Sam Chandler – Blogs Don't Burn

May 21, 2024

Our universities are failing to tackle student antisemitism

This OpEd was published in CapX on 21st May, 2024

Earlier this month, university leaders from around the country were summoned to Downing Street to discuss the recent explosion of antisemitism on UK campuses, which has been so extreme that the Community Security Trust (CST) labelled it a ‘watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK’.

Unfortunately, despite strong statements from the government that this newest revival of the world’s oldest hatred will not be tolerated, many of the solutions being proposed lack real teeth. If policymakers really want to make an impact on campus antisemitism, they should start naming and shaming those universities which are doing the least to address the crisis.

May 8, 2024May 12, 2024

It’s time for the UK to acknowledge the Armenian genocide

This OpEd was originally published in Reaction on 8th May, 2024

On 24th April, Armenians around the world gathered to observe Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. At local churches and memorials, they commemorated the 1.5 million Armenians who were systematically killed by Ottoman authorities between 1915 and 1923; to this day one of the worst massacres in human history.

Tragically, their pain will be compounded by the ongoing denial and obfuscation of governments across the world, many of whom still refuse to acknowledge it even took place. The UK, for example, has never formally acknowledged the Armenian genocide — and only 33 countries around the world have. Sadly, even the Armenian government itself is beginning to buckle to international pressure, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan telling his people to “overcome [their] trauma.”

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024

A practical and informative ‘Livewell Guide’ is preferable to prohibition

This OpEd was originally published in Comment Central on 21st March, 2024

Health policy in the UK has taken a rather sharp prohibitionist turn in recent years, with the government increasingly willing to stifle the sale of unhealthy products through regulation. Cigarettes and disposable vapes will soon be effectively banned across the country, and crackdowns on junk food and energy drinks may soon follow.

Whilst these attempts to safeguard public health are well-meaning, they are unlikely to achieve lasting behavioural change. Policymakers’ efforts would be better spent making sure people have the requisite knowledge and skills to improve their lifestyles on their own.

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024

Targeted literacy support could help millions of boys struggling at school

This OpEd was originally published in ConservativeHome on 1st February, 2024

A recent study from the University of Cambridge highlights the wide disparity in educational outcomes between boys and girls, an enduring problem which has existed in UK schools for decades. Despite evidence this gap is having a profound impact on the prospects of millions of boys and men, this topic has gone largely unnoticed by policymakers.

The study, which analysed data at all stages of British education, found a consistent trend of “higher female attainment, and higher female participation” at GCSE, A-Level, Higher Education (HE), and even at Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) where children are aged four and five.

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023

‘Ghastly Marionettes with Human Faces’ – Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism

Background: This essay was written in 2019 as part of a master’s degree. It has since been updated to reflect my evolving thoughts on the horrors of totalitarianism, and indeed human evil in general. Whilst the conclusions below are my own, this should be seen more as an illustration of Hannah Arendt’s writings on totalitarianism in the 20th century.

This essay will outline Hannah Arendt’s account of the unprecedented evil of totalitarianism in the 20^th century, with specific focus on the regimes of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. This will be done first by outlining the distinctive nature of totalitarianism, and why it cannot be captured under the conventional categories of moral and political thought. Next, I will unpack the comparison that Arendt makes between common sense and ideological ‘supersense’, which will lead into an attempt to distinguish the radical evil of totalitarianism from more conventional forms of evil.

April 18, 2023

Chronological Snobbery: Present-Elitism and the Teen Age

In The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (2022), feminist author Louise Perry uses a phrase which captures one of the governing spirits of our age: ‘chronological snobbery’. Coined by C.S. Lewis, this term refers to the human tendency to uncritically accept the cultural and intellectual trends of the present, whilst rejecting as ‘outdated’ anything which came before some arbitrary cut-off point.

In essence, this is the ethos of the rebellious teenager run amok: a fiery urge to cast off the stifling rules and mores of the fuddy-duddy elders. This powerful, almost primordial force is a common feature of adolescence, as indeed it should be. Rebellion against authority is a healthy part of our ungainly slouch towards adulthood, provided this Life of Brian-esque chorus of ‘I am an individual’ is artfully managed by society.

November 25, 2022November 28, 2023

Stray Thoughts: The ‘Ultimate Fidelity’

Note: The title art for this post is ‘Ouroborous, Cosmic Loveheart’ by Silvana D. You can see more of her work on Etsy.

A few posts ago, I tried to illustrate the profoundly dark mindset that human beings can fall into during the most extreme moments of suffering and resentment. This attitude, which I associate with the ‘extinction-drive’ (the yearning to put an end to life itself in the face of overwhelming suffering), can be captured in a single term: Invidia Fati. Literally meaning the ‘hatred of fate’, this life-negating maxim has been a major motivator in countless acts of death, destruction, and mayhem throughout human history.

In essence, it is nihilism-turned-activism; the result of a process by which evil is perversely elevated to the status of the Highest Good. Faced with a world too painful to endure, some poor wretches become genuinely convinced that the only solution to the problem of life is to tear the whole damn thing down and stamp it into oblivion. ‘Burn down the circus, kill all the clowns, and end the great cosmic joke forever’. This is the cynical, even genocidal impulse which motivates such characters.

September 22, 2022

The Stoic Lens: Rudyard Kipling’s If

If by Rudyard Kipling is one of those seminal works of Victorian-era stoicism that never gets old no matter how many times I read it.

Perhaps it’s the lyrical, chant-like structure of the text – in combination with its powerful, prosaic language – which makes it so magnetic? Or maybe the philosophical content of Kipling’s poem is the major invisible hook? After all, If remains one of the most concise and profound illustrations of ‘big S’ Stoicism that I’ve come across in literature. (Regular readers will be painfully aware of my own obsession with that School…)

April 26, 2022

Death and Nostalgia in How Green Was My Valley

In the final pages of Richard Lewellyn`s rural Welsh masterpiece How Green Was My Valley, we get this beautiful passage on life, death, and loss, which should resonate with anyone who has ever felt a pang of nostalgia for days gone by:

“An age of goodness I knew, and badness too, mind, but more of good than bad, I will swear. At least we knew good food, and good work, and goodness in men and women. But you have gone now, all of you, that were so beautiful when you were quick with life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind, So how are you dead, my brothers and sisters, and all of you, when you live with me as surely as I live myself?

March 6, 2022March 9, 2022

Dissecting a frog – is comedy dying in the West?

There’s a famous line by E.B. White which has been rattling around my head the last few weeks. It goes like this: “Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies in the process”. This is a brilliant line, of course, but lately I can’t help thinking that the inimitable White was slightly off-the-mark on this one. After all, can a joke really be understood better by analysing it to death? Or does the process of picking it apart not only kill its impact, but also compromise our ability to understand it?

You couldn’t truly ‘understand’ a painting by dividing it into separate heaps of coloured paint. In the same way, trying to reach some objective or rational understanding of a joke –usually attempted by shearing it from context and distilling its contents under a mental microscope – can only hope to give us the most simplistic and rudimentary of knowledge.