Chelsea Charms Next Drain

When the visceral passion prevails over reason: Joseph Fontana and Jordi Nadal dismissed as honorary doctorates from the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona

From time then the English university is shaken by news that leave speechless. I know you should not use an unfortunate event to signify that as it occurs in an institution that, above all, is complex and enormous heterogeneity. In all there are, indeed, in this world of teaching and research worthy of all sorts of statements and assessments. Coexists excellence with mediocrity, opportunism with the work rigorous, independent and self-sacrificing. The nerve with the serious and responsible. Let each assume their share of responsibility and the mechanisms that weigh the work you put in place because, ultimately, sooner or later, you can differentiate, in this heterogeneous world and full of contradictions, which is bargain and what is ore.

meantime, it is difficult to understand events that cry out to heaven and insult the intelligence. In the Autonomous University of Barcelona, \u200b\u200b one that shone in the seventies as "island of freedom", members of the Board of Faculty of Arts rejected the proposal to appoint doctors " honorary to historians Joseph Fontana and Jordi Nadal. have blocked and a process that should culminate in the Council of Government University and the deserved recognition of two great Catalan intellectuals. Hardly has transcended the news, which is shocking given the significance of the event. Personally, I tried to find the arguments that led to this decision by colleagues who, academically, are more linked to the work of two historians.

The responses of those who have told me have been the subject of outrage and rejection, discomfort and shame, for the simple reason that there are no rational arguments to justify absurd size. Simply appointment has been rejected for no reason, because they do not want to recognize what your figures mean in English historiography and universal. No more personal reasons as those which arise from the visceral, jealousy, rejection and shameful reasons, leading to the shameful silence and inability to justify the decision. Just because.

believe that, rather than an injustice, is an insult and an affront to the University, science and culture. I shall not evaluate here the professional career of both the best of our historical science, but I have already referred on one occasion Joseph Fontana, available on the Internet but I recommend the path of each other to realize the folly committed. And not alone, of course. In a context dominated by inbreeding and introversion curriculum, the cases of rejection of outsiders have been omnipresent in the English University for a long time, but paradoxically have worsened following the University Reform Act of 1983, with hardly have taken steps to avoid its worst effects and although not a few guidelines that, once out of office, complain that this has happened.

One of the most unfortunate in this respect was that experienced by Emilio Lledó, the great thinker and member of the Academy of Language. As Professor of Philosophy at the UNED competed for a place in the same rank in the Complutense de Madrid. His merits were overwhelming ... but to no avail. Was dismissed, not without knowing the statement of one of the members of the Committee appointed to resolve the contest: "The place will be for John Doe (the house) and get even Hegel himself is present." It is what has always happened, but it has happened on several occasions.

I received

document containing a letter support Drs. Fontana and Nadal. The included here to account for the response to a measure so arbitrary demands.