Elsewhere (114)
Cathy Young on the psychodramas of academic feminism:
Twenty years ago, critics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, and Karen Lehrman described the bizarre “therapeutic pedagogy” in many women's studies classrooms, where female students were frequently encouraged to share traumatic or intimate experiences in supportive “safe spaces.” Today, at many colleges, academic therapism has spread to other fields. Welcome to the age of the trigger warning. […] Initially, the warnings were primarily for sexual assault and partner abuse. Eventually, they spread to just about everything that could be potentially upsetting to any person of politically correct sensitivities: sexism, racism, homophobia, “ableism,” “victim-blaming,” “slut-shaming,” “fat-shaming,” “body-shaming” and a host of other sins and oppressions. (My personal favourite is a warning for “discussion of gender policing” – that is, of norms dictating proper bounds of masculine and feminine behaviour. How startling to find such a discussion on a feminist blog.)
Christopher Snowdon parses the assumptions of “medical socialism”:
‘Neoliberalism’ means free markets and ‘transnational forces’ means globalisation, i.e., free trade between countries. These are the main factors that have led to the extraordinary reduction in poverty in developing countries since 1980. The world suffers less from an unequal distribution of wealth than it does from an unequal distribution of capitalism. Countries which have resisted free market reforms have suffered greatly as a result.
Thomas Sowell feels the benevolence of teachers’ unions:
The teachers’ unions see charter schools as a threat to their members’ jobs, and politicians respond to the money and the votes that teachers’ unions can provide. The net result is that public schools are often run as if their main function is to provide jobs to teachers. Whether the children get a decent education is secondary, at best.
And Dr Ben Carson, a retired black neurosurgeon, recently spoke at a conservative conference and received thunderous applause. Much to the annoyance of quite a few people on the Totally Non-Racist Left™, who denounced him as an “uncle Tom,” a “token” and a “house negro.” “He can shine my shoes,” wrote ‘progressive’ comedian Laura Levites.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
Also, Zombie revisits the ‘progressive’ philosophy of Margaret Sanger:
And Peter Risdon spies a tiny, tiny omission by our leftist press.
“He can shine my shoes,” wrote ‘progressive’ comedian Laura Levites.
Lefties are really compassionate and tolerant people. Right up until you disagree with them.
My personal favourite is a warning for “discussion of gender policing” – that is, of norms dictating proper bounds of masculine and feminine behaviour
Heh. I don’t know what they think of as gender policing, but perhaps it’s related to the very liberal idea that we should ban the word “bossy”
Why? Don’t be silly! it’s because the word is clearly
“disproportionately applied to females, preventing schoolgirls from seeing themselves as future “leaders”…It’s telling that Little Miss Bossy doesn’t have a Mr Men equivalent in Roger Hargreaves’s children’s series”
Telling indeed. Reams of unsupported, irrational speculation suggest themselves based on this one telling fact. And no one mention, please, that feminists used to talk of ‘male violence’. We don’t want too much logic floating about
Samizdata:
As I asked at Samizdata, can we sing “Ding Dont the Witch is Dead” in response to Tony Benn’s death?
Henry – the rampant sexism and cultural femicide in children’s media is a serious business.
Take Mr Benn. Where was his wife when he was going off on his whimsical costume shop adventures every day? At home nursing a black eye, terrified that he’d return and, as if by magic, find a speck of dirt and go mental, that’s where.
Generations of girls have had their confidence destroyed and have been forced into eating disorders by the unrealistically thin and pretty Barbie. Boys, in contrast, have attainable role models like He-Man and Lion-o.
And then there’s this.
White people not welcome at college’s “diversity” event.
It’s funny how often this kind of thing happens.
White people not welcome at college’s “diversity” event.
Jesus wept. So basically these hothouse flowers need a ‘safe space’ away from any disagreement.
So basically these hothouse flowers need a ‘safe space’ away from any disagreement.
The immense intellect behind the ‘No Honkies’ policy is Ms Karama Blackhorn, who tells us she has a BA in “Critical Race Theory and Sexuality Studies,” which is to say, Marxoid victimhood and advanced question-begging. When not cultivating racism among students and telling them which parts of the campus are “not for white people,” Ms Blackhorn publishes a blog, The Queer Space Reclamation Project. Though, such being her brilliance, she doesn’t appear able to format text into readable paragraphs.
we should ban the word “bossy”
100% of which is prep for a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
Which, if you say so.
Also, “Does this censorship campaign make me look bossy?”
Yours truly,
— Dicentra spectaBOSSY
White people not welcome at college’s “diversity” event.
Every year the modern campus gets more like Star Trek’s mirror universe.
On Dr. Carson,
25 years ago, I was skateboarding down a very steep hill in my neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. In the span of a long blink, I went from zooming down that hill to finding myself suddenly strapped down, nude and bloody but otherwise only slightly sore, to a gurney in John Hopkins Hospital.
As you can imagine, this was a pretty surprising turn of events. I was still trying to figure out what had happened – calling out for someone a few times – when a tall, genial black man entered the operating room. He knew my name, and gently asked me how I was feeling, what I knew about my situation, and other simple questions.
He seemed immediately familiar, and I realized in a few moments that I recognized him from a TV special where he had recently separated twins, conjoined at the head, in a ground-breaking operation. Even for a stubborn fourteen year old, figuring out that you’re talking to a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon is pretty scary.
Dr. Carson was there to do a final evaluation prior to my brain surgery. The fall had fractured my skull in four places (along with half a dozen other bones), and I had been in-and-out of consciousness for the past 8 hours. There was serious fluid building on my brain, and the fear was that if it were to pop, the resulting anyuresm could kill me in a matter of seconds.
Thanks to Ben Carson, that didn’t happen – what I thought was a friendly chat in the operating theater was, in fact, a careful analysis of my awareness, mental state, and brain function. He knew that no operation was needed, and under a month’s supervision the fluid dissipated and everything healed nicely.
Long story made short: I, like thousands of others, owe Ben Carson my life – so I’ve found myself getting quite defensive when seeing these attacks from the left towards him. I think that much of it is fueled by a sense of betrayal on their part; Dr. Carson’s life story is a remarkable tale of escaping some of the worst of America’s inner cities. There seems to be a presumption that as a successful black man, he owes the left, politically – that somehow, decades of failed social programs and incentives thrown blindly at poor blacks should buy their loyalty forever.
Reading those tweets reinforces that – snide racism that would never fly were it to come from the right is passed off as “edgy political commentary” toward a man who escaped a life of crime and poverty through hard work, intelligence, and determination. How dare Ben Carson advocate for individuals working hard to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Doesn’t he know that never works – it’s not like anyone can just go from a rough childhood in inner-city Detroit to become a successful neurosurgeon! Oh, wait…
“all of whom threatened what Sanger saw as the ‘purity’ of the educated white middle and upper classes.”
Milt Rosenberg recently mentioned a book titled “The Revolt Against the Masses”, which sounds pertinent: Modern liberalism as a program by the ruling elites to disempower and middle class and working class–we are all supposed to know our place and tug our forelocks when begging a boon from the Lords and Ladies.
Chris K:
From this side of the pond it’s a mystery as to why the majority of black America keeps voting for the slaveowners party. Ben Carson dared to leave the plantation and he’s hated for it.