As a term, Oxbridge emerged from a linguistic blend—what linguists call a portmanteau—where the first syllable of one word and the final part of another are combined to create a new word that, if it sounds pleasant enough, may even enter the vernacular. Brunch is such a blend, as is motel. Oxbridge, a term you would unlikely hear in a pub, comes from the shortened forms of Oxford and Cambridge—almost as if one were to coin “Kavio” from the National and Technical Universities of Athens (named Kapodistriako and Metsovio, respectively, in Greek). Why do this? To describe the elite produced by these two top universities, which has governed the country for decades.
This is precisely what British historian Colin Kidd does in his book Twilight of the Dons, offering a series of observations later highlighted in an issue of Foreign Policy magazine. In Oxbridge, he notes, there are thousands of academics who became state officials, bureaucrats, or even intelligence agents, such as the classicist Peter Fraser, who “was parachuted into occupied Greece and captured as a British agent by the Gestapo, which left him unrecognizable.”
There are also countless sectors of the private economy into which Oxbridge dons have penetrated, and dozens who have passed through the doors of Downing Street. Seven since Brexit? No, Kidd argues, that is not the right starting point. What matters is that 45 of 58 British prime ministers studied at Oxbridge—a striking fact in every respect, because “such a level of integration of an intellectual elite into the ruling class is found only in the China of the mandarins.”
The book becomes truly engaging when the author moves from statistics to individuals. What kind of people are these? A Cambridge professor once wrote in a novel that at his university “you rarely said what you thought or believed what you heard, and every conversation was an exercise in dialectic and response.” Kidd himself writes that, “despite their insight, wit, inventiveness, and refinement, all these academics were uncritical supporters of the British establishment.” A baron describes them as embodying a “self-satisfied conservatism in lowercase letters.”
Should we start counting here the members of the political and business class coming from “Kavio” or other “elite schools,” just to describe the country’s decline? Such simplistic parallels make little sense. Even less meaningful is the conclusion that an academic elite, whether British or otherwise, has simply failed in its role.
One might instead observe that the United Kingdom behaves as if it is in decline, and that the United States—celebrating its 250th year—is not feeling particularly well either. Yet it is precisely here that the strength of Western democracies is revealed: in their ability to reflect on their own decline. To research, to illuminate aspects of their national history, to engage in an ongoing, undeclared public dialogue.
Provided that academics, researchers, and thinkers step out of their protective shell, as a university professor (from “Kavio,” of course) recently explained to her dinner companions.
Beyond being undeclared, this public dialogue must also be continuous—especially now, when electoral marathons, party programs, “final stretches” before the “grand finale” at the ballot box, supposed backstage dealings, and “secret meetings” will dominate almost entirely.
Someone will surely say what they truly believe, and someone will believe what they hear. Only then can the discussion become something more than a self-satisfied—or in our case even toxic—“dialectic exercise”.
