Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women
Or, The Orange Man Wrecked My Marriage:
By now it’s a truism to point out that the election of Donald Trump… [has] prompted a wholesale realignment of American politics. But it’s also sent shock waves through heterosexual romance.
In the piously left-leaning New York magazine, Molly Langmuir invites us to sympathise with the inner turmoil of activist ladies who are blaming their unhappy marriages, their divorces and estrangements, and pretty much everything, on the continued existence of Donald Trump. There’s quite a bit of mental jungle to hack through, so bring a packed lunch:
29 percent of respondents to a May 2017 survey said their romantic relationship had been negatively affected by Trump’s presidency. And even people ostensibly on the same side of the issues as their partner have run into challenges, with the climate exacerbating or revealing new fault lines.
Ms Langmuir introduces us to several pseudonymous couples and singletons – people for whom the merest deviation in thought has proved too much to bear. First up, we meet Kirsten:
Growing up, my parents were very liberal. My dad’s gay, he’s been with his husband now for over 40 years. That was my normal. My mom remarried a guy who’s very liberal.
Okay, then.
In high school, I also had a major drinking problem,
No. Don’t. We mustn’t rush to judge.
I was an art major at this big university…
Though, admittedly, she’s not making it easy.
…where I really didn’t fit in. All these girls had curling irons and were rushing sororities, but again I didn’t want to rock the boat. So I just kept partying more. Then at the end of the year, I was raped at a fraternity house and didn’t say anything about it.
Events seem to have taken a dark turn.
So I go home and I meet this guy. I’ll call him Geoffrey. He was a big Republican, and I wasn’t, but he was also a big drinker, like me. We started dating. It was a kind of revenge, that I could get a guy like the guy who raped me — I could get him to be nice to me. Looking back, it was all very strange.
A little… odd, certainly. A relationship based on revenge.
But then [Geoffrey and I broke up], and I got married and then had my son, and that relationship lasted for about 14 years. After we got divorced, I got sober, and then in 2010, I found Geoffrey on Facebook.
I’m not getting the feeling that this will play out well.
We started talking. We had a good time together. I didn’t really want to get married again, but I didn’t want to make anybody mad. So I said, “Sure, let’s get married.”
It’s almost as if a pattern were emerging. But anyhoo, the politics:
I don’t think Geoffrey voted for Trump. But he might have voted for John Kasich or Jeb Bush. I think they’re all idiots. But I didn’t get involved in the Hillary campaign. I just knew she’d win.
Ah.
So when she didn’t, I fell into this black hole.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, if your preferred candidate doesn’t win an election and you immediately spiral into serious depression, and watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, then the wheels on the wagon may already be rattling loose, and a little perspective may be in order. Say, a wider and more politically varied social circle, in which demurral is routine and diverging opinions don’t necessarily result in chronic rage. However, Kirsten sought solace in like-minded souls – other disaffected ladies of the left:
I was really energised. The people I was meeting were so bright and interesting.
Not everyone gets out much.
I took a class called Witnessing Whiteness and realised that racism is at the core of the problem of this country and that the only thing I can do is be an ally and show up and shut up.
And so, an alcoholic stalker of ex-boyfriends, and who bases intimate relationships on revenge, has fathomed society’s problems. And it’s all Whitey’s fault.
Geoffrey never went to one rally or meeting. He just didn’t care.
Perhaps Geoffrey wasn’t quite so enamoured of these “bright and interesting” people who think “whiteness” is the root of all social evil. Sadly, we aren’t privy to his perspective.
Then a girlfriend of mine got cancer, and I realised if I got cancer, I would’ve lived my whole life pretending to be something I’m not.
You may be assuming that I’m taking sentences from other articles, randomly, but I promise you I’m not. This is Kirsten’s reported train of thought, as shared by Ms Langmuir.
All of a sudden, I thought, I can’t be married anymore. There’s no time for complicity. There’s just none.
Yes, that’s the very next sentence. Whiteness is bad, conservatives are bad, and marriage is complicity. Do keep up.
Geoffrey was absolutely shocked. He said, “Are you 1,000 percent certain?” I said, “I am.” I told him I really wanted to work on making the world a better place, and I didn’t feel I could do that within the confines of our marriage.
At which point, I’m unsure whether to regard Geoffrey as hapless or having dodged a bullet.
I left feeling free, like in high school when your parents are out of town… Finally, I’m the feminist I should have always been.
At which point, comment is perhaps unnecessary.
Ms Langmuir goes on to share other tales of bedlamite sorrow. A woman named Samantha complains that her husband of 25 years, a fellow lefty, has “much less rage” than she does, specifically about “white privileged men,” and doesn’t wish to spend every evening equally infuriated by the existence of people whose politics differ somewhat. “Anger,” says Samantha, is her “de facto mode.” Though she’s trying to “get rid of it through therapy.”
A Brooklynite named Betsy boasts that “cultural change is like a steamroller. It flattens distinctions, and some people will get hurt,” by which she means men falsely and maliciously accused of rape, before adding, “and I’m okay with that.” Betsy and her husband are currently in counselling.
Another lady named Sarah tells us that her marriage became unsustainable “after the 2016 election, when I ramped up my political activism.” Sarah’s husband is described as “completely aligned” politically, a feminist, even, albeit one who doesn’t care to spend every waking hour raging about politics. “Talking about the Trump election,” says Sarah, “makes me more emotional than the end of my marriage.” And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure. But hey, priorities.
There are other woeful tales, all along similar lines – more than I can plough through without wanting to gnaw at my own elbows. Though readers are welcome to have a bash themselves, and then perhaps decide whether the root problem is actually, as claimed, the existence of Donald Trump, ectoplasmic “whiteness,” and the impending rape apocalypse, or something left unmentioned in the article, and maybe more specific to the ladies in question.
And so, an alcoholic stalker of ex-boyfriends, and who bases intimate relationships on revenge, has fathomed society’s problems. And it’s all Whitey’s fault.
Subscribed. 🙂
Subscribed. 🙂
Bless you, sir. May you never be shamed by the condition of your oven gloves.
I told him I really wanted to work on making the world a better place, and I didn’t feel I could do that within the confines of our marriage.
NARRATOR: She didn’t make the world a better place.
Ah yes, Human Behaviour Fallacy #1, isn’t it? “My misbehaviour is ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”
{ – and #2 of course is, “Yeah but HE got-away with it!” – }
NARRATOR: She didn’t make the world a better place.
Perhaps she was healing the world by haranguing random white people and telling them how racist they are, and that they should “shut up,” on account of their being white.
Good times.
racism is at the core of the problem of this country
From that it follows that if there had never been any non-white people in the US then everything would be hunky-dory, and you’d have a happy marriage and life? Not quite believing that one.
I didn’t really want to get married again, but I didn’t want to make anybody mad. So I said, “Sure, let’s get married.”
I have seen some terrible reasons to get married before, but not wanting to make someone mad is a cake topper.
…I realised if I got cancer, I would’ve lived my whole life pretending to be something I’m not.
Yes, because if you get cancer, you die the next day, not that pretending to be something isn’t your fault regardless of your state of health.
And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure.
My money is on stability and reassurance in that family being merely words in a dictionary, so sending the kids to an orphanarium would be a kindness.
…the impending rape apocalypse…
A government grant to whomever wants to do the research to find out why that only seems to happen to the neon hair and nose ring set.
Aside from the obvious cesspool of crazy to talk about, something that made me very sad, and rather worried:
“Then at the end of the year, I was raped at a fraternity house and didn’t say anything about it.”
I don’t believe her.
And I find that troubling. It’s been mentioned that there are no men, none (aside from genuine nutters whom I have thankfully never met, even at a remove) who think rape is good or OK, or justified, or anything other than vile and cowardly. The evolved caring-for and chivalry-towards women that men have says that if you cry rape, we’ll believe you.
But now that rape accusations have been weaponised, and thousands of women like Betsy think false accusations and convictions are OK in the Grand Utopian Plan For Make Glorious Future, and yet again words are being ideologically redefined so that rape now encompasses crap sex, regret, misunderstandings, mistakes, youthful folly, laziness and so on, that reflexive trust is being second-guessed.
I don’t think that’s healthy, nor easy to re-establish. But then, we could say that about so much of hard-won modern civility to which the clowns are geefully and self-righteously taking a destructive bat.
Ah, another article about “strong” women. That is, women who become emotional wrecks and lose all zero self-control and personal agency because of some set of circumstances, which in reality have had zero effect on their lives.
“Talking about the Trump election,” says Sarah, “makes me more emotional than the end of my marriage.” And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure. But hey, priorities.
That.
It seems it is less to do with Trump winning and more to do with Hillary losing, in which case, shouldn’t they be blaming her? With an awful fellow such as Trump as an opposition candidate you can only lose, all you needed to do is win over all those deplorable fascists without shouting them out, it really takes some kind of special moron to lose this kind of election and that is where the blame should lie.
You know, Davos had a lot of faults but he also had a point when he blamed Danny Rand for not guarding K’un-Lun as was his destiny, perhaps the ladies should learn from that, or something.
racism is at the core of the problem of this country
Well, leftist racism certainly is. But somehow I don’t think she would be pleased at my “agreement”. 😉
Ah, another article about “strong” women. That is, women who become emotional wrecks and lose all zero self-control
We’ve talked before of how Laurie Penny and her peers speak of rage as some kind of woke credential, an aspirational state, something to cultivate and sustain, indefinitely. Something to applaud and exult in. (As one of Laurie’s groupies tweeted, “I kind of long for the pure, uncomplicated political anger I felt in my early twenties.”) As if chronic, hair-trigger rage couldn’t be a sign of disproportion and unrealism, or immaturity, or bullying, or psychological weakness.
In the piously left-leaning New York magazine…
“It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it.”
— G.K. Chesterton
…rage as some kind of woke credential, an aspirational state, something to cultivate and sustain, indefinitely. Something to applaud and exult in.
A combination of blame-shifting and appearances-centrism, daily fare of a disorder of impacted hurt, I’m thinking.
But the rage that I feel, the toxicity I exhibit is something he often doesn’t understand. [from article]
Ohhh, there’s truth in that.
The flip side is it’s also given her a new community and some new projects that have been meaningful to her.
Sigh. Making paper-mache puppets, screaming in an activist walk, and running head first into a locked door … is not a project.
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll poke about in the spam filter.
…in which case, shouldn’t they be blaming her?
No, because to their minds she didn’t lose because of the popular vote/Electoral College, Trump cheated, Russian collusion, voter suppression, hacked voting machines, and all the other fictions to which they cling.
Gods don’t bleed, as Dan Dravot discovered the hard way.
If one questions one’s gods, one must question one’s beliefs, and this lot is too self absorbed to even begin to imagine that their beliefs might be a tad off.
I can neither confirm nor deny that this is one of the people quoted in the article.
That’s… that’s an absolutely jaw dropping article.
One little thing:
With Brett Kavanaugh, the first thing he said about him, before any of the allegations, was that they were once on a panel at some alumni thing and that he seemed like a nice guy, which of course started a fight. I said, “A nice guy based on what?” Everyone is a nice guy. And then at first, when Dr. Ford came forward, his reaction had an element of “Boys will be boys” and, you know, “It was 30-something years ago.” Even after Debbie Ramirez came forward, he was like, “Do you still think he could change after college?” I was like, “No.”
Note that there’s (still) zero proof of anything in those accusations being true. Zero. There is better evidence for time travel, UFO’s, Bigfoot and Elvis being alive than Kavanaugh being a sex criminal. But the article refers to the allegations like they are events that actually happened, and are factually true.
I know that it’s a tactic of the left- lie continuously until the lies go unchallenged, and bingo! the established narrative is now false- but that’s blatant.
Oh! My!
I’ve been sexually assaulted and raped, but for a long time I didn’t identify in that way. I didn’t like the idea of seeing myself as a victim. ….
My husband and I have been together 14 years and I’ve mentioned it vaguely, but I’ve never given him details, partly because one of the guys is still in my life, and they’re kind of friends.
For clarity- because I wasn’t sure I had read this right:
1. She was raped and sexually assaulted,
2. by at least two different men.
3. One of the guys is still in her life
4. …and is friends with her husband
5. And the wife doesn’t want to point this out to the husband.
To echo David- yes, these people do have problems, but I don’t believe those problems are particularly related to Trump.
“I took a class called Witnessing Whiteness and realised that racism is at the core of the problem of this country and that the only thing I can do is be an ally and show up and shut up.”
It’s easy to brainwash alcoholics that are emotionally damaged.
[John Square:] Note that there’s (still) zero proof of anything in those accusations being true. Zero.
This has become a tiresome trope at the NYT: “Today, Trump, without evidence, said [whatever the latest half crazy, half crazy like a fox thing Trump said or tweeted here.]
Yet somehow, despite every word coming out of Susan’s being indistinguishable from pure invention — well, save for the things later shown to be actual pure invention — not once did the NYT write “Susan Ford today testified, without evidence …]
Sometimes I wonder if the NYT might, perhaps, be just that tiny bit — shocker, I know — biased.
… Susan Ford’s …
Memo to self: make Preview my friend.
We went on a group tour and became quite close with another couple. One night at dinner she was going on and on about “these Republicans,” and Craig said, “Before you go much further, you might want to know that Debbie voted for Trump.” She gave me this amazing look of disgust and said, “I thought everybody on the trip was vetted.”
There’s so much to unpack, just from this one single exclamation…
There’s so much to unpack, just from this one single exclamation…
Yes, it’s dense underbrush. But I could only hack through so much of it.
They’re OK with steamrolling innocent men as part of their “cultural change,” and coincidentally they accuse unnamed men of unverifiable past rapes.
I can’t help feeling these things are connected somehow.
…the only thing I can do is be an ally and show up and shut up.
Translated from SJW to English: “If he didn’t hit me, I’d know he didn’t really love me.”
But the article refers to the allegations like they are events that actually happened, and are factually true.
Quite. The whole damn article is that way. From Ferguson–investigated by the Obama DOJ with no charges or civil actions being filed against the officer and the entire investigation released to the public–to the “Muslim Ban” to God knows what, these people are screwing up their lives (further) based upon a counterfactual reality. It’s like these people believe they’re characters in an afternoon soap opera.
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their lives which has changed for the worse since January 22, 2017. Still, they maintain that Trump is the Antichrist and we’re in the midst of the Tribulation.
And none of the discarded husbands mentioned above are even Trump supporters. Colour me unsurprised. SJWs have far more in common with Trump cultists than they seem to realise…
Ah, another article about “strong” women. That is, women who become emotional wrecks and lose all [] self-control and personal agency because of some set of circumstances, which in reality have had zero effect on their lives.
Call it the new Streisand Effect. The Baldwin Identity.
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their lives which has changed for the worse since January 22, 2017. Still, they maintain that Trump is the Antichrist and we’re in the midst of the Tribulation.
Were there equivalencies and justice, normal souls would expunge madness from their midst. It would be a survival technique for the good of the species. But it’s taught, preached, and broadcast as if it’s somehow a component of a functional, normal human society.
I’d like to buy Geoffrey a beer. Sounds like he could use one.
spiral into serious depression, and watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC,
LOL
So when she didn’t, I fell into this black hole.
Pro tip: Don’t make leftwing politics your religion.
This makes more sense when you know these people substitute politics for religion.
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their lives which has changed for the worse since January 22, 2017.
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their physical, material, typical workaday lives which has changed for the worse since [November 9, 2016]. FIFY.
I can identify at least one aspect of their lives that has changed, either in nature or in degree (intensity): their mental and emotional health. While some of the examples given clearly displayed unhealthy or not terribly well-adjusted lives from early on, others didn’t so much (except for their confessed disorder known as “leftism”).
I swear, the eight years of Obama was like a drug to these kinds of people — a drug cocktail called “moral superiority” and “smugness” that attached to all of their pleasure receptors, and one they’d been convinced (sold) would go on forever, or at least for their natural lives (remember the “permanent Democratic majority,” “demographics is destiny” lines they were given as freebies by the pushers?). But then their supplier goes away, and these already mentally wobbly, emotionally stunted people just flat lose it. They cannot cope that they can’t have their drug of choice anymore.
So, much like unrecovered addicts, they have to find a replacement to keep getting that dopamine/cortisol high. Family won’t do it (it never really did for these folks), but their imagined “righteous” anger does.
And, as with any person’s addiction, innocent people are harmed in that tempest of emotion, hostility, and generally being out of control.
Perhaps these marriages destroyed by Trump’s election were not founded on bedrock in the first instance? I mean insane, neurotic, and psychotic people get married all the time, but rarely are they provided a convenient, socially supported rationale such as “Orange Man bad!”
That said, I wouldn’t want to live with any of these woke folks even if Trump WEREN’T president.
Did you notice the article specified the problems only affect heterosexual romances? Because of course gay people are a monolith and all have the same opinions.
Ah, another article about “strong” women. That is, women who become emotional wrecks and lose all zero self-control
While reading the thing this morning, I had to keep reminding myself that these aren’t hormonal teenagers, but grown women, middle-aged, with husbands and children. It’s as if they’d never been told that this isn’t how adults generally behave. At least, not if they want to be happy.
Adrenaline is a drug. It’s as easy to get addicted to feelings of outrage and self pity as it is to booze.
It’s possible these very silly women will someday get a little perspective on their lives, and come to regard this sort of thing with embarrassment, embarrassment with a generous ladling of rue sauce. I hope that happens.
It probably won’t; this is likely to be how our society is composed in part going forward, tens of millions of very silly people, indoctrinated in radical left groupthink, barely able to cope with others, even of the same sympathies, on their good days.
Somewhat related:
‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
Found here:
This is so grim. It’s the literary equivalent of staring down a shotgun barrel
A terrific fisking, kind host! Just great. And to incentivize more such posts I’ll be dropping some currency into the hat – just as soon as my bank figures out how to convert greenbacks to that cute monopoly money y’all use.
And so, an alcoholic stalker of ex-boyfriends, and who bases intimate relationships on revenge, has fathomed society’s problems. And it’s all Whitey’s fault.
Who are the racists again?
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-present-themselves-as-less-competent-in-interactions-with-african-americans
just as soon as my bank figures out how to convert greenbacks to that cute monopoly money y’all use.
Five British Pounds is about $200.
What?
Time to remember a sane woman:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/baroness-trumpington-of-sandwich-obituary-rsgkk2qbs
just as soon as my bank figures out how to convert greenbacks to that cute monopoly money y’all use.
[ Phone pings. ]
Bless you, sir. May you discover a forgotten bottle of wine stashed in the dishwasher, which you never use for washing dishes and is instead full of takeaway menus, bin liners and unfathomable blender attachments.
David doesn’t like cash. Credit notes only. 😏
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their lives which has changed for the worse since January 22, 2017.
Yes they can – EVERYTHING!!!!!! – just ask them…
May you discover a forgotten bottle of wine stashed in the dishwasher, which you never use for washing dishes and is instead full of takeaway menus, bin liners and unfathomable blender attachments.
Love it. Though to be honest I’m far more likely to be shamed for the state of my oven gloves. I know, I know, no refunds etc etc
It’s curious, if you read the article all the way to the final “case study,” a couple in which the man is the liberal Hillary-supporter and the woman is the (reluctant) Trump-voter.
And they weren’t married yet. They got married after the election. At first “Craig” had been in a rage; “Debbie” took things calmlier:
Maybe I didn’t read the whole article very closely, but it seems this was the only “case” that wasn’t in any degree creepy.
@RSherman
I’d wager dollars to donuts they cannot identify one single aspect of their lives which has changed for the worse since January 22, 2017. Still, they maintain that Trump is the Antichrist and we’re in the midst of the Tribulation
Lord, I must go check Revelations, but it’s a fascinating idea that humanity could bring the Tribulation upon itself through sheer narcissistic hysteria.
When you’re a lefty and you’re trashing your marriage in a national magazine because your lefty husband doesn’t hate Trump as much as you do…
As our host would say, “our betters”.
As our host would say, “our betters”.
We can only aspire to their moral heights.
this was the only “case” that wasn’t in any degree creepy
I suspect your creepy threshold is higher than mine.
I suspect your creepy threshold is higher than mine.
It’s a long article and there’s not much in it that you could call edifying. My reaction was, “You know we can hear you, right?”
Lord, I must go check Revelation . . .
It’s actually in the eschatological portions of the Book of Daniel, in an addendum to Chapter 8 discovered at Qumran in 1940s. It took scholars time to parse the ancient Hebrew version of “Orange Man Bad.”
I suspect your creepy threshold is higher than mine.
It’s easy to forget, but presumably we’re supposed to find these people at least somewhat sympathetic.
To revive an “old” InterWeb term:
An excellent “Fisking” of the introspective “wit and wisdom” of Molly Langmuir!
So, what were the “virtues” that Langmuir was attempting to signal? Or was this her? attempt at an “edgy” approach to the Seven Deadly Sins?
I can understand the host of this post succumbing to the overwhelming temptation to thoroughly “mock the afflicted”. Fish in a barrel.
I’m unsure whether to regard Geoffrey as hapless or having dodged a bullet.
Perhaps both. I usually had to call the cops to get rid of the crazy ones. Seeing as how she was a retread, I assume Kirsten can suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
creepy threshold
The husband in that marriage says: “The only thing different is that I allow our perspectives to coexist safely, even though it’s difficult sometimes” — meaning he used to think he could disallow (!), and that that sure didn’t work too well, and he knows better now . . . and his wife didn’t dump him (or on him) for his former flaw, but waited for him to change (which happily he did promptly enough) . . . and things are better between them, they’re more of a team. You’re right I don’t see anything creepy about that, and I’m not sure why you do.
“Ms Langmuir introduces us to several pseudonymous cuckolds and simpletons…”
Somewhat more accurate, I should venture.
I’d like to buy Geoffrey a beer. Sounds like he could use one.
The man downloaded a divorce agreement. I bet he had it bookmarked.
Drinks are definitely in order, but how long can his celebration continue?
Actual footage of Geoffrey finding out he is soon to be divorced from Kirsten…
https://youtu.be/xZ0OUq_kDh8
creepy threshold
The husband in that marriage says: “The only thing different is that I allow our perspectives to coexist safely, even though it’s difficult sometimes” — meaning he used to think he could disallow […] You’re right I don’t see anything creepy about that, and I’m not sure why you do.
The husband (Craig) is a 62-year old couple’s therapist, and he (apparently) just discovered that a couple’s differing perspectives can “coexist safely” in a relationship.
Maybe ‘creepy’ is the wrong word–but the guy must be a complete failure as a couple’s therapist if he’s only now come to understand that differing perspectives can coexist in a relationship.
the guy must be a complete failure as a couple’s therapist
Physician, heal thyself. All psychologists are crazy.
The reason even this couple is creepy is that allowing for the existence of differing perspectives is something that’s supposed to happen before you get married, not fifteen years into it.
Farnsworth – these people are screwing up their lives (further) based upon a counterfactual reality
The same sort of people tend to be in denial about economic and scientific reality; it’s a double whammy! The decline of Christianity is a real shame; it would probably be the only thing that would make them happy.
As per the original article and the uplifting I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life I notice a lot of women seem determined to drink their way out of their problems and/or into an early grave. The only people I know who have died due to alcoholism have been women and fairly young ones too (both 40s).
Add that to the litany of post-drunk shagging shame which seems to afflict so many women and I can see why, in the wise past, they were discouraged from going to the pub.
NARRATOR: She didn’t make the world a better place.
I was rather tickled by the Californian relationship therapist, a man on his third marriage, and his story about a conference of therapists and counsellors, hundreds of supposed experts in conciliation and peace-making, rapidly degenerating into heated and “nasty” arguments about how evil conservatives are.
That.
You do have to marvel at people who choose to prioritise their conspiracy-theory politics – of “whiteness,” “rape culture,” “patriarchy,” etc – above their supposedly loving relationships and the wellbeing of their children. It’s almost cultish.
It reminded me of a scene in Vanessa Engle’s excellent documentary series Lefties, in which “diversity” consultant and Guardian contributor Linda Bellos recounts being so enlightened by feminism that she abandoned her own children in order to “be political” in a separatist lesbian commune, as one does: “The reason I left both my children was that boys weren’t allowed.” And apparently, she had to put her politics first.
And apparently, she had to put her politics first.
The religion gene is strong in this one.
Tell me how this is different from entering a cloistered nunnery, besides the different god she’s worshipping.
What are these people going to do when Trump isn’t around to get the blame for their crappy personalities?
What are these people going to do when Trump isn’t around to get the blame for their crappy personalities?
Heh. Quite. I doubt their personalities are amenable to change, so, presumably, some other monster will be conjured into being in order to justify the continuation of their chosen psychodrama. As we’ve seen, the threshold of alleged oppression, and of what constitutes “fascism” and “white supremacy,” can be changed overnight.
If these chuckleheads were driven over the edge by the failure of Hillary to win a rigged election, then this could be the final straw:
via Orwell & Goode
the Californian relationship therapist, a man on his third marriage,
LOL
hundreds of supposed experts in conciliation and peace-making, rapidly degenerating into heated and “nasty” arguments about how evil conservatives are.
And increasingly these people are doing everything they can to exclude conservatives from entering those professions.
Physician, heal thyself. All psychologists are crazy.
Not true. Take, as one example, Jordan Peterson.
I can understand the motivation for your comment, since there seem to be fields that attract people with psychological problems–philosophy seems to be another–but the figure is far from 100%.
Tell me how this is different from entering a cloistered nunnery, besides the different god she’s worshipping.
Well, just for starters, the kind of people who run convents, in general*, look down on abandoning your children and would probably refuse entrance. Commies would view it as ‘putting the party first’ and probably give you a medal.
*If you know anything about the catastrophe that was the Magdalen laundry system in Ireland this may ring hollow.
All psychologists are crazy.
As I grow older, from both personal and observed experience, I tend to assume that everyone is crazy. It’s just that some of us are more functional and pleasant to be around than others.
Given that the profession itself has moved things like autism to a spectrum, whereas there used to be a definite diagnosis, I don’t think my cod-psychobabble theory as all that far off the current DSM.
Not entirely unrelated, “Gender bias” angst from the Clown Quarter.
Read through the whole thing, there are other gems such as “SET [student evaluations of teaching] are biased against female instructors….minority instructors tend to receive significantly lower SET scores…”, etc.
The actual paper is here, and very sciency:
“Thinks” the TA is male or female ? OK, granted these days it is sometimes hard to tell just by a casual glance, but by the end of a course, when the evals are turned in, it would be pretty obvious.
Back at the Twitter it appears all kinds of Clown Quarters denizens are leaping on the bandwagon to include a charming associate professor of English who informs us:
I read the bolded part as cancelling office hours just because you are ferklempt on a given day shouldn’t be a reason to be downdinged on an eval. YMMV, but I am still puzzling over the last bit how the same availability would be a disadvantage unless one is forced to be in office instead of curled up in a ball at home with some fine Vino Cardboardo. Oh, well, it is another neon haired prof so expecting sense is a bit much.
At any rate, it seems the real beef is that these bozos really have a case of the ass that they are held in anyway accountable, and they believe that it is unpossible that some of them just suck.
@Farnsworth
I’ll plow through the underlying paper later, but I find it difficult to believe that it’s possible to design an experiment to test the hypothesis, i.e. bias in evaluations, because there are too many variables. Further, as anyone who’s ever taught a class of college freshman and sophomores will tell you, it doesn’t matter how competent you are; how available you are; how accommodating you are. There will always be a couple of students who mark you down because they think they’re going to get a bad grade and its obviously the teacher’s fault. Academic departments know this.
…but I find it difficult to believe that it’s possible to design an experiment to test the hypothesis…
Indeed, particularly if, as is almost always the case, the evals are anonymous short of tracking IPs if done online, or handwriting analysis if they are old school. Absent student identifiers it is impossible to know the gender or race of whomever dinged Ms. Prof. Neonhair, so any alleged point, other than zhe got dinged, is moot.
…students will get the chance to evaluate their professors and TAs. They’re going to get it wrong.
This is the other bit that is rather striking, any dinging of females or POCs is wrongthink. As I said, it is evidently unpossible that people who have spent their entire lives in academia, and may have been promoted to positions because of “diversity”, particularly in Angry & Useless Studies, might just actually suck.
All psychologists are crazy.
***
As I grow older, from both personal and observed experience, I tend to assume that everyone is crazy. It’s just that some of us are more functional and pleasant to be around than others.
Interestingly, that sensibility approximately underlies the core formulation of Western religious faith, one of the most-harangued and dismissed moral compasses in the self-enlightened postmodern world. Objective, transcendent spirituality assumes personal fault as the default, redemption as the conquest of self, and complete honesty as the method.
It’s also therefore the core component of patient motivation and progress in clinical psychology. It’s all on us, baby.
How lucky are we to have this valid personal and social trajectory thrown out the window in search of blame-shifting a temporary collective meme with no visible or obvious basis, much less a corresponding benefit except to praise the blamer.
That’s not a personal ideal, it’s not responsibility, and it’s certainly not a valid destination. It’s escape from responsibility in the confines of the Hivemind.
@Farnsworth
Further the data set is rather limited. For the ostensibly “blind” U.S. study, they’re relying on a whopping 43 evaluations in an online course where student/teacher interaction is limited to a course message board and which course is undoubtedly designed to facilitate independent learning without a lot of teacher input.
The French data set, when you crunch the numbers is based upon about 12 evaluations per year per instructor. From this, we’re supposed to completely jettison student teacher evaluations entirely.
And given the fact that the student responders are not segregated by sex or race, it must mean the women and minority students are biased as well.
… it must mean the women and minority students are biased as well.
Exactly, but that point has clearly gone way over Mr. Prof. DeLay who seems to be searching for a solution in search of a problem, though I would guess that his real goal is indeed, “…to completely jettison student teacher evaluations entirely”, and is looking for “-isms” to justify it.
It almost makes one wonder what his evals are like…
And yeah, that office hour business makes no sense. Back in the day, when I was a graduate instructor, we had to have minimum number of office hours spread over a variety of times during the week, plus be available by appointment if students’ schedules didn’t mesh with our set availability. (I encouraged my students to just drop in if they had a question. If I was in my office, I was available to talk, but not every GA did that.)
Further, from my own experience, I know there were instructors (both sexes) who viewed office hours as an imposition on their time. Trust me, students know when the instructor really wants to be doing something other than explaining German Indirect Discourse. How does instructor attitude or engagement get measured in these experiments. And, as you note, if you have an instructor who going in has a chip on his/her shoulder or is not confident in his/her own abilities in the subject, that will be noted by the students. I seem to recall a post on these pages by a young, neon-haired philosophy T.A who suffered from anxiety about knowing the subject matter well enough to teach it, but whined about not getting the respect from students she thought she deserved.
I seem to recall a post on these pages by a young, neon-haired philosophy T.A who suffered from anxiety about knowing the subject matter well enough to teach it, but whined about not getting the respect from students she thought she deserved.
I’ll just leave this here.
Teacher gaslights class about rules, speech, intent, and social impact before evacuating it in the name of safety. Dutiful chattering chycks chime in:
https://youtu.be/lAe8mxvV1fU
A**hole! RACIST!
Apparently simple ethics call for these enormous explanations. No wonder their purveyors are superior…
For the ostensibly “blind” U.S. study, they’re relying on a whopping 43 evaluations in an online course where student/teacher interaction is limited to a course message board and which course is undoubtedly designed to facilitate independent learning without a lot of teacher input.
I noticed the same thing. Six sub-groups of seven students, evaluating a “virtual” professor or teaching assistant with whom they had so little interaction that they couldn’t tell whether they were dealing with a man or a woman. I might give it enough weight to approve a more thorough study of the hypothesized effect, but I’d laugh somebody out of the room if xe tried to convince me it warranted a change in policy.
Y’know, I love all mankind. It’s just (expletive deleted) people I hate.
Maybe ‘creepy’ is the wrong word–but the guy must be a complete failure as a couple’s therapist if he’s only now come to understand that differing perspectives can coexist in a relationship.
Probably he knew it all along but just didn’t see the application to himself
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/11/23/on-the-faults-of-men/
“So I go home and I meet this guy. I’ll call him Geoffrey.”
What? I wouldn’t call him Geoffrey if that wasn’t his name. I’d call him Zorro or Trayvon or even Hirohito if I had a free choice of names. But c’mon, Geoffrey is so, I dunno, old fashioned.
Also, did she really meet him at home? Her home? Was Zorro (see name 1 above) a close friend of the gay dad?
The unhinged authoress should consider the Trumpocalypse’s silver lining: those goodthinking gullible girls soon groomed into ideologically acceptable marriages with non-citizen men of swarthy South-of-the-border or Islamic origins, thus proving their bellyfeel by saving their users from the dreaded jaws of the Orange Man’s I.C.E.
Why is it that, from whatever angle of approach, the Left and its ally ideologies so consistently propagate dysfunctional relationships, both between individuals, and with one’s self?
Why is it that, from whatever angle of approach, the Left and its ally ideologies so consistently propagate dysfunctional relationships, both between individuals, and with one’s self?
Wait, wait — don’t tell me!
… bedlamite sorrow …
There’s another one for your list of band names. I’m probably too old now to accurately name in contemporary terms what genre of noise “Bedlamite Sorrow” might produce, but I have a fair mental image.
Speaking of noise, I remember being adoloscent and angry, listening to noise like “Rage Against The Machine” and the such, and feeling very much like the lady in this article about the need to change the world. It never ceases to amaze me how much of contemporary mainstream discourse is now just the agitated, immature ramblings of an angry sixteen-year-old me in a smelly black t-shirt.
It’s as though something about the times has psychologically stunted a large section of the community, trapping them (and perhaps all of us to some degree) in a permanent adolescence.
Interestingly, that sensibility approximately underlies the core formulation of Western religious faith, . . . .
Actually no, “that sensibility” is not exclusively “Western”, the actuality is that . . .
. . .one of the most-harangued and dismissed moral compasses in the self-enlightened postmodern world. Objective, transcendent spirituality assumes personal fault as the default, redemption as the conquest of self, and complete honesty as the method.
. . . is entirely universal.
As far as cultural locations, “west”, “east”, Whatever, that viable practice occurs entirely in parallel and repeatedly quite separate from the equally universal idiots who merely [stand on street corners / beg for donations on talk shows] and chant empty faith.
It’s also therefore the core component of patient motivation and progress in clinical psychology. It’s all on us, baby.
Exactly. One has to do the work, as an individual, because nebulous mass faith gets one nowhere.
Actively doing the personal practice is everything.
Nobody said anything was exclusively anything, genius.
Leave it to Hal to take what could have been a simple “and also this” argument and turn it into an opportunity to (ahem) harangue and dismiss a moral compass central to the lives of millions.
Never change, man. I don’t know what we’d do without your shining example.
There’s another one for your list of band names. I’m probably too old now to accurately name in contemporary terms what genre of noise “Bedlamite Sorrow” might produce, but I have a fair mental image.
This Friday and Saturday, see DeVotchKa at the Palace Theatre, with opening acts The Jane Austen Argument and Bedlamite Sorrow!
(Hipster steampunk harrumphs that Bedlamite Sorrow were way better when they toured with The Dresden Dolls.)
Back at the Twitter … a charming associate professor of English … informs us:
I read the bolded part as cancelling office hours just because you are ferklempt on a given day shouldn’t be a reason to be downdinged on an eval[uation].
The charming assoc. prof. seems to mean only that, in general, a female teacher will be faulted if she happened to be unavailable when the evaluator happened to want her, although a male teacher might more often be given benefit of doubt for the same sort of unavailability.
I’m no radical feminist, don’t have neon hair, and don’t earn my crust in academe, but I can see that she’s right in this instance. The practice of students evaluating teachers is riddled with flaws —
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Students-Evaluating-Teachers/
— and I would say it’s unfixable, because founded on loopy premises.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Students-Evaluating-Teachers/245169
Link fixed. (fingers crossed)
The charming assoc. prof. seems to mean…
Even an Ass. Prof. of English should be able to make a simple declarative sentence, in English, so that real people don’t have to try to divine her meaning, so I doubt she is right, just whining that she actually is expected to be someplace when she is supposed to be, and not just when she feels like it.