Chelsy Killick

Views are my own.
Deputy Director Organisation, The New Zealand Initiative

[Max Klinger @MaxE2review]

I studied in the academic department at Cambridge that later employed Jason Arday. Here's just some of the crap I learnt: For one module, I wrote a lengthy essay about how cultural products like kids’ cartoons and jazz songs serve as instruments of capitalist oppression. I got a top mark on that paper (despite knowing at the time that I was essentially regurgitating complete crap).

While studying for another paper I had a debate with the professor, an eminent anthropologist, because she insisted that native tribes could fly through the trees - not metaphorically, but that they could literally fly because they believed they could fly. After all, who are we to question ‘indigenous ways of knowing’...

For a different course, I read long ‘research papers’ which argued that the fact that black kids are excluded from schools more than white kids proves systemic racism exists in education. Crucially, they ignored the fact that white kids are excluded more than, e.g., Japanese kids, a statistic which, applying the exact same logic, would suggest that the education system is systemically biased in favour of, erm, Japanese kids (which obviously it isn’t).

Something that was held up as proof of the existence of this largely imaginary racism was that teachers tell kids not to use booming voices in the classroom, and not to put up their hoods or wear their trousers down below their pants.

On another occasion, my supervisor casually praised some students agitators who were trying to shut down a talk by someone they disagreed with. I said that I didn’t think this was something to celebrate, because I believed in freedom of speech. He got visibly angry, and proceeded to tell me that free speech was not worth protecting in a capitalist system (or something along those lines).

In my all-important final year, a lecturer let me know that I shouldn’t worry too much about my exam results, because as someone who was not from an upper class background I should be more focussed on using my grasp of leftist revolutionary theory to further the interests of the proletariat. Writing this down, it strikes me that it’s so hilariously mental that some of you will presumably assume I’m lying. But there’s no way I’m leaving it out, because it happened.

Unlike the academics who make a living from this stuff, I couldn’t bring myself to build a career pumping out whiney, divisive, intellectually incoherent rubbish. But others, as we’ve seen exposed in recent days, do so with gusto. And are lauded for it.

Please read the full piece this is taken from, and give it a share. I've linked it in the tweet below.

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@DailyIndgnation Perhaps swing by for a chat sometime! Been hanging around these halls for 13 years. Always easier to fire off tweets than figure out what we actually do all day. The coffee's decent, and we hardly ever make visitors sign loyalty pledges anymore! 😉

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@MattBirchy Welcome back to NZ!

[Winston Peters @NewZealandMFA]

The Foreign Minister delivered an address to members of the New Zealand Initiative this afternoon in Auckland.

The Minister briefed attendees on the Government’s foreign policy reset & ambition for New Zealand on the global stage.

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@damienmgrant Looks like hard work! 😀

[Oliver Hartwich @oliverhartwich]

How (not) to run a country. Two images say it all. https://t.co/oxoXwtUdzE

[The NZ Initiative @nzinitiative]

NEW EVENT 📅

NZ’s political executive has expanded into a morass of portfolios, ministers, and departments creating inefficiencies. See NZ's public responsibility flowchart compared to Norway's in the image below.

More info about our webinar here: https://t.co/WUyYny9Qf6

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@ijakk2 I organised this delegation. It has nothing to do with Atlas. I have been with the initiative for 12 years. I'm sorry that you believe in all this conspiracy.

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@KonstantinKisin What a shame you are not visiting New Zealand.

[Carl Bildt @carlbildt]

This intervention by @radeksikorski 🇵🇱 in the 🇺🇳 Security Council today will be a classic. Not much left of 🇷🇺 after that.

[Chelsy Killick @cmkillick06]

@mikejbain @carolespeirs @Mihi_Forbes @huihoppa @JohnJCampbell You should check your sources. I can guarantee we have not received funding from Atlas. And by the way of the 5 groups you mention, 2 do not exist anymore.

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

"The proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures."

Life after Babel.

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

This video is the most important video you’ll watch today. It is critically important that you watch this and internalize the message. It has never been more relevant than it is today. Please watch!

Thank you @ACTBrigitte, you are amazing.

[The NZ Initiative @nzinitiative]

We proudly announce the appointment of our Senior Fellow, Dr Michael Johnston, as the Chair of the Government’s newly established Ministerial Advisory Group to review the primary school English, maths and statistics curricula in NZ. Read more here: https://t.co/y0XkauKJeV

[The NZ Initiative @nzinitiative]

Our last Insights newsletter for 2023 is out! Our Executive Director Oliver Hartwich provides a wrap-up of the year and season's greetings.

Read it here: https://t.co/0lp3lw5uCx

To subscribe to our Insights email, click here: https://t.co/VmnRpaywHW

[Dr. Phil @DrPhil]

I am relieved that Liz Magill resigned as President of @Penn. This week, I viewed a highly restricted @IDF video of the Oct 7 Hamas massacre. I was sickened by video images I can never "unsee" and appalled by university presidents, like Liz Magill, who are OK with calls for Jewish genocide on their campuses. @MeritStMedia

[🇮🇱 Ambassador of Israel @ISRAmbNZ]

While demonstrators call for my deportation from NZ ( a unique way to conduct a dialogue) , the @nzinitiative was interested in a real talk. Here is the podcast published today:

[Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie @BMWE_]

It's almost four weeks since the horrific terrorist attack on #Israel. A lot has happened, the public debate has become heated and confused. Find thoughts from Vice-Chancellor Robert #Habeck in the video, putting the events in context. 📣With English, Hebrew and Arabic subtitles.

[Douglas Murray @DouglasKMurray]

Anyone in any doubt about what those marching today are calling for should know this. There would be peace tomorrow if Hamas laid down its arms. If the Israelis laid down their arms there would be a second Holocaust. The people marching either don't know this, or want it.