By Mary O'Connor — February 2, 2012

“If you’re the first person to jump over the parapet, you’re the first person to get shot at.”

Almost overnight, A.C. Grayling’s announcement of his intention to establish the first independent, ‘New College of Humanities,’ in addition to the publication of a secular Bible earlier last year, sparked a debate of tempestuous proportions among students and journalists alike. One can imagine why I was a little apprehensive about speaking to such a public figure so admired and yet so controversial.

To be attended by the best applicants to Oxbridge, and other Russell Group universities, including our fair York, the Oxford academic’s liberal college provoked controversy when it was revealed it was to be financed by colossal student fees of £18,000 a year. Grayling himself admits: “It does sound a lot, because it’s double what the government say people should pay at other universities.” Some would think that this is the end of the story, but the lion-maned philosopher proves to be un-phased in his compelling explanation of his reasons for spearheading such a momentous undertaking.

Drawing on the wide scope of study available as part of the liberal arts model in the United States, Grayling emphasises the need for a more comprehensive foundation in the UK. “What we really need is a broader education so that people have the one thing which will be obsolescence-proof as they go through life and careers. That is a good, broad understanding of the human story and a real ability to think and to be able to change, when necessary, with new ideas, new technologies.” With Oxbridge and the universities of London being very much set in their own ways of teaching, Grayling recognised “it’s really hard to get that kind of line of argument accepted, so I thought I’d have to step outside and do it independently.”

Additionally, huge cuts in government funding have been a crucial raison d’être of the new college. “Our society has made dramatically different choices about how it wants to spend its money. It wants to spend £20 billion on a weapon we’re never going to use as a nuclear deterrent, and not on universities.” Cuts like these, in Grayling’s view, are almost lethal to what he calls the already existing “artificial limitations” on universities. “But even £10,000 is not enough for the universities. It’s about half of what the really top universities need to educate a student.” Grayling makes some ominous conjectures about the future of universities if cuts to higher education continue to be made.

“One thing is that they’re going to force the top end universities to go private eventually. And the worse thing is that they’re encouraging all these private providers like BPP and Kaplan to come in offering two-year degrees very cheaply. A two-year degree is not a degree, it’s not higher education. Also with those levels of fees, they’re going to undercut many of the lower-tier universities in the country and drive a lot of them into nonexistence.” Although a long way off, Grayling has high hopes of being able to provide accessible education for all. With what can only be described as a tone of child-like optimism, Grayling excitedly anticipates “sometime in the future when we’ve been able to raise in our charitable trust a really big endowment, we could educate our students for free. We might be the only place in the country doing it, but wouldn’t that be fantastic?” This selfless attitude seems to be a far cry from the media attacks of hypocrites like Terry Eagleton, who castigate the ‘private elitism’ of the New College as funded by the ‘disgraceful’ student fees. And yet, the plot thickens. For those of us at York frantically applying for study abroad schemes, we know only too well the huge expenses involved, as Grayling notes: “If you think about what the true comparison is: US universities charge on average US$40,000 a year for four years – it’s a real whack of a fee. Independent schools in this country charge about £30,000 a year, Oxford charges about £20,000 a year for BAs [for international students]. When you look at the actual cost of a good tertiary level education, it is pretty high.”

Grayling is anxious to correct any misconceptions, expressing particular uneasiness about the rather debasing phrase “private, for profit education.” His left wing politics seem to greatly shape the reasons why he finds this expression so personally offensive: “I don’t like the word private at all. I prefer the word independent. But on the word profit, this new college is not-for-profit, it’s a not-for-profit college, and it’s got a charitable trust alongside to raise money for student support.” Indeed, the New College endeavours to offer a munificent scheme of financial support for students. “Money shouldn’t be the final determiner. We’ve got scholarships and exhibitions. Scholarships, you don’t pay anything at all, and exhibitions, people pay about £6,900 a year. It is one out of every three students who are going to be helped financially by the college, and that is right, that is how you should do it.”
But the question on everyone’s lips is…what is this money financing? Opulent chandeliers and champagne fountains? Not a chance. Student fees will fund a dazzling intellectual entourage composed of the shrewdest minds of our age, including Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Pinker, Peter Singer and many more. “You need really good communicators who are passionate about their work and who can explain it more deeply, so we’ve got fantastic people on the faculty to do that.”

Led by these academic giants, students will participate in a rigorously enriching programme, which is “much more than just a degree” encompassing a blend of intense study and personal enrichment: “Every student has to do three compulsory modules in addition to the standard twelve, and they are: Logic and Critical Thinking, Science Literacy, and Applied Ethics” in preparation for a University of London degree. And this is not all. Students will study a compulsory module of professional skills to set them up for life in the world of work.

“I don’t like the word private at all. I prefer the word independent. But on the word profit, this new college is not for profit.”

As with most things, it’s not all work and no play, but at the New College of Humanities, there is a twist. Grayling replaces the stereotype of the perpetually inebriated student, the nocturnal party-animal, with something more culturally enriching. “Because we’re here in one of the great cultural capitals of the world, we’ve got a full time member of staff who we call the ‘Minister of Fun.’ Her job is to tell the students about everything, from opera, ballet, theatre, concerts, exhibitions, pubbing and clubbing.” And if this wasn’t enough to mesmerise you, “we’ve got a really beautiful place in France where all the reading parties, summer schools and the students can go to do their projects.” Ambition is certainly at the heart of this project.

Described by others as Grayling’s ‘Manifesto of Rational Thought,’ The Good Book, was published in April 2011, adding to Grayling’s already bulging authorial roster containing works like ‘Ideas that Matter’ and ‘To Set Prometheus Free’. Pre-ambulating the UK riots, as well as numerous natural tragedies in following months, the Secular Bible properly surfaced at the right time, when the challenge of engaging with the vicissitudes of the modern world couldn’t have seemed any more insurmountable for leaders and citizens alike. “This is a book that says here is a distillation of the best we’ve tried to do and ways of thinking about things, and it’s not trying to tell you what to think, but just giving you materials for making your own mind up. People will see and hear things taken from some of the greatest minds, the most sympathetic souls, the most experienced people in our great human story, and they can get something rich out of it.”

Having come up with the idea for his own Bible, thirty years previously, during his graduate studies, Grayling recounts his ravenous anticipation of the task. “If only they had gone to the philosophers and the poets. As soon as I thought that, I realised, oh heck. I’ve got to try and do it.” The humanist philosopher felt that an alternative way of approaching ethics was needed as a means of departing from the unhelpful Divine Command theories, which in his view “always seems to end up saying that the fountain of all wisdom is to submit your intellect and subdue it, and submit to the idea that there is a more powerful being in the universe who rules your life” fostering a kind of ‘slave morality’, as put more forcefully by Nietzsche.

Perhaps the chief irony of the book is that it is compiled in a similar fashion to that of the religious Bible, into fourteen books with component chapters and verses. Nonetheless, Grayling is adamant that his work is not an attack on religion, but rather an alternative to it: “Well, quite deliberately of course, it’s got nothing to do with religion…If there hadn’t been a religious bible, but instead people made a book that we have lost, a book of those other writings and nonreligious writings, then there would have been actually something deeper and more helpful than the religious books are, because they say you’ve got to do this and you can’t do that.”

Naturally gravitating towards the religious question, Grayling’s capacity as a member of the ‘Unholy Trinity’ of Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens comes to the fore. “Now I’m sometimes described as the ‘Velvet Atheist’” says Grayling coquettishly. A Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, and until 2011, a Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, Grayling’s soft-spoken conversational manner leaves one feeling completely at ease, but at the same time, in marvellous anticipation that he is just getting going. He fails to disappoint when he forcefully defends his philosophical comrades-in-arms: “I don’t describe Dawkins and Hitch as aggressive, I describe them as robust.” Going on to make a goose-pimple inducing comment about the man affectionately known as ‘Hitch’: “He used to get his sharp mental sword out and slash about to very good effect. It was very difficult for anyone to stand up against Hitch when he was in full argumentative mode, because of course he had right on his side.” Stepping out of his ‘velvet’ appearance for a moment, Grayling makes a shocking, yet compelling observation of the religious reaction to Dawkins and Hitch. “Theists and religious folk were terrified of them both and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction, claiming they were being aggressive. Well I say, to those people who were complaining about Dawkins and Hitch, that when they, the religious people, had the upper hand, they weren’t aggressive, they just burned us at the stake. They didn’t argue against us. It’s a terrible irony when you think about it, but they used to kill people for disagreeing.”

Having heard the reverential tones by which fans speak of his brilliant locks, one could not help venturing into the predictable. And yet, Grayling dashes my own speculation about ludicrous amounts of hair-spray, and meticulous salon attention, when he chuckles, saying that his famous ‘lion-mane’ is quite simply a matter of luck: “I think we’re just lucky we’ve got it. And you know what they say if you’ve got it, you might as well make some sort of use of it!”

It is indisputable that Grayling has achieved almost everything one could dare to dream of: academic and authorial success, a wonderful family, as well as the ultimate opportunity of envy, the chance to shape the future of humankind for the good of humankind. One wonders what is still on the horizon for such a respected leviathan of man: “Well you can expect that I’m not going to stop, I’m not going to give up any of the things I do, writing or teaching, or trying to be part of the great conversation of mankind.” M