Elsewhere (198)
Theodore Dalrymple on self-restraint:
Political correctness is the means by which we try to control others; decency is the means by which we try to control ourselves. There is no doubt which is the easier to undertake, and the more pleasurable and gratifying. There is a considerable element of sadism in political correctness.
Charles Moore on leftist anti-Semitism:
Both of them [Ken Livingstone and Naz Shah] must feel bewildered by the condemnation heaped upon them, because they inhabit a party whose leader has, over his 40 years in politics, spent hundreds and hundreds of hours sharing platforms with virtually every sort of Muslim anti-Semite and advocate of terrorism that one can imagine. They may have thought they had permission.
Robby Soave on when students can’t escape “social justice training”:
A student has no method of dissenting during an online training session on the necessity of complying with the university’s diversity dictates. Indeed, students might reasonably fear that agreeing with the ideology of the trainers is a precondition of coming to campus.
And KC Johnson on massively inflated campus rape statistics:
A recent Stanford survey… revealed that 1.9 percent of Stanford students said they had been sexually assaulted. This figure, which would translate to around 160 sexual assaults, given the university’s enrolment, would make the Stanford campus the violent crime capital of Palo Alto, which in the last five years has averaged around six rapes or attempted rapes annually. Nonetheless, it generated fury from Stanford campus activists, led by the anti-due process law professor, Michele Dauber — who seemed outraged that it didn’t return the preferred 1-in-5 figure.
If a survey suggests that the rate of serious sexual assault on the typical American campus is higher than the rate of rape, murder, armed robbery and assault combined in Detroit, the U.S. city with the highest murder rate, and higher than in war-torn areas of the Congo where rape is used as a weapon, and at a time when the rate of rape in general is in marked decline, then there’s probably something wrong with the methodology. And if someone’s definitions of rape and serious sexual assault include inept and unwanted flirtation, intoxicated consensual coupling and post-coital embarrassment, and refers to people who are pretty sure they hadn’t in fact been raped, then there may be something wrong with the person using that definition.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Given the current furore over anti-Semitism within the Labour party, here is a timely article by Jamie Palmer which sets out just how and why such attitudes became second nature to the hard Left:
“Anyone on the Left who objected was attacked and defamed as a Zionist shill.”
And if someone’s definitions of rape… include inept and unwanted flirtation, intoxicated consensual coupling and post-coital embarrassment…
Regret is not rape. So depressing this has to be said.
Regret is not rape.
The irony being that by expanding the definition to absurd extremes, and thereby devaluing it and making scepticism essential, feminist activists are doing no favours to the victims of actual rape. In short, one shouldn’t cry wolf.
“Chicago-area families who don’t want their 14- to 17-year-old daughters to undress and shower with a boy staring at their naked bodies filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education and their high school.”
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/27328/
Off topic, but to add to the festivities, Caitlyn Jenner will be on the cover of an upcoming Sports Illustrated. He/she/it will be draped in an American flag with his/her/its gold medals displayed. Which bathroom does this human use?
Milo has the best rebuttal to this.
If there is a rape epidemic in US Liberal arts colleges, that have been Democrat controlled – at every single level – for several generations, then maybe it’s time to let Republicans control the colleges.
The Dalrymple and Soave excerpts are two sides of the same coin. PC and Diversity initiatives require the active participation of those over whom power is being asserted. Self-censorship in language coupled with a desire not to make waves allows the neo-Red Guards to enforce their power. I think it was Dalrymple who said in a different piece some years back with reference to state propaganda, the purpose is not to convey truth but to humiliate the hearer. The same holds true for PC/Diversity enforcement. Humiliation is the goal, not fostering a more polite society.
John D
Thanks for the college fix link to the legal challenge.
As in so many things the social justice warriors have not thought this through properly.
The attempts to legislate this will backfire badly. I don’t imagine that they’ve thought that the legislation immediately makes their ‘safe spaces’ illegal. If you create a safe space for women, or anyone of ‘colour’, then you cannot legally exclude anyone who chooses to self identify in that category.
It’s the perennial problem with trying to legally codify insanity. You always end up with insane laws that can be used against you.
Humiliation is the goal, not fostering a more polite society.
And hence the extraordinary concentration of obnoxious and malevolent devotees.
Which bathroom does this human use?
I really don’t think these bathroom issues matter and they are a distraction and dilution of the real problem, which is the locker room situation in John D.’s link. No one has to know what bathroom someone used and the likely hood of assault in such situations, while theoretically could slightly increase, it’s the locker rooms and such where the real problem lies. The line between casual and lewd behavior is much thicker in a bathroom than in a locker room.
PC and Diversity initiatives require the active participation of those over whom power is being asserted.
Yes, but when we are too passive to stand up to the active participation, we are somewhat complicit and responsible ourselves.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434827/individual-cowardice-killing-american-culture
The contrast with the Left is profound. For progressives, no issue is too small to address
There is, I think, a psychological asymmetry. An assumed entitlement to display and impose, to butt in, to invade another person’s mental territory, as it were. But to respond in kind and push back, every time, to every provocation, every smug idiocy, is to risk mirroring the pedantries and fixations of such people, which border on neurotic. It sounds both tedious and exhausting. Who wants to be that guy, the one who takes the bait every time?
WTP: This is how culture wars are lost: through the slow accumulation of individually defensible but collectively unjustifiable decisions not to resist.
There’s one effect not mentioned in that analysis: that guy remembers going along with something because he didn’t want the hassle. He remembers every little indignity heaped upon him by those in power, which he couldn’t stand up to without huge personal risk to himself. At no point has being forced to go along with things actually changed his opinion on any of it.
So, even if he thinks it might not be the best thing for his country, he’ll vote for someone like Trump who might change things so it doesn’t happen again. Even if he doesn’t agree with most things he says, he’ll watch and support someone like Milo who makes them a subject of mockery. And even if he quite likes Europe, he’ll vote to leave the EU just to stick it to those in power who push this stuff. All because they made it impossible for him to disagree.
When they aren’t able to disagree on the small stuff without it ruining them, they are more likely to support big, possible disastrous, changes that’ll make it so they can.
Who wants to be that guy, the one who takes the bait every time?
Oh, I definitely agree. It’s a risk. And to be that guy every time will not make the point and, as you say, will “risk mirroring the pedantries and fixations of such people” and damage the argument. However, in circumstances where someone has had the temerity to confront the leftist bollocks publicly in these situations, people need to speak up in support. People generally dismiss such as cornishly playing Sparticus, but to let such opportunities pass without making the effort just kicks the can down the road and makes it that much harder for social change to occur.
I’ve moved past caring whether I’m seen as that guy as I am quite confident that I’m not one of those people. I was once castigated for being that guy in one of these damn indoctrination sessions simply for rolling my eyes at BS and raising my hand in honest answer to a “who feels this (wrong) way” question. Privately several people told me that it was wrong the way I was treated. One co-worker sent out an email to the group asking what I may have done to bring on the finger wagging I received. I hadn’t forced my way into the discussion. In fact I hadn’t said a single word. To this day it’s a joke amongst friends about me being the guy kept after diversity training class. But if one or two of those people who DID provide moral support by telling me they felt I was wronged would have raised this issue to management or such, perhaps something would have changed and we would not have had to endure year after year of this BS. Maybe not. But I really don’t think anyone would have been fired for doing so. We give these people way too much power by assuming they have more power than they actually have at the time. Consequently, more power. That’s how power works, politically, militarily, or otherwise.
There’s one effect not mentioned in that analysis
Yes, what you say is true in certain instances. But I think it’s wishful thinking to believe that those who behave as you suggest are not overwhelmed by the numbers of people who ask themselves “Is this the new normal?” and with little other contrasting input they say “I guess so”. I’d like to believe otherwise but decades of study of my fellow man (and especially woman), I just don’t see it.
The irony being that by expanding the definition to absurd extremes, and thereby devaluing it and making scepticism essential, feminist activists are doing no favours to the victims of actual rape. In short, one shouldn’t cry wolf.
The other irony being, of course, that the more the definition expands, the more men can ‘legitimately’ claim to have been raped by women. I’ve had sex with people I wouldn’t have had sex with if my judgement hadn’t been impaired by a few too many drinks or a passing need for comfort brought on by being a bit down. I’ve had sex with someone I really didn’t want to have sex with but who assumed that because we’d had sex previously then my consent still stood, when all my ‘consent’ boiled down to was a desire to avoid a scene. And I don’t think I’m in the least unusual in this. But I’ve never been raped.
but to let such opportunities pass without making the effort just kicks the can down the road
I have been known to occasionally do this [waves hand in general direction of blog] in person. But it’s a matter of timing and mood, and proportion, and not wanting to bore others or derail the conversation, or derail an entire evening. It’s one thing to poke at this stuff daily and at length on a blog with people who choose to be here. Doing it quite so often in person would be a chore for everyone in earshot.
http://takimag.com/article/crevasses_in_the_classroom_steve_sailer
Do you think it’s like corporatism? i.e. knowing more regulations are harmful but they’re much more harmful to competitors.
“If a survey suggests that the rate of serious sexual assault on the typical American campus is higher than the rate of rape, murder, armed robbery and assault combined in Detroit, … then there may be something wrong with the person using that definition.”
I think the better conclusion to draw is that the typical American campus is such a draw for criminality that they should be shut down immediately for the sake of the women in our society. We can replace the institutions easily enough with distributed learning options and dedicated research labs.
And chains of gender (et al.) studies coffee houses, naturally.
As R. Sherman mentioned, this is the full quote from Dalrymple. It’s something that’s stuck with me, probably because of the Incessant Untruths I’m Supposed To Hold Evident.
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
Related, Richard Fernandez noted a similar relationship between right and wrong, that once you give in and let yourself cross a fundamental moral line, you rarely turn back. A reverse-sacrament: “do this in memory of you.”
I have this quote on the wall of my cubicle. So far no one has figured out why.
But it’s a matter of timing and mood, and proportion, and not wanting to bore others or derail the conversation, or derail an entire evening.
Definitely agree. And in social situations, it is best to play it on the safe side because, as you say not all the people in a social situation chose to be subjected to this misery and are more likely to be trying to relax. However, in the work situation, where you as an employee in a business far removed from this sort of crap, to have to be subjected to these beratings, to not speak up, to not push back to at least some degree is to simply ask for more and harder.
Speaking of more and harder (sorry, can’t resist the segue)…
I’ve had sex with someone I really didn’t want to have sex with but who assumed that because we’d had sex previously then my consent still stood, when all my ‘consent’ boiled down to was a desire to avoid a scene. And I don’t think I’m in the least unusual in this. But I’ve never been raped.
Had similar difficulty when trying to break up with a girlfriend back in my early twenties. She kept stopping by and she did have her “ways” of persuasion. I’ve kept my Walter Mitty political ambitions at bay by convincing myself that were I to pop up on TV or such, my obsessive paramour is still out there somewhere waiting for the opportunity to unleash her pent up feelings of scorn (hey, so my Walter Mitty has an ego, go figure). Now I must consider that in today’s context I could possibly claim she raped me. I mean, I do have my pride…but still…
However, in the work situation… to not speak up, to not push back to at least some degree is to simply ask for more and harder.
Yes, I take your point. Happily, my life is organised in such a way that I don’t often have to suffer these clowns, except vicariously, as objects of bewilderment and ridicule. Were I a student or obliged to sit through “diversity” blather and accusations of “privilege,” I imagine I’d be organising a suspicious electrical fire.
Incidentally, on the subject of challenging leftist assumptions, this seems vaguely relevant. It’s a very short clip from a Ben Shapiro Q&A session and it echoes several conversations I’ve had over the years. What’s interesting are the tactics being used by the audience member, who tries to catch out Mr Shapiro on identitarian terms – “privilege,” race, etc – and when this fails, thoroughly, she loses her confidence, as if unprepared (or unable) to think in terms other than Marxoid identity groups. I.e., trying to dismiss his arguments (without actually refuting them) on grounds of him having some irrelevant characteristic.
Finally, after a long, mortifying pause and a feeble attempt at condescension – saying she wants to keep things simple so he’ll understand – she announces that further discussion isn’t worth her time, i.e., is beneath her. Lofty as she is.
@WTP
Perhaps my use of the word “active” above was not the best. Chalk it up to pre-coffee commenting. Better would be “cooperation,” in the sense that the refusal to object, while not “active” participation, certainly facilitates the continuation of the behaviors of the Leftist Maolings.
“When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity.“
http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/additional/large/hrus_ex_picards_4_lights_dd.jpg
she announces that further discussion isn’t worth her time, i.e., is beneath her. Lofty as she is.
And it was going so well for her. 🙂
And it was going so well for her. 🙂
Quite. As so often, it’s a mix of incompetence, dishonesty and vanity. She ends her clumsy, protracted attack by blaming Shapiro for “interrupting” her – i.e., answering each question politely, succinctly, and in a way she didn’t anticipate – and then she implies that Shapiro is somehow too dim to comprehend her line of questioning, and by extension her brilliance, before pretending that further discussion is beneath her. And not because, mentally speaking, she’d brought a balloon to a gun fight.
And I’m pretty sure the same tactics, in the same sequence, were used by a student at one of the Milo Yiannopoulos events linked to recently. First, a regurgitation of lecture notes, complete with pompous jargon, begged questions, etc., then a checklist of identitarian ad hominem (‘You’re wrong because you’re white’ and variations thereof), followed by failure and confusion, followed by peeved condescension (‘I’ll keep it simple so that even you can understand’), followed by evasion and a haughty retreat (‘This isn’t worth my time’).
It’s like there’s a playbook for pretentious leftwing students.
Sorry WTP, but I just couldn’t resist cornishly playing Sparticus: “Oi be Sparty-cus, oo-ah.”
I’m happy with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, et.al. being closed tomorrow, their administrators and professors fired, their properties sold, and their endowments put into a trust for the victims. Let’s get some justice here, people.
“…Caitlyn Jenner will be on the cover of an upcoming Sports Illustrated. He/she/it will be draped in an American flag with his/her/its gold medals displayed. Which bathroom does this human use?”
More importantly, into which toilet is it more appropriate for me to throw-up?
Nemo, yes…I kinda hesitated on that. “Cornily” I now see is correct but cornishly sounds better to my American ear and figgered it might amuse one or two of Her Majesty’s subjects. Plus I was too damn lazy at the time and didn’t want to be disappointed by reality.
The irony being that by expanding the definition to absurd extremes, and thereby devaluing it and making scepticism essential, feminist activists are doing no favours to the victims of actual rape. In short, one shouldn’t cry wolf.
The purpose is not to support or help victims of sexual assault or rape, it is to demonise heterosexual men – especially white, heterosexual men. It is part of a propaganda war, pure and simple.
“I’m happy with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, et.al. being closed tomorrow, their administrators and professors fired, their properties sold, and their endowments put into a trust for the victims. Let’s get some justice here, people.”
That payback is getting very real for the University of Missouri. Their enrollment is off by about 25%, they’ve had to lay off ~500 workers (note: no admin nor perfessers, natch) and close down four dorms after sucking up to the BLM thugs and other assorted Leftists. Don’t know what sort of hit they’ve taken in donations but you can net your ass it’s significant.
Let’s hope that people “voting with their feet” and wallets continues.
I, for one, will sit back and silently cheer ot on.