Elsewhere (263)
Further to the last item here, Andy Ngo on attempts to discuss ideas versus recreational outrage:
“James [Damore] argues, accurately, that there are differences between men and women,” evolutionary biologist Heather Heying said during the panel discussion. “This is a strange position to be in, to be arguing for something that is so universally accepted in biology… You can be irritated by a lot of truths, but taking offence,” — here, Heying paused as hecklers shouted and began to walk out — “is a response that is a rejection of reality.” A non-student protester then yanked the cables from the sound system and shoved the equipment to the ground, breaking an antenna. She was promptly detained by police. “[Damore’s] a piece of shit!” she screamed as she was issued a citation for criminal mischief in the second degree. “Even the women in there have been brainwashed!” Another protester stated: “Nazis are not welcome in civil society.”
Today’s word is projection. Video here.
Nikita Vladimirov on more “social justice” psychodrama:
Activists at the University of Vermont have intensified their protests against the school this week, blocking rush hour traffic on Thursday while demanding social justice related reforms… The protesters remained in place [blocking a busy intersection] for about three hours… causing traffic congestion that eventually began to impact neighbouring towns, and even caused problems for the UVM Medical Centre, creating 15-minute delays for ambulances that were headed to the hospital.
Arrest them, and expel them, and maybe this will stop. Anything less will be regarded as encouragement.
And Dave Huber offers a reminder that opportunist outrage isn’t confined to students:
[University of Delaware law professor,] Sheldon Pollack thought that the academic hoax The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct was pretty damn funny, and decided to send it along to a male colleague and his son. However, that dread auto-fill feature placed the address of a female colleague on the message. That colleague asked what he meant by the message, indicating it was “inappropriate.” Pollack fully explained what had happened and apologised for the error. Half a year later, the erroneous recipient initiated a formal complaint about the matter… Pollack says the university’s human resources department also recommended that he attend sexual harassment counselling as a result of the incident.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Do be careful about scrolling down on that Snowmageddon tweet! Especially if it’s morning where you are.
MC,
No refunds. Credit note only.
In other news:
This my shocked face.
This my shocked face.
The reason might be that women don’t really compete against men; they compete against each other for dominance in the workplace. This would include women of lower professional status, i.e. administrative help, because they want to make sure everyone knows who’s boss.
Lower professional status women jockeying for dominance (in, say, HR, The “Diversity” Department or PR surely wouldn’t disrupt a company’s core business in any way, would it?
@PiperPaul
In my admittedly anecdotal experience, I noticed early on that females in my profession tended to treat the mostly female court clerks (who truly have all the real power in our judicial system) with far less civility than the vast majority of males, many of whom had been in the profession for decades. Suffice it to say, trying to demonstrate one’s “alpha female-ness” to a woman who had the ability to affect your life for good or for ill in ways both immeasurable and infinite was counterproductive to helping one’s client. Those of us who treated court staff with respect tended to do better than those who didn’t. Imagine that.
Nonetheless, disparities were always attributed to “latent sexism” in the system and never to the fact that, for example, a 25 year old female lawyer was addressing a 55 year old female court clerk or court reporter by her first name and never appending requests with the words “please” or “thank-you” or demanding that said clerk drop everything to service one’s whims.
I kept hens for a very short period of time a few years ago and only at my wife’s request. I never wanted livestock, too much work. Work that I would be forced to do after the luster and shine wore off and the reality of caring for a dozen extra living beings really set in.
Sure enough, a few months into it I was primary care provider. The gals really took to me; I could feed them from my hand and even pet them. They wouldn’t come when I called, but they came running whenever I came into sight so it didn’t really matter.
The thing is, they really hated my wife. I complained a few times about being the one caring for them even though she is the one who wanted them, but they went berserk as soon as she stepped into the pen. They would charge her, scratch and peck her, and one particularly ferocious one would even fly onto her back and peck at her neck and head.
It occurred to me that she hadn’t established herself as the dominant hen so they had to put her in her place, which was last.
When I mentioned it as a possibility, she got mad.
When I mentioned it as a possibility, she got mad.
You’re lucky to have lived to tell the tale! I get in enough trouble just by observing parallels between spousal and animal behavior. I can’t imagine the hot water I’d find myself in if I were to imply that the animals were better at playing the game.
You’re lucky to have lived to tell the tale!
I assumed he was typing from a camp bed in the neighbour’s garage.
It occurred to me that she hadn’t established herself as the dominant hen so they had to put her in her place, which was last.
Something I keep having to explain to my wife re the dog. And something I notice about most women and their dogs. With social animals (and thus people, especially children) you have to establish dominance. Biology has programmed each element of a pack/flock/whatevs to try to dominate such that the strongest will win out and thus ensure the viability of the rest of the group. This is very important to understand regarding dogs (and toddlers). They do see that humans are much more powerful, etc. than they are but they are programmed to try to lead. I believe they (dogs and children) greatly appreciate strong leadership from their owners because they know that they are better off if the humans/adults are in control. But they can’t know the leadership is there if they don’t challenge/test for it. The dogs have no language learning skills beyond a firm hand. With older children you do at least have some capacity to communicate. Women don’t seem to grasp this firmness with dogs. They mostly seem to go too easy on them and you end up with an animal that thinks it decides when dinner is, what path to walk, etc.
I can’t imagine the hot water I’d find myself in if I were to imply that the animals were better at playing the game.
Dog owners know this well. When one gets a new pup, one has to establish the “pack order” in the house from the get-go. Many years ago, I made the mistake of getting a female Malamute pup before my wife and I got married. It was a struggle to get the dog to understand her place as the “beta” female in the pack. It took about 12 months of intensive (and expensive) training to get there, but ultimately, the dog minded my wife better than me . . . because I was a softie and she (the dog) was a big sweetie, yes she was.
Spare a thought for we Brits …
Does our host need to spend time in the Remedial Grammar Booth?
R.Sherman,
I keep rereading your last post. Ever consider trying your hand at short story writing?
Spare a thought for we Brits as we endure Snowmageddon.
Reminded me of this fella, actually:
Eric Raymond, here.
And if that’s not a good night out, I don’t know what is.
The only thing that’s missing is pickled eggs…
We are probably above the optimal legal immigration rate
As I recall, the United States has, in the past, severely curbed immigration in reaction to such a problem, and did not relax the curbs until the previous huge cohorts had been assimilated.
The only thing that’s missing is pickled eggs…
Is that what the nose-hair trimmers were for?
“I want my country back, and if I can’t have it back then I wish to go someplace less nutty.”
I’ve thought much the same thing many times in recent years, and have come to the conclusion that the only place less nutty than my country these days is America. I think you’re more or less screwed.
“I think the Parliament of Funk could govern better than those bozos we have now.”
e.g., the Parliament of Bunk.
Parliament of Bunk
Adam Smith weeps.
Well, Sam, I was afraid that would be the case. I will live out my life here and request that I be cremated in the CVS parking lot atop a pyre of their own coupons that they refused to accept during my lifetime.
Are you sure the Scottish Parliament is NOT the Parliament of Funk?
Play those funky bagpipes, white boys!
Perhaps we Americans should work towards crowning George Clinton King and replacing our inept and corrupt Congress with the Parliament of Funk.
Gangsta bagpipes: Does that explain wars with the English?
Fat woke-ling is outraged that a cancer charity should dare to acknowledge obesity as a risk factor.
Fat woke-ling is outraged …
From the same larger than life individual 22 hours ago.
Who saw that coming?
Who saw that coming?
Despite blogging about these things for over a decade, I’m sometimes taken aback by the contortions and perversity on display. As when our weighty woke-ling demands to know, “How the fucking fuck is this okay?” When the “this” in question is a statement of fact and an attempt to reduce the risk of a horrible, quite painful, premature death. I’ve often said that modern leftism can be seen as a kind of malign counsel, a way to ruin your psychology and your life, and the lives of others; but I’m still sometimes caught out by just how often that’s true.
I’ve often said that modern leftism can be seen as a kind of malign counsel, a way to ruin your psychology and your life, and the lives of others; but I’m still sometimes caught out by just how often that’s true.
I’m curious: Considering about a half dozen comments in this thread – I read them all – is progressivism considered an outright disorder? Has it been considered a disorder for some time? Will it be considered a disorder in the future?
I realize the question is conditioned by to whom are you referring, you [epithet], but that’s also open-ended: by folks who generally think about progressivism via its unique intellectual (and emotional) challenges, I suppose.
I’ve felt progressivism was mental ever since realizing it embodied what I understood to be the trifecta of mental illness, those elements being the lie, appearances-obsession (a component of lying) and blaming everyone for everything. Add the progg’s friendliness with theft – they call it redistribution – and the die is cast.
It’s obvious the thing is the functional equivalent of a (bad) religion, and it’s clear it prefers the less robust psyche but I’m curious if the group’s members widely earn the conscious intellectual labeled of nutso or if they’re seen more as political opponents.
I wouldn’t categorize every single professing member as such – some are clearly indoctrinated into it – but as a semi-formal, self-recognized, and resilient faction of humanity it seems clear the clinical diagnosis applies to its various rites, practices, and personalities.
The upshot is obvious: Such a broad-based analysis, if correct and adopted widely, is how to survive the damn thing. In fact, it’s like surviving an abuser in the household. Put another way, what’s preventing society’s psychologically-informed from organizing.
Well, nothing, actually.
If you’ve ever suffered a clinically whacked ex, you know the patterns. Imagining for a friend, naturally.
No, not “society’s psychologically-informed“, Ten; society’s psychologically-infirmed.
Fat woke-ling is outraged that a cancer charity should dare to acknowledge obesity as a risk factor.
To steal from Ayn Rand, this really is returning to the Primitive. Thus, we dare not speak certain words in the dark of night, i.e. “obesity,” lest the demon (cancer) is summoned and overwhelms us. Better to keep muttering our incantation that “fat is beautiful” while we throw a virgin cancer charity into a volcano somewhere.
But remember: these people are progressive.
Women don’t seem to grasp this firmness with dogs. They mostly seem to go too easy on them and you end up with an animal that thinks it decides when dinner is, what path to walk, etc.
Jesus Christ, most modern mothers don’t understand this with kids either!
Fat woke-ling is outraged …
Having seen her picture, I can understand why she is so thin-skinned.
Fat woke-ling is outraged …
Rest easy, this alleged comedienne has it under control:
I am sure her tome will thoroughly debunk all notions that obesity is linked to illness because her feels > medical research.
Meanwhile in America’s Hat, they seem to think a national budget should be about social justice, and goes off the rails.
That seems to an un-Woke™ rube like me rather contradictory, there must an explanation. Ah –
If I am reading this right, there is a wage gender gap that affects women, and also men and boys, which to me is everyone, but it doesn’t say anything about those who identify as neither male nor female. I’m glad Canada has no other problems.
@Farnsworth
I love the part about “Irregular Migration.” Perhaps Jerry Brown can extend his high-speed rail all the way from Tijuana to Vancouver, BC to give our Canadian cousins an assist. Or Trump’s infrastructure plan could include a tunnel underneath I-35 from Brownsville to Thunder Bay.
Or Trump’s infrastructure plan could include a tunnel underneath I-35 from Brownsville to Thunder Bay.
Better and cheaper still, trade California west of I-5 to Canada in exchange for Alberta.
Jesus Christ, most modern mothers don’t understand this with kids either!
Yep. After I wrote most of that about dogs, the wife and I not having any children, as I went on I realized it fit toddlers/teenagers as well. Went back and re-edited but missed that sentence. I was initially blind to the parallel as my own mother understood these things. As did her aunt, probably the second most influential woman in my young life. Though it was my mother’s uncle who is famous in the family (mostly for me repeating it) for saying, “The child will eat what is put in front of him and be damn glad he has it”. Praise God and pass the brussel sprouts.
WTP,
See my rant here: http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/?p=5254
is progressivism considered an outright disorder?
…
those elements being the lie, appearances-obsession (a component of lying) and blaming everyone for everything.
I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. If you look at the vast majority of people in the vast majority of places over the vast majority of history, this is pretty much standard human nature. We (being generous to include myself) are the ones out of order. And if you dig deep into many of “us”, especially in regard to “appearances-obsession”, you will find the circle getting even smaller. Think #NeverTrump and similar elsewhere. From what little I understand of UK politics (something I really shouldn’t say much about because every time I think I understand something of it, I realize how wrong I am) the Tories seem to me to have a strong streak of this.
In fact, it’s like surviving an abuser in the household. Put another way, what’s preventing society’s psychologically-informed from organizing.
I presume that last bit was a question. The answer being, again just MNSHO, most of the psychologically-informed are whacked themselves. The shrink profession is chock full of nut jobs. But perhaps that’s just a US thing…Though FWIR I doubt it. But then I’m guessing from your post immediately after the first one, you kind of get my point.
From what little I understand of UK politics… the Tories seem to me to have a strong streak of this.
Oh yes.
Could you summarize disorder, WTP? Or offer some tangible demarcation?
My experience involves adequate contact with genuine evil and enough corroborating clinical confirmation thereof to settle on pathological lying and a rather complete apathy to others as key elements. The appearances-centrism I borrowed from Peck and his rather starkly realistic definition of evil. And theft is just theft.
In other words, national public aired commentary and swaths of the academy.
I find that per its approximate theory, the progressive movement is quite agreed to aspects of clinical disorder while its more zealous practitioners can look like pathological.
This doesn’t absolve anyone else of delusion – and gauged by its own hidebound egotists, culture-signallers, crusading statists, and Pharisees the political right has its own plagues and malignancies – but the general strain of progressivism can raise the question. If you wanted to make a movement out of mental misfits it’s what you’d pretty much end up with, if only for their magnificent ability to proudly invert reality and then brag about their superiority to Normals.
Oh yes.
I think that is part of the key to my trouble grasping some of it. Besides the obvious of being focused on my own country’s foibles (I just realized I have no idea what that word actually, literally means but damn, it just feels right and I’m too lazy to check), as I’ve worked on and off at times with a few Brits the degree of Labor-leaning often caught me off-guard. The more I see daylight twixt myself and the #NeverTrump crowd (both Bush-leaning and Cruz-leaning) the more I’m beginning to understand.
Tim,
Excellent post. As comments there are closed I’ll comment here…Shift the years for yourself and your parents back a decade and our families are near doppelgangers. I would offer this glimmer of hope. My younger sister, while not a rebel per se, was more rebellious/unwilling to cave in. It was a constant fight twixt her and my mother’s more stubborn nature. Naturally when she had kids of her own she was very lenient. At first. I worried about my niece as she would only eat grilled cheese and/or chicken nuggets. She’s and adult now, eats normal for an adult (though no brussel sprouts or such) and I’m amazed she’s still so skinny. Thin enough to be a swim suit model for her friend’s beach store window posters. I discovered one day to my horror whilst my nephew, father, and I had one last weekend together, that my 7 year old nephew did not know how to tie his own shoes. I was stunned when he asked me to tie them for him. And he still did not know how to eat properly with a fork. Anyway, I relate all this as the niece is now graduated college and is teaching (I think kindergarten) and based on some recent conversations, I think she and her boyfriend do understand these things better than I expected. I’m still worried about the nephew as he just graduated high school and lacks serious ambition. He does work at a sandwich shop and I do see some lights starting to come on as he has to pay for his own gas and such now.
All that said, as I stated elsewhere, I believe these things can work out if we put real expectations on young people to be productive. The coddling as children is a definite problem but society as a whole can only deal with the problem once such children become adults. But once that happens, we MUST put pressure on them to support themselves. If mommy and daddy are going to be irresponsible enough to delay their growing up, well that’s on them. But we as a society have to refuse to support this idiocy. Education is not the answer to society’s problems. Responsibility is. Once people are responsible for themselves, then they will value the education and through responsibility will get the kind of education that they need.
Donec educationis delenda est.
Jesus Christ, most modern mothers don’t understand this with kids either!
“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area – crime, education, housing, race relations – the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.”
–Is Reality Optional? by Thomas Sowell
“There once was a woman with notions quite new.
She never told children the things they should do.
She pulled all the covers up over her head
When people explained where her theories led.”
–from “The Space Child’s Mother Goose”
the lie, appearances-obsession (a component of lying) and blaming everyone for everything.
The great success the left has had over decades, in becoming dominant in so many institutions of Western societies, has hinged upon infecting guilt cultures with weaponized shame cultures; cancers that can slip past the society’s immune system until it is too late for that immune system’s natural tendencies alone to be sufficient in beating back the tumor.
Face is everything.
Hopp Sing: Would that be Schmoomageddon?
Could you summarize disorder, WTP? Or offer some tangible demarcation?
I think we’re crossing each other up here. Well not we, mostly me. I speak here of disorder being the thing or things that differ from the norm. The norm not being what us abnormal orderly people call normal but, in the broader scope of things simply the way things are. As I said, the vast majority of people in the vast majority of places over the vast majority of history, the negative attributes you attribute to progressivism (a more and more of a misnomer every day) are pretty much standard human nature. The laws of entropy. The natural order of the universe seems to aspire to disorder. Those of us trying to maintain a sense of order, of civilization, do so such that even more ordered things can get done are the ones swimming up stream. It belongs in the realm of contronyms if you ask me. But I’m guessing it’s missing for a reason. A real good reason.
And yet at the same time, free markets, free speech, and other such freedoms thrive on disorder. This used to be called liberalism. Viewed by many as a form of progress.
The great success the left has had over decades, in becoming dominant in so many institutions of Western societies, has hinged upon infecting guilt cultures with weaponized shame cultures; cancers that can slip past the society’s immune system until it is too late for that immune system’s natural tendencies alone to be sufficient in beating back the tumor.
That’s the precise fear.
In a normal world normal folks would see this stuff and exorcise it; We’ve the forethought to make hopefully proscriptive laws against crime, so would there be wide recognition of the psychotic defects that threaten Western society and culture. You can’t legislate against behavior and wouldn’t want to, but adequate social pressure against nutso alone would be a conscious factor in the maintenance of a stable society.
It’d start by retracting every vestige of the state from the public sphere.
I think my complaint stems from the realization that the right is turgid, complacent, commonly enabling, reactionary, and thus merely rhetorical and ultimately ostensible. For example, in the US it’s had two and a quarter centuries to erect a visible, public edifice to its own historical structuralism and other than enshrining some documents, has yet to. How hard is it to maintain a box of proven recipes?
Impossible, apparently. No wonder anything goes.
aaand … html fail. Apologies to the host.
Do help yourself to refreshments.
Gracias, David. My first paragraph quoted Squires. The rest of today’s efforts at wrecking English and its punctuation I take full credit for.
Peck? M. Scott Peck? The guy who decided one of his patients was evil because she liked cloudy, gray weather? I’d be cautious in looking to him for insight. To me he always seemed like one of those headshrinkers who’s nuttier than his patients. He did write a fairly good novel about demonic possession, starring himself (as the exorcist, not the demon). The first half’s dull but the second half, about a lady possessed after she encounters an evil book, is quietly creepy. The evil book is real, adding a note of verisimilitude.
Speaking of demons, Peck claimed to have been a friend of Malachi Martin, the laicized Jesuit who wrote “Hostage to the Devil.” I say “claimed” because Peck described Martin as one of the biggest liars he’d ever known, not the kind of thing a man ordinarily says about a trusted friend.
“Hostage” is presented as fact but I suspect it’s also fiction. It describes 5 exorcisms that were supposed to have taken place in the U.S. in the mid- to late 20th century. A Roman Catholic priest has to get permission from his bishop to perform an exorcism. At that time you’d have been hard-pressed to find 5 American bishops who believed in God, much less Satan, and allowing an exorcism would have been unthinkably old-fashioned and un-hip. “Hostage” is still worth reading. Martin’s a lively writer and, since he was educated when the Jesuits still believed in God, his theology is sound. Enjoy!
The whole exorcism thing – which appears in the news more and more lately – has always put me off but I’ll still confess, Pogonip, that your three paragraphs shall have me questioning the bulk of literature. And to think the guy writing in Road’s slipcover said Peck had given humanity a gift…
Anyway, Peck nailed evil well enough to stand up to scrutiny, mine certainly included. He may have driven a bad car but we all have our quirks.
The rest of today’s efforts at wrecking English and its punctuation I take full credit for.
Did you mean, “The rest of today’s efforts at wrecking English and its punctuation are that for which I take full credit?”
Ten, I think you can learn a lot more about evil from reading Martin than from Peck. Don’t let Martin’s having been a Jesuit scare you off. He knew he was writing for laymen and worded the material accordingly. We might use the analogy that Peck was writing a comic book, Martin was writing a high-school text. For heavy-duty theology you’re always best off with the Doctors of the Church.
Forehereto whomst do you refer, R.?
“That is a rule, up with which I will not put.”
–Winston Churchill (PBUH)
Heavy-duty theology I try and avoid, P.
Put another way, traditional, churchy morality, despite its aim or intent – which were commonly corrupted – reflect a take on reality just as subsequent secular efforts have. The only legitimate expectation to make on or to have of psychoanalysis, on the other hand – and I say this with WTP’s remarks firmly in mind because I’ve witnessed to what s/he refers – is that it dispenses with the religious overtones. If it works, it works and there’s nothing in theology to inform a view of evil intrinsic to theology. It’s just another lens.
In much the same way G-d is a projection. Not in the absolute sense because there we don’t know and shouldn’t presume to so much as try, the way I figure it, but in the sense that each claim is individual, unique, and therefore incorrect.
I probably miss your drift but I don’t see how theology, much the drain-cleaner kind, inherently informs morals. It and they are a take on them, not the essence of them.
I don’t see how theology, much the drain-cleaner kind, inherently informs morals. It and they are a take on them, not the essence of them.
Isn’t theology an affirmation that morality is transcendent, i.e. that it exists outside of the mind of man, and is therefore not subject to man’s whims or power?
I need to mull on this further, but it seems to get to the place of “Theo-ology,” one must first answer some preliminary questions. Is there a “Theo” to begin with? (Oops. Sentence ended with preposition. No cake for me.) If yes, does it wish to reveal itself? If so, has it done so and in a manner which we are capable of understanding?
If those questions are answered to one’s satisfaction, then one gets to the “Well, what has God said” part, which includes the “How do I live” part, i.e. morality. That is, I act or refrain from acting in certain ways because they are inherently, transcendentally virtuous and not because another human being has the ability to compel my actions or behavior through threat of force.
As you said above, “I probably miss your drift,” so YMMV.
Meaning I, (R. Sherman) miss your (Ten’s) drift. I’m a dullard that way.
What is the drain-cleaner kind of theology? (I envision a product that gets the imps out of your pipes. 😄 )
Well, theology is pretty much intertwined with morality. There were efforts to have morals without God in the 20th century. Proved unworkable. I don’t know anything about the theology of religions other than my own. I do have a work that touches on Tibetan Buddhism, “ Magic and Mystery in Tibet,” by Alexandra David-Neel, which is quite interesting—and also old (early 20th-century), so if the library doesn’t have it you can buy it cheap.
I forgot to mention the grandaddy of all fiendish fun, “ The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty. Read the 40th anniversary edition, which contaibs a chapter that the tone-deaf publisher cut from the original for reasons of space—and it’s terrifying! They cut that—from a horror story!—and kept an equivalent number of pages of the boorish movie director wandering around annoying everybody. (When the demon killed him, I thought, “Thank you! What took you so long?”)
Er, “contains,” not “contaibs.” The devil made me type it!
Today’s word is symbolism:
Via Instapundit.
Isn’t theology an affirmation that morality is transcendent, i.e. that it exists outside of the mind of man, and is therefore not subject to man’s whims or power?
As a self-reinforcing definition it certainly is such an affirmation, at least as it sees itself – the chicken sandwich essentially assumes chicken. The problem is then obviously universal applicability, and before that, claims on that transcendence: Are we deploying G-d’s morals or are we saying we are in all good faith. And there’s that word.
I don’t mean to say morality is relative; morality is a construct and certainly can be seen as or said to be transcendent. The practical implementation of it is an obvious problem, but so too is the claim on that transcendence.
To illustrate:
I need to mull on this further, but it seems to get to the place of “Theo-ology,” one must first answer some preliminary questions. Is there a “Theo” to begin with? (Oops. Sentence ended with preposition. No cake for me.) If yes, does it wish to reveal itself? If so, has it done so and in a manner which we are capable of understanding?
Agreed; that’s axiomatic.
So, is morality essentially tied to a theology? Not so far and even if we adopt the theo, we’re still subject to the thorny problem of, in effect, defining G-d, something I for one could regard as a valid inclination – a noble determination to swim across the ocean – much more than a philosophically robust endeavor.
Isn’t belief in transcendence and belief in the morality of the Creator its own reward? If faith is the thing, then asserting X onto Y is a construct, not a discovery of fact.
Hunter College is waging a court battle to evict a stubborn student who refuses to leave her dorm room some two years after dropping out.
She’s practicing for a lifetime of parasitism.
What a doll…
https://www.google.com/search?q=sofie+hagen&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBxOG85svZAhVC1WMKHdrUBUIQiR4IxwE&biw=1366&bih=637
Well, theology is pretty much intertwined with morality.
Certainly. At the least*.
There were efforts to have morals without God in the 20th century. Proved unworkable.
That could be an exception fallacy. It’s a conscious virtue to not steal, for example, but stealing can be and has been recognized to be “wrong” simply because of the effects on the victim or the empathy of the witness and his reaction to force. However, the culturally-Christianesque right gets all up in arms when it lifestyle-signals against the left. Suddenly veganism and electricity are tantamount to wrong where formerly God’s own carnism** and combustion received unquestioned cultural approval. That’s that ball of goo that conspires to defeat actual conservatism.
Apparently G-d didn’t give us a reality in which sorting morals would be simple or easy. Or, we’re trying to interpret something we can’t. Or it’s all our own projection*** onto the Universe. The symptoms of the three rather resemble one another.
*Peck’s redeeming premise that was that mental health was the relentless pursuit of truth regardless of cost, and that that cost must be primarily and essentially borne by the pursuit of truth in self. In other words, the polar opposite of progressivism, at least in the vein often commented on by our host and barkeep.
**Wiki: “Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions.”
***YHWH has a rather interesting history, one that just happens to conform to practical local Israelite needs at the time.
a stubborn student who refuses to leave her dorm room some two years after dropping out. Delaware native Lisa S. Palmer — who has not paid rent since 2016
See, this is why we have to have violence. Seriously though, how does this even happen? In two years she has to have left the room at some point. A couple campus cops cannot block her re-entry? The room doesn’t belong to her. She has no business being there. But of course it’s an “educational” institutions. This is what I mean by the abnormal being the true normal and we civilization-leaning types being a natural aberration. Again…Donec educationis delenda est.
Seriously though, how does this even happen?
And for those who may have missed it.
Somewhat related:
Re: Children and their upbringing. Perhaps to no-ones surprise, at least here, a Danish study ,involving 56,000 children in 825 schools, found that ‘Child-Centred’ teaching methods had a negative impact on educational attainment; particularly on the children of less-educated parents.
A couple campus cops cannot block her re-entry?
The hell with campus cops, a couple of regular NYPD to kick the door in and drag her ample self out to the curb, and another to throw her crap out the window.
The Roman Catholic Church regards neither veganism nor the use of electricity as sinful, except if the electricity is used to execute someone. Other than that, the Church is fine with your cooking your carrots on an electric stove. Some of the thousands of Protestant denominations may consider one or the other or both sinful, but since none of them agree with each other, I see no reason you should feel obliged to agree with any of them. You could even, in the grand Protestant tradition, start your own!
An easy introduction to Catholic theology is watching EWTN, if it’s available in your area, or reading their web site if it’s not.
Also on the subject of religious groups, I once met a Monsignor Funk. All I could think of was, “This guy shouldn’t be a Catholic, he should be with the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now!” 😄. Perhaps he can be King George’s Prime Minister of Religion.
Seems like the college could just serve Lisa Palmer with an eviction notice. In all U. S. states, even California, refusing to pay rent is grounds for eviction, unless you are holding your rent in escrow for some reason. But in a regular eviction, once the judge approves the action, the sheriff comes and removes you and your stuff.
In most states she could stop the eviction by paying all the back rent, though, and then stop paying till the next eviction , et cetera.
I just looked at the original article—they ARE evicting her. Sorry.
She sounds rather eccentric—who wants to live in 100 square feet if they don’t have to?
…who wants to live in 100 square feet if they don’t have to?
Hunter is between 68th and 69th and Park and Lexington, if the dorm is there too, it is prime Manhattan real estate, and that 100 sq ft would probably set her back $3K/month if she could even find it. Why the hell they just don’t change the locks when she goes out to her “job” remains a mystery.
Also on the subject of religious groups, I once met a Monsignor Funk.
Cardinal Sin.
I just looked at the original article—they ARE evicting her. Sorry.
See, now you made me read the original article as well:
Oooh! It was in BOLD FACE TYPE. Ooooh!!! Unless someone, at the very moment the article was being written, was physically moving either her and/or her stuff outside the physical premises, ARE is not the word. They have been “ARE evicting her” for months now, apparently. But now I’m even more confused. WTF does this mean “moved her to a wing that’s only occupied by a middle-aged nurse, whom the college is also trying to evict.”???? They have others that they’re “trying’ to evict? and they moved this girl? I’m totally confused on how this happens. Does “they moved her” mean the college hired or used current employees to pick up her stuff and move it to the wing in question? They didn’t just toss it out the door?
No. Apparently not. Seems out here (there?) in reality world, someone can stay in the dorm without meeting these qualifications.
This is insane. You know, decades ago when I was a school lad and they assigned Bartleby, the Scrivener to our class to read I said to myself, this is trouble.
When Eamon Casey resigned as Bishop of Galway when it was revealed he had broken his views of celibacy and got a woman with child, the joke was he fled to Manila, where the Cardinal took his confession. The errant cleric is supposed to have kneeled and began, “Bless me Sin, for I have gathered…”
The college wants to boot a total of nine nurses who were given rooms in various wings of the E. 25th Street building when it was owned by Bellevue Hospital.
The resident nurses include 67-year-old Derek DeFreitas who kept a dormitory room “crash pad” at the address for decades.
There are two issues. The former Hunter College Student is one. Setting aside that, the nurses are another. The key bit of information is that the building in question had prior owner who bestowed the accommodations on the nurses. Presumably, there was some agreement between the hospital and the nurses, which the college now wishes to terminate.
Landlord/Tenant law is different in every state, though I imagine it’s pro-tenant in NY and NYC, the latter of which has rent control, IIRC. Evicting prior tenants can be difficult for new owners, especially if there are long term leases or other agreements involved. We don’t have all the facts regarding that. However, “eviction” is a mult-step process which involves terminating a lease or rental agreement, followed by obtaining a legal judgment for possession of the premises, followed by an execution of that judgment by law enforcement. For commercial tenants, the process can take years. In my jurisdiction, the worst case scenario is about four months for a tenant who is not paying rent. Longer for tenants who are paying but violating some other provision of the lease, and my state is not particularly tenant-friendly.
The former student remains a head-scratcher, however. Still, some goofy judge may have ruled that the college must treat its dorm residents as “tenants” for purposes of the law. Who knows?
In my state paying the back rent stops the eviction and moves everyone back to square one as long as the tenant pays the entire back rent + any fees and penalties the landlord imposed; in this situation they may refuse to accept partial payment. In my state it’s unheard of for a landlord to evict anyone, no matter how objectionable, for anything other than non-payment. I don’t know if this is because of simple greed, or because it’s too difficult, or both.
Understand the differences between the student (dorm) and the nurses (proper tenants), but 67-year-old Derek DeFreitas has been there for DECADES. Yet how does a university, or even worse a city/state of many universities, with all its “smart” people on staff either manage to hire such incompetent lawyers and/or be so incompetent themselves as to let such a thing go on with dorm students and the laws pertaining to such? By the very nature of dorms, they need to be turned over each year to make room for new students. What idiocy allows legal definition of dorm renter come anywhere near the classification of apartment tenant? How many “educated”, “smart” people have to be asleep at the switch to allow this to happen?
Much like education, our country spends GAZILLIONS of dollars on our legal system. Probably in the neighborhood of health care, if legal costs of health care were properly counted as legal costs. And what we get for it is, IMNSHO, shit. Evicting a non-paying tenant is not rocket science. Yes, it gets complicated. But no way should such things drag on for DECADES. At some point the law ceases to be law and starts to become a collection of words consisting of nothing more than a delivery system for anarchy.
. . . The errant cleric is supposed to have kneeled and began, “Bless me Sin, for I have gathered…”
Did have to stare at that fer a moment.
“Bless me Sin, for I have fathered…”
Yes, that Preview button down there is your friend . . .
You could even, in the grand Protestant tradition, start your own!
Heh. When I was too tiny to notice I asked my grandfather, an old country immigrant possessing membership in a church Christian Layman’s League, why there were so many variants of Protestantism and why they all saw fit, as respective expressions of their unassailable knowledge of G-d, to splinter and then resume warring about His aspect. (Can I say “His” on this thing? Is there a progressive God Xe or something?)
Like the proverbial Eastern monk, he only smiled at my grasshopper, although in his case I’m still not sure if it was the enlightenment manifesting.
More generally, it appears that theology is per se the recorded exploration of what man would purport to realize and do if G-d existed. In other words, it could be that the best argument against atheism is that if G-d doesn’t exist, how did man come to project such a fantastically complex elaboration of all aspects of his relationship with One. It’s as if the Darwin’s Universe evolved to produce G-d.
Let Calvin chew on that…
This will be a great thing…I’m sure…
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10580
@WTP
I may have misread the article, but I thought the guy was one of the hold-over nurses who had a place in the building when it was a hospital and not a student.
RSherm,
Yeah, I’m not too clear myself now. Not sure if you reference this article or the next click through specific to DeFrietas. Here’s from the article specific to him:
Bah, bloody phone keyboards. Small keys, big fingers…
I assumed he was typing from a camp bed in the neighbour’s garage.
Ugly divorce. The Battle of Chicken Valley was one of many skirmishes culminating in Operation “I hate this house, I hate this land, I hate this life, and I especially hate you.” I eventually won, but only at great cost.
Jesus Christ, most modern mothers don’t understand this with kids either!
As a single guy approaching middle age (implying that my dating pool contains a large number of single mothers) I am coming to the realization that women make babies. Which is to say, without a firm, fair hand they stay babies.