Elsewhere (160)
George Will on the dysfunctions of academia:
What I want to talk to you about tonight is the amount of intellectual ingenuity that is now devoted to rationalising the disappearance of free speech… Today’s attack… is an attack on the theory of free speech. It is an attack on the desirability of free speech… What we have today is an attack on the very possibility of free speech. The belief is that the First Amendment is a mistake.
The bureaucratic farces and assorted psychodramas described by Mr Will may be familiar to regulars of this parish. Though it may be news to some that Texas Tech University, with an undergraduate enrolment of 28,000 people, now confines displays of WrongThought™ to a “free speech gazebo” some twenty feet wide.
Charles C W Cooke on the cultivated pretensions of student “radicals”:
Take a look at this farcical missive from the Oberlin Review, in which around 150 students at the college claim repeatedly that Christina Hoff Sommers was coming to campus to present not a viewpoint with which many of the students vehemently disagree but rather an actual threat to student safety. Sommers, the signatories contend, is not an academic sharing her work, but a participant “in violent movements” and an accessory to “threats of death and rape.” […] Held hostage by the twin evils of mawkishness and self-indulgence, [the protestors] have taken to masquerading as the martyrs of the piece. You will note, of course, that none of the outraged parties at Oberlin were obliged to attend Sommers’s talk, or even to be on campus while she was being hosted. Had they wished, they could have sat the whole thing out with nary a word. Indeed, it was quite by choice they injected themselves into the event at all.
Ah, but a sense of moral proportion is of no use whatsoever to an in-group of narcissists, poseurs and passive-aggressive harpies. The kind of would-be intellectuals who, instead of doing something else, turn up out of spite to jeer and interrupt – thereby drawing attention to themselves – while making theatrical displays of how “unsafe” they feel when confronted with information they do not like. The kind of would-be intellectuals who claim that theirs is a campus “laden with trauma and sexualized violence,” who pre-emptively slander those who disagree with them, and who respond to criticism with the words, “We could spend all of our time and energy explaining all of the ways she’s harmful. But why should we?”
And Darleen Click quotes the deep, deep wisdom of professor of anthropology and ostentatious male feminist, Melvin Konner:
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease, and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behaviour. And, of course, they can produce new life from their own bodies, to which men add only the tiniest biological contribution — and one that soon could be done without… There is a birth defect… called maleness… To call being male a syndrome is not an arbitrary judgment.
Yes, “a birth defect… called maleness.” Thank goodness only the finest minds educate your children.
Yes, “a birth defect… called maleness.”
If he said that about women his job would be on the line.
Also, Johnathan Pearce on the strange durability of really, really crap ideas:
If he said that about women his job would be on the line.
Ah yes. The Patriarchy.
The kind of would-be intellectuals who claim that theirs is a campus “laden with trauma and sexualized violence,”
Some people just aren’t cut out for education.
“lower levels of prejudice, bigotry”
Lower levels of self-awareness.
Some people just aren’t cut out for education.
Or life in general. But apparently we’re supposed to believe that the insufferably ‘progressive’ Oberlin College is practically a rape factory, a place seething with sexual menace, albeit one hitherto unrecognised by alumni, donors and local police. Makes you wonder why Little Snowflake’s parents spent $50,000 to get her in and another $50,000 every year to keep her there, given all that “trauma and sexualised violence.”
Indeed. What kind of sadistic bastard would put their kids through Oberlin, a place that makes Fox River Penitentiary look like kindergarten and where every floppy haired male humanities student is in fact a Theodore Bagwell.
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease, and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behaviour.
So essentially, women are more privileged than men?
Also, surely I can’t be the only one who reads the ramblings of Mr. Konner and cannot help thinking of the court eunuchs of old?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qXX-GKrll2k/VRl-DRcg6lI/AAAAAAAAs34/WanbGOIRbkU/s1600/Male%2BFeminist.PNG
cannot help thinking of the court eunuchs of old
Perhaps Mr Konner thinks that if he pisses on himself, gnaws off his genitals and rolls into a ditch, the harpies will spare what’s left of him.
I would presume Konner writes such things because (1) he gets approbation from his peer group and (2) gets his peer group women to put out more. As you can see in so much else of this, facts are irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if what Konner writes is true or accurate, only its effect on him are relevant.
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
https://twitter.com/Nero/status/592646224890716161
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
Heavens. She’s a keeper.
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
Bad attitude + Women’s Studies degree = Burger King badge.
Thank goodness only the finest minds educate your children.
There are places where one’s children can obtain a decent education, but it requires that parents to research and then be prepared to refuse to open the checkbook for institutions which have gone off the rails. (Helpful Hint: Read the English Department offerings in the course catalog first. Also, eliminate any institutions where the Freshman Orientation Week includes seminars on anything other than the inadvisability of putting cherry bombs in the toilets.)
Regarding that nice feminist lady: If that happened in Toronto, I’d put money on the police arresting the abortion protestors instead of her.
Bad attitude + Women’s Studies degree = Burger King badge.
Heh. Yes, there does seem to be a story there. It’s almost too perfect. Though I fear we’re being unfair to Burger King employees.
Replace “white” with “Aboriginal” and see if people continue to equivocate in your defense
Aussie TV sports commentator says things about ANZAC Day that are deliberately calculated to offend people; academics and other journalists shocked like Louis Renault that anybody would be offended. Here’s one of the tweets; you’ll see why I used the text I did for my link:
TWEET FROM SCOTT MCINTYRE: Wonder if the poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers pause today to consider the horror that all mankind suffered.
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of to disruptive and even destructive behaviour.
And yet both genders prefer working for men.
University students mystified by dead white male.
Universities: petri dishes of puerile putridity
Kevin Williamson recently described them as “intellectual veal-pens.”
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment etc
You can tell a male feminist wrote this. Most feminists would just imply this nonsense without directly saying it. Takes a male feminist to boldly start saying things that can be verified or pooh-poohed with evidence.
This is an extreme case, but some teachers seem to teach with similar prejudices. They start with the somewhat tenuous but very right-on idea that boys & girls are psychologically very similar but for social conditioning. They proceed to teach in a way that suits very well the girls in their class – and ostentatiously wonder out loud why the boys are misbehaving.
Boys are thus treated like girls-gone-wrong. If the teacher acknowledges anything at all, it’s with a very Guardian-esque “Men are in crisis” sort of way. More points for feminism.
That’s one thing, then there’s the phenomenon of feminist teachers giving more praise to girls than to boys. Boys grow up with these ideas of male inferiority, and turn into messed up male feminists like Melvin Konner, to be blunt.
Crazy, but it’s happening.
Annoying Old Guy:
(2) gets his peer group women to put out more.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s his hope, but if you read what feminists say about Nice Guys, it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general.
Henry:
If the teacher acknowledges anything at all, it’s with a very Guardian-esque “Men are in crisis” sort of way. More points for feminism.
Of course, the communities where men are most in crisis tend to be those with the highest number of divorces/single parent families, both of which feminists are all in favour of. Good luck getting them to even consider the possibility that their ideology might perhaps have contributed to the problem, though.
This is a beauty:
We have discarded Occam’s Razor (the explanation which uses the fewest assumptions is best) for Occam’s Nail File (if there is a gender difference that reflects unfavourably upon women, discrimination is the only allowable explanation).
– Ferox Ludum, commenting on Samizdata.
http://www.samizdata.net/2015/04/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-563/
…. is the fault of evil people, not the foreseeable result of interfering in the market.
I believe it was Stalin who first used this tactic, blaming any failures of the Five Year Plan on ‘wreckers’ and ‘saboteurs’.
Kevin Williamson recently described them as “intellectual veal-pens.”
Best coinage of 2015, thus far.
The original Mr. X:
“if you read what feminists say about Nice Guys, it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general.”
Bingo!
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others …
Oh, really?
For more than 17 years, “The View” has been TV’s most dysfunctional family.
There have been the squabbling siblings (Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck), the family troublemaker (Whoopi Goldberg, always ready to pick a fight), the wayward child (Star Jones, banished from the fold after she seemed to be caught in a lie about her sudden weight loss), the sister who never quite seemed to fit in (Debbie Matenopoulos, who came and went in a blink of an eye), the provocateur (Jenny McCarthy, with her campaign against childhood vaccinations), the wacky cousin (Sherri Shepherd, who once said that she didn’t know if the Earth was round or flat), the outspoken, wisecracking aunt (the comedian Joy Behar) and the responsible middle child (Meredith Vieira, the former “60 Minutes” correspondent, whose bizarre one-time revelation that she didn’t wear underpants didn’t undermine her news credentials and much-needed voice of reason when discussions veered off into cuckoo-land).
P.S.: AOG, husband of SWIPIAW, we meet again.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Oberlin…
Occam’s Nail File
The abrasive side is used to wear down any further opposition to the Established Truth and perhaps for sharpening the talons to present a more aggressive defensive posture.
Contrary to all received wisdom, women are more logical and less emotional than men.
Oh see, there’s the tell. It’s parody, scoring a 10 on the @GodfreyElfwick scale.
Perhaps an 11.
it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general
Who DOESN’T despise grovelers? Sniveling little self-loathing lickspittles…
Twice I’ve had a boyfriend literally fling himself onto a sofa—out of the blue—and say, “tell me what to do.” We weren’t discussing anything in particular; I wasn’t making any demands, implied or otherwise. He just wanted me to run his life.
I also had a boyfriend who was terrified of me: didn’t dare express an opinion or make a decision in my presence.
All of them had domineering mothers.
…
Stop looking at me like that.
Melvin Konner
Heh.
I’m a believer in the idea that the name you give your child influences the sort of person he becomes. It’s why my kids are called Trillionaire and Aquaman. Or would have been, if my wife hadn’t threatened to run me over in her car.
Let us, then, pity the poor creature whose parents decided he would be forever known as Melvin. Couldn’t they have chosen a less ill-favoured name, like Adolf? Even Herbert, Chester, or Mongo would’ve been kinder than Melvin.
So it’s no wonder Melvin ended up writing stuff like this:
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence,
Melvin obviously hasn’t worked in an environment full of young women. I have, and it’s like Lord of the Flies meets The Devil Wears Prada.
they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease,
Thanks to all those medical advances invented by men. You’re welcome, ladies. I accept tokens of your gratitude in the form of steak and compliments about my hair.
and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behavior
I’m not a fancy doctor or nuthin’, but that just isn’t true. Women suffer from more mental illnesses than men do. Unless Melvin thinks depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder aren’t disruptive or destructive.
And, of course, they can produce new life from their own bodies, to which men add only the tiniest biological contribution — and one that soon could be done without.
This is just embarrassing. It brings to mind some dweeby student radical from yesteryear, desperately trying to ingratiate himself with the womens libbers in the hopes of getting a pity-shag. “But women create life! Men can only destroy it! And have you heard the latest Joni Mitchell album?” Far out, man!
But Melvin is nearly 70 years old. As I said, embarrassing. Sort of like being called Melvin.
As a man, I would like my kind to stick around and stay useful
Well, how useful is Melvin? Let me see… he’s a Professor of Anthropology and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology.
Now, that sounds quite impressive, till you realise that:
Anthropology is the study of why people who live in mud huts made of animal poo are obviously superior to horrible, gaia-besmirching, capitalist nogoodniks in their so-called “cities” with their so-called “personal hygeine”.
Neuroscience – in this context – isn’t actually a science at all. It’s soft soap academia for the intellectual div kids who found maths too hard. It’s basically a fancier word for psychology – that favoured area of study for future Starbucks baristas everywhere. Same goes for “behavioural biology”.
We couldn’t live in a state of comfort and civilisation for very long without binmen, farm labourers, IT professionals, plumbers, dentists or bus drivers.
But Professors of Anthropology and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology? Sorry Melvin. And would you kindly take your seat on the B-Ark?
But the vast majority of women, and many men as well, want to see a world in which opportunities, responsibilities, and rewards are shared more equally between the two sexes.
No they don’t. Women want to be treated like godess-queens, feted with expensive shiny things, paid constant attention and praise, and fed delicious bon bons that don’t make them fat. No sane woman ever wanted equality. How would she lord it over other women?
My wife absolutely refuses to kill spiders (even though I am more cripplingly phobic of them than she is), take out the rubbish, get the Christmas tree out of the loft, mow the lawn, clear the gutters, unblock toilets, clean out Princess Fluffybottom’s Poop Palace, or get a job.
Women are also natural snobs and social climbers. How many men demand a new car/kitchen/patio because it’s important to them to keep up with their friends?
The answer is none. I could quite happily live in a shed with a Pot Noodle for dinner and a cat for company. But women demand nice things.
But — another objection goes — men have accomplished great things! Yes, although given that men have blocked women’s paths to greatness in all fields for thousands of years, it is hardly a fair comparison.
This is true. Women are clearly superior to men in every way, yet us inferior men have somehow managed to thwart their every innovation across the entire globe for thousands of years! Thanks for letting our Super-Secret Patriarchal Conspiracy out, Melvin! You’re worse than that gobby David Icke fellow who keeps telling people about the shapeshifting space lizards.
Why, just last week I had a young lass in my office come to me with the blueprints for an internal combustion engine that runs on water, and emits magic fairy dust that cures cancer.
Needless to say, after sexually harassing her for a while, I stole her idea, gave her a pay cut, and sent her running to the toilet for a cry. Me and Space Lord Reptilor had a good laugh about it afterwards over cigars. You should’ve been there.
Heh too.
On the other hand, as we know narcissistic personality disorders devalue those who cease to fill the NPD’s insatiable need to be supplied – to folks reading along that means NPDs must be constantly lied to about their magnificence so as to counter the fact they know they’re worms. We also know that leftist and feminist and whatnot are what we call personality disorders when they form co-ops and cabals and collectives and communes and universities who – whether collectively or individually – despise anyone who stoops low enough to supply them anyway – they being worms and all – and so it’s inevitable that no matter what you do you’ll be loathed by someone on the general PD/feminist/leftist/narc continuum. Because progressive.
Which is about half the urbanized Western world. I just count it an honor to be loathed by the dishonorable. Because progressive.
Taken as such, everything except the PD makes sense, although figuring it out makes for hard sledding in terms of your view of a sizable percentage of humanity and just about all of the PD/feminist/leftist/narc continuum.
And yes, pretty much all of them had at least domineering mothers.
It’s why my kids are called Trillionaire and Aquaman. Or would have been, if my wife hadn’t threatened to run me over in her car.
Aquaman? Really? Did you hate him that much?
Feckless: feeble; weak; ineffectual; irresponsible …
… possess feck!
Cheers
on housing prices… the main problem is that supply in the UK is artificially suppressed by planning laws
This is very likely true everywhere.
Feminist protestors at Christina Hoff Sommers lecture are upset that they were filmed while trying to get attention.
I’m not a fancy doctor or nuthin’, but that just isn’t true.
Very little in the article is. And Mr Konner’s counterfactual rimming of womanhood’s collective arse was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a journal for faculty and university administrators. It’s what passes for learned, intellectual content.
Dicentra: “I also had a boyfriend who was terrified of me”
The culture being the way it is, I’m surprised more men aren’t terrified of women. The message I got growing up was something like:
I shudder to think what messages boys growing up now are getting. Letting one woman down and being thought a bastard has been replaced by sexual harassment accusations, disciplinary procedures and social ostracism.
Imagine, for example, being a sensitive boy who lacks a bit of social confidence, and reading about Elevatorgate, in which an adult woman turning down an invitation for coffee by an adult man at an atheist conference got turned into an international diplomatic incident on the internet about misogyny and sexual harassment in the atheist movement. Getting turned down is bad enough without having to run that kind of humiliation gauntlet.
Most women, or course, are sane and don’t actually have these expectations of men. But it’s pretty easy for men to get the impression they do, and feel they have to live up to them.
The spam filter is feeling tired and emotional. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll shake the thing by the shoulders.
Jason – Aquaman? Really? Did you hate him that much?
Why do you assume Aquaman is a boy? Check your privilege.
David – I never thought I’d come across a man who makes Ed Miliband seem like a raw hunk of testosterone-soaked masculinity by comparison. But Melvin does.
Patrick – my mother is a domineering narcissist, and I turned out amazingly brilliant.
I’m not afraid of women, but childbirth is disgusting and scary. I wanted to run out of that hospital screaming, but I was too high on gas and air. It was a 28 hour labour. I’ve no idea how I survived it.
Getting turned down is bad enough without having to run that kind of humiliation gauntlet.
See, this is where young chaps get it all wrong.
They should stop caring about being turned down. If you don’t make sales calls, you don’t get sales. Rejection is just part of the process. Move swiftly on to your next prospect.
I’m basically a white Hitch, or a less incomprehensible Shaggy, and I could teach these youngsters a thing or two about how to get with the ladies.
Step 1 – be handsome
Step 2 – respect women. Bitches love men who respect women.
Step 3 – know all the latest lingo so you can conversate. For example:
“Do you like the Playstation? Because I love the Playstation. Do you like the dubstep? I like the dubstep.”
Step 4 – be a mysterious bastard, like Mr Darcy. Or Tupac.
Step 5 – if all else fails, have insane levels of self confidence. Masculine confidence works on women like some sort of spooky Derren Brown mind-magic. You can look like Danny DeVito, but if you’ve got crazy self esteem women will react like a cat seeing a laser pointer. They don’t know why, but they’re intrigued.
For serious though, look at the men women go gaga for:
* Benedict Cumberbatch – he looks like a fish. But he plays an insanely confident mysterious bastard on TV. So women love him.
* The evil blond kid from Harry Potter.
* Angel from “Buffy”. Vampires in general, actually. Women love sexy danger. It’s why I never wear a seatbelt.
* The Governor from “The Walking Dead”. Or Darryl from “The Walking Dead”. Not Rick, the nice-guy hero. Not the Chinese guy. Women like the confident baddies or the tough-looking anti-heroes.
* Keith Lemon. Keith Lemon is moustachioed sex on legs. Why? Because he’s funny and rude.
If they put my teachings on the national curriculum, everybody would be much happier.
Patrick Brown:
Men are bastards who let women down. Your job as a man is to give a woman what she wants. She will not tell you what she wants, and you mustn’t ask her, because a man must be decisive. So you must determine what she wants from her body language, or by telepathy, or just guess. But if you decide wrong, you will have let her down, and you will be a bastard, just like all other men.
Also, men are evil and entitled and blame everything that goes wrong in their relationships on women. So, if you ever feel that a woman has treated you unfairly or unreasonably, that’s just a sign that you’re an evil misogynistic bastard.
The Class of 2015: Book Burners Afraid of Matches
You’ve probably seen Bill Whittle have a go at the delicate flowers and their enablers, but if you haven’t, it’s worth watching just to see a grown up getting angry at the ‘intentionally, spectacularly, catastrophically stupid!’
The original Mr. X – remember that book, “Men Are From Mars and Women are from that mad planet where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn”?
Load of bollocks it was.
Men are like dogs and women are like cats.
Men: reliable, dependable, boisterous. Would lick themselves if they could. Not too concerned about being scruffy. Easily amused. Give them a treat and they think you’re amazing.
Women: Beautiful. Mysterious. Deadly. Spend 12 hours a day in personal grooming. Attack when you least expect it. Give them a treat and they think they’re amazing.
Genetically, women are closer to cats than they are to men. There’s no actual evidence for it, but I read it in Chronicle of Higher Education, so it must be true.
When a dog wags his tail or a man tells he’s fine, you can rest assured everything is ok.
When a cat swishes her tail or a woman tells you she’s fine, RUN!
it’s worth watching just to see a grown up getting angry
There are plenty of reasons to be dismayed by modern academia, the Clown Quarter of it, anyway, where the Long March is well underway. When students seem to emerge from their education more narrow-minded, more dogmatic, more self-flattering and reactive – which is to say, more stupid – something has gone horribly wrong. And whether that kind of damage can be repaired isn’t at all clear.
Meanwhile in Baltimore . . .”.
R. Sherman Was he a smooth criminal?
‘Protestor’, huh?
Even the BBC have stopped calling them ‘protestors’ and started calling them ‘rioters’.
I see that to commemorate Freddie Gray’s death in custody the protestor have been helping themselves to electrical goods and luxury clothing from the local mall.
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/04/27/erin-bpr-rioters-looting-baltimore-mall.cnn/video/playlists/riots-in-baltimore/#
This is becoming a traditional way if commemorating some deaths now, I guess (cf Mark Duggan). To the left it will be justifiable anger at The System (TM) or Teh Racialist Cops. Or something.
Even the BBC have stopped calling them ‘protestors’ and started calling them ‘rioters’.
Laurie Penny, she of The Deep Wisdom™, has been busy telling us that the rioting is “justified” and “America should listen.” I don’t think she’s yet commented on the particulars of the rioting that she finds so radical and thrilling – the beating and robbing of random people, the opportunist looting, or the people starting fires and then gleefully slashing firefighters’ hoses, preventing them from saving other people’s homes and livelihoods.
We’ve been here before, of course.