The Progressive Hellscape, Part 203
Frances Widdowson on the “indigenised” Canadian university, where pretending is everything:
In 2018, one of the co-directors at my university’s Office of Academic Indigenisation invited an Indigenous elder to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine.” A member of the audience asked the elder what he recommended for the “gut problems” afflicting her child. In response, the elder stated that the parent should “rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony.” A number of professors in the Faculty of Science and Technology attending the session acknowledged afterwards that this example of “traditional healing medicine” was completely inconsistent with evidence-based scientific medical techniques (as seems obvious, even to those of us who aren’t doctors). But they remained silent at the event, as did everyone else, out of “respect.”
Not quite the right word, I think.
Readers will note that the beneficiary of this “respect” is the peddler of primitive woo, the one being deferred to as a quasi-magical being, some kind of leprechaun. Not the mother whose child was in need of medical attention. I am, of course, assuming that gastro-intestinal ailments won’t actually be cured by rubbing corn pollen on your feet. But such are progressive priorities. There’s much more to chew, and some noteworthy contortions are performed, so do peruse the whole thing. It does rather convey the unhinged, neurotic atmosphere of woke academia. There are also other gifts of aboriginal piety and “indigenous knowledge.” For instance,
[A]t the University of Winnipeg in 2015… presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.)
And,
[W]hen I attended an “Empowering Indigenisation Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them.
Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.
Somewhat related: Guardian columnist denounces Western medicine as “outdated,” champions use of bush dung.
Via Nikw211.
…rubbing said wart with luncheon meat (my grandmother preferred bologna) and then burying the meat in a secret place in the backyard.
Your grandmother couldn’t think of a simpler way to engage in secret bologna snacking.
…suggesting that the Buddhist notions that we’re all really One and that suffering is an illusion might make Buddhist people and cultures more and not less callous than Christian people and cultures.
It is unimaginable how anyone could have come to such a conclusion. Callousness? In my East Asia!
Had a few, a while ago.
Ah…I see the usual suspects also weighed in.
[ dons Hat of Shame ]
Instincts are useful things. In [current year] you will not be wrong by being too cynical.
Indians are not Canadian citizens in the way non-indigenous Canadians are citizens. They are essentially wards of the Crown
Canada is an apartheid state. That’s not hyperbole or sarcasm; we are literally an apartheid state by any definition.
I find it harder and harder to resist jumping to my feet
I routinely shout out “but you’re not going to give it back, are you?” at this point. At first there were shocked gasps, and there are certain theaters I am no longer allowed to patronize. Of late I have been noticing less shocked gasping and more snickering and suppressed chuckling. So I suspect people are starting to get fed up with the hypocrisy.
Thoughts
The deconstruction of superheroes has been going on since long before Marvel movies became popular, and it’s just as tedious and juvenile as “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” or Farmer’s deconstruction of Tarzan. Deconstructionists hold their audience in contempt; they honestly believe that the rubes think this stuff is real, like late night infomercials and professional wrestling, and need to have their illusions shattered for their own good.
Suffice it to say that after being inundated with gritty, shades-of-gray superhero deconstruction over the last couple of decades, I’m inclined to think ill of the whole genre.
“Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine.”
Great. We should encourage traditional healing medicine. Sometimes Darwin needs a boost.
“Readers will note that the beneficiary of this “respect” is the peddler of primitive woo, the one being deferred to as a quasi-magical being, some kind of leprechaun. Not the mother whose child was in need of medical attention”
Should also note that the beneficiary of any “affirmative action” policy is never the bad-doctor’s patient, the bad-engineer’s bridge, the bad-lawyer’s client, the bad-teacher’s students, or the bad-government-workers subject.
It all becomes form over content. We used to do content. No more.
“Canadians have a responsibility to ensure indigenous people have a good life” – I probably should have clarified. The Canadian government has a treaty obligation to indigenous people (but we shouldn’t assume that should be a whole range of government run programs that do nothing). But I do want to see indigenous people have a good life with opportunities – just like I want to see anyone have a good life. But for indigenous people, the barrier is not the Canadian government or Canadians but their own leadership who demand that indigenous people don’t do anything on their own (and believe the silly mantra of traditional healing/medicine). My brother lived next to an indigenous family – husband was Cree from the Prairies and wife was from a west coast band – neither lived on their ‘reserve’ or depended on their band for anything. They pay homage to their culture and supported their aging parents, but as far as they were concerned the reserve politics was toxic and if they had stayed they would have become nothing instead of leaving and becoming a skilled in demand tradeperson and a nursing manager.
Ah…I see the usual suspects also weighed in.
Heh. As I said, I enjoyed season one. Not outstanding or anything, but entertaining enough. Season two less so, mainly because of pacing issues, thinness of plot, and the fact that nihilistic gore grows tiresome pretty quickly. It is, or was, fun, of a kind, but, like you, I don’t think of the series as “cutting satire.”
Still, it was more engaging than WandaVision.
I do want to see indigenous people have a good life with opportunities – just like I want to see anyone have a good life.
As do I. I have spent considerable time in volunteer efforts to help people help themselves. Yet every time these efforts eventually run up against people who don’t understand the basic socio-economic factors that make that happen. This desire to just give people stuff and think that that will solve the problem. It doesn’t work that way. It fails time and time and time again because it addresses the wrong problem. In a free society, Normal, healthy people are not materially poor because they lack material things. They are poor because of a poverty of hope, of reason, of soul. Yes, even the dumb ones. The number of “smart” people whom I have known who are failures out number the “dumb” ones I know who are moderately successful. I don’t think my experience is unusual.
The number of “smart” people whom I have known who are failures out number the “dumb” ones I know who are moderately successful. I don’t think my experience is unusual
Dr. Jordan Peterson’s popular books are not particularly clever, sophisticated, or even insightful, consisting mostly of common sense and experience. Native IQ will not substitute for hard-won life experience of the type that used to be passed on within the family.
In my personal experience, I’ve seen an awful lot of smart people torpedo their chances in life precisely because they think they’re smarter than the “common folk wisdom”.
Dr. Jordan Peterson’s popular books are not particularly clever, sophisticated, or even insightful, consisting mostly of common sense and experience.
Yes. His value lies in the fact that forthright common sense is now so rare and so hated:
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
And that recalls an authentic comment Orwell made:
“The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits ‘atrocities’ but that it attacks the concept of objective truth.”
“The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits ‘atrocities’ but that it attacks the concept of objective truth.”
I know what Orwell was trying to say but too many people have no idea of the atrocities commited under totalitarian regimes. I’ve had conversations where I’ve talked about death toll under communism and people just stare at me doubtfully. Atrocities are the logical outcome when there is no objective truth and despite the evidence all around us too many people can’t see what happens when the authorities have to be infallible.
Oh no! I see in the preview screen my avatar is back to the mark of Hal. Me and my damned hubris.
In my day it was a potato. You would cut a potato in half, rub it on the wart, then bury that half of the potato in the back yard. Oddly, that didn’t work either. Don’t ask me how I know.
It does work. I was 17 and desperate.
One of my favorite Aba & Preach videos is them discovering their common-sense philosophy of not getting spun-up over stupid sh*t has a name.