On the Shoulders of Giants

Comrades,

What a coincidence that Paul mentions contact with Roy Moore in his post below. Earlier this week I was working with a large group of diverse European trade unionists and sure enough several knew of Roy, Denis Gregory and the late Peter Donaldson.

The following discussion with the Finnish metalwork trade union official underlined once again how great the reach of Ruskin is.

I sent this colleague the link to the obituary of Peter Donaldson, and some of the text is worth repeating here as it tells us two things:

(1) The reputation of people who taught us at Ruskin is/was phenomenal.

(2) Their subsequent dedication to Ruskin and its students is worthy of celebration at our planned reunion.

The obituary of Peter Donaldson records:

Donaldson finally returned to Oxford and Ruskin in 1967, and remained there until his retirement in the early 1990s. He was a very popular tutor, his lectures and tutorials being replete with a wicked wit - which he could display without offending - and wisdom. Although he taught economics, he once described himself as an "anti-economics economist". His approach was sceptical. His other books include Economics Of The Real World (1973), and A Question Of Economics (1985).

His method of writing was instructive. He would work out in his head the themes he wanted to cover - down to the wording of chapter headings - type out rapidly a rough draft of the book, discard it and then type the final version from memory, usually finishing dead on time, on the day of, or the day before, the publisher's deadline.

To my great shame I cannot say with conviction that I did not treat Peter D's teaching as seriously as I ought. I wasn't aware at all of the background and substance of the withered gent in front of me, and saw his teaching as simply that of the wider gambit provided at Ruskin.

Some of my own teaching now rests upon economics and I wished I had listened and learned all of those years ago - if nothing else to make my current teaching that bit easier.

I do owe Peter Donaldson a huge debt though. At least he was able to get though my young, thick skull the basics of Marxist economics and why leftists were right to use this as the basis for the own critical analysis of what was around them.

The full obituary is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/sep/25/guardianobituaries.obituaries1

In Solidarity

Ian