Elsewhere (194)
Heather Mac Donald pokes at the ongoing rot of academia:
Earlier this week, several dozen Emory students barged into the school’s administration building to demand protection from “Trump 2016” slogans that had been written in chalk on campus walkways. Acting out a by-now standardised psychodrama of oppression and vulnerability, the students claimed that seeing Trump’s name on the sidewalk confirmed that they were “unsafe” at Emory. College sophomore Jonathan Peraza led the allegedly traumatised students in a chant: “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” As the Emory protesters entered the administration building, they drew on the Communist Manifesto to express their pitiable plight: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Oddly, the chalk marks made by certain other groups did not induce similar fits of theatrical weeping.
Glenn Reynolds on the same:
When students at Emory University — annual cost of attendance, $63,058 per year — act so foolishly, and worse, are indulged by those who are supposed to supply adult guidance, it gives the appearance that higher education is largely a waste of societal resources. That’s not a good place to be, right now.
Meanwhile, at the University of Virginia:
Students are petitioning for the immediate removal of a conservative student representative who refused to vote in favour of a university-funded group for illegal immigrants.
The student in question dared to use the “offensive” and “xenophobic” factual description of illegal immigrants as, er, illegal. And so he must be punished.
In a class I attended earlier this semester, a large portion of the first meeting was devoted to compiling a list of rules for class discussion. A student contended that as a woman, she would be unable to sit across from a student who declared that he was strongly against abortion, and the other students in the seminar vigorously defended this declaration.
Sitting across a room from someone with whom she disagrees is something that she, as an empowered modern woman, an intellectual, simply cannot do.
And at San Francisco State University, the latest thing, apparently, is identitarian hair policing.*
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for. *Added via the comments, thanks to RY.
Feminist consistency.
https://twitter.com/thirdwavefem/status/714329492425019392
Sitting across a room from someone with whom she disagrees is something that she, as an empowered modern woman, an intellectual, simply cannot do.
Funny how leftism leaves people disabled.
Funny how leftism leaves people disabled.
They’re the new Eloi.
“Students are petitioning for the immediate removal of a conservative student representative who refused to vote in favour of a university-funded group for illegal immigrants.”
Democracy -100
Free speech -100
Can we send them back to primary school? Seems to be more their level.
annual cost of attendance, $63,058 per year
If I was spending that kind of money and my kid came home a weepy drama queen I’d be asking for a refund.
They’re the new Eloi.
But they’re quite belligerent Eloi. They may be mentally feeble and emotionally neotenized, but they’re also intolerant, censorious and stridently conformist. In this particular institution, the Long March is well under way.
What angle was she prepared to at with respect to the other student or did they not ask?
“Bigotry creates terrorists, by radicalising people who were willing to see hope in everything.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/they_saw_hope/
Or not.
“Nothing to lose but their chains”!
So they would not regard it as a loss if they didn’t qualify?
“Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/28/hillary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson
#GuardianWorld
I fear we may need Roger Scruton’s underground universities in the West.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/04/the-end-of-the-university
“Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”
I think the word I’m looking for is juxtaposition.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
You have to wonder if these clowns ever are embarrassed by what they said. Personally, I think anytime anyone says anything this stupid, he or she should be plucked from whatever cozy environment they are in, and instantly embedded in an infantry platoon in Afghanistan for a reality check.
I wish one of the worthies at these various universities would ask these students, from whence comes the right to be protected from all of the vicissitudes of life, not to mention the belief that there should be enforced ideological conformity among their fellow students.
From Dr. Cromarty’s excellent link, with emphasis added:
Ironically, perhaps the greatest intellectual achievement of the Communist party was to convince people that Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion is a valid one, and that ideological opinion is not merely distinct from knowledge but the enemy of knowledge, the disease implanted in the human brain that makes it impossible to distinguish true ideas from false ones.
For the college students we lampoon, the demands for comfort, “safe spaces” and insulation from any requirements to justify their beliefs, are symptoms of the disease Scruton identifies.
A SFSU employee accosts student for cultural appropriation of dreadlocks.
http://twitter.com/LaloDagach/status/714700637787856896?s=17
A SFSU employee accosts student for cultural appropriation of dreadlocks.
Apparently, the grabby and indignant young lady is Bonita Tindle. When not being, as it were, professionally negro, Ms Tindle “organises workshops to empower and educate women and others on women’s issues.”
I think I found one of these on Facebook this morning. It was a thread about the evil Kshama Sawant and the $15/hour minimum wage, or maybe it was Bernie Sanders and drug prices – who can tell the difference. Anyway, a very stupid girl’s sole comment was, “You want people to suffer.” That’s it. No supporting argument, just that since I disagreed, I was evil. My beloved country is so totally screwed.
Apparently, the grabby and indignant young lady is Bonita Tindle.
Aren’t they all ?
This is good, though, her rather overblown job description for “waitress”.
Y’all may dismiss this as just a problem for those people at those schools in those majors who will have a hard time getting jobs in the real world. But let me give you my observation. I work for a major defense contractor. Due to various, uh…issues, there’s been some significant turn over. We are constantly bringing in young talent and quite often, that talent shortly leaves. What I read from upper management’s approach to dealing with this situation, there seems to be a trend, driven I believe by “human resources” department, that they need to make younger people feel more welcome. There’s a dumbing down, a condensation in emails and such. The thing is, I have worked with a good number of these young people and sense none of this “special snowflake” attitude, though there is a very slight expectation that there be less chaos and more “fairness” in the system. Though none of that latter bit more than one should expect in youth in the general idea of progress. But even in an environment where this crap should not have an impact, it is slowly softening up and eating away at our standards and expectations in a real world context.
This is good, though, her rather overblown job description for “waitress”.
Ms Tindle is also available for work as a consultant. Whether this is consulting with regard to waitressing or harassing random people in hallways, she doesn’t say.
Curtis Yarvin has become the eye of a drama storm again.
Several years ago, Yarvin wrote a great deal of reactionary political philosophy under the pseudonym “Mencius Moldbug”, where he among other things had the temerity to have a nuanced opinion on slavery as not being the earthly incarnation of Satan. In a passage I think many of the libertarian-sympathetic commenters here could appreciate without necessarily agreeing, Moldbug describes slavery as “nanogovernment” – there is a sovereign with the power to extract resources, compel labor and deliver punishments to a subject.
This year, Yarvin submitted a programming talk to a programming conference, not under a pseudonym, and vowed to stick to the topic of programming. The conference’s anonymized blind review accepted the talk.
A lot of proglodytes were extremely upset that a man who’d written such terrible things was allowed to attend a conference, and demanded that he be kicked out. Some of them did stupid things like voluntarily withdraw from the conference and claim they were being “excluded”. Some of them did ignorantly stupid things like call him a nazi, white supremacist, etc, when Yarvin is a Jew who praises Singapore and Hong Kong as the world’s best examples of good governance. But hey, who has time to get the facts when there is a fascist to be denounced? Some of them did histrionic stupid things like write this screed asserting that the conference now “values the free expression of racist and fascist views over the physical and emotional safety of its attendees and speakers.”
If you care to see what LambdaConf actually values, you can see them wrestling with the issue here, eventually taking the position that they’re not going to exclude for diversity of opinion.
Now, if you’ll look back at that histrionic screed again, you may notice it addresses “fellow travelers”, and signs off with “in solidarity” and a red star. The author also uses a hammer-and-sickle sign on Twitter, where I saw him talking about sending counterrevolutionaries to labor camps before he protected his tweets.
It takes quite a bit of cheek – or perhaps a lack of perspective and self-reflection – for this man to dare to lecture anyone else on the subject of distasteful views, doesn’t it?
“But they’re quite belligerent Eloi.”
Quite so. You’d be mistaken to think you’re dealing with helpless, pathetic people who can’t cope with anything. If that was true, they’d be easy to deal with. But they’re not helpless and pathetic, they perform helpless and pathetic as a form of emotional blackmail. They know how to push people’s buttons and they use that to get their own way. They know exactly what they’re doing and they’ll keep doing it as long as people fall for it.
they perform helpless and pathetic as a form of emotional blackmail.
Absolutely. It’s leverage theatre. Or put another way, bad faith.
A SFSU employee accosts student for cultural appropriation of dreadlocks.
The funny thing is, Ms Tindle presumably imagines herself as terribly progressive and radical. And yet her hair policing reminds me of tales from another, supposedly more stuffy generation, in which students could be berated for having hair an inch too long, or skirts an inch too short. And when it wasn’t unheard of for those doing the scolding to carry tape measures.
the grabby and indignant young lady is Bonita Tindle.
Swap the races or sexes then imagine the uproar.
The funny thing is, Ms Tindle presumably imagines herself as terribly progressive and radical.
Indeed, and regarding policing unless she is of any degree of Hispanic or trans-species heritage she needs to denounce herself for culturally appropriating either a Spanish or fish name.
“Some of them did ignorantly stupid things like call him a nazi, white supremacist, etc, when Yarvin is a Jew who praises Singapore and Hong Kong as the world’s best examples of good governance. “
Ah, I see where you’ve gone wrong, Microbillionaire. You’re assuming that language meets the same function for these people as it does for everyone else in the real world…
Jonathan Peraza is an English and sociology major.
Jonathan Peraza wrote this for his Emory webpage:
“Describe (in a short paragraph) a significant breakthrough in your development as a writer: My most pivotal experience as a writer was when my recommender for a scholarship told me that my essays are my DNA. In other words, my writing needs to reflect my experiences, identities, and perspectives whenever the opportunity to ingrain them is given. After this piece of advice I learned to make sure my writing was genuine. I allowed myself to write about what interests and is relevant to me and to not try so hard to not sound like myself, given the flexibility of the topic.”
That’s some bang-up prose styling, right there. Certainly worth spending a hundred thou or so for that kind of magic.
How very dare people culturally appropriate the saxophone, a Belgian product obviously as imperialist as the what went on in the Congo.
My question is, who is Bonita’s minder? Is he there to observe (for legal purposes), or is he supposed to be intimidating, and facilitate her assault and battery (misdemeanor)? Two counts, since she grabbed the phone.
I’d swear out a warrant.
Two counts, since she grabbed the phone.
“The victim has reportedly filed a police report.”
perhaps the greatest intellectual achievement of the Communist party was to convince people that Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion is a valid one
Is it not? How did Plato distinguish between knowledge and opinion, and why is his distinction not valid?
“Two counts, since she grabbed the phone.”
This is a reminder of what the Black Lives Matter movement is really about: protecting violent and uncivilized people, so that they can do evil with impunity.
That video that RY posted is disturbing on a number of levels. Who told that white kid to make those goofy hand gestures? Why is he spouting off nonsense about Egypt? Why is he paying good money to be (un)educated this way?
Here is the video again: http://twitter.com/LaloDagach/status/714700637787856896?s=17
Interesting link, David. Apparently dreadlocks originated in Greece.
What’s the nonsense about Egypt? There are ancient Egyptian paintings and bas reliefs which appear to depict hair in plaits or cornrows–not to mention other styles.
@Jason
It is valid. The author’s point is that under Communism, those in the underground understood the distinction as their reality confirmed it daily. Hence, the introductory “ironically.”
“Bonita Tindle’s friend Davia Spain …”
Appropriating an entire peninsula!
@pst314, he tries to say he should be allowed to wear his hair like that BECAUSE of Egypt. As though it would not be allowed otherwise. Tindle, in fact, asks him “are you Egyptian?” As though that’s a sensible question.
Hmmm… right geographic area
davia-spain.tumblr.com
Davia Spain (dah-vee-ah). Student. Norther California. 21. All mixed up.
Search domain davia-spain.tumblr.comdavia-spain.tumblr.com More results
Thanks, Dom. I won’t be able to actually watch the video until I am at suitable computer.
Perhaps it’s a pity he didn’t respond to the aggressive SJW by doing Steve Martin’s “King Tut”.
Meanwhile, way up north…
Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” says Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “Very few talked about warfare.”
How touching.
Mojo:
I think the Portuguese would like a word with you about your use of “an entire peninsula”. Why are you appropriating their culture by subsuming it into Spanish? 😉
Meanwhile a Scottish Marxist who would like to abolish inherited wealth admits to having bought a flat in the West End of Glasgow with a legacy from her grandmother.
https://twitter.com/owenjbennett/status/714830302611378177
Before Tollense, direct evidence of large-scale violence in the Bronze Age was scanty, especially in this region.
At least with respect to the Bronze Age not in that region the evidence for warfare is extensive. So massive that there are whole books written on it. The Bible isn’t exactly without warfare, and the records of Ur, Hattusa etc abound with organised large-scale warfare. Not that Bronze Age China or India are any different. I can’t believe anyone who knew anything about history could utter that sentence in good faith.
It reminds me of the meme that did the rounds among anthropologists a few decades back that there weren’t really cannibals in the Americas and Pacific before the White man arrived, and that it was all just the colonists trying to make the locals look bad so they could enslave them. Never mind the overwhelming written and archaeological evidence, for some suckers it was taken as true that only White men are that savage.
@R. Sherman, thank you. I hadn’t read the full context, and consequently was mis-reading the sentence in question.
If we can bear one more comment about Bonita Tindle, her behavior is not about hair or “cultural appropriation.” As others have mentioned, cultural sharing due to the proximity of various groups is as old as humanity itself. It’s not about tacos; it’s about bullies finding cover to engage in intimidation. They get sadistic pleasure from it. Look at her face in the video. She’s enjoying accosting someone who’s going about his day minding his own business, simply for the joy of doing so. The “cultural appropriation” trope is just a self-given license to be an asshole.
@Jason
In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, “No problemo.”
It’s about bullies finding cover to engage in intimidation… The “cultural appropriation” trope is just a self-given license to be an asshole.
I see you’re the getting the hang of it.
More on Ms Tindle and her wandering hands.
A colleague of Melissa Click claims that the student-assaulting, traffic-disrupting, repeatedly lying professor was fired because white men dislike “women who speak up.” Apparently, her firing is a sign of a “proto-totalitarian” state. And if you find the thuggery and racism of Black Lives Matter protests in any way obnoxious, it’s because you’re a racist.
Why, it’s almost as though lefties project.
Two thoughts:
1. You can’t accuse someone of “cultural appropriation” without engaging in “stereotyping”.
2. Do universities advertise themselves as “intellectual-free zones”? Because they could.
I’m offended that the activist LGBT community deliberately ignores the significant other letters in LGBTQAWTF. I mean, where are THEY gonna take a squat?
Incidentally, regarding the agonies of “problematic” hair, we’ve been her before of course. Several times. And remember, the dogmatic idiocy on display isn’t arrived at by accident. It’s an idiocy that’s been taught.
Re dreadlocks, and “The funny thing is, Ms Tindle presumably imagines herself as terribly progressive and radical.”
Yes, I’m sure she does. Just like, picking a country at random, North Korea.
http://www.complex.com/style/2015/11/kim-jong-un-cracking-down-on-men-with-long-hair
Diversity means everyone MUST think alike about ‘diversity’. Diversity just means White Genocide.
Freedom now from this enforced, coercive, parasitic, anti-white, genocidal diversity. Its a crime, not a ‘policy option’
Bonita? Name a kid after a fish, and you’re going to get an angry kid. Just sayin’.
Burnsie,
Odds are her mother didn’t know what the word meant, just that it sounded “pretty”. In American urban black culture, there almost seems to be competition to come up with the most unique (pronounced yoo-nee-kwa) girls’ names (sometimes boys’ as well); the one with the most “creative” and unpronounceable spelling wins. Perhaps it began as a rejection of “dominate white culture”, but who knows…
(Too be fair, something similar exists in the yuppie/hipster white culture as well. Surnames as first names have been en vogue since the 1980s at least — and spread to middle class suburbia — for long enough that it’s become almost a cliché.)
I remember some comedian back in the 80’s saying the name of an “urban” child was often derived from the model of the car the child was conceived in. “Git in here Tercel, it’s dinner time. And fetch your sister Corolla….”. See, you could make jokes like that back in the 80’s. If you were sufficiently pigmented. Not so much any more.
Well, I know what my name would have been: my parents claimed I was conceived in the back seat of a ’49 Mercury… maybe that’s why I’ve been a “car guy” as long as I can remember.
Odds are her mother didn’t know what the word meant, just that it sounded “pretty”.
Er… am I missing something? “Bonita” means “pretty”, and it’s a common name for girls, not “unique” at all. I assumed Burnsie was making a funny based on the fact that it’s also the name of a fish.
(Too be fair, something similar exists in the yuppie/hipster white culture as well. Surnames as first names have been en vogue since the 1980s at least — and spread to middle class suburbia — for long enough that it’s become almost a cliché.)
. . . . . . . . . . . Almost?!?!!!!!!!!
Um, the fish are bonito aren’t they?
Bonita?
Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’ was released in 1986.
Just a theory
In other you-should-be-paying-me news, students at Smith College have hit upon a new variation on “emotional labor”: paying student activists for all their hard work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV11av4U26U
That’s Harmful Opinions, one of my favorites on Youtube right now. I like his perspective and he has a sense of humor. His “Harmful Remix” series is always good for a laugh; his remix of that stupid Buzzfeed video about feminists with questions for men is probably his best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72EcQ6a0dU