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Chat GPT

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Years ago when I was still at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I used to teach a course named Early Modern Political Thought. Judging by the feedback mechanism’s results, it was the most successful course I ever gave—it regularly got 19 out of 20 possible point. So I repeated it many times. Focusing on original sources, we read parts of the works of Desiderius Erasmus, Nicolò Machiavelli, Emperor Charles V (the 1543 testament), Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Filmer, John Locke, and, when there were still some meetings left, Charles de Montesquieu.

Like most freshmen in most countries the students, most of them 21-22 years old and fresh out of the military, did not know anything about anything. To help them along while at the same time avoiding a waste of time, I made them do two things. First, prior to each meeting they were to read the assigned chapters. Second, each time we finished with one author and moved to the next one they were to present me with a short essay—about 1,000 words—explaining who he was, what he had written, and so on. I did not ask them for footnotes, but I did ask that they list the books or articles they had consulted. It worked; week by week, I would collect their essays, read them quite carefully, and annotate them; week by week, I saw their work improving.  They in turn were very grateful, even to the point of telling me that my course was the best of the lot.

Since then much has changed. Probably the most important change has been the rise of political correctness, a monster if ever one there was which has made teaching literature, history and social science almost impossible. That, however, is not the development I want to talk about here. What I do want to talk about is the following text. It was composed, not by a human being but by an AI mechanism and available at ChatGPT. Having duly checked in, I asked it to provide me with a short essay about Machiavelli’s life and work. Soon it came up with the following text:

Niccolò Machiavelli is considered one of the most influential political philosophers in history, with his ideas and theories influencing political leaders for centuries. Born in Florence, Italy in 1469, Machiavelli was a diplomat, political philosopher, and writer during the Renaissance period.

One of Machiavelli’s most well-known works is “The Prince”, a political treatise that explores the concept of power and how leaders can maintain it. In this work, Machiavelli argues that rulers should be willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain their power, even if it means acting in ways that are considered immoral or unethical. This idea became known as “the ends justify the means”, and it has been widely debated and discussed by political philosophers and leaders throughout history.

One of the key themes in “The Prince” is the idea of “raison d’etat”, or the belief that the needs and interests of the state should always come before the needs and interests of the individual. According to Machiavelli, a leader should prioritize the well-being and stability of the state above all else, even if it means disregarding the rights and freedoms of the citizens. This idea is reflected in Machiavelli’s famous quote, “The first rule of a prince is to be able to be not good, if that is required to maintain his rule.”

Another key concept in “The Prince” is the idea of “fortuna”, or the role that luck and chance play in the success of a leader. According to Machiavelli, a leader should be aware of the role that luck and chance play in their success, and should be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances. However, he also believed that a leader could influence their own luck by being proactive and making decisive actions.

In addition to “The Prince”, Machiavelli also wrote a number of other influential works, including “The Art of War” and “The Discourses”. In these works, he explored themes such as the importance of military strategy and the role of citizenship in a republic.

One of the main criticisms of Machiavelli’s ideas is that they promote immoral and unethical behavior. Some have argued that his emphasis on the needs of the state and the willingness to use any means necessary to achieve power can justify authoritarianism and the suppression of individual rights. Others have argued that his ideas are necessary in order to maintain stability and protect the state.

Despite these criticisms, Machiavelli’s ideas continue to be widely studied and debated by political philosophers and leaders today. His work has had a significant influence on the development of modern political thought and continues to be a major influence on political leaders around the world.

In conclusion, Niccolò Machiavelli was a political philosopher whose ideas continue to be widely studied and debated today. His most famous work, “The Prince”, explores the concept of power and how leaders can maintain it, and his ideas have had a significant influence on the development of modern political thought. While some have criticized his ideas for promoting unethical and immoral behavior, others argue that his ideas are necessary in order to maintain stability and protect the state. Regardless of one’s perspective, it is clear that Machiavelli’s work has had a lasting impact on political thought and leadership.

Not half bad, don’t you agree? A bit pompous, yes. A bit bland. As if someone had decided to leave out anything a little bit interesting, let alone provocative or innovative; which, judging by what has been published about the way the program was created, is just what “someone” had done. But presumably good enough to pass the Turing test. Logically put together, without many of the things I used to warn my student against for years on end; such as leaps of thought, repetitions, or obvious semantic and grammatical errors. Better stuff than many students can produce on their own. Certainly not without having devoted some thought to what to put in (and in what order), what to leave out, why, and how; and so on, and so on.

Which, after all, is precisely what the exercise I made them do was all about and why they enjoyed doing it as much as they did.

I Have a Confession to Make

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I have a confession to make.

One morning thirty-seven years ago, practically to the day, I was standing in front of a class at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The course was called, “The Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century.” There were about thirty students, most of them freshmen- and women in their early twenties (Israeli students, owing to their conscript service, tend to be two to four years older than their colleagues abroad). For many of them, mine was the first university class they had ever attended.

As a teacher in such a situation, what do you do? This was supposed to be, not the first in a series of frontal lectures but a workshop based on the study of primary sources. However, the students, being unprepared, know nothing about anything. They themselves, being aware of that fact, either hesitate to speak up or go off in all kinds of weird directions. So you lower your expectations and try to explain a few elementary things; so elementary, perhaps, that they had never thought about them.

In this particular case the point I wanted to make was very relevant to the topic at hand. Namely, that whatever is regarded as “normal” today may not have been so considered long ago; and the other way around, of course. By way of an example—this was long before students were supposed to require “safe places” to protect their tender souls—I asked the class what they would say if I stripped naked right there and then. It was, of course, meant as a joke. But also as an illustration of the kind of dramatic change history, moving along, often entails.

Sitting opposite me was a student about ten years older than most. Looking me straight in the eye she shot back, “I would like it very much.” The class roared with laughter, and I, I was later told, turned as red as a beet. From that point on the ice between them and me was broken and we spent a wonderful academic year discussing the likes of Francis Bacon, Galileo, and Newton. It was, incidentally, one of the very few courses I gave in which female students took a more lively part than male ones did. More important for the two of us, she and I continued on our own steam. First we went for a coffee, and the rest followed. About a year later Dvora—her name—and I decided to join forces and start living together. We still do.
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Had the exchange taken place only a few years later, the outcome would have been entirely different. In any number of schools, both in Israel and abroad “flirting” with students, as well as other faculty members, is prohibited. So are making “suggestive” comments, “dating” (at what point does an extramural meeting with a student turn into a “date”?), “requests” for sexual activity, physical “displays” of affection, making “inappropriate” personal gifts, “frequent personal” communication with a student unrelated to course work or official school matters, “inappropriate” touching, and engaging in sexual contact and/or sexual relations. Briefly, anything that reeks, however slightly, of people getting to feel closer to one another would have caused those who engage in it to be censured, probably fired.

Social life is not math, which explains why none of the terms in quotation marks is capable of being defined. Any attempts to do so can merely lead to ever-growing confusion and, in the end, the kind of absurd hair-splitting lawyers produce in a never-ending stream. Such being the case, the inevitable outcome is to create a situation in which everyone is suspicious of everyone else. Everyone is constantly looking across his or her shoulder, and everyone has to consider every word he or she utters for fear it will be misinterpreted. An atmosphere less conducive both to teaching and to study would be hard to find.

Looking back over thirty-seven years, both Dvora and I thank our stars for the fact that, at the time, for a student to fall in love with her teacher, and the other way around, was still permitted. On top of that, I thank mine for the fact that cracking a joke, even a “suggestive” one, in the presence of young adult was still allowed. And also for the fact that, being 73 years old and an “emeritus,” I am no longer caught up in a system that puts so little trust in both faculty and students as to surround them with prohibitions of this kind.

As some Chinese sage—I forget which one—is supposed to have said: woe the generation whose teachers are afraid of their students.

Guest Article: More Pussycats

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By: Anonymous

Returning from Vienna, where I have been giving some talks and interviews about my recent book, Pussycats, I found the following in my inbox. The author has granted my request and permitted the piece to be posted here. While legal reasons prevent the university in question from being identified by name, the facts have been verified from other sources.

Any other comment is superfluous.

The university is currently going through its second occupation of the year. The first (which as far as I know is continuing) was by a group of students eager to discover “true freedom”. They took over a classroom and began camping there. They covered all windows so no one could see what they were doing inside (although it smelled strongly of pot). The president and her vice-presidents kept meeting with their leaders and kept negotiating agreements that were then repudiated by the occupiers. Then she got a lot of resolutions voted by various instances at the university, all of which were ignored. Then she held a lot of meetings but did absolutely nothing else – even after both she and the chief administrative officer of the university had been slightly injured by the students.

The second occupation started at the end of January when about thirty undocumented immigrants took over two floors of building A, the arts building. They brought in cooking gear and portable beds and began meeting with the press (although the press didn’t show much interest in them). Once again, the president and her vice-presidents negotiated, once again they reached agreements and once again the accords were immediately repudiated. She asked the immigrants to move into the university’s largest auditorium. After initially agreeing, they issued a statement refusing this compromise. Why? Because the auditorium reminded them of the Libyan prisons where they had been held!! Now, I’m the first to complain about our working conditions but that our biggest auditorium, where we hand out honorary degrees, looks like a Libyan prison seems somewhat exaggerated. Or maybe I’m being unfair to Libyan prisons. They also stated that they did not want to move to another building because they wanted residency permits and affordable housing. Do they think the university can supply these? Or that the French government cares enough about this Parisian university being occupied to grant them?

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In response the immigrants organized a banquet in front of the library to announce their refusal to leave. The president then sent in the commission for hygiene and security to meet with them. However, their leaders claimed that a member of the commission was actually a police officer in disguise. The whole thing descended into violence with pushing, shoving and some punching. But the immigrants remained and continued occupying the building. They installed beds in some classrooms,  which have become dorms while another room is a canteen. They even brought in a sofa so they could have an area to relax. By this time the immigrants had grown to about 80 and their supporters were talking of establishing a permanent refuge at the university.

The presidential team contacted a number of charities. One came in and gave the immigrants medical check-ups while the refugees refused to meet with another, a charity for the homeless, People from one charity I talked to said they would not get involved because in many ways things resembled a hostage situation: the university is of course being held hostage but so, in a way, are the refugees: most of them don’t speak French and blindly follow their leaders who work with people at the university who have a political agenda. Other charities have come to the same conclusion.

So the president and her V-Ps decided to get tough and sent a somewhat threatening letter to the immigrants. The latter responded by going from classroom to classroom at the university asking for money. The president and her V-Ps did nothing.

Meanwhile, the immigrants brought in huge wooden crates, filled with used clothes, that they stock in the stairwells, (blocking the exits, of course). They also blast music during class times (which are still going on on the first floor). The occupiers also broke the locks on one of the side entrances of the university and installed their own (which is clearly illegal). So now they are the only ones able to use that entrance. They also forced the locks on doors to other classrooms. In response the president sent pictures of the broken doors to all members of the university. Then grafitti appeared in the area with anti-Semitic slogans and comments like “Death to all whites”. The presidential team took pictures of these and sent them to all members of the university.

In the current political climate no one wants to deal with the issue of immigration and no one cares about universities. Even the press doesn’t consider the situation worth a news article. This says a lot about the state of French universities and partly explains why, in spite of internationally respected staff, they are so low in the league tables. The government could care less about universities and they are being allowed to fall to pieces.