and not only those institutions). There is no madness more difficult to treat than that which believes itself sane, and there is no irrationality greater than that which believes itself perfect. It is no surprise that Leys retired early from his university chair because the university no longer bore any resemblance to what it had once been and misled students and the rest of society into believing it still was. A community of scholars had become an organization of foremen on a production line.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Rare and Common Sense”, First Things, 2017-11.
April 11, 2025
QotD: Teaching in modern universities
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