Jeff Goldstein and Mark Bucher on California’s unsustainable public sector:
Instead of relying on the assertions of union officials about how underpaid government employees might be, citizens can see what these employees are actually making. In thousands of cases, the information is shocking. Consider Redwood City, where three fire captains and one firefighter made between $434,274 and $452,733 in total compensation in 2012. One police officer made $463,690 in total compensation. In all, nine employees made over $400,000 in total compensation with a total of 33, mostly police and fire department employees, making over $300,000 in total compensation in 2012. Those are staggering sums anywhere, but in a city with a population of just 79,009, they’re a recipe for fiscal disaster.
And Peter Wood on Sandra Korn and the inversion of meaning:
On Monday, February 17, Ms Korn, a Harvard senior, published an essay in the Harvard Crimson, titled The Doctrine of Academic Freedom, with the explosive sub-head, “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favour of justice.” Korn’s argument is simply summarised: The freedom of faculty members to pursue research and to teach has some value, but these activities always and everywhere reflect political considerations. A university community rightly has its own political values and when a faculty member violates them, he should be silenced. “Academic justice” is more important than academic freedom.[…]
Academic freedom, as the idea developed historically, recognised the need to insulate scholars from the politically-minded outsiders who saw scholarship as threatening. Today, members of the professoriate are often politically-minded and the doctrine of “academic freedom” is often inverted in an attempt to insulate them from genuine scholarly standards… To put it concisely: academic freedom once meant protection from politics; now it means protection for politics.
The kind of politics being protected scarcely needs pointing out. Ms Korn, the student who objects to academic freedom (for others, that is), lists her interests as “socialism, being angry about gender” and “occupying things.” She also tells us that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Though again, that’s her dissent, not yours. And so she asks the question, “Why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” You see, finding things out must be entirely subordinate to certain, rather fashionable political assumptions. Which is to say, her assumptions. It’s exactly the quality one hopes for in a modern intellectual.
Update:
In the comments, Darleen points us to Bruce Bawer’s thorough parsing of Ms Korn’s background, activities and cartoonish opinions. It’s well worth reading in full. He notes that despite Harvard’s prestige (and annual tuition of around $60,000), Ms Korn seems full of boilerplate and air, rather than knowledge or curiosity: “There’s no sign that she’s been educated at all, in any sense of the term – no sign that she’s learned anything of significance about, say, history or economics… No sign that she grasps the concept of challenging one’s own assumptions by taking in unfamiliar facts and grappling with ideas different from one’s own.” But although barely educated in any meaningful sense, her narcissism and arrogance have been harnessed and put to use, of a kind. Ms Korn seems quite sure of her own intellectual destiny as a corrector of others, a fearless challenger of WrongThought™. Like so many of her peers, she has been thoroughly processed. She’ll no doubt fit in nicely, as all conformists should.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
And so she asks the question, “Why should we put up with research that counters our goals?”
Why am I not surprised that a leftist wants an academic blasphemy law?
Why am I not surprised that a leftist wants an academic blasphemy law?
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. I can’t help wondering if Ms Korn has been reading Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance. Apparently you can’t build that fluffy kitten utopia without stamping on the necks of anyone who makes you look foolish, self-serving or a wee bit authoritarian. The end product of Ms Korn’s worldview would be an academic environment – and by extension, a culture – in which the statusful term “intellectual” would no longer refer to someone who (ideally) reflects analytically and tests assumptions about this or that; but rather, someone who simply mouths the expected attitudes. Thoughtfulness and knowledge could be replaced by a reflexive, somewhat neurotic display of Corrected Thought™. Which, to be fair, saves a lot of time and effort.
This process, of course, is well underway.
There was a similar feminist uproar in the UK when Nick Ross (ex crimewatch) published his book on crime. He has a psychology degree and the book is a well-researched thesis, albeit written in chatty style. He demonstrated that the evidence points towards savvy crime prevention strategies (ie immobilisers on cars, shreik alarms, not displaying valuables or getting completely drunk in dodgy places etc) have a greater impact on crime than hoping that the deterrence effect of a big sentence for a convicted perpetual will suffice. Obviously it’s up to people to choose how much they want to constrain their freedom by personal safety concerns, but a fair amount is small common sense concessions, eg it’s not a good idea to hitch-hike alone.
Ultimately this is what research does – it informs us about likelihoods and consequences and thus we are better informed when making choices. Some research published last week demonstrated that the risk of miscarriage can be substantially reduced by making simple lifestyle adjustments; useful info for someone at risk of miscarriage who wants to optimise their chances.
Not so for the graunista cif-wallah – they are outraged that anyone should dare suggest to a pregnant woman that choices she has made might have caused a miscarriage, although this was nowhere near the ordure heaped on Ross for demonstrating that drunken incapable lone women increase their risk of sexual assault.
Lefties are not interested in the truth, ie the veracity of a message and if such a message fails to please them, their only response is to attack the messenger, fluffing up their tail-feathers as they do so and burying their heads deep in the ground. Fair enough if they choose to be blinkered and ill-informed, but I do wish they’d stop objecting to everyone else learning and choosing for themselves.
“perpetrator” not “perceptual”; “contraints” not “concerns” – oh how these big words bother my word-predictor…….
“Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality.” I for one am shocked.
As soon as I heard about that article and without knowing the name of the author, I made a prediction to myself about the author’s ethnicity. There were two possibilities: non-white or white-of-a-particular kind. That was vicious and bigoted of me, I must admit. But I was right. Free speech is not safe in the hands of the people who now run the U.S.
“freedom of faculty members to pursue research and to teach has some value”
A senior at one of the world’s most prestigious universities thinks learning and research have ‘some’ value. I, for one, am comforted to hear this.
“when a faculty member violates them, he should be silenced”
“dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
Coherent worldviews. Overrated in my opinion.
“activities always and everywhere reflect political considerations”
In computer maintainance, for example, teaching the difference between a cat5 and a cat5e cable cannot be done without a lengthy monologue about the myriad of ways that race, class and gender impact network cabling. So, yes, Ms Korn. That’s completely true and you in no way look like a total and utter fool for spouting such raving gibberish.
“Why should we put up with research that counters our goals?”
Why indeed. Havard is, after all, entirely financed out of Ms Korn’s private funds. So it’s totally reasonable that everyone else shut up and sit quietly in the corner while Korn and her buddies do whatever the hell they want without interference.
I assume Ms. Korn is auditioning for a spot at The Guardian?
The comments after Korn’s article almost unanimously present a return to sanity, suggesting that her proposal that truth should be eschewed in favour of ideology rather lacks merit. As one observes:
“The Soviet Union tried that. It didn’t end well”
Coherent worldviews. Overrated in my opinion… So it’s totally reasonable that everyone else shut up and sit quietly in the corner while Korn and her buddies do whatever the hell they want without interference.
But this isn’t some innovation on Korn’s part; it’s an old idea, mouthed by many other obnoxious personalities, and one that holds great appeal for a certain kind of person. Herbert Marcuse, mentioned above, was a Marxist academic, a “critical theorist,” who denounced bourgeois proprieties – including reciprocation and hearing out the other side – as “oppressive”. He therefore urged leftist radicals to be “intolerant towards the protagonists of the repressive status quo.”
Which I guess means thee and me. And your family, and mine.
Marcuse’s essay Repressive Tolerance is an extended, self-flattering whine about the far left’s failure to convince the broader population of its virtues, supposedly because “radical minorities” have “unequal access to the means of democratic persuasion.” (And not because of little details like the monstrous consequences of such ideas and the kinds of people who find them intoxicating.) In other words, it’s apparently unfair that totalitarian leftists aren’t very popular among the general population and therefore they should be given free airtime – as much of it as they wish – uninterrupted by commercials, which are capitalist propaganda and thus to be abolished.
And so you get the usual mix of pretentious victimhood and colossal vanity. They are the special snowflakes, the ones who will save us from our ‘false consciousness’, and so special entitlements are in order. Unilateral entitlements. Say, unearned leverage, the power to censor, and a license to indulge in a spot of thuggery. Because they’re so special. We’ve seen this lofty philosophy in action, here and overseas, dozens of times.
The end product of Ms Korn’s worldview would be an academic environment – and by extension, a culture – in which the statusful term “intellectual” would no longer refer to someone who (ideally) reflects analytically and tests assumptions about this or that; but rather, someone who simply mouths the expected attitudes.
Korn wants to replace a centuries-old tradition of inquiry with a secular version of an Imam; a ‘community leader’ whose achievements are to have imbibed the canonical texts until they can recite them whenever occasion demands to rule on ‘correct’ behaviour.
I suppose that is one consequence of continually being told that progress is a myth (and probably a tool of oppression, though the criteria for the latter is pretty wide).
I’m particularly annoyed by the decades-old cliché Korn uses which is: no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication … No academic question is ever “free” from political realities.
There is some truth in this, but the truth that it contains is no more spectacular than saying “Things cost money.”, “Water quenches thirst.” or “Books are printed on paper.”
And I have long despised the extension of the logic behind that cliche (which I was confronted with during my own experience of higher education) that goes something like:
– Every position is political (including claiming not to have a position).
– Therefore not choosing a position means surrendering your mind to the positions others have imposed upon you (‘others’ always meaning the Institutionally Racist Capitalist Patriarchal Military-Industrial Complex of course).
– Therefore the only way to prove that you have freed your mind from the opinions you didn’t even know you inherited along with your mother’s milk is to choose a Leftist position (because any other choice is mere acquiescence to the desires of the Consumer-Capitlaist Controllers of the World).
This is of course not only utter bollocks but quite alarming in its resemblance to the recruitment and programming techniques used by cults.
There is one truth in the extract from Korn’s essay above.
“Today, members of the professoriate are often politically-minded and the doctrine of “academic freedom” is often inverted in an attempt to insulate them from genuine scholarly standards… To put it concisely: academic freedom once meant protection from politics; now it means protection for politics.”
Which is precisely true of the trendy-leftie faction in academia, and has served to insulate many a Ward Churchill type from criticism. When a professor spouts off in public and the public laughs, groans, or gainsays, it’s an infringement on academic freedom, on the Marcusian principle (thanks, Dave!) that all opposition is oppression.
Ditto, when a generic leftie spouts off and encounters argument rather than docile acceptance. That infringes his freedom of speech.
But does anyone think Ms. Korn will learn from this? Of course she won’t: this will _confirm_ her in her conviction that she is under attack by reactionaries everywhere, because she is a feminist and a social justice warrior. The reaction to her little fascist rant will only make her more fascistic.
And will she suffer any consequences? Of course she won’t: her feminist and radical professors will praise her and bump up her grades because she’s under attack by reactionaries for being a feminist and social justice warrior. They’ll try to line up some sweet internships for her. In ten years she’ll probably be a rising star at some university or in the office of a Democrat politician. In twenty years she’ll have tenure or be an Undersecretary of something.
This is the face of the fascists who have conquered freedom. We only thought we won the Cold War.
I think your three points there hit the nail squarely on the head, Nik. And of course, it goes right back to Marx. Everyone’s opinion is shaped by his “class interest”, not conscious thought, and should therefore be ignored by anyone of another class. Except the thoroughly middle-class Marx himself, who had heroically broken out of the restraints of “interest” to lead the Proletariat to salvation. Therefore his is the only position that requires intellectual effort. Exactly the same horseshit we hear from the likes of Korn, of course, but it’s been there from the beginning.
Jim,
There is one truth in the extract from Korn’s essay above.
To clarify, the passage you quote is Peter Wood speaking, not Korn. I don’t think our angry socialist who likes “occupying things” is gifted with that kind of realism.
http://scifimethods.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/MC2.jpg
This woman is a product of Harvard and she sounds like a reject from an iffy 70s polytechnic.
This woman is a product of Harvard and she sounds like a reject from an iffy 70s polytechnic.
This is a woman who feels entitled to forcibly “occupy” other people’s property, to obstruct their lawful behaviour and generally piss about at someone else’s expense. Yet she howls in outrage at even the idea that intelligence may to some extent be heritable. Behold the intellectuals of tomorrow. Our finest minds.
David:
So I see…should have clicked on the link before commenting, rather than after!
Comment first, find facts later….hmmm, maybe I can find a place in academe after all ;o)
Korn’s essay makes perfect sense.
Back in the 1960s, freedom was needed to challenge the conservative orthodoxy of the times. But now that we know which political thoughts are correct and which are not, that freedom is no longer needed and is in fact a hindrance, allowing aberrant political ideas to contaminate scholarship.
Rather than risk regression, our universities need a cultural revolution. Whether bourgeousie professors are to re-educated or drummed out of higher education for good is an open question. Perhaps re-education first and then expel those who prove uneducatable. Outright imprisonment seems excessive. We are not, after all, fascist conservatives.
I don’t see how this is any different from the (probably apocryphal) speech attributed to Omar during his destruction of the Library of Alexandria: “If it agrees with the Quran it is redundant, if it disagrees it is heresy. Destroy it all”.
Nik,
This is of course not only utter bollocks but quite alarming in its resemblance to the recruitment and programming techniques used by cults.
I’d say Ms Korn is highly suggestible and her ability to disregard reality is certainly remarkable. For instance, she claims to be surrounded by “a campus environment dominated by rape culture – a culture that systematically legitimises and excuses sexual violence.” That’s Harvard she’s talking about, one of the most exquisitely cosseting and PC environments on the face of the Earth, where the list of “diversity” facilities and women’s groups is longer than your arm and annual tuition is around $60,000.
Ms Korn… lists her interests as “socialism, being angry about gender” and “occupying things.”
What is it our host says? “The Clown Quarter of academia”…
Wow, looks like Ms. Korn’s whole Harvard schtick may be born of the usual rebelling against daddy even as daddy & mommy pay her way.
Sandra Korn is, then, the child of two parents who, taken together – to judge by their CVs – personify pretty much everything she’s rebelling against. She’s a product of precisely the kind of upper-class American suburban life for which she has professed an ardent class contempt. And she’s about to collect an immensely valuable diploma after utterly squandering a magnificent, world-class opportunity to actually learn something. Instead of grasping this opportunity, she’s spent the last four years marinating in her own ideology by writing articles, participating in activism, and taking “courses” that are about nothing more than Being Ideologues Together. There’s no sign that she’s been educated at all, in any sense of the term – no sign that she’s learned anything of significance about, say, history or economics, no sign that she’s developed any understanding of the way the world works, no sign that she grasps the concept of challenging one’s own assumptions by taking in unfamiliar facts and grappling with ideas different from one’s own. She mentions her professors in her columns only to upbraid them. (Several of her profs, for example, have urged her to work on not saying “you know” and “like” in every sentence – which she rejects as an effort to make her speech patterns more masculinist.) She gives every indication, in fact, of having arrived at Harvard believing that she already knew everything she needed to know and of having viewed her presence on campus as a chance not to obtain a first-rate education but to roil the waters in a very big pond.
There’s no sign that she’s been educated at all, in any sense of the term – no sign that she’s learned anything of significance about, say, history or economics,
Not a wise creature, no. But although not educated, her narcissism and arrogance have been harnessed and she has been thoroughly processed. Like so many others.
The piece that Bawer mentions deserves wider appreciation…
Well-meaning mentors, ranging from teachers, to bosses, to older students, often advise women like me on how to be more respected, gain more credibility, or hold people’s attention and regard more effectively—usually by telling us that we should stop qualifying our remarks, end our statements more decisively, speak up, drop the “like,” and take up more space in conversations. Essentially, this lesson means that if we speak in a feminine way, we will not be respected—and to be respected, we must speak more like men.
If you thought, “I’m sure I’ve heard as many of men say “like” as women” you were probably correct. Even beyond this, however, it’s so sad that encouragement to improve oneself is being reclassified as a vice.
But although barely educated in any meaningful sense, her narcissism and arrogance have been harnessed and put to use, of a kind. Ms Korn seems quite sure of her own intellectual destiny as a corrector of others, a fearless challenger of WrongThought™.
*hits tip jar*
BenSix,
encouragement to improve oneself is being reclassified as a vice.
She does seem to be a textbook example of her kind. A mix of credulity, unrealism and breath-taking arrogance. A woman flattered by her own ignorance and proud of her obnoxious urge to coerce.
Joanne,
Thanks. And to all who’ve chipped in recently. It’s much appreciated.
usually by telling us that we should stop qualifying our remarks, end our statements more decisively, speak up, drop the “like,” and take up more space in conversations.
Since when have women had a problem “taking up space in conversations”? Also, doesn’t this advice boil down to “be less self aware” to some extent? Don’t know what to make of that.
Exactly the same horseshit we hear from the likes of Korn, of course, but it’s been there from the beginning.
Yes, there’s something deeply ironic about the fact that at the same time as being fixated on a future utopia, many socialist-inspired activists are also arch-conservatives who are wedded to outmoded forms of protest some of which seem to be as quaint as children dancing round a maypole at an English country village fair (and only marginally less effective as an instrument of politics).
More often than not, the marches, demonstrations and picketing I’ve seen look like more like inchoate attempts to create a historical reenactment display – a kind of 19th century industrial factory worker version of the Sealed Knot, but with much less interesting costumes and no apparent awareness that it’s all been done before.
I’d say Ms Korn is highly suggestible and her ability to disregard reality is certainly remarkable.
she has been thoroughly processed
Heh.
I once went to an open seminar by a graduate student whose the topic was (ostensibly) the cult of female Saints in early Medieval Spain. At least, that was how it had been described in the notice.
What actually happened (you probably won’t be surprised to learn) is that after an indecently brief description of the name of some Spanish saint or other, the young woman student (who I guess must have been in her early 20s) immediately turned to her real subject: the male gaze …
I don’t really recall much of what she said after hearing that, but as you can well imagine what ensued was something like Lacan (tick) blah blah scopophilia (tick) blah blah Foucault (tick) blah blah panopticon (tick) blah blah etc.
What I do recall however, and quite vividly, was the person sat just in front of me. She was a very thin and angular woman, even her glasses had sharp corners, and she was impeccably dressed in black and green. It became immediately obvious that this was the graduate student’s supervisor/mentor and there was a kind of severe pride in the steady and nearly expressionless way she stared at her protégé throughout.
Rather than what I had expected to see and hear, what I actually ended up being a witness to was something like a child at her 3rd grade piano recital who was terrified of incurring the disapproval of the ‘tiger’ mother who’d been tutoring her.
It was actually quite disheartening to see a student’s speech so clearly being strait-jacketed into such narrow dogma.
And this did not take place in an iffy polytechnic, but in a seminar room of an almost 700 year-old college in one of the world’s top five universities.
And it wasn’t in the 1970s but some time in 2007 or 2008.
Also, doesn’t this advice boil down to “be less self-aware” to some extent?
I’m reminded of the grad school students who protested against the “racist microaggression” of having their grammar corrected. And worse, having their Marxoid assumptions questioned in class. Imagine the indignity.
Does anyone see the makings of a pattern here?
For the record, Harvard yammerheads are a subject of complete indifference to me.
The Bruce Bawer piece on Sandra Korn is very, very good. It will probably be ignored by those who ought to read it most carefully.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the resurgence of this idea that gender differences are all “social constructs” or “social conditioning” [or whatever the latest pseudo-explanation is]. I can see from the comments on the Times and Guardian sites that this idea is still exhumed whenever it might be useful to someone. It seems Sandra Korn is at it too.
As I’ve said, the best scientific model is that the differences are pronounced. If I start with the fact that men produce 20 or so times as much Testosterone as women I’d have to mention so many other facts about the Amygdala, Corpus Callosum, limbic system, etcetc. This all doesn’t amount to proof (which science doesn’t do anyway) but is strong evidence of differences in humans from an early age (ie: before “social conditioning”). Also observations of gender differences in many species are instructive.
In the US you have an army of Judith Butler types who imagine their pretentious, deliberately unreadable essays about gender actually compete with science in some way. It’s an extraordinary amount of political will – if the scientific model seems to be saying something that we can label oppressive – however tenuously – then scientific method has to go.
Never mind that the development of science has been one of the most astonishing achievements of the West in the last 500 years. It has to be undermined. And they don’t mind how they do it – they are damn close to saying outright that lying is justified if it serves the Cause (which by the way no one has defined yet)
If that doesn’t count as fanaticism I don’t know what does.
Henry,
It is, I think, significant that the formal qualification of lecturers in gender studies is much more likely to be in English literature than in, say, biology or neuroscience.
Oh, and on twitter, Ms Korn, who thinks students must be spared exposure to any facts and ideas that are insufficiently leftwing, dismisses her critics as “condescending.” No, don’t laugh.
I’m not a conservative and I’ve only been lurking around this blog recently (well at least since December) but I can’t believe how disconnected from reality this schmuk is. She’s come across as deluded, arrogant, privileged and downright condescending. Being a local community college student, and a minority at that, with parents trying to make ends meet, I can’t stomach seeing someone with the resources, affluence, and privilege to study/attend an elite university like Harvard, make a total ass of herself and “embarrass” a reputable institution. Jeez man, why couldn’t she have she gone for a History Major with a minor in Women’s Studies or some crap like that. Maybe her parents could adopt me and with annual $60,000 for tuition, I’d be motivated to graduate with honors, Straight As and etc…..in History and/or Political Science. I’d be eternally grateful!
Kevin,
Welcome aboard. If it helps, I don’t think of myself as being a conservative either.
Women’s Studies gets some things right: science is masculinist. Stop trying to force uncomprehending and untalented women into the sciences.
“The Clown Quarter of academia”…
As long as by “quarter” you mean “segment” and not one-quarter, given that it’s clowns all the way down anymore.
I can’t stomach seeing someone with the resources, affluence, and privilege to study/attend an elite university like Harvard, make a total ass of herself and “embarrass” a reputable institution.
She made an ass of herself only in the sense that she lacked the perspicacity to keep the mask on regarding the True Goals of Academe.
They’re not supposed to articulate the desire to suppress opposing viewpoints; they’re supposed to talk about how inclusive and multicultural and sensitive they are — adjectives that squirt just enough ink that the donors feel safe donating, either because they actually believe the claptrap or because they know their fell plots won’t be found out.
So given all of the above, including dicentra’s observation adjectives that squirt just enough ink that the donors feel safe donating, either because they actually believe the claptrap or because they know their fell plots won’t be found out., just how stupid are Harvard people. AFAIK, I’ve only met one in my life. Friend-of-a-friend came to Ft. Laud. for spring break in late 70’s and was a total PITA. Severe case of short man’s disease as well. Has anyone here ever hired any? Done business with one? How stupid must they be to not see through the BS, as dicentra implies?
All y’all may care to read the following article looking at the roots of this sort of attitude in academia: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/cultural-studies-a-cancer-on-the-academy/14701#.UwvDpuN_so9
“they’re supposed to talk about how inclusive and multicultural and sensitive they are”
I don’t buy that claptrap (for the most part) because it just seems so insincere, fake and downright fraudulent at times and I consider myself fairly liberal. Being 23 and a community college student, is it awful/selfish for me to admit that while the miserable souls of the world have my uttermost sympathy, like the plight of LGBTs in Russia (being gay myself), that “social justice”, “social change”, “tolerance” and challenging the status quo aren’t really priorities of mine in this life time? For me, trying to finish my associate’s degree, moving on to another college, and finding a job/career is my real concern at the moment. It’s scary to think this girl is no more than a year or two than me and I’m a sophomore in college. This girl is really out of touch, sad to say and IMHO, is to be pitied and laughed at.
Nik White @ February 23, 2014 at 13:42:
More often than not, the marches, demonstrations and picketing I’ve seen look like more like inchoate attempts to create a historical reenactment display…
A large part of the anti-Iraq-war protests were, fairly obviously, ’60s recreator parties.
I don’t buy that claptrap (for the most part) because it just seems so insincere, fake and downright fraudulent
Speaking of fraudulent insincerity, the Chavistas in Venezuela are rocking a hashtag today called #DesconectateDelOdio, “Disconnect yourself from hatred.”
The message being that the opposition is totes CRAY-CRAY and we Chavistas, we are at peace.
“Don’t play their game, arguing all over the place. Let them be consumed in their hatred among themselves. We are love and peace.”
“Peace” in this case means “STFU and take it, you ingrates. Chávez gave you cheap gasoline and free education, but let a little toilet paper run out and you wreck the whole country.”
Difference of degree, not of kind.
dicentra, that is something I can agree with you on. There have been cases where Venezuelans who are leaving the country are branded “elitists” because they decide it’s almost impossible to live with the current economic and political policies of Venezuela that make businesses rather difficult. I’ve read about their experiences and while they’re clearly educated professionals, their native homeland sounds like inhospitable place for a decent living and thus, leave for Southern Florida and other places in the USA. I can’t see anything “elitist” about that.
I don’t buy that claptrap (for the most part) because it just seems so insincere, fake and downright fraudulent at times and I consider myself fairly liberal. . . .
Also, welcome to the variety of peanut gallery, and to note that I keep asking what is supposed to be conservative, or liberal, or . . .
What I keep seeing is indeed complete and totally posturing right wing idiots . . . completely and totally mirrored by their near identical counterparts on the equally extreme left.
The read I get in many instances is of actual functioning conservatives—actually conserving, looking at all the facts, weighing the options, seeing what resources are available to work with—being rather nastily bookended by and stuck between the two varieties of ideological only, right wing liberal and left wing liberal screaming extremists . . .
@Hal
Agreed. When taking into consideration what these terms mean in other Anglophone countries like England, Canada, and Australia, their meanings doesn’t necessarily reflect the American reality (or perspective). That is, it can have different meanings in the aforementioned countries. In the case of England, “conservative” doesn’t have anything to do with anything “right-wing”. Likewise, I’ve seen the usage of “Liberal” that’s had folks screaming accusations of one being “bigots” or “right-wingers”. It’s very confusing. Same thing with Christan Democrats in some European countries.
I’ve no idea what to call myself anymore. I’ve always been “liberal” in the woolly British sense of live and let live. I believe everyone should be treated equally regardless of sex, race, sexuality etc, and I think capitalism has its downsides and government intervention and a social democratic safety net are necessary to mitigate them. There was a time that made me left-wing.
On the other hand I also think that capitalism has its positive sides, that equality is best served by treated people as individuals rather than as categories competing for patronage based on their position on a hierarchy of victimhood, that civil liberties, due process and freedom of speech are important, I can’t bear the smug in-group self-righteousness of Stewart Lee and can only laugh at the incoherent revolutionary delusions of the occupy movement, so I’m pretty much disqualified from the modern left.
. I’ve always been “liberal” in the woolly British sense of live and let live. I believe everyone should be treated equally . . . .
My assessment—someone feel free to squawk if the assessment seems unworkable—is that “liberal” split off about the time of the industrial revolution. The right wing liberals went off to My Way Now Or Else—Hitler, et al, for those extremists—and the left wing liberals went off to My Way Now Or Else–Marx, et al, for those extremists.
I keep seeing “classical liberal” getting cited, but again, liberal is now claimed by the left, as the left practices the same approach and worldview as the right—they’re mirrored opposites, with completely opposing agendas, yes, but the choices and actions to support the agendas appear to me to keep being identical.
And between these liberal extremes, that leaves the rest of us, where from what I see, “Classical Liberal” is out of date, so that leaves Conservative . . . where conservative thus is clearly absolutely not right wing . . .