Elsewhere (254)
Law professor Adam MacLeod on undoing the ‘progressive’ miseducation of his students:
Slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read [“classist,” “racist,”] which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths.
Related: “Who is this Mozart?”
Michael Walsh on the real-world destination of “social justice” activism:
In the aftermath of the Ferguson riots in Missouri and the Freddie Gray fiasco in Baltimore, the decriminalisation of crime in the name of “social justice” – long a goal of the cultural-Marxist Left – got fully underway. The result was exactly what anyone not fully invested in Critical Theory would have expected… Baltimore is a prime example of what happens when citizens are categorised by skin colour or cultural background, and then have differing standards of behaviour applied to them by what should be an impartial justice system. Instead of “social justice,” the outcome is social disruption, mistrust, resentment and lawlessness.
If violent and predatory behaviour has consequences only for the victim, then the situation is unlikely to improve.
And David Cole on gentrification, its opponents, and the kind of nakedly racial animus that’s apparently okay:
Activists [in Pilsen, Chicago] protested the opening of a new restaurant in the neighbourhood. The owners of the eatery, named S.K.Y., are accused of “gentrifying” the neighbourhood with their presence. So of course the activists responded by defacing the building, threatening the staff, and blocking people from entering… But the chef-owner of S.K.Y., Stephen Gillanders, is baffled. His meals start at $7, hardly the stuff of billionaire foodies. So why the resistance from the locals? Well, it turns out that Gillanders is Filipino and his wife is Korean.
Media reports that have mentioned Gillanders’ race have suggested that it’s somehow odd that the activists are attacking a fellow minority… [But] the activists speak again and again of keeping Pilsen “Mexican.” Not “diverse,” not “rainbow,” but Mexican. In fact, CBS Chicago reported that it isn’t just Gillanders’ business that’s being targeted. The protesters are “demanding that non-Mexican owners here [at S.K.Y.] and across the street get out of Pilsen.” Viva la Raza! There’s your identity politics, leftists. This is the logical conclusion of the race-centred worldview that the left encourages non-whites to embrace.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
@Farnsworth,
In fairness, the work does come with a 35 minute speech from the “artiste” about what the work is really about–something about the ennui of modern life in the age of Trump, I think–along with a half dozen dismissive, disdainful looks cast in your direction because you need the 35 minute speech in the first place.
The implication of the Guardian piece, upthread, seems to be that insurance is a close-to-adequate solution and one should simply get used to being preyed upon, repeatedly, and often by the same people. A point illustrated some years ago by the now sadly defunct Inspector Gadget blog:
What’s interesting is that the Guardian is probably not wrong. If society was poor enough, and the cars being stolen in the Inspector Gadget example essential to someone’s very life, the police and courts would either deal with the thieves appropriately or the mob would. What a lot of people don’t realise, and I only discovered this recently, is that the police and justice system don’t exist to protect the law-abiding from criminals, but to protect suspected criminals from the mob. As a society, we have decided we’re rich enough to absorb car thefts and burglaries that the justice system has decided not to deal with. Eventually, a mob will get hold of one of the perpetrators and murder them, and when the police turn up they’ll either face a wall of silence or be beaten to death.
I might have told this story before, but I knew a driver in Nigeria who was robbed at gunpoint by two men. Once they’d helped himself to his possessions they ran off, but the one with the gun ran faster leaving his accomplice trailing behind. The driver gave chase shouting “armed robber! armed robber!” Someone tripped the miscreant up (the one with the gun disappeared) and the mob got hold of him. A few minutes later a tyre was put around his neck and set ablaze. The driver filmed it on his phone and showed my friend, his employer, what Lagos street justice looks like. Had a policeman been stupid enough to show up and intervene, he’d have likely been killed as well.
At the moment the British public aren’t there, but if the police and justice system refuse to do their jobs, eventually they will be. Part of me is surprised it hasn’t happened already in Rotherham and some other places.
car thefts and burglaries that the justice system has decided not to deal with.
Can’t help feeling that’s a significant string of words.
“Meanwhile, in the world of art”
This has got to be some kind of tax dodgery or money laundering or something.
As a society, we have decided we’re rich enough to absorb car thefts and burglaries that the justice system has decided not to deal with.
For most of us, or many of us, this is likely true. The burglary that I once inadvertently prevented comes to mind. My neighbour at the time would most likely have been able to absorb the theft of a TV or laptop or whatever. But of course the fact that one has to, and is increasingly expected to, and may have to more than once, is rather demoralising. And, dare I say, it’s demoralising as a society.
The only time my home was burgled, back in the Nineties in a scummy part of Nottingham, was gutting. Not just the loss of possessions, which at the time were few in number and impossible to replace, but the sense of violation and lingering insecurity. All compounded by the news, via a police officer, that the thief was – and I quote – “probably one of your neighbours, someone on the same street.” Left unopposed, a fairly small number of sociopaths and repeat offenders can degrade the wellbeing of a great many people, year after year.
And it seems to me such creatures aren’t worth that loss of wellbeing.
re: street justice in Africa (and by extension, elsewhere)
The Bayou Renaissance Man posted his thoughts on how to deal with child pornographers and their customers, which tale included descriptions of how African tribal society used to deal with sexual crimes:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/how-to-deal-with-child-pornography.html
This lends support to the “cops exist to protect criminals from the mob” argument, though ideally cops would only protect the mis-identified *innocent*, while mobs would only target the actually guilty. Alas, perfection is not an option.
I had to look twice to see that this is NOT The Onion.
“like somebody … making a song just littered with the N-word everywhere.”
So it’s like a rap “song” then?
…car thefts and burglaries that the justice system has decided not to deal with.
Yet, the worthies still wish to denude us of the right to defend ourselves and our homes. Um, not so much. It’s fascinating how property crimes tend to diminish when potential perpetrators worry they’ll have a .12 gauge stuck in their face if apprehended in flagrante delicto.
Something I read somewhere years and years ago: “A single savage can hold a thousand gentle people hostage.”
Can’t wait for the remakes of Dirty Harry and Death Wish to hit the theaters. At least they might be somewhat more relevant that all the other remakes spilling out of Hollywood.
Can’t wait for the remakes of Dirty Harry and Death Wish
Falling Down seems to be particularly apposite nowadays too.
The end is nigh.
The end is nigh.
That sound you hear is a million British commuters looking on in envy.
I had to look twice to see that this is NOT The Onion.
Yeah, but not expected from a bunch of ahistoric slackwits to whom the highest form of humor consists of, “Wypiop, amirite ?”
Or what, is there a threat other than continuing to be asses to back this up ? If so, just expel the brats, or at least the ringleaders, pour encourager les autres, as it were.
If Irish Rail arrives within ten minutes of the scheduled time they consider it to be ‘on time’. I’d weep but what would be the point?
That will never happen as long as they’re getting that sweet, sweet, government guaranteed lucre to keep those misfits in jail… I mean university.
What happens when you don’t pay attention in high school biology, brought to you by SJWs and The Party of Science™.
What happens when you don’t pay attention in high school biology, brought to you by SJWs and The Party of Science”
There was a lot of that in the Science Wars of the 1990’s–feminist numbskulls attacking biology as sexist because of some cartoonish idea of passive eggs and active sperm.
Addendum: While it is true that the sperm swim to the egg, biologists know that there is, at the chemical level, a lot of action in both directions, which demolishes the radfem idea that biology is sexist. Of course, even if the egg were completely passive in all respects this would not make biology sexist: Reality is what counts, not the sensitive feelings of feminazi fools.
A homunculus speaks.
Oh, how I did chortle.
A homunculus speaks.
“Socialism is coming,” says the prophet of the left.
I’ll just leave this other prophesy here, shall I?
So, Owen Jones is prophesying that one day he will be up against a wall?
Why is a 12-year-old writing pro-socialism articles for whatever that news site is?
A homunculus speaks.
To be fair, a socialist state might have provided him a proper speech therapist.
To be fair, a socialist state might have provided him a proper speech therapist.
A thinking and reasoning specialist should be his first priority.
The end is nigh.
Spent 3 weeks last November riding about Japan via rail pass … what an awesome experience.
I’m heavily armed, and live in a “castle” state. Anyone attempting to burglarize me is going to get a rude surprise.
Does Owen Jones remind anyone else of Hugh Laurie’s Bertie Wooster? It’s been bugging me for months now every time David throws up that Independent Voices screen grab…I think that’s who I’m thinking of. But I think there’s also an American teenage actor that is his doppelgänger, but I’m not sure if the Bertie thing is blocking my recollection.
Anthony Michael Hall. In The Breakfast Club. That was an hour not so well spent…
https://goo.gl/images/zg15Mq
Left unopposed, a fairly small number of sociopaths and repeat offenders can degrade the wellbeing of a great many people, year after year.
Indeed, and when things get to a tipping point those great many people either tell those who govern them to sort it out, or they form a mob and do it themselves. The whole point of western civilisation is that this situation doesn’t arise, but our political establishment seem almost embarrassed by it, hence they seek to destroy it.
Indeed, and when things get to a tipping point those great many people either tell those who govern them to sort it out, or they form a mob and do it themselves.
Yeah, but which mob? The one that formed in St. Petersburg in 1917 was not so amusing.
If we’re lucky (very lucky), it’ll be more like the Northfield residents who decided that they didn’t want the James-Younger gang robbing their bank. One can hope, anyway.
Down here in Australia the progressives have started tying themselves in knots trying to show the Muslim population of western Sydney wasn’t the reason for the notable amount of “no” responses in that region to the same sex marriage survey.
Of course they’re pointing the finger, in part, at the poorly educated. They go on to say some of the highest “yes” regions also have high immigrant populations without going on to analyse what the differences between the two immigrant populations are.
The Sydney Morning Herald has basically become the Daily Progressive Whinge. There was another classic SMH article recently from a millennial about how they couldn’t get up at 7:00am each day to go to work so that job was a year of misery. If only they’d been allowed to start an hour later each day they’d have been able to make it work. Another one was about the cultural appropriation of yoga by the west.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/samesex-marriage-survey-the-yes-and-no-city-20171117-gznh5t.html
For no other reason except I like this very much.
(and found it when I become curious about some of the musicians cited in the Harry Bosch novels)
WTP: I assume you mean the young Hugh Laurie as Bertram Wilberforce W.
Yeah, Tom. That guy. But after an hour of constipating on it, I came to think Owen more resembles Anthony Michael Hall. Or at least that was more the character type I was thinking of. The video was quite … triggering in this regard.