Elsewhere (280)
Heather Mac Donald on media dishonesties and contrived definitions:
What do you do if you are the New York Times and 20 people show up to the white-supremacist rally that you had been breathlessly billing as further proof of the normalisation of hatred in the Donald Trump era? Expand the definition of “white supremacist” to cover a large portion of the American electorate and its representatives… It turns out that if you are for “immigration restrictions,” “ending affirmative action,” or “instituting trade protections,” you have been influenced by white nationalism and are embracing “policy issues the far right has promoted.”
And again, on biology, ideology, and inconsistent feminists:
It turns out, however, that males and females differentially respond to stress, environmental risk factors, drugs, and disease, as an initiative called Women’s Health Research at Yale devotes itself to documenting… Such discoveries should be the death knell for social constructivism. Along with many others like them, they buttress the possibility that uneven sex ratios in various fields are in part the result of males and females’ different average dispositions toward competition, risk, and abstract rather than people-centred work (an observation that got computer engineer James Damore fired from Google). And yet, feminist social-justice warriors are perfectly capable of proceeding on several contradictory fronts simultaneously. Even as the director of the Yale initiative insists that it’s time to “stop treating women as a subgroup of the human population” (because women are biologically and psychologically distinct from males), the magazine and its sources carefully follow the conventions of social constructivism.
As Ms Mac Donald points out, “For academic feminists, male and female biology is either interchangeable or immutable, depending on what complaint they need to lodge.” The James Damore saga was outlined here.
Steven Pinker on feminist utopia:
It is not obviously progressive to insist that equal numbers of men and women work eighty-hour weeks in a corporate law firm or leave their families for months at a time to dodge steel pipes on a frigid oil platform. And it is grotesque to demand (as advocates of gender parity did in the pages of Science) that more young women “be conditioned to choose engineering,” as if they were rats in a Skinner box.
Ah, but you will learn to comply with the dictates of their compassion.
And Celine Ryan reports from the Clown Quarter, where the basics take time:
The initiative’s launch event last year sought to define the term “racial capitalism,” posing questions such as “Can there be capitalism without racism?” “Which came first, capitalism or racism?” “Is capitalism always racial?” and “Why is thinking about race and capitalism together important today?" Other events hosted or scheduled by the initiative focus on topics such as “Asian Socialism, Magical Realism,” "Anthropology of Marxism,” "Dispossession by Administration: The Open Secret of Racial Capitalist Violence,” and “Racial Capitalism and U.S. Empire.” Notably, however, the “What is racial capitalism?” section of the initiative’s website remains completely blank.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Notably, however, the “What is racial capitalism?” section of the initiative’s website remains completely blank.
Like ‘white supremacy’ and ‘patriarchy’, it’s whatever they want it to be (and can change at any time).
Like ‘white supremacy’ and ‘patriarchy’, it’s whatever they want it to be (and can change at any time).
Given the time, money and mighty intellects thrown at the project, you’d think that a basic definition would by now – a year later – have been agreed on. But as you say, keeping the thing as woolly and indefinite as possible, and subject to change as and when it suits, does have certain… advantages. If you’re a two-bit hustler, I mean.
Like ‘white supremacy’ and ‘patriarchy’, it’s whatever they want it to be (and can change at any time).
And how Venezuela was a demonstration of how socialism made peoples lives better, until it had never been socialist and only a cretin would suggest it had been. Its a magical world where facts are mutable according to immediate need.
Notably, however, the “What is racial capitalism?” section of the initiative’s website remains completely blank.
Symbolism!
Symbolism!
Heh. Quite.
Symbolism!
It reminds me of the Writing Centre at the University of Washington, Tacoma, the stated goal of which is to “help writers succeed in a racist society,” a goal to be achieved by denouncing grammar as “an unjust language structure,” and the correction of punctuation as “an oppressive practice.” And where even a 500-word press release explaining this ambition took over a year to write.
I want to make sure I understand the process with this “racial capitalism” stuff. It would appear, someone somewhere had an epiphany that “racial capitalism” exists and it’s very, very bad. With that “given,” they then proceeded to identify a set of phenomena which are ubiquitous when “racial capitalism” exists.
Query, isn’t that precisely backwards? Don’t you identify a set of phenomena first and then slap a moniker on it? It’s as if they came up with a word–pneumonia, say–and have spent their time trying to figure out what the symptoms should be.
Symbolism!
It’s not unlike the buzzword “equity,” which, despite its ubiquity in campus literature and in bureaucratic pronouncements, is rarely defined and almost never defined clearly. Instead, it relies on vague connotations of equality and fairness, both of which are misplaced. As used on campus, what “equity” seems to mean is “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” Which, stated plainly, isn’t fair at all.
It’s as if they came up with a word–pneumonia, say–and have spent their time trying to figure out what the symptoms should be.
And yet it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect.
Progressives love to expand the meaning of things. “Racist” and “fascist” are twp examples.
Another is “climate denier.” At first it meant anyone who denied that global warming is occurring (a fairly small group). Then it was often used for those who think that global warming would likely occur at the lower ends of the IPCC forecast (the “luke warmers”), or who are at all skeptical of any of the outlandish claims made concerning global warming. Then, on the blogs at least, it came to include those who are skeptical that the very worse case scenarios of the IPCC — the very upper limits of their forecasts, such as a 2 m increase in sea level by century end — would occur.
…the very upper limits of their forecasts, such as a 2 m increase in sea level by century end…
Not to start a global
warming, climate change, climate disruptionTEOTWAWKI debate, but I believe it was 3mm/year, or 1 inch every 8.5 years, or 11.77 inches/century. Of course even that means one has to accept that even with satellites we can measure global sea level to a precision and accuracy of 3mm.The operational definition of these terms has been well established since at least Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. “Racial” = white people, “capitalism” = money, “racial capitalism” = white people making money. “Can there be capitalism without racism?” (ie, can we have money without white people?) is an open field of research.
Not to start a global warming, climate change, climate disruption TEOTWAWKI debate, but I believe it was 3mm/year, or 1 inch every 8.5 years, or 11.77 inches/century.
Actually we’re both wrong. I went back and read the IPCC AR5 report:
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf
and the upper bound of their worst case scenario was around 1.2 m by 2100 (page 1207).
I don’t know how long this window will remain open, but apparently it’s progressive to make “yer so gay!” jokes for the time being:
Kimmel took aim Thursday at the Christian proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. For the late-night funny man, the takeaway from Jack Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake celebrating a trans person’s transition is that the cakemaker might be gay, and that he sure looks gay.
“It’s funny because this is a guy who spends all day, every day, meticulously designing flowers out of icing. His whole life is gay, OK?” Kimmel said to laughs. “I don’t know if the wrong cake might bring that to life or what.”
The late-night host turned his attention to the shop owner’s physical appearance, adding for good measure that Phillips is “the totally straight cake baker.”
“You would think that someone who looks like the Reba McEntire’s version of Col. Sanders would be more sympathetic to gender identity issues,” the host laughed.
It’s not unlike the buzzword “equity,” which, despite its ubiquity in campus literature and in bureaucratic pronouncements, is rarely defined and almost never defined clearly.
The purpose of newspeak is not to define words but to undefine them, in the hope of making first intelligent communication, and then intelligent thought, impossible.
How can the newspeaker identify their miseries as coming from being conned, if they cannot think upon the nature of the con?
but apparently it’s progressive to make “yer so gay!” jokes for the time being
Imagine my surprise. Apparently, the baker has been besieged with perverse demands, including satanic cakes adorned with functional dildos. Demanding that a baker indulge malicious and humiliating pranks or risk legal action, and possibly losing his livelihood, is, for some, both a source of glee and proof of their own righteousness.
Climate change? Global warming? Ecosexuality!!
Ecosexuality!!
I’ll just leave this here.
“It turns out that if you are for ‘immigration restrictions,’ ‘ending affirmative action,’ or ‘instituting trade protections,’ you have been influenced by white nationalism and are embracing ‘policy issues the far right has promoted.’”
Presumably the “logic” goes: white supremacists supported Trump (which can’t be denied), therefore Trump is a white supremacist, therefore all of his policies represent white supremacy, therefore anyone who expresses any support for them is a white supremacist.
Stands to reason, dunnit?
Of course, this would mean that the great Democrat hero FDR was “far right” but, as noted in your second MacDonald quote, consistency’s for suckers. (That’s your actual postmodernism, that is.)
as noted in your second MacDonald quote, consistency’s for suckers.
But think of it from their point of view. The expectation of consistency, even minimal consistency, sets limits on what you can claim. It’s an affront to the ego and so terribly unfair.
A good example of racist capitalism might be Africans who sold other Africans to slave traders, because the slavers were interested in black people.
Demanding that a baker indulge malicious and humiliating pranks or risk legal action, and possibly losing his livelihood, is, for some, both a source of glee and proof of their own righteousness.
As Kevin Williamson puts it:
Liberalism has always struggled to balance the protection of minority rights against majoritarian institutions and — less often appreciated — the protection of individual rights. The American Left has liberated itself from such considerations by abandoning liberalism for identity politics and a might-makes-right ethic. Why compel Jack Phillips to knuckle under? Because you can, and because you hate him.
I forget which particular legal battle it was now — you block things out after a while — but I was particularly shocked by the sheer vindictiveness of a recent case when activists not only imposed financial penalties through a lawsuit but additionally went to court to shut down a crowdfunding arrangement which had been set up to defray the penalties. Apparently imposing crippling debt and bankruptcy can also be progressive if you squint just so.
As for racial capitalism, I’m afraid I’m still waiting to hear what, if anything, people actually mean by the trendy “late-stage capitalism.” I mean, I assume the term is supposed to conjure up images of terminal cancer, and I assume it’s supposed to imply that somehow, despite all the confounded predictions and necessary reinterpretations, Marx’s prophecies are still objectively destined to come true any day now, but it still strikes me as rhetorical desperation. Capitalism is still on stage giving its victory speech while the inept Marxish left resembles the Portsmouth Sinfonia in trying to play it off.
Drain the swamp.
I’ll just leave this here.
(( o_O ))
Apparently imposing crippling debt and bankruptcy can also be progressive if you squint just so.
Sadism is how they show that they care.
That would be the Spanish Inquisition defence.
“We’re torturing you for you’re own good, to save your immortal soul.”
“late-stage capitalism.”
Possibly a synonym for “finance capitalism”? My understanding of the latter is that it’s an affliction of those societies which pursue profit to the detriment of actual wealth (goods and services), and so their economies become driven by, and centered on, paper-shuffling.
Not an ideal arrangement for any country which adopts it. Depending on foreigners for your concrete goods and services is dangerous.
Gah!
How do I make it stop!?! “” The “end italics” tag, it does nothing!
I’ll see myself out:-(
Oh, now it’s stopped. David, did you fix it? If so, thanks muchly!
Waitaminute! The cascade starts with RAY’s comment, not mine! Ha! NOT MY FAULT!
Waitaminute! The cascade starts with RAY’s comment, not mine! Ha! NOT MY FAULT!
It was Squires, actually, starting with “care”, and then note the italicized name and timestamp just below that . . .
And just one < / i > was needed actually, where yes, you did manage to shut it off. The catch is that if you were trying to test in preview, then—as I recall—the preview doesn’t display that . . . you just have to place out of certainty, and launch.
David, did you fix it? If so, thanks muchly!
Oh, and yeah, given that you posted at August 20, 2018 at 01:02 . . . which is basically one AM UK time, David was asleep, and at this typing, prolly will still be asleep for mebbe another hour or so . . .
Hal
I did try to stop it with a </i>, but it didn’t work in preview so I left it to more knowledgeable chaps for fear of making it worse.
Is it the case that it does work in post but not preview? Because that would be good to know.
Well guys I’m off to vacation in Antarctica out of human communication okay thanks remembertotellDavidthatIwasneverhere.
[ Pours coffee, surveys wreckage.]
I see we’ve been busy.
Hi Jabrwok, that’s what we have here in the U.S., also called predatory capitalism. Think of Goodfellas, where the characters squeeze every penny out of a bar, then destroy it to collect i surance money.
Good to know.
Feminist sentiment.
What does “quilting” mean in this context? I’m clearly not “hip and up with the cool kids” anymore. If I ever was …
And yet, feminist social-justice warriors are perfectly capable of proceeding on several contradictory fronts simultaneously.
Consistency is not a requirement of left-wing activism; only the effectiveness of the tactic.
Feminist sentiment.
While true, and I’m prolly more sick of having BC and pink stuff thrown at me every October, and even year round, than most men, that statistic is a bit misleading as BC effects and kills women at a younger age than PC. The latter is likely to rise as men live longer due to cures being found for the other things that kill us. A similar thing regarding cancer rates overall.
BTW, Jonathan, I think that’s “guilting” but I read it as “quiltting” myself the first time.
Guilt and quilt are both things feminists think men should do.
WTP, thanks. Feminists, can’t even do graffiti competently.
Feminist sentiment.
Tim Newman on policing.
As noted over there:
Given the disdainful view of women that often prevails among the criminal demographic, the increasing front-line use of diminutive, physically inadequate female officers seems a bewildering mistake. One that most likely increases the odds of violent scuffles and which degrades the reputation of the police force. The spectacle of a 5’5” woman trying to arrest a burly 6’4” thug – and being dragged around like a doll – as seen several times on Twitter – isn’t exactly heartening to the law-abiding. Though it may embolden burly thugs.
I did try to stop it with a < / i >[that edited for visibility], but it didn’t work in preview so I left it to more knowledgeable chaps for fear of making it worse.
Is it the case that it does work in post but not preview? Because that would be good to know.
It’s been awhile since I’ve done such a fix, so I had to dredge that up from memory.
Here’s a project: Since David looks bored at the moment, how ’bout someone start another italics or bold or whatnot cascade, and then test the settings for a bit?
Here’s a project: Since David looks bored at the moment, how ‘bout someone start another italics or bold or whatnot cascade, and then test the settings for a bit?
When the inevitable happens, I’m holding you responsible.
When the inevitable happens, I’m holding you responsible.
Well since Hal’s taking the hit, laissez les bons italics rouler
stop the madness Stopped?