Elsewhere (196)
Via Bobby in the comments, Michael Wolff on the visions and follies of former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger:
If selling had been part of his job description, Rusbridger, who never met a pound he had to earn that didn’t disgust him in some visceral way, would have been disqualified long ago. Indeed, his early enthusiasm for the internet – and a continuing principle of faith for him – was that it was free. The corollary, that free had to be supported by advertising, was one of those cause-and-effects that it was Rusbridger’s unique gift to be able to wholly ignore… Having made a personal and moral commitment to free – both as a political principle and as a way to advance the scope of the Guardian’s message – he was confronted, and confounded, by the reality that he had no way to monetise his business.
Readers may recall the Guardian’s short-lived brand expansion into the world of trendy Shoreditch coffee shops, which the paper styled as “the future of open journalism,” a supposedly “data-driven” hub of Fair Trade beverages and online journalistic collaboration, and which was opened without Wi-Fi.
Blake Neff on destroying children’s futures in the name of “social justice”:
While the traits listed [being rigorous and punctual, speaking grammatical English] may simply be regarded as positive traits for success in the modern world, Dr Heather Hackman described them as traits chosen and emphasised to favour whites to the detriment of non-white groups, who are forced to assimilate ‘white’ traits such as good discipline and goal orientation or else be left behind. Hackman’s solution, then, is to train teachers to move away from all these aspects of ‘white privilege’ in education. She routinely touted the benefits of collective assessments (measuring student learning at the class level instead of determining whether each student knows the material), as well as eliminating all school grades entirely.
I share the above in case any readers had assumed that Dr Caprice Hollins, who dismisses foresight, diligence and punctuality as “white values,” must be a one-off absurdity. Alas, no.
And Paul Sperry on the consequences of government-mandated racial favouritism in school discipline policy:
In St Paul, Minnesota, a high school teacher was put on administrative leave last month after Black Lives Matter threatened to shut down the school because the teacher complained about lenient discipline policies that have led to a string of assaults on fellow teachers. Last month, two students at Como Park Senior High School punched and body slammed a business teacher unconscious, opening a head wound that required staples. And earlier in the year, another student choked a science teacher into a partial coma that left him hospitalised for several days. In both cases, the teachers were white and the students black. […]
In New York City public schools, classroom assaults have become so common that parents last week filed a negligence class-action suit against the education department, which last year adopted “restorative practices” [i.e., race-based exemptions from discipline] in lieu of suspensions. The complaint says the department “refuses to discipline or transfer” violent classroom bullies.
Further to which, don’t forget this grim farce. Behold the Long March in action. See its glories.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
and which was opened without Wi-Fi.
Lol.
Lol.
When it comes to lefties running media businesses, there’s a long tradition of dogmatic impracticality and inadvertent comedy. See, for instance, Vanessa Engle’s excellent documentary series Lefties, particularly the episode A Lot of Balls, which recounts the attempt by socialists to launch a “radical” Sunday tabloid in 1987. It’s linked below in four parts and is well worth watching in full:
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Seriously, if you’ve an hour to spare, it’s eye-widening stuff.
If you want confirmation that our schools and universities may be part of the problem …
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/university-students-are-struggling-to-read-entire-books-a6986361.html
see last paragraph in particular.
(seen via Insty)
Lizzy Kelly, a history student at Sheffield added: “Students might be more inclined to read what academics want them to if our curricula weren’t overwhelmingly white, male and indicative of a society and structures we fundamentally disagree with because they don’t work for us.”
Le sigh.
Seems like British SJW’s are learning fast from their Colonial cousins…
When the Russians,Chinese and South Koreans et al see how the Western education system is collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity they must be rubbing their hands with glee, because you can bet your ass their schoolkids are not wasting their time with this kind of nonsense.
“Students might be more inclined to read what academics want them to if our curricula weren’t overwhelmingly white, male and indicative of a society and structures we fundamentally disagree with because they don’t work for us.”
Or if academics would just assign reading that was actually, you know, *interesting*. Our (U.S.) high schools always seemed to operate on the premise that all reading should be painful, boring, and designed to inculcate a positive hatred of the written word in the student.
Fortunately I’d long before discovered SF and Fantasy, so _The Great Gatsby_, _A Separate Peace_, and all the other gloomy, boring crap they foisted off on me was unable to do more than teach me that English instructors had lousy taste in fiction.
As for college level reading, I seem to have blanked all that from my memory, so I can’t comment on it. I doubt it was any better.
Students …
The main problem is surely that there are too many of them. Other Half tells me he’d like to see the higher education sector decimated. I disagree: it should be reduced to – not by – a tenth of its current size.
When it comes to lefties running media businesses, there’s a long tradition of dogmatic impracticality and inadvertent comedy.
What’s particularly infuriating about that excellent documentary on A Lot of Balls is the figure of Alan Hayling.
An Oxford revolutionary Marxist middle class radical type, this was the guy who dropped out of a graduate training scheme at the BBC to go and mix with ‘the people’ at a Ford car factory, for which read stir up as much resentment and strike action as possible.
After failing to get the Revolution off the ground at Ford, he went onto even greater failure with the News on Sunday, where he was a leading figure, pissing millions and millions of pounds down the drain on an obvious white elephant.
What was to become of him? Yet more failure?
Of course not.
In spite of having earlier dropped out of a highly sought-after place on a graduate training scheme – the kind of scheme that typically has hundreds of applicants for every single place – the BBC welcomed him back with open arms as a producer, later promoting him to Head of Documentaries.
Because obviously, why wouldn’t you give a job to a drop out failed Revolutionary who’s just squandered a shite load of money on an absolutely ridiculous project that anyone with any intelligence must have known was going to end in ignominious disaster from the concept alone.
And where is he now?
He’s currently in
the Revolutionary vanguardprivate enterprise as Editorial Director of the production company Renegade Pictures of which he is the principle founder.I wonder how many of his former assembly line colleges from Ford he still sends Christmas cards to?
What an absolute cunt.
I met a young student in my local pub recently who’s about to graduate and is very interested in becoming a film maker and who is also a bit of a social justice warrior type … perhaps I should suggest to her that she apply for a job with Hayling so that she can stir up resentment among his employees and encourage them to go on strike at every opportunity.
I mean it’s for the Revolution so presumably Hayling will approve? No?
(Vanessa Engles is a brilliant film maker by the way.)
Modern education is hopelessly tainted by white supremacy and the “white imperial gaze,…
I wish we did have a ‘white Imperial gaze’, my choice would be Emperor ‘Shitlord-in-Chief’ Justinian:
If you want confirmation that our schools and universities may be part of the problem …
James,
The last paragraph is rather spectacular, but I’ve a few misgivings about the article itself.
Surely one of the key skills that is gained from a university education (especially in the arts, humanities and social sciences – AHSS) is that you gain an ability to be able to survey huge amounts of text and single out the most relevant ones for your argument, your research needs and so on?
In that sense, students should be given reading lists that they couldn’t possibly work through cover to cover and, in fact, they are not even supposed to – if they get a list of 30-50 books on a given theme, surely it’s to give them a broad range of different angles they can approach it on?
“Students struggle with set texts, saying the language or concepts are too hard”.
Although the woman interviewed by the times is an environmental geographer, I have to say I have some sympathy with students in AHSS subjects as they nearly always have to deal with impenetrable bollocks by the likes of Gayatri Spivak such as this:
The “planet” is, here, as perhaps always, a catachresis for inscribing collective responsibility as right. Its alterity, determining experience, is mysterious and discontinuous—an experience of the impossible. It is such collectivities that must be opened up with the question “How many are we?” when cultural origin is detranscendentalized into fiction—the toughest task in the diaspora.”
And Paul Sperry on the consequences of government-mandated racial favouritism in school discipline policy.
Do the words:’Hoist’ and ‘Petard’ exist in the vocabulary of American Teachers Unions?
Seriously, if you’ve an hour to spare, it’s eye-widening stuff.
Eyes widened. Thanks for the links, David.
After failing to get the Revolution off the ground at Ford, he went onto even greater failure with the News on Sunday, where he was a leading figure, pissing millions and millions of pounds down the drain on an obvious white elephant.
One of my favourite moments in the film is the recollection of the big launch, with the paper’s first edition about to go to press – and most of the staff out of the office on a deafness awareness day. Another is when Hayling says, apparently in all seriousness, “Clearly we weren’t trapped in a leftwing bubble.”
Oh christ, here we go again. The Educators.
The main problem is surely that there are too many of them. Other Half tells me he’d like to see the higher education sector decimated. I disagree: it should be reduced to – not by – a tenth of its current size.
Your OH is correct, I believe. See, e.g. The Atlantic from a few years ago, where the author, and adjunct English professor in the U.S., questions the morality of allowing everyone into American colleges and universities, (requiring most of them to borrow huge sums in order to fail miserably.)
Decimated — ideally with excessive and grotesque brutality, too. They’ve earned it.
Why are SJWs so racist as to encourage non-whites to be utter failures, good only for the plantation?
Dr Heather Hackman described them as traits chosen and emphasised to favour whites to the detriment of non-white groups, who are forced to assimilate ‘white’ traits such as good discipline and goal orientation or else be left behind.
Can’t decide if these people are insane or just evil.
Can’t decide if these people are insane or just evil.
I suppose it could always be both. I mean, logically, it’s hard to see how encouraging black students to plan ahead and turn up on time gives some crushing advantage to white students. Ditto speaking and writing in ways that are comprehensible and expected by employers. To claim that these very basic skills are in some way racist and oppressive does indeed sound insane. And on the other hand, if you actually wanted to sabotage young black people’s prospects and all but ensure that their lives are defined by failure, poverty and exploitable resentment, this kind of vile identitarian voodoo would be an ideal way to go about it.
A coincidence, I’m sure.
Dr Heather Hackman …
…proudly tells us she … allowed students to write in non-standard English or even foreign languages she herself couldn’t read. But then, an enlightened educator doesn’t really need to understand what students write: “All I need to know is that you’re thinking about it …”
Would this fighter against Whiteness genuinely like this pedagogical approach to prevail in medical schools or departments of engineering, I wonder?
Would this fighter against Whiteness genuinely like this pedagogical approach to prevail in medical schools or departments of engineering, I wonder?
The following, by John Ellis, bears some repeating:
The victims of such hucksterism, the black and Hispanic students who really internalise it, typically imagine themselves as radical titans who are subverting “whiteness” and speaking truth to power. They are in fact merely dupes, something to be exploited and then discarded to sustain the egos and careers of resentful mediocrities.
Apropos of interesting reading material and the professional pedagogue’s distaste for it:
As a freshman in high school English class, circa 1971, I aced a grammar exam that everybody else in the class flunked.
Not from my native genius, sad to say, but from an intensive class in grammar in grade school that resulted from a parent’s complaint that the kids were not being taught the basics like in them thar olden days.
The teacher said to us he figured if our parents really wanted us to learn English grammar, well, then we’d just diagram sentences until our heads exploded. Hence my expertise.
Well, as a reward for my A, and as an example to the less grammatically adept, the teacher allowed me to read a book whilst the rest of the class diagrammed sentences.
So I showed up with ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, by Robert A. Heinlein, which I was currently reading.
Oh, no. That won’t do, young man. You can’t just read THAT.
So I was handed a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’.
I had already read ‘Kidnapped’. When I was seven years old. And I had no interest in reading it again.
But I ripped right through it anyway, and brought in my copy of ‘Rise and Fall of The Third Reich’ next.
THAT was okay. My point in bringing that particular book sailed right over the teacher’s head, too.
She was just concerned it might be a little too ‘adult’ for a thirteen-year-old.
‘Oh, that’s OK.’ I told her. ‘I’m still about 600 pages away from where Hitler shoots himself and the rest of them get hanged.’
She left me alone after that.
These progressives hope that when the current society breaks down, they will be the Bolshevik vanguard swept to power. Forever.
Then society will b e organized to suit the new leadership of society. They don’t see 1917, or Cambodia as failures, but as how-to lessons.
Or if academics would just assign reading that was actually, you know, *interesting*. Our (U.S.) high schools always seemed to operate on the premise that all reading should be painful, boring, and designed to inculcate a positive hatred of the written word in the student.
This, so very much. I’m Canadian, and this applies, times a hundred.
Canadians complain that Canadian books and movies are ignored in favour of American. This is largely true. Of course, much of it is the natural result of comparing ourselves to a superpower with ten times the population. Our academia, however, will simply not have it, and intends to put Canadian authors through sheer force of will, and by making all students read our “native” authors.
“Native” doesn’t mean Inuit, and native peoples, of course. Oh, no. It’s all intelligentsia, left-leaning authors like Margaret Atwood and Margaret Lawrence, who are “passed over” by the American publishing complex due to the facts that their books don’t sell, because of an evil conspiracy, and, as one teacher admitted in a moment of candor, the books are generally, you know, not very good.
I had to read “The Stone Angel” in grade 12. Imagine a grouchy, petty, vindictive, mean-spirited old woman writing a self-pitying memoir about how everyone was oh so mean to her (because she was an absolute bitch), and then watch the class attempt to write a sympathetic review. There was more creative writing take place in my class than in the book. Even the teacher admitted that the book’s protagonist was “difficult” (ie. hateful) and that we should “look past that” (ignore what we’d read) to write a positive review.
It turned out that there was some government program looking for positive book reviews. They couldn’t find any, so they were trolling high schools. All the students were panning these horrid, gloomy books written about a bunch of “mean old biddies” (one classmate’s summary of the syllabus), so the school board “encouraged” positive reviews.
While students were struggling to read page after insufferable page of this indulgent crap, most were wolfing down things like Lord of the Rings and popular teen books in one tenth the time, on their own time, because they weren’t a struggle to read.
“University of Wisconsin police apologize for going into a classroom to confront a student about graffiti on campus.”
http://althouse.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/university-of-wisconsin-police.html
Some racist graffiti is more equal than others.
Some racist graffiti is more equal than others.
The arresting officer shows extraordinary patience. I’m not sure what it is the police are supposed to be apologising for.
I notice Mr McDonald, a student of public relations, blames his numerous acts of vandalism and aggressive behaviour – including threatening to kill someone who tried to intervene – on “white supremacy,” “slavery,” and society at large. Something tells me his adult life will not be a glorious one. And these, of course, are the stupefying, pernicious, morally blunting effects of the Angry Studies racketeers. How proud they must be.
a student of public relations,
Snork. Missed that.
“Seattle’s Community Police Commission wants the city to allow public drinking in designated areas as a way to reduce unequal enforcement.”
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/allow-designated-areas-for-public-drinking-panel-tells-seattle/
Missed that.
I’m not sure it’s a job for which he’s terribly suited, all things considered.
Tanker,
Why are SJWs so racist as to encourage non-whites to be utter failures, good only for the plantation?
Because they’re “Progressives” who really have always been Eugenicists. They’ve never quite given it up; thanks to their erstwhile fellow travelers in Germany c. 1933-45, they just can’t admit it publicly anymore, so they invent foggy euphemisms that they believe might fly over the heads of us peasants.
David,
…logically, it’s hard to see how encouraging black students to plan ahead and turn up on time gives some crushing advantage to white students.
It doesn’t, in itself, give whites an “advantage” so much as they (the Educators™) do not believe black students are capable of it. They are (unwittingly?) employing the same overtly racist concepts the Klu Klux Klan used a century ago, ergo, blacks are inherently savage and can never be truly civilized.
It doesn’t, in itself, give whites an “advantage” so much as they (the Educators™) do not believe black students are capable of it.
Among leftist educators, that does seem to be a recurring theme.
[ Added: ]
Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that there can never, ever be statistical differences in ability between racial groups and that any disparity in outcome can only be due to racism, to which white people are somehow uniquely prone, while simultaneously accepting that even basic punctuality is an unreasonable expectation for those deemed sufficiently brown and exotic.
I’m not sure what it is the police are supposed to be apologising for.
David, you really can be quite the brute sometimes. They “ambushed” the classroom, which was not just any old room – they violated the sanctity of a space where Afro-American Studies was being celebrated. It’s difficult to think of anything equivalently outrageous – perhaps failing to succumb to paroxysms of wonderment on seeing the Benin Bronzes comes close?
David, you really can be quite the brute sometimes.
Heh. I’ve booked myself an hour on the shaming carousel.
What an absolute cunt.
Yes, but on the plus side, as he’s moved up the socio-economic ladder his hair colouring has improved vastly from boot black to Nice & Easy #121A Natural Deep Brown. Oh vanitas vanitatum.
Surely the emphasis on mathematics in our school systems is designed to sustain East Asian privilege.
Surely the emphasis on mathematics in our school systems is designed to sustain East Asian privilege.
I’m currently amused by a colleague who is third generation Canadian of Asian ancestry, who holds very SJW-ish views. She’s all for “social justice”, against “white privilege”, etc., and is now shocked to discover that her children are being discriminated against in university admissions, because they’re good at math and science.
Now, these kids aren’t exceptional, but they are respectable, certainly in the top 25%, probably in the top 15%. However, they are being scored against classes of “disadvantaged ethnicity”. Suddenly those good marks aren’t a result of her kids being smart, and hardworking, and having good study habits, it’s “privilege”.
When she asked the guidance counselor how Asian kids could have white privilege, the counselor patiently explained that lots of Asian kids got good marks, so, duh, obviously they were privileged, ipso facto.
Suddenly, she’s not so fond of SJW behaviour, for some reason.
“white traits such as good discipline and goal orientation”
Wow. Somebody better alert the ancient and modern Chinese and Japanese cultures that they are “white”. Also, somebody better tell the local white families fleeing the local public schools (which are now dominated by SE and SW Asian kids) that it’s all an illusion. The spread of historical ignorance and magical thinking is dooming us all.
$15/hr minimum wage? Unexpected consequences bite the big unions:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/massive-robots-keep-docks-shipshape-1459104327
Spent a happy hour in your archives. Tip jar hit.
Tip jar hit.
Always appreciated. Make yourself at home.
Wait. Only an hour?
Bill de Haan:
The SJWs love to rail against white males. And so they should. We are Satan’s spawn, every one us, even those gelded wonders who profess to be feminists. (I’m being overly harsh — they’re just doing what they have to do to score some poontang. Hat’s off to them.)
But the movement in higher education to set higher standards for “over represented” groups means that the most discriminated group in university admissions is women of East Asian ancestry.
A perverse ideology produces a perverse result. Quelle surprise.
Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that there can never, ever be statistical differences in ability between racial groups and that any disparity in outcome can only be due to racism, to which white people are somehow uniquely prone, while simultaneously accepting that even basic punctuality is an unreasonable expectation for those deemed sufficiently brown and exotic.
You’re not supposed to notice the contradictions, David. You’re supposed to just do as they say. :^)
“Can’t decide if these people are insane or just evil.”
“I suppose it could always be both. I mean, logically, it’s hard to see how encouraging black students to plan ahead and turn up on time gives some crushing advantage to white students.”
A significant factor–at least here in the States–is the failure of the utopian dreams of sixties leftists: Thanks to the tearing down of racist laws and customs such as segregation, blacks were going to all become instantly successful and in all fields. In order to explain away the persistence of failure and crime it was necessary to invent increasingly complex theories of victimology–deferents and epicycles of leftism, so to speak.
Another equally important factor is encapsulated in the cartoon of two dogs drinking in a bar [pub] in which one says to the other, “It is not enough that dogs succeed. Cats must also fail.” It is not enough that poor people escape poverty: Those who have already succeeded must be brought low. In order to do so the culture that produces success must be destroyed.
“The arresting officer shows extraordinary patience. I’m not sure what it is the police are supposed to be apologising for.”
The insanity and evil of the left is a wonder to behold:
On the one hand, it is an act of violence to chalk a pro-Trump message on a sidewalk, and asking a black student to be quiet in class and to turn in homework is a provocation to justifiable violence.
On the other hand, throwing bags of urine and feces at police is not a provocation to violence.
rabbit:
But the movement in higher education to set higher standards for “over represented” groups means that the most discriminated group in university admissions is women of East Asian ancestry.
I am shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling taking place in this establishment.
A perverse ideology produces a perverse result. Quelle surprise.
Exactly so. My friend was stunned to discover what constitutes “privilege”. Not money, not access, not even physical resources for learning. No, her sin was providing a stable home environment. By an overwhelming margin, lower class/poor/ethnic families are single family homes. Barely 10% of children have a father figure. Therefore, remaining married, and having a father present to help raise her children with her is considered privilege, because the majority of children her children compete against don’t have a father around.
The counselor apparently even used the word “unfair” to describe her staying married.
When she asked what other metrics were used to determine privilege, apparently, there were none. So, a poor Asian family that stays together and instills a work ethic is deemed privileged.
With incentives such as this, it’s unsurprising that the universities are now reeling from student demands. Their review system is weighted to ensure that their student body has been rewarded for poor life decisions, bad behaviour, and blaming their problems on others all their lives.
So I showed up with ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, by Robert A. Heinlein, which I was currently reading.
Yep … that was the reading material of choice among those of us that wanted to give our English teachers fits.
The only other book that caused them more indigestion and pearl-clutching was Atlas Shrugged, which I read when I was 12. The look of horror on my teacher’s face was priceless.
(high school, class of ’72)
My friend was stunned to discover what constitutes “privilege”… her sin was providing a stable home environment.
It reminds me of the mental rumblings of Marxist philosopher Adam Swift, who insists that reading to your children causes “unfair disadvantage” to the children of parents who are negligent and stupid, and should therefore induce feelings of guilt and discomfort. To our Marxist intellectual, being a competent, caring parent is something to atone for, being as it is an act of class oppression.
And once again leftist piety leads to a moral boneyard.
The only other book that caused them more indigestion and pearl-clutching was Atlas Shrugged, which I read when I was 12.
Ugh. I read that at 14, when I was stuck in an ice hockey rink overnight. The power was out, I couldn’t get a ride until the next day. The choice was stay inside at about 45F, where the only reading material was Atlas Shrugged, or go outside in -40 weather in the middle of the night.
It was a close call, actually. I remember there were numerous 50+ page speeches that just kept going. Politically interesting, intellectually challenging in parts, hideously written, and painful to read.
The look of horror on my teacher’s face was priceless.
The book that most horrified my teacher was Toland’s Hitler biography, which I was reading in grade 7 during lunch. I got “the Germans are our friends now” speech, and was told I shouldn’t be biased by outdated stereotypes. That was from, of all things, my history teacher. He told me I should be reading more recent and relevant history.
So, the next day I came in with my copy of the Gouzenko Transcripts. He was offended, because his wife was Russian. “Great”, I said, “could you ask her a few things? I’ve got some questions”.
Is privilege a bad thing? My grandparents were starving refugees…I’m absolutely delighted to be privileged. The more privilege the better.