Elsewhere (125)
Tim Worstall reads The Lancet, where socialism trumps reality:
Lifespans are still getting longer, communicable disease continues to reduce, age adjusted cancer rates are falling: there’s simply no evidence at all that the health of the population is declining. So, given that we’ve not got any sign whatsoever of declining health, it’s very difficult indeed to say that increasing inequality is causing something that isn’t happening.
And again here. When supposedly learned people talk unironically about “social justice,” a good mental response is “yellow alert.”
Some random thoughts from Thomas Sowell:
In Thomas Piketty’s highly-praised new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he asserts that the top tax rate under President Herbert Hoover was 25 percent. But Internal Revenue Service records show that it was 63 percent in 1932. If Piketty can’t even get his facts straight, why should his grandiose plans for confiscatory global taxation be taken seriously?
And via D in the comments, Aurelius marvels at the wonders of modern academia. Specifically, the winning oratory in the Cross Examination Debate Association’s national championship. I implore you to watch the video of highlights. It’s a thing to behold, serving as both a bold new standard for eloquent persuasion and a measure of the education these young ladies have received. Here’s a very brief transcript:
Uh, man’s sole “jabringing” object disfigure religion trauma and nubs, uh, the, inside the trauma of representation that turns into the black child devouring and identifying with the stories and into the white culture brought up, uh, de de de de de, dink, and add subjectively like a white man, the black man!
Go Team Dada. Embrace the jive.
As always, feel free to share your own links and snippets below.
I implore you to watch the video of highlights.
I’ve watched it twice now and I still can’t quite believe it’s real. Is it too soon to despair?
Is it too soon to despair?
I denounce your expectations of meaningful speech. We won’t stand for that kind of oppression here, you know. Get your bad self down with the Dadaist wordstream.
Again, what’s interesting is that, having presumably watched video of themselves “debating,” the ladies don’t seem at all concerned by the irrelevance of their hyperventilation to the given topic, or by the fact that for great stretches of time they were clearly mouthing gibberish. Actually jabbering. But then, if the judges and educators don’t mind…
They made noises until whitey appeared and gave them a shiny object.
“The Financial Times attempted to verify the data presented by Piketty in his book and failed to be able to reproduce it. They found that the data, as presented, contained (to say the least) substantial inaccuracies. More bluntly, if the correct figures from the sources he cites are used, and the calculations are performed correctly, the effects he claims to describe vanish entirely.”
http://www.samizdata.net/2014/05/pikettys-data-krugmans-shame/
Is it too soon to despair?
Ehhh, I’m going to say no.
If these are the students, what, one wonders, are the teachers doing? Say between June 5 and 7 at Metropolitan State University Denver?
Changing minds: Teachers’ Perspectives Towards Issues of Diversity and Power
Kelli Woodrow, Regis University
In a course designed to develop teachers as change agents, beginning teachers report personal transformation yet, they are unable to critique larger systems of power. This collaborative dialogue will focus on developing whitestream* preservice teachers’ praxis around P-12 students’ experiences within the larger historical, social and political contexts.
*Urban dictionary.com helpfully defines whitestream as ‘When something is popular enough to be mainstream, but is really only mainstream for white people. Emo music is a good examle of whitestream.’
The above is an abstract (my emphasis) from the forthcoming Rouge Forum conference (Rouge Forum is a ‘a group of educators, students, and parents’ who are ‘concerned about questions like these: How can we teach against racism, national chauvinism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society?’).
And, oh my, there is more …
Equity not Equality
Briana Ryans, Clemson University
This dialogue will begin with the activity, “The Right Shoe”. Participants will be asked to give the shoe size of their right shoe. After all of the shoe sizes are collected, they will be redistributed amongst the participants. Some participants might receive a size too big, too small, or just right. Participants will then be asked how they feel in their new shoe size. Once feelings concerning the shoe sizes are shared, participants will then dialogue about the correlation that the activity has to equity and equality. A further correlation will be made to how individuals are taught and how methodologies can be approved upon.
… much, much more …
Resistance Through Language
Paula Meyer
How do public-school-based linguistic genocide and the commodification of language relate to each other and to the questions proposed in the RF 2014 CFP? How do we use language to build and rebuild community in order to resist the increasing economic inequality and control found in our internal colonies?
And these abstracts are still only the contents of page 1. page 1
For masochists, the rest of the other program abstracts can be read here.
Get your bad self down with the Dadaist wordstream.
What the hell are they doing and why are they getting a trophy? Why isn’t anyone saying something? Is whatever they have contagious?
Why isn’t anyone saying something?
Ah, that’s the question.. And it’s one we’ve asked before.
What were the losers like?
Th “debate” has literally made me weep with despair. I feel nauseous and really wondering why bother with anything. The arrogance of politicians, the mandated theft by the socialist and now the deliberate abuse of students in favour of, what? Equality maybe?
then again, maybe just maybe, some others that see this may realize how crewed up THEY have made our world, and begin correcting their views.I doubt it, but i live in hope and will return the cyanide to the cellar for today.
I denounce your expectations of meaningful speech. We won’t stand for that kind of oppression here, you know.
So basically if you gulp down air, wave your hands and shout ‘racism’, you win? Good to know.
svh to be fair the FT used data that Piketty himself made available for people to check over and various other economists and publications such as the Economist magazine have said that the FT’s case is overstated and does not in fact undermine the premise of the book… (Not that I’ve read the book or the FT article)
The CEDA debate footage is jaw-dropping David — have you seen this article from the Atlantic which explains how the whole mess came about? I’ll warn you, it’s a depressing read…
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/traditional-college-debate-white-privilege/360746/
Stunning. It’s not ‘debate’, it’s a filibuster with the ‘n’ word every ten seconds.
OJ,
it’s a depressing read…
I love how the Atlantic phrases it: “An increasingly diverse group of participants has transformed debate competitions, mounting challenges to traditional form and content by incorporating personal experience, performance, and radical politics.” And so rather than address the given topic, which you’d think would be non-negotiable, “Over four hours, the two teams engaged in a heated discussion of concepts like ‘nigga authenticity’ and performed hip-hop and spoken-word poetry in the traditional timed format. At one point during Lee’s rebuttal, the clock ran out but he refused to yield the floor. ‘Fuck the time!’ he yelled.”
Those with an urge to self-harm can savour the full four hours here.
Though it strikes me as essentially a display of learned degradation, a racial parody, all poorly disguised as radical progress.
“have you seen this article from the Atlantic which explains how the whole mess came about?”
Curious article.
If debates are won by studying hard, cultivating logic and abiding by rules, black people can’t hope to compete with whites. Also, if they’re allowed to, they will cause debates to degenerate into incoherent babbling, shouting profanities and unecessary rapping.
Which is disputed by Aaron Hardy who states: “it is wildly reductionist to say that black people can’t understand debate unless there is rap in it”
I vaguely remember a time when the former position would be considered obscenely racist, and Mr Hardy’s opinion would be viewed as a common sense counter to such a crassly bigoted way of thinking. Now it appears to be the other way around.
I’ve watched it twice now and I still can’t quite believe it’s real
No more can I. Is it real? Is there some mitigating circumstances that make sense of it?
More and more I wonder if conducting serious intellectual enquiry is to become a minority pursuit in English speaking countries, unappreciated and unrespected, whilst people play silly games like this – and then get congratulated by people like the sycophantic lady interviewing the winners here – who seems to know little more than they do.
Academic excellence is hard to achieve, really really hard. You need to dedicate your whole life to it. The concept doesn’t exist so that a bunch of angry young people can congratulate themselves on being good when they aren’t – and whose “feelings” we’re told to “respect” by not telling them when they’re not achieving
I watched a few CEDA debates since seeing this. I can only conclude it is the progressive version of Speaking in Tongues.
According to the cultural Marxists, reason is our enemy. Why? It leads, apparently, to the crimes of inequality—what the rest of us call “reality”. Can’t have that! So, their strategy is to embrace irrationalism. (Er, … isn’t that a bit of reasoning?) That’s just the ticket to heaven on Earth. They endeavour (oops, there’s that reasoning thing, again!) to destroy reason, thought itself and language, which is the embodiment of thought, so to speak, and one of thought’s most valuable tools. They destroy the university, because it is our institution devoted to thought and its logic. They destroy the very idea of information. Because they cannot abide its competition, they reject objectivity. (As though that were up for grabs.)
This ugly spectacle is their recipe in action. It can occur only within the cloisters of what remains of our universities—cloisters once devoted to the calm sunshine of the mind, but which are now safe harbor for every fever of madness. The spectacle is shocking, because it shows us what we have created, and what we will therefore have to contend with. We shall reap the whirlwind.
The CEDA debate prepares to go international as these plucky finalists from Scotland show as they get some practice in for 2015.
I mean that can be a debate too, right?
I mean by the terms set out in the Atlantic article those two are definitely “mounting challenges to traditional form and content by incorporating personal experience” which has certainly not been “backed up by professors or written papers”.
Not to be confused with the Oxford Union.
As I said in the other thread:
What’s fascinating is that they can speak articulately when they choose to. They talk about researching their debate, either as a lie to make themselves seem like serious and intelligent debaters or, for all I know, truthfully (though how research applies to…that…I wouldn’t know, maybe they researched what means of baffling the judges had been effective in the past).
So essentially they become circus seals, making amusing noises and gestures to an appreciative audience. They choose to be no more than performing animals, doing whatever it takes to get a treat. Rather than rising to the level of intelligent people, and perhaps being defeated fairly, they prefer to make themselves into fools and win. It saddens me not only that such a foolish win would be awarded, but that they have not been taught the character to reject such an undeserved victory.
As someone asked about the losers, well, if you watch the whole video you’ll see the team they “beat,” who said different, equally incoherent and meaningless things. Presumably the people who made arguments and actually debated anything were eliminated previously for their white privilege or something. If we keep handing out prizes to any black person who complains enough, surely we’ll have made up for slavery soon.
these plucky finalists from Scotland
Honestly I think those folks are both more coherent and do a better job of addressing the War Powers Act than the people in the debate.
At one point the opposing team is just performing a rap, not even an original one, just a random one that has nothing to do with the topic. If a person had invented this debate as a ludicrous scenario that affirmative action would lead to, I probably would’ve said it went too far in making its point.
There are various videos available but I linked that one in particular because it contrasts the participants’ ability to speak properly with their buffoonish performance in the debate, which gives the insanity some context. I honestly don’t know if it would be more depressing or less if they were as incoherent in normal conversation as they are in the debate.
Oh lord, that Atlantic article is horrifically depressing. This is great:
So in this statement from a friendly academic we have 1) an admission that there are group differences between people that make some groups more successful than others at certain things (which he would probably vehemently deny if this were applied to any other situation), and 2) a suggestion that black people (let’s not be coy) are racially inferior at debating with arguments and logic. With friends like these.
“Finally, there’s a recognition in the academic space that the way argument has taken place in the past privileges certain types of people over others,” he said.
Yes, people who can string words together in a recognizable order are more likely to get hired. The privilege, it’s an outrage.
Yes, people who can string words together in a recognizable order are more likely to get hired. The privilege, it’s an outrage.
I’m tempted to picture these young women at a job interview, expressing themselves in a similarly “authentic” manner, with lots of puffing and gasping and waving of arms.
I denounce my own wickedness.
people who can string words together in a recognizable order are more likely to get hired
That’s the issue, isn’t it? At some point you have to actually perform a useful service to society, or behave responsibly and intelligently in your own life, and no amount of complaining about white privilege is going to make other people do those things for you.
In some ways I can understand why black folks like these debaters are so angry when they don’t get hired for jobs — complaining and making up gibberish about white privilege has gotten them good grades all through college, and college is supposed to be preparing them for the working world. But all of a sudden (unless they choose to stay in academia) all the strategies that worked in college don’t work that well. But at some point there aren’t really “alternative” ways of soldering or building bridges. You can say that certain methods are “privileged” over others, but if your “alternative” approach doesn’t get you to the way that works then it’s worse than useless.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t some one-off aberration. It’s part of an educational trend, one that’s supposedly progressive and enlightened. Remember the taxpayer-funded race hustler Dr Caprice Hollins? A woman who insists that “students of colour” needn’t learn the grammar and fluency she herself enjoys – and which employers generally expect of job candidates. And who claims that basic skills, including foresight and punctuality, are “white values,” and that expectations thereof constitute “cultural racism.”
If you wanted to actively diminish the prospects and opportunities for minority students, and wanted to cultivate years of resentment, it’s hard to think of a worldview more likely to do just that.
people who can string words together in a recognizable order are more likely to get hired
I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Your choices when one of these people demand a job are (1) resign yourself to giving them money in exchange for no useful work, or (2) try to survive furious denunciation of your bigotry, pickets and boycotts by various cable tv and Democratic party eminences, and quite possibly government investigation led personally by the Attorney General of the United States if not the President, as you reveal yourself to be so opposed to the core modern American value of diversity that you would reject not just an African-American woman, but a national collegiate debate champion. hashtag #CiceroAintShit, hashtag #PayUpSucka.
A bit of Googling reveals that the CEDA debate is a ‘policy debate’, a rather silly style of debating with some unique features, extreme speed of delivery being one of them. Apparently 350 words per minute is not uncommon. Check out this clip of Harvard and Berkley students debating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhzwSlK4uEc
While the two girls who won the CEDA final were clearly spouting a lot of nonsense, the gasping and garbled delivery makes a bit more sense to me now. You’ll be relieved to hear that, from what I can make out, the more traditional ‘Oxford Union’ style debate remains untainted by this nonsense. Does anyone know how popular these policy debates actually are, in comparison to other kinds of competitive debating?
Also, it turns out that challenging the basis of the motion is a traditionally acceptable tactic in policy debates – they call it a ‘kritik’ – so the video may not be quite the display of progressive nuttiness it first appears to be. Which is somewhat disappointing.
re:the winning ‘debate’ team…
where’s the 2001 Monolith when you need it?
“If you wanted to actively diminish the prospects and opportunities for minority students, and wanted to cultivate years of resentment, it’s hard to think of a worldview more likely to do just that.”
Quite right, David. But, in the interest of understanding our opponent’s position:
Their response is that the marginalized will lose only so long as the dominant white male culture persists in using measures of persons—rationality, true beliefs, understanding, honesty, ability, morality, and so on—that favour whites, and do so at the expense of all others. Moreover, they say, there is no impartial, objective justification for those criteria of excellence. They have been chosen by white males precisely because they “privilege certain types of people over others”—because they privilege whites, and white males, especially. So, should non-whites fare less well, it will be only because the racist white culture still dominates. The clever members of the “marginalized” groups, reject the white-man’s metrics of excellence, and refuse to argue. To argue is to fall into the white-man’s trap. They can only lose. So, they adopt new criteria of success: whatever works; i.e., whatever criteria favour non-white males. Gibberish, idiocy, thuggery, subverting the law via friends in high places (DOJ, Oval Office, Supreme Court) … whatever favors their side. The video ably shows this strategy in action: take away whitey’s advantage; deny him the use of reason; frustrate thought, enquiry, understanding at every turn. Why? Because those are his most powerful weapons.
Their response is that the marginalized will lose only so long as the dominant white male culture persists in using measures of persons—rationality, true beliefs, understanding, honesty, ability, morality, and so on—that favour whites, and do so at the expense of all others.
One would think it would need to be established that minorities, on average, are less capable of rational thought, logic, argument, etc. before it is assumed that being a minority excuses them from having to meet the same standards as others. Of course some minorities outperform whites in these areas, so it’s not minorities in general.
It doesn’t quite work to go straight from “this group performs worse on average at X, Y, and Z than another group” to “this group is, on average, incapable of doing X, Y, and Z at the same level as the other group,” which is the assertion being made. That’s a big jump and represents a large cluster of assumptions. When the behavior of groups A and B are very different, it’s hard to say that group A’s better outcomes are the result of being in group A, rather than the behavior that tends to characterize group A.
We could also see how well, say, black people do in countries where they’re the majority, since presumably those societies would be oriented around things that black people are best at. There’s even an example of a country that, within the last 25 years, switched from rule by a white minority to rule by a black majority. That would be an excellent case study. If I understand it correctly, this theory would indicate that a country of black people ruled by black people would clearly be more productive than one under white rule, as it would be able to harness the different abilities and strengths black people have more effectively.
Get your bad self down with the Dadaist wordstream.
Ionesco responds to the debate with, “Damned if I know what that was about.”
Apparently the ladies’ over-gassed word salad was about “how the U.S. government is at war with poor black communities” and “what it means to be an authentic nigga.” I use the word ‘about’ in the loosest possible sense.
Get wid da nigga logic, Dave.
expressing themselves in a similarly “authentic” manner,
For me these days, authenticity consists of taking a nap.
“Their response is that the marginalized will lose only so long as the dominant white male culture persists in using measures of persons—rationality, true beliefs, understanding, honesty, ability, morality, and so on—that favour whites, and do so at the expense of all others. Moreover, they say, there is no impartial, objective justification for those criteria of excellence. They have been chosen by white males precisely because they “privilege certain types of people over others”—because they privilege whites, and white males, especially. So, should non-whites fare less well, it will be only because the racist white culture still dominates. The clever members of the “marginalized” groups, reject the white-man’s metrics of excellence, and refuse to argue. To argue is to fall into the white-man’s trap. They can only lose. So, they adopt new criteria of success: whatever works; i.e., whatever criteria favour non-white males. Gibberish, idiocy, thuggery, subverting the law via friends in high places (DOJ, Oval Office, Supreme Court) … whatever favors their side. The video ably shows this strategy in action: take away whitey’s advantage; deny him the use of reason; frustrate thought, enquiry, understanding at every turn. Why? Because those are his most powerful weapons.”
If this is in fact true, then we can’t live together in the same country. A society requires a common set of productive values, and this isn’t it. There is not a good faith difference of opinion, but rather a sledgehammer aimed at the very foundations of a productive society. They need to go their way, and we ours, and the sooner the better.
Rather than rising to the level of intelligent people, and perhaps being defeated fairly, they prefer to make themselves into fools and win.
I guess they’ve never seen or read King Lear:
I had rather be any kind o’ thing than a fool. And yet I would not be thee, nuncle.
King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4
Then again, why would they want to learn anything from a DWM.
if anyone who likes this debating or believes it is good comes into my company looking for a job the door WILL hit them on the way out!
where’s the 2001 Monolith when you need it? That was “insensitive” but still resulted in my having to wipe up some tea that flew out of my mouth when i laughed.
There’s a short article and long comment thread on white privilege here http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/28/academics-who-study-white-privilege-experience-attention-and-criticism#sthash.gf16RfhQ.pdk46oh9.dpbs via Instapundit.
I found the comments informative and some there are good points on both sides of the debate, even though i think it’s a crock. Academics can argue that this is about exposing structures of privilege in society that benefit whites, but what it will really be used for is to stop white people from criticizing black people like the debaters in the above video. Because shut up. And wealth redistribution. It can always be shaped to make that call too.
if anyone who likes this debating or believes it is good comes into my company looking for a job the door WILL hit them on the way out!
The funny thing is, competing and being defeated the traditional way (i.e. engaging with the arguments of others and making your own, responding intelligently to arguments you haven’t heard before, learning to fully understand both sides of an argument) would be useful and instructive. Winning this way is worse than useless.
It is true that the breathless style was apparently invented in the 70’s. But the Harvard students are at least running through arguments extremely quickly rather than babbling nonsense and vulgarities (de de de de de, dink). Challenging the question might mean something if black/white relations had anything whatsoever to do with the question itself, but even so I think it’s foolish to allow attacking the question as a valid approach unless it somehow addresses the issue (i.e. proposing another alternative rather than accept a straight binary set of choices might make sense in some cases). Still I’m not sure it’s wise in any case; the point of the exercise is to argue a particular point, which is a useful exercise whether the question is too constrained or not. I can guess who started the idea of questioning the premise of the debate question.
Uh, man’s sole “jabringing” object disfigure religion trauma and nubs, uh, the, inside the trauma of representation that turns into the black child devouring and identifying with the stories and into the white culture brought up, uh, de de de de de, dink, and add subjectively like a white man, the black man!
I just had a Caroline Guertin flashback. Christ, she made me laugh.
OJ has a point. This incoherent, hyperventilating style seems to be the norm in CEDA debates. Here’s another girl at it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jyZZ97P7FQ
She may be sticking to the proposed topic, but who knows? Can’t understand a word of it. Frankly, the two black girls were making a mockery of something that’s a mockery anyway.
OJ & witwoud,
Thanks both for the additional links providing more context to the story– certainly the strange asthmatic-chihuahua-like barking that the students can be heard doing now seems significantly less bizarre than it originally did.
I for one had evidently jumped way too quickly to the wrong conclusion – although in my defence, I’d say there are so many ‘events’ that so regularly cross the parody horizon that it makes even the most outlandish things seem completely plausible.
And also given the way that article from the Atlantic begins, perhaps I am not alone:
It used to be that if you went to a college-level debate tournament, the students you’d see would be bookish future lawyers from elite universities, most of them white. In matching navy blazers, they’d recite academic arguments for and against various government policies. It was tame, predictable, and, frankly, boring.
It would be pretty hard to guess from this that in fact most CEDA debates are carried out at such a lightning pace. In fact, I’d say this introductory paragraph goes out of its to mislead readers into thinking that “CEDA debates = Oxford Union debates”.
Well, anyway, the actual context helps to explain why, as D pointed out, the students who won could be so eloquent in the TV studio yet so … so … gibberishy / jabbery / risible during the actual contest.
All that said … regardless of the speed of the delivery (or ‘spreading’ as I’ve now discovered it’s called), much of the content and (for want of a better word) ‘rhetoric’ that they use still leaves both a great deal to be desired and a lot of questions begging to be asked – as others here have also remarked on.
Re CEDA debates
Somewhere, somehow, someones took “Harrison Bergeron” as a “how to” book.
Winning this way is worse than useless… regardless of the speed of the delivery… much of the content and (for want of a better word) ‘rhetoric’ that they use still leaves both a great deal to be desired and a lot of questions begging to be asked
In an academic context, when “radical politics” and “challenges to traditional form and content” have the effect of obscuring a lack of coherence and rigour, and of favouring Marxoid tribalism over clarity and realism, it’s worth bearing in mind that this blunting effect may not be entirely accidental. To attempt a rational rebuttal at lunatic speed is silly and unhelpful to anyone’s comprehension. To be rewarded for empty jive as if it were intellectually devastating is to insult just about everyone in the room. Not least, you might think, the person doing the jabbering.
Where’s Bad Attitude Baracus when you need him.
Here’s my big question about both sides seen in that “debate”:
Would any of what they said have been different had the topic been different? Global warming? Existence of God?
I don’t really think either team would have said much of anything other than what they did say, regardless of what they were asked to discuss; they would always have gone on about their race obsession rather than address what was in front of them. Which actually does make them qualified to be professors of black studies, now that I think about it.
I with D. Why call what took place a “debate”? Why even pose a topic if neither team utters a word about said topic? Other than the continuation of the left’s war on language and reason I can see no purpose for using those words to describe what goes on with these CEDA poetry slam competitions.
Tim Worstall mulls the latest thrilling idea from the New Economics Foundation. A think-tank whose radicalism and brilliance we’ve encountered before.
The guy with the dreadlocks and tie die African style shirt was doing a a straight up rip off of Saul Williams’s lyrics in the movie called Slam.
Saul Williams is excellent in it, his lyrical skill is unimpeachable and his lyrics make perfect sense in the context of the cycle of crime in the ghetto and against the backdrop of the prison yard.
But I fail to see how “Sha-clack clack, nigga dies, uh, white man……., nigga uh” has any relevance to a debate about foreign policy against the backdrop of a university campus.
This is the culmination of a dogma whereby People of Colour must be respectfully listened to and believed no matter what and having ghetto credentials gives one authenticity and unearned admiration.
Tim Worstall mulls the latest thrilling idea…
The only way I can think of of calming house prices down a bit, aside from building more houses, is to cap and gradually reduce Housing Benefit. If buy-to-let landlords are no longer guaranteed quite such a high rate of return, they won’t be prepared to spend as much to buy.
Uh, says that the the the way status co works is through, uh, whiteness allowing, uh, forcing other bodies to tell, uh, nearations of whiteness in, uh, the violences that whiteness does me, uh, say that that is the link that we will go for!
The violences that whiteness does me. Jesus wept.
This may be old, but it never fades: seeing the TV presenter/interviewer being *thrilled* by the ‘all-black’ success. Would she have been as thrilled by an ‘all-white’ success?
No, it’s okay. I know the answer.
Tim Worstall mulls the latest thrilling idea from the New Economics Foundation.
Naturally, there’s a commenter, (appropriately) calling himself “blarg”, who seems to be trying to “up the ante”…
Above someone speculated whether the topic of debate was even relevant. The topic could have been the nationalization of the railways and their verbiage would have still been.
Uh, man’s sole “jabringing” object disfigure religion trauma and nubs, uh, the, inside the trauma of representation that turns into the black child devouring and identifying with the stories and into the white culture brought up, uh, de de de de de, dink, and add subjectively like a white man, the black man!
I have a few well educated black friends who make amazing music but they are completely obsessed by race. Many of their stage names feature the words “Afro”, “Blacq” “Black” “Nubian” etc
I knew many of them before the internet and love their music. They were always doing something positive and creative. Never playing up to the gangsta stereotype. Unfortunately the internet and social media has highlighted to me that they subscribe to a different kind of black stereotype. The “black consciousness” Afrocentrist much like the students in the CEDA “debates”
It’s like a religion whereby black people are gods and white people are devils.
I can only assume this was prevalent before the internet, just not broadcast to the masses via social media.
Read any of my friends Facebook feeds and there isn’t a day that goes by where a celebration of a black “Saint” like MLK or Malcolm X isn’t going on. Interspersed between the celebrations of black pride and black heroes there is a constant stream of outrages (real or imagined) doing the rounds. It is non stop.
Mandela dies so it’s pious Mandela worship 24/7. Just as that dies down Melissa Alexander is sentenced and social media lights up with more claims of racism and Zimmerman hatred. Then it’s ‘Micheal Dunn is an evil racist’ day, followed by ‘Maya Angelou memorial month’, then ‘stop & frisk opposition week’, hot on the heels of ‘prison is the new slavery awareness fortnight’ and ‘Donald Sterling is scum hour’
And on a quiet day when no black saint had died and there were no injustices to decry I found this doing the rounds along with long threads of anger and outrage at the terrible injustice of whitey and the West.
http://i775.photobucket.com/albums/yy37/lukeychat/10313538_10154089869555262_6080853031948853168_n_zps9334163d.jpg
Surely having victimology and racial obsession at the core of ones identity is not only unhealthy it is quite likely to be a self fulfilling prophesy. Universities should be steering people away from such a divisive world view. Unfortunately in the name of tolerance, anti racism and diversity it seems this mindset is being actively promoted and taught.
Unfortunately in the name of tolerance, anti racism and diversity it seems this mindset is being actively promoted and taught
Superb comment & correct conclusion, I think.
As you say, we begin from noble-sounding phrases. ‘Anti-racism’ is something people tend to agree on, though what exactly racism is should be given more thought, and some people do behave as though racism itself were the worst of all evils, rather than murders or beatings that can sometimes be the result of it.
‘Tolerance’ I like the sound of. ‘Diversity’, ‘multiculturalism’ etc are all a bit more obviously complex.
There are a bunch of progressive whites from London & Oxford who uphold these values and rather patronise anyone from elsewhere in the UK who thinks otherwise.
But a strong flavour of what they espouse seems to be not so much ‘multiculturalism’ as a rejection of our own shared culture. There is encouragement of not only other people’s cultures, but also – I think – their intolerance.
Guardian readers writers are scathing about any white persons “phobia” of other cultures, but do seem to want us to be understanding about the sources of terrorism. They ignore or exculpate the prejudice and hatred of others towards whites, and shake their heads at those of us who condemn it.
I think there is a rather simple political impulse in these progressive types “understand others, blame ourselves”. Thus they compete with each other to show their righteousness.
Mildly patriotic people from other parts of the country then take one look at the Guardian (where we see the end result of all the above) and wonder what’s going on…
Henry,
The way such people justify their apparent self-loathing is, as I’m sure you’re aware, by ignorant, ahistorical obsession over Empire and the occasional attrocity that occurred as a result. If you are Spanish or Belgian this ‘guilt’ might be a little more understandable but with the Angloshere still dominating every region of the World economically and scant evidence of real ethnic cleansing or any other attempt to blot out ethnic culture (with the possible exception of the Welsh) I, for one find it pretty hard to understand the guilt even without reference to class (my Welsh coal-mining ancestry didn’t see much benefit from Empire or slaving aside from their love of tea).
In order to maintain this fiction that Western Empire building powers were uniquely awful and worthy of endless abject apology you have to literally ignore most of history. You have to imagine that the Hun, the Greeks, the Persians the Mongols and especially the Moors-Saracens-Mohammodans were all simple peace-loving farmers until the British invented the concept of Empire. Texts like this should be essential reading to correct this mal-function in reasoning.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/the_greatest_murder_machine_in_history.html#.U4mDhJYczfU.blogger
“…When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen. However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty…”
Henry and Steve,
See also Andrew Bostom’s encyclopaedic (and quite excellent) The Legacy of Jihad.
As I sit reading these comments, I am being entertained — purely in a vibrant way, of course — by the sound of a belching contest next door by adult males at a kid’s birthday party. Apparently we have a winner, I have just heard. Given there is no alcohol being served, I presume this is a cultural thing and not just bad digestion.
Still, mustn’t complain. To do so would be labelled as a belchophobe, or something.