Peter Grace writes about Otago academic Jim Flynn after his death

University of Otago Emeritus Prof Jim Flynn, pictured in 2016, has died. Photo / Gerard O'Brien

Professor Jim Flynn, who has died, had a zelig-like relationship with the 20th century and was an important figure in the history of the University of Otago, the politics department
in particular.

I was lucky enough to know him and want to tell you some true, and some maybe not-quite-factual, stories about this remarkable man, who we will all miss.

Jim studied at the University of Chicago and was taught by the grandfather of Cold War international relations theory, Hans Morgenthau.

On achieving his PhD, Jim taught (from memory) in Kentucky, where he said the
McCoys and Hatfields were still fighting one another, and where his liberal and pro-civil rights views were met with incomprehension by his students.

Jim's left-wing stance made it impossible for him to get a job in mid-century USA, so he moved to New Zealand, working at the University of Canterbury, where he knew and worked with the major political philosopher John Pocock.

Arriving to head up our department in 1967, Jim noticed the "Political Science" sign at the entrance and promptly told his new associates to take it down.

"We are not scientists," he told them, saying from now on we would be more simply called the "Politics" department. It still is.

Jim was an activist all his life, embroiled in the civil rights movement in the USA, and running twice (unsuccessfully) for the Alliance Party in North Dunedin.

He was a political philosopher first, teaching POLS101 for many years. He taught me - and many other undergraduates - "The Good Society and the Market" which he did without notes, and with his wonderful American drawl, resting on the long lecturer's pointer stick like a Greek philosopher on a wooden staff.

I often thought it was an affected pose - he had white curly hair and would have made a very good marble bust.

Jim would end many sentences with "is that not so?" which I have found has crept into my language when I am trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about.

The most remarkable thing about Jim was his intellectual curiosity. When he read Jensen's racist thesis about intelligence in Afro-American people, Jim was so outraged he read everything he could about it and published a counter to Jensen.

As a result, Jim became a theorist of psychology, and later became world-famous for the Flynn Effect, which traced the increase of intelligence over time.

He argued that our great grandparents were intellectually inferior compared with us, although they understood how to take machines apart and put them back together, where we understand concepts that would have made their brains explode.

Jim never stopped being curious. He wrote a book on climate change solutions a few years ago, making him an expert in this subject too, and only two years ago another book tackling cancel culture and freedom of expression in universities.

Jim was a hard taskmaster but an easy person to love. He really did live in the world of his mind, although he could be very sensitive to the questions of a curious undergrad.

He used to end every lecture by saying "now, who is going to walk me to my office?" which made me realise that Otago was first and foremost a residential university, and that lecturers must offer pastoral care as well as fulfil their jobs as teachers.

At some point Jim moved over to psychology, where he lectured on his fight with Jensen, among other things.

Jim was given an office of his own in some winding corridor of a 1960s building. He would often come up to the pols department, usually looking for Robert Patman, to discuss something he had heard in the morning's news.

Robert and Chris Rudd, who had been junior lecturers when Jim was running the department, treated him as sons do: a trifle wary of him but with an affection they demonstrated by dutifully seeing him these last few weeks as his health declined.

Jim's conversation, like his lecture style, was demanding. I occasionally got caught up in them at uni functions, where I might end up being the only one still standing - listening to him as the others found reasons to go and fill their glasses or slip off to catch the bus.

I was too in awe of Jim to find an excuse, and always conscious how lucky I was to be able to hear him.

Professor Jim Flynn has died aged 86. Photo / Peter McIntosh

Jim could raise a few hackles, and often did. A few years ago he told a reporter that stupid people shouldn't have children, because that would only impair the collective gene pool. When asked if he regretted saying it and causing such a furore, Jim simply said he was an old man now and didn't care what other people thought.

He clearly did worry about what other people thought, as he published several "self-help" books: including a guide to the best books to read and one on how to find meaning in life through philosophy.

A lot of people thought Jim a bit presumptuous writing these books, and they are probably right, but he thought it was important that we read the Brothers Karamazov, as much as he thought his personal philosophical journey was instructive.

I must admit I fought back the tears when I heard this morning that Jim had died. I didn't know him that well.

I never worked out if he had remembered my name, although I stopped and said "hello Jim" many, many times.

His declining health over the last few weeks - due to cancer and chemo - would have distressed him, although his keen mind may have been fascinated watching his body gradually close down.

He had to stop jogging a few years ago, although he was well into his 80s, and he was unhappy about this.

He told me a year back he would have to give up teaching, as he would be halfway through a lecture and suddenly forget what he was saying and where he was going with his argument. This upset him even more.

Jim was one of those figures who we need so badly to be around, always, to teach us. A year ago I went to see him in his office to ask for his help on my thesis: he was an important link to how social science was conducted in the early part of the Cold War. Jim promised to read my chapters, but I didn't write them fast enough.

About three months ago he came over to me in the university's Staff Club and asked how I was getting on.

Someone came up as he was leaning over me and reminded him they were leaving. "I am just talking to one of my students" said Jim. And a bit of a thrill swept through me.

The politics department is posting some of Jim's POLS101 philosophy lectures on their YouTube channel: Politics at Otago.

• Prof Flynn died on Friday at Yvette Williams Retirement Village, and a memorial service will be held this Friday.

• Peter Grace teaches politics at the University of Otago, and is working towards a PhD researching the influences of social science on the early CIA.