
London student reported to police: “Enchanted by anarchism and individualism” - null_ptr
http://the-libertarian.co.uk/london-student-reported-to-police-enchanted-by-anarchism-and-individualism/
======
SiVal
This sort of thing is alive and well in US schools, too. The official policy
of the Seattle Public School system is to stamp out racism in all its forms,
and notice how many forms there are. (Note in particular the Cultural Racism
section that includes, _" emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more
collective ideology"_ as a form of racism that, by official policy, is to be
stamped out by the government education system):

[http://web.archive.org/web/20060522101405/http://www.seattle...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060522101405/http://www.seattleschools.org/area/equityandrace/definitionofrace.xml)

~~~
dmix
In Canada this week, my girlfriend is required to visit the dean of a [top
Canadian law school] for calling a girl a "bitch" on Twitter.

Backstory is interesting, because the girl had bullied her in person at
school. GF never identified the girl on Twitter only saying "Some bitch blah
blah at school today". But because she mentioned the school name, the dean
found out and now wants to talk to her.

There's apparently a policy against certain language at the schools which is
enforced by the very highest people.

Fortunately shes defending her right to freedom of expression (as any lawyer-
in-training would) and refusing to delete the tweet. But the thought of
students having to censor themselves because they are now a member of a school
(which they paid $50k+ to join) is scary.

~~~
corresation
I don't think expecting basic good judgment of those in law school is 'scary'.
Further it is worth mentioning that hateful speech is not protected in Canada,
and while you could say that it was but a response, such a tweet is almost
certainly in violation of several new anti-'cyber' bullying restrictions.

~~~
gngeal
_hateful speech is not protected in Canada_

How do they prove that a speech is hateful instead of merely being ordinarily
contemptuous?

~~~
corresation
Just talking abstractly (again, the only reason I mentioned that is that
saying "free speech!" is a non-starter when you're calling someone a bitch --
even if unnamed, if any other party could identify who you mean, it isn't
anonymous -- and bringing disrepute upon an institution), but Canadian rights
are generally based upon the idea that your rights end where my nose begins,
and your right to free speech ends when you intrude on the rights of others
not to be harassed, disparaged, etc. Rights go both ways, and there is a
balance to be found somewhere in the middle.

Westboro is a hate group, by Canadian law. Their hateful protests are
actionable.

We have a new crop of anti-bullying laws -- particularly focused on the online
world -- because the speaker can't fallback on the notion that their speech is
protected, because it isn't.

~~~
gngeal
So calling an idiot an idiot is not an option in Canada?

~~~
001sky
_In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a
person with a very severe mental retardation_

PC police will probably getcha for that, too.

------
rhizome
_The headteacher, in addition to reporting Zaloom to the police, phoned
Glasgow University, where the student had applied to study, in an attempt to
dissuade them from accepting him._

Not the best way to counter charges of endemic corrpution in society, I must
say. In the US, this kind of interference would pose a great deal of trouble
for the ambitious functionary.

~~~
mezmor
The UK has pretty strict libel laws. I wouldn't be surprised if approaching
Glasgow U falls under that category.

~~~
AimHere
Defaming a third party by telephone would more likely be slander than libel,
but it's certainly not clear that what went on here would be defamation at
all.

A defamatory statement must be a false factual allegation. As long as what the
headmaster claimed was true, he should be safe from libel or slander lawsuits
- saying "I don't like this guy's politics and you shouldn't take him on as a
student." is a fair expression of opinion, however silly that opinion is, and
despite the rather insidious attempt to harm someone's career over a
personal/political disagreement.

Mind you, I'd guess that in these sorts of circumstances, Glasgow University
would likely thank the headmaster for his concern and file the note of this
communication in the waste paper basket, where it belongs. Universities are no
stranger to having to fend off third parties - parents, police, stalkers and
whathaveyou - attempting to meddle in the affairs of their students; if their
admin staff are halfways competent, they already have 50 tactful ways of
telling outside interferers to fuck off.

~~~
carbocation
Truth is an absolute defense to the claim of libel or slander in the US, but
not in all worldwide jurisdictions.

~~~
AimHere
It's also the case in the UK. What makes you think I was thinking of US libel
law? I'm not American

~~~
carbocation
English libel law is substantially more friendly to the plaintiff than to the
defendant.

I referenced US libel law as a counterpoint to the rest of the world because I
thought you were _not_ thinking of the US. There have been several high
profile cases of journalists and scientists saying true but defamatory things
in the UK about quacks and charlatans and being hounded in the courts. In
response to this, the UK has actually passed legislation attempting to remedy
the situation, but this has not yet taken effect.

------
noonespecial
You almost feel sorry for the teacher in this case. Sure, he's about to get
the just desserts of a repugnant action like this, but its kind of like a dog
digging up a nest full of yellow jackets. He "deserves" the stings but he's
not going to understand why he is suddenly being stung.

It boggles our tech-savvy minds that someone could be this out of touch and
still have a position of any authority whatsoever, but there it is.

I also hope the best for the student, but I can't help feeling that this will
be nothing but a minor setback for him as much as it seems to potentially suck
now.

~~~
harrytuttle
Being out of touch disqualifies you from any job pretty quickly.

Always be on the ball, not with your head up your arse like this elitist
buffoon.

~~~
brymaster
The Peter Principle and Dunning–Kruger effect would disagree.

~~~
harrytuttle
Not really. Modern communication and media makes it easier to single out an
individual from the flock and take them down.

~~~
brymaster
No, that really has nothing to do with it. Organizations are still rampant
with the following:

\- yes-men, sycophants

\- cronyism/nepotism/favoritism

\- cutthroat, bad culture

\- etc

~~~
harrytuttle
And my point is it's easier to piss all over their party now.

------
auctiontheory
I somehow doubt that sabotaging the kid's education would reduce his anarchism
and individualism.

~~~
scarmig
Is kicking someone out of a building that bears more than a passing
resemblance to a prison really sabotaging their education?

~~~
sillysaurus2
... Yes. As a self-taught programmer, I believe university is important. It
gives quite a lot of advantages (mostly social ones, which are the most
important). And undergrad universities select primarily based on school
performance, so kicking him out definitely would've sabotaged his higher
education.

To piggyback on this comment in hopes of finding some assistance: I've been
trying to figure out some long-term strategy of how to get into a top-tier
university. I have the ACT scores for it, but I dropped out of highschool to
go work in software. The decade of dev experience is certainly nice, and I've
studied core CS theory on my own (xv6 and paxos for example), but I'd really
like to attend a top uni in order to do graphics research. I wonder if it's
even possible for a 25 year old highschool dropout to achieve this? I was
thinking I could do well for a couple years at some local university, then
apply to transfer to Penn, Stanford, etc. I've heard transfer students are
more likely to be accepted. But I wonder what else I could do to increase my
chances.

~~~
cinquemb
As someone who dropped out from Brown (and transferred credits from State
universities I attended while in HS) and been engaging with newer educational
things like project breaker[0], there are plenty of social advantages out
there with "non-traditional" organizations that give more freedom and open
just as many doors…

Though yes, if you are trying do research, uni might be good, but there's
plenty of university politics/culture involved that might make you want to
drop out again (esp with research and such), despite it all… Besides, who's to
say you can't do research outside of uni?

[0] [http://www.projectbreaker.org/](http://www.projectbreaker.org/)

~~~
sillysaurus2
Well, I've been doing my best to research on my own, but at this point I need
access to a high quality spectrophotometer in order to perform measurements of
various materials' absorption spectrums under various lighting conditions.
They can run ~$5k, so uni seems like my best bet. I figured I couldn't really
just show up and ask to borrow their spectrophotometer... they'd probably want
me to have a degree or some kind of credentials before trusting me at all.

Project Breaker looks quite interesting. Thanks for letting me know!

~~~
hga
No, no. Show up knowing what you're about, vs. someone with theories "no one
else understands" (from watching this once, I wouldn't be surprised if MIT
professors get a bit of training in how to handle the crazies), you've got a
hypothesis that's interesting and you need to do specific tests, and, oh,
yeah, you'll be happy to let them share credit. You might be surprised at how
far you can get.

Do some networking. If you don't have any contacts, start showing up for
seminars at a target university. Listen, start contributing a bit to the
community, then ease into "By the way, I have a [fill in the blank] I'd like
to test...."

~~~
sillysaurus2
Yeah, worrying about being thought of as a crazy person is precisely what's
prevented me from trying to contact any professors, because I'd imagine they
have to deal with that sort of thing pretty often: outsiders bothering them
with unscientific pet theories. That's why it's frustrating not having
credentials.

Attending seminars is a good idea. Thank you. I wonder if I should call up
universities and ask for info regarding any computer graphics related seminars
/ events. It seems like those would be very uncommon, but it's probably my
only chance.

I have no contacts because I was mercilessly harassed throughout highschool
and leaped at the opportunity to drop out and write software for a living. So
I have no idea how to network. Showing up and saying, "Hey, would you be
interested in chatting about computer graphics theory?" seems like it'd earn
me strange looks.

I just moved to Chicago, so I was hoping University of Chicago has some sort
of computer graphics program, and that I can figure out some way of becoming
involved with it.

~~~
sanskritabelt
"I wonder if I should call up universities and ask for info regarding any
computer graphics related seminars / events"

That shit's on the website, dogg.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Hmm... Is it?

Searching their events for "graphics" produced no results, and searching for
"computer" (in hopes of anything CS related) wasn't very helpful.
[http://event.uchicago.edu/maincampus/search.php](http://event.uchicago.edu/maincampus/search.php)

EDIT: The CS research interests page is interesting...
[http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/research/interests](http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/research/interests)
though nothing specifically graphics-related.

EDIT2: The closest thing to graphics research I can find is
[http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/fl/research/index.php?p=proj...](http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/fl/research/index.php?p=proj_detail&id=28)
... though I don't really understand what its goals are based on its
description: "Integration of Access Grid and ParaView to enable remote
participants to interact with their visualizations in a coordinated manner
across all sites, to improve information flow and expedite visualization
development and scientific results. This will remove a significant bottleneck
in achieving visualization results and understanding, by allowing participants
to exchange data interactively while exploring their data visually. In this
first development, specific areas of ParaView functionality will be targeted
for inclusion in the shared interaction, based on feedback from the domain
scientists as to the areas of highest relevance and impact." So I guess that's
something graphics-theory-related, which I suppose is worth looking into...

~~~
sanskritabelt
Here you go:
[http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/events](http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/events)

Looks sparse but I don't think the academic year's started yet, scroll back to
last spring and it looks like the real departmental calendar.

Could just be you're SOL on the type of stuff you want at UC. That's academic
life.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Oh, thank you so much!

------
protomyth
Two things came to mind when I read this:

1) It doesn't often happen, but having the establishment individual confirm
the blog's POV through word and deed is refreshing.

2) If you are from the University and read what this fool said to the
newspapers / police, then you should be suspect of any individual whom he gave
a recommendation.

------
btilly
Here is the text of an email that I sent the school.

\-----

The primary duty that a school has is to turn out informed citizens who will
try to maintain democracy. Despite your best efforts, you are apparently on
the path to success with Kinnan Zaloom.

Unfortunately your headmaster has failed to learn the critical lesson that any
organization populated by people will have failure modes, and a common failure
mode is that those in authority will seek to use their authority
inappropriately, and will also seek to assert more authority than they should
have. This has been known for thousands of years, with famous examples
including ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, and a plethora of dictatorships
around the world today.

I am being generous in saying that your headmaster has failed to learn this
lesson. In fact he seems to have learned it, but sees the path to petty
dictatorship as something to emulate, not to fear. However one should never
ascribe to malice and all that, so I will make the generous assumption that
his actions came through incompetence.

But even making the generous assumption, it is clear that your headmaster is
not the kind of person who should be put in a position where he can try to
harm the future of children whose only crime is to think more clearly than he
does. We need children to learn that authority is a necessary evil in a
democratic society. Which lesson can best be learned in an environment where
authority is exercised wisely enough that the "necessary" part of it becomes
evident.

For the good of the children forced to suffer through your school, I sincerely
hope that this fact is taken to heart and appropriate measures are taken to
ensure that authority rests in more competent people going forward.

~~~
mcantelon
Nicely done. The headmaster's mentality is in direct conflict with the
Enlightenment principles that the West was built on.

------
tjaerv
Is this satire? It reads like satire.

"I must do something. In the last year he has become more and more enchanted
by antiestablishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an
inherent risk that every government is corrupt."

~~~
btilly
It seems sincere to me. And also blithely unaware that the student has a
point.

------
omarrr
Doesn't sound like the kind of teacher I'd like in my university

 _Asked what had first inclined him to contact the police, Mr. Szemalikowski
said “the fact that Kinnan has mentioned the ideologies of anarchism and
individualism on this blog.” Digging himself even deeper, the headteacher
added, “I must do something. In the last year he has become more and more
enchanted by antiestablishment ways of thinking and has even said that there
is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt.”_

~~~
bolder88
Read the blog. Doesn't seem like the kind of kid I'd like in my university...

~~~
unimpressive
Having recently had a "Fuck all of you" reaction to public high school, what I
read was a kid ranting about apathetic students and apathetic instructors.
He's probably frustrated by the people he sees on a daily basis and it comes
out on the blog as him being a jerk.

His writing could use some work too, kind of cheesy.

------
motters
You can't just have individualists roaming freely around doing whatever the
heck they like. Where would it end?

~~~
solistice
Hmmmm...no ruling elites?

~~~
calibraxis
If individualists are incapable of building functioning nonhierarchical
organizations, they'll be at the mercy of those good at violence, and ruled.

This is why much of the anarchist tradition is about collective action, to
support individual freedoms. They frequently reject the collective vs.
individual dichotomy as absurd. (Hopefully this isn't pedantic or nitpicky,
just this tends to be a common misconception.)

~~~
dnautics
it's not pedantic in the context of the original article, where the headmaster
was clearly too daft to know the difference.

------
Sagat
I'm disgusted by the head teacher's nosy behavior. I also think the student is
an insufferable person according to his blog posts [1]. He's one of those
people who try to use loaded words like "anarchism" and "individualism" to
justify annoying or selfish behavior. Kind of like Galt-wannabe libertarians
who hide being the word "liberty" to give credence to social darwinism.

[1] [http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-
obituary...](http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-
obituary.html)

~~~
Ensorceled
Yes, lots of high school students are insufferably pompous and selfish. They
_are_ just growing from children into young adults.

A high school head teacher should be able to handle this.

Also, as an adult, you should also be able to handle this without becoming
annoyed and judgemental.

~~~
alan_cx
" lots of high school students are insufferably pompous and selfish"

So are a lot of teachers and heads.

~~~
walshemj
but most high school students grow out of that phase :-)

------
omarrr
This is the kind of behavior current political systems are encouraging to the
members of our society. Instead of teachers reaching out to students to create
bonds and personal connections, we have a system that promotes unjustified
surveillance, profiling and reporting.

------
DickingAround
What did the police say? Did the teacher believe that the UK has thought-crime
laws about uncommon political beliefs? Do they?

~~~
petercooper
Not so much _laws_ but there's certainly a lot more stigma to holding
unpopular opinions (or even freely expressing 'distasteful' but popular
opinions, cf. responses to many UKIP supporters) in the UK compared to the USA
- nowhere on the scale as in Russia or Eastern Europe though.

~~~
honzzz
Eastern Europe? Could you please elaborate or provide some example to
illustrate what exactly you mean? I am from Eastern Europe (Czech Rep.) and I
used to live in UK. Generally I would say that current Eastern Europe is way
more open/tolerant/apathetic to 'unpopular opinions' than UK.

~~~
petercooper
I don't have an interest in filling a post with links to articles about the
freedom of speech issues or homophobia in Belarus, the Ukraine, Lithuania,
Romania, or what not, but they are easily found. For starters, though,
Belarus, the Ukraine, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania aren't even in
the top 80 countries for press freedom: [http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-
index-2013,1054.html](http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html)

However, I had to hit Wikipedia as I'd never considered the Czech Republic to
culturally be "Eastern Europe" but it turns out it often is. I consider the
Czech Republic as progressive as any Western European nation and the
statistics seem to support that (for example, Czechs are more in support of
gay marriage than even the Brits). I've been to the Czech Republic before and
was pleasantly surprised at how awesome it was.

So, to clarify, I did not have mean "Eastern Europe" formally but countries on
the geographically eastern fringes of Europe.

~~~
weland
Don't trust everything you see on Wikipedia.

I went to school in one of the countries you mentioned. There is a firm
cultural policy there that the teachers' authority ends at the doors of the
school. Barring some extreme cases (e.g. underage teenagers starring in porn
movies), a teacher doing something like what's mentioned in the article would
result in significant _public_ outcry, on all levels, exactly on the grounds
of free speech.

The merits, policies, methods and value of schools, colleges and even
individual professors are matters of public debate with no restriction.
Attempts of imposing sanctions on pupils for expressing views of discontent
with institutions do occur, but are isolated and rarely carried out, due to --
you've guessed it -- public outcry.

Perhaps most symbolic for this: after the fall of the Communist regime, school
uniforms quickly fell out of favour and are quite rare after 4th grade or so
even today. And where they are in place, the rules against _not_ wearing them
are rarely enforced for precisely the same reasons. It's all nice on paper,
but as soon as someone decides a kid should be expelled for not wearing _those
particular clothes_ , things usually get ugly.

Press freedom, corruption and the like are not good _general_ indicatives for
the population's values. There's a large gap between general indices and
individual behaviour. [Edit:] Communities tend to find ways around things,
especially youngsters. Press freedom is the simplest example there: precisely
because everyone knows press is basically a propaganda agency, there's general
distrust of it, and people are suspicious of what they read in the newspaper.
Same goes for teachers: after a long (political-driven) culture of
authoritarianism in schools, people are very suspicious of school staff
extending their authority past the realm of schools.

It also works this way with the generation gap. Precisely because younger
people (particularly in urban areas) perceive their parents as closed-minded,
they obstinately try to exercise open-mindedness, or to at least adopt a more
indifferent stance, with e.g most teenagers there either supporting gay
marriage, or simply not "getting what the big deal is", if people want to
marry, they marry. (This is itself a symptom of something else, but I
digress).

tl;dr There's at least one place on the fringe of Eastern Europe where a
school principal behaving like this would generally end up with a lot of angry
parents on his doorstep the following morning.

------
zimbatm
Yet another attack on an anti-authoritarian person.

The most compelling example that our society doesn't accept people with this
personality treat is the psychiatrists who treat them as if they had a mental
disorder.

[http://www.honeycolony.com/article/psychiatrys-oppression-
of...](http://www.honeycolony.com/article/psychiatrys-oppression-of-young-
anarchists-and-the-underground-resistance/)

------
kyllo
This reads like a parody.

 _" has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is
corrupt"_

Corruption in the government? Gasp! How dare you?!

------
zokier
I think the story has completely wrong focus. The problem is not the teachers
actions (no matter how despicable), but the effects of those actions. I mean
if a teacher is able to "ruin" someones life by making couple of phonecalls,
then therein lies the problem. In a ideal society the teacher would be free to
voice his concerns, and if those concerns were baseless (as seems to be the
case here) then the voicing should have no effect on the pupils life.

Of course there wasn't really any concrete effects mentioned in the story that
had already happened, so hopefully this was just a sensationalist story and
the uni and police will ignore the teacher. In fact the story heavily smells
like an attempt to crucify the teacher while no damage/harm was actually done
to the pupil.

------
teddyh
— (President) Youth, with its enthusiasms, which rebels against any accepted
norm because it must, and we sympathize. It may wear flowers in its hair and
bells on its toes, but when the common good is threatened, when the
functioning of society is endangered, such revolts must cease! They are non-
productive, and must be abolished!

[...]

— (President) Guilty! Read the charge!

— (Delegate) The prisoner has been charged with the most serious breach of
social etiquette: Cultural defiance of the elementary laws which sustain our
community. Questioning the decisions of those we voted to govern us. Unhealthy
aspects of speech and dress, not in accordance with general practice. And the
refusal to observe, wear, or respond to his number!

(Quotes from “The Prisoner”, Episode 17, “Fall Out”, 1967)

------
unimpressive
Here is the post that seems to have triggered the response:

[http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-
obituary...](http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-
obituary.html)

~~~
vixen99
Nothing untoward in this apart from the pointless, juvenile and lazy
repetition of the f __k word.

------
scotty79
> In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by antiestablishment
> ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every
> government is corrupt.

If not for that line I'd say that techer just wanted to say that the student
is vocal, selfish jackass and failed to invoke proper euphemisms. But this
line shows teachers ignorance. I thought that risk of governemnt being corrupt
is something so obvious that it's taught on history lessons in primaryschool.
Or maybe I am wrong and it's not established that all government can become
corrupt? And if there are some uncorruptible goverment forms, then why we
don't use them? Or there is some non-constructive proof known that shows that
some goverments are not at all prone to corruption but we have no idea how
they look like?

Goverment by definition decides about the stuff it does not own. And if you
decide about stuff you don't own you can trade doing some harm to that stuff
for improving your own status. And that's coruption.

------
teawithcarl
The Hampton Trash (blog)
[http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/](http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/)

------
Kurtz79
Check the comments on the article as well, for a few insane ramblings by the
templeos maker...

~~~
solistice
Wait, so it's conspiracy theory/religion applied to x86 assembler?

I'm going to print it out for future reference.

------
alextingle
Prime Minister by 30?

~~~
alan_cx
In the UK? Yeah, that would be the teacher who reported him then. I'm sure the
current Home Sec would very much approve of a student being outed for saying
something the establishment disagrees with. If the teach u-turns some how,
then yes, PM.

------
muyuu
Will he be accepted in Glasgow U?

~~~
ronaldx
The offer made by Glasgow to the student is guaranteed, as long as the student
meets the conditions of the offer: typically a grade-based offer.

According to the original article, the student didn't meet the conditions of
the offer. The university may now award a discretionary place... this decision
could have been influenced by the principal, but is moderately unlikely
anyway. The article notes that Zaloom will study at Portsmouth U instead. Good
luck to him :)

[http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/sep/headteacher-
re...](http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/sep/headteacher-reports-teen-
blogger-who-criticised-school-police)

------
rickjames28
This "headteacher" should be arrested and prosecuted.

~~~
u2328
Kettle, meet pot.

~~~
rickjames28
Wrong. I consider that action by the teacher a direct threat to the student's
civil rights at the very least.

------
bolder88
pretty douchey to list the schools phone number at the bottom, just so idiot
internet hate mobs can phone and abuse the school secretary.

~~~
rickjames28
"internet hate mobs" are the people that oppose this pretty douchey teacher?

~~~
bolder88
Did you read the blog in question? Are you in possession of the full facts of
the case? Do you know those involved? Or have you formed your opinions based
on some gossippy trash reporting.

There is almost always far more to stories like this than the reporting has us
to believe. That's because the reporting is pushing an agenda. Which internet
hate mobs etc absolutely love.

~~~
rickjames28
So you dispute the story and the reporting is "pushing an agenda"? Why do I
have the feeling that you don't think that the "teacher" was wrong in what he
did?

~~~
bolder88
Having read some of the blog, it certainly looks like he's a kid with issues.
So I'm not surprised the teacher called the university to warn them.

Not sure he really should have called the police, but it's up to him isn't it.
But as I said, there's very likely far more to the story than just a blog.

If for example the story was "teacher calls police after student damages
property / makes threats / brings knife to school / etc etc, and also shows
police his weird ranty blog", then it wouldn't fit with the 'internet hate
mob' agenda.

