Personal Biases and Reading.

The following is a review of a book and an analysis of my biases regarding how I approach and read information.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I should, more than anyone else, know that academia is not politically neutral. The popular media in the United Kingdom often portrays academia as too politically correct or left-leaning, but my experience tells me that this is far from the truth. At the same time, I must resist falling into the same trap as the popular media by generalising my experiences.

Writing this essay reminded me of an incident involving one of my ex-partners. He attended an interview for one of the big financial companies. When I asked him how the interview went, he said it was an informal conversation with the interviewer. The conversation, he informed me, was predominantly about their experiences at Cambridge University. One might ask about the relevance of this to the political impartiality of academia. The relevance is that it shows the lack of objectivity in academia; people are judged not only by what they know but by their social status and background. Why should one expect academia to be different from the societal context in which they are found?

I recently read Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sex in Early Modern Europe by Sir Noel Malcolm (2023). This book…