The Unsayable, Said
Little things. For instance,
Below the fold, you’ll find a short film by Rob Montz about Amy Wax, quoted above, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Wax has been mentioned here once or twice before. Generally regarding her observations of everyday phenomena that are seemingly unmentionable, at least on campus, and the performative indignation and outright hysteria that reliably ensues. As when students, supposedly adult intellectuals, claimed that the professor’s mere presence on campus was “physically and emotionally harming all of us,” with the law school’s Dean, Theodore Ruger, another supposed adult, invoking the “lasting trauma” of hearing her speak.
Notable moments in the film include Professor Glenn Loury summarising the inevitable consequences of “affirmative action” and wildly varying standards of admission – which, it seems, mustn’t be acknowledged realistically – and Professor Wax’s comment about the race-grifting “equity” establishment, and its opposite – gratitude.
Update, via the comments:
Liz notes the theatrical agonising of both students and educators and adds,
Well, if a person’s worldview and piety, and social standing, are based on a series of fairly obvious lies, they will tend to be touchy. This can, of course, be extrapolated to describe an institution, many institutions, an entire elite culture.
Update 2:
What catches the eye, I think, is just how narrow the permissible range of views is. Practically a Rizla, seen edge-on. Which necessarily entails all sorts of contrivance and pretending. A list that grows. Hence the farcical, near-operatic twitchiness.
For instance, Professor Wax’s remark that all conceivable cultures and sub-cultures are not in fact equal, whether morally or intellectually, or in terms of resulting in success in the developed world. Apparently, any suggestion to that effect – i.e., that behaviour and values tend to have some bearing on outcomes – is to be condemned, categorically, as an outrage.
As was promptly done by the far-left National Lawyers Guild and a number of Professor Wax’s colleagues, other law professors, whose own culture – say, at home with their own children – is, we’re to suppose, indistinguishable from that of carjackers and the fentanyl-addled underclass.
Pretending these things, and remembering the entire list of things to be pretended, must be quite exhausting. It would, I think, put one in a mood. Something very close to a state of chronic neuroticism.
Consider this an open thread.
That.
Sixty years of “affirmative action” in education have gotten us to this horrible point. All thanks to liberals and radical leftists. And yet the only solution that liberals and leftists will accept–no, demand with threats of violence–is more of the same poison.
To paraphrase an old Lone Ranger satire, who’s this ‘we’, white liberal boy?
I was questioning “affirmative action” back in grade school, where although I knew nothing of college I could see that putting kids in classes they were not ready for would set them up for failure. But all my upper middle class liberal friends insisted that those kids would catch up and would be so grateful for that boost to their careers.
And yet, looking at the “equity” establishment, gratitude is pretty much the last word one would think of.
The liberals were stupid enough to sincerely expect gratitude.*
The radical leftists, however, were doing it in order to create chaos and suffering. “The worse, the better.”
* And stupid enough to expect the policies to benefit the supposed beneficiaries.
[ Looks out of window at traditional British Bank Holiday weather. ]
Are grown ups not allowed in academia any more? Because it looks like they aren’t.
Well, if a person’s worldview and piety, and social standing, are based on a series of fairly obvious lies, they will tend to be touchy.
The above can, of course, be extrapolated to describe an institution, many institutions, an entire elite culture.
“Be offended.”
The woke do not under any circumstances want to know the consequences of affirmative action in college. If you point out the mismatch problem, and that blacks with good grades can succeed at a state school but flunk stanford, they essentially say that it doesn’t matter, it is good to admit them. Sometimes the belief creeps out that whites (including asians) succeed and blacks fail at top schools simply due to racism. Yale or Princeton a few years ago denounced themselves on that basis. Personally, I was aware of my risk of flunking out of a top school when I did college.
Affirmative action in government gives you workers who don’t do a great job at delivering mail or such, but not overt failure. It is still pernicious.
And they work pretty hard to exclude people who reject fashionable lies.
[ Looks out of window at traditional British Bank Holiday weather. ]
Is that why you are still here and not enjoying the glory of the Peak District?
Pretty much.
…twisted ourselves in knots that we have to embrace something…
Not unrelated...
Presumably the University rushed to provide statistics disproving her assertions about disparities in educational attainment.
…
Oh.
You can jest but the VP couldn’t get to Tennessee fast enough to show regime solidarity with 3 democrat congresspeople who wilfully encouraged criminality and by some definitions insurrection.
However there was not a peep from her or her comatose boss about the victims of the tr*nny mass murderer.
The stunning and brave lawmakers have become leftist folk heroes, their futures are assured. By comparison the shooting has already been memory-holed but just imagine if it had been 6 trans people killed by a white shooter.
So far as I can see, Professor Wax’s comments – whether on the statistical benefits of bourgeois values, or on cultures of dysfunction, or on her own students’ performance disparities and drop-out rates – have yet to be refuted by those trembling with indignation. They have, however, been denounced as “hate speech,” “racist,” “segregationist,” “white supremacy,” etc.
Apparently, among our betters, it is now scandalous to suggest that a way to minimise the risk of poverty and imprisonment is to be diligent and hardworking, charitable and civic minded, and to “eschew substance abuse and crime.”
Guess I’m not a good people then.
‘Let my piety be unquestioned though thousands fail.’
However there was not a peep from her or her comatose boss about the victims of the tr*nny mass murderer.
Not unnoticed.
Presumably the University rushed to provide statistics disproving her assertions about disparities in educational attainment.
hahaha–they actively hide such data because it might be “hurtful”
This. This. This.
If they cared about harmful consequences, they would have changed their tune long ago.
Bartender, a drink for our friend here.
One smoker’s cough, coming up.
The “Comments” link under the heading and beside the date doesn’t work for this post. I had to click “continue reading” in order to get to the comments.
I verify that problem.
The category links above the post title also do not work. Neither in Firefox nor in Edge.
Affirmative action is the social science version of Lysenkoism.
Affirmative action, along with the income tax in the us, should be the posterchild for Slippery Slope.
I was just old enough to follow the congressional arguments about it, in 1964, during the passage of the US Civil Rights act. Notoriously, Hubert Humphrey asserted that Title VII would never cause quotas or discriminatory hiring and firing.
There’s plenty of evidence, e.g.
https://www.amren.com/news/2020/10/the-affirmative-action-hoax-racial-preferences/
to indicate that all that was smokescreen, covering already-advanced discriminatory behavior in government, but the PR issue was that it was sold to the public as benign “outreach” programs to increase and universalize the hiring and admissions pools.
But here we are, well beyond quotas driven by “disparate outcomes” rulings, to the point where institutions will openly state that they are rejecting candidates based on race.
As I recall, Humphrey said he would eat his hat if anyone could point to language in the bill which in any way mandated quotas. And yet I believe that in 1964 universities were already implementing quota programs to admit under-qualified blacks. (Correct me if I’m wrong on that.) And something similar was happening in high school admissions.
Theys can’t help themselves. They be the real victims.
So the new Chicago Mayor is already calling to defund the police (who coincidentally supported his losing opponent).
Presumably unlike the usual “talk is cheap” merchants he actually has the power to make it happen and quickly.
I used to enjoy reading the highly informative, as in actually backed up by hard data, Second City Cop blog until it was removed from general view. This term tinderbox is an understatement for what he’s prepared, even anxious, to unleash.
It should be okay now, I think. It seemed to be caused by starting the post with a blockquote. Though why escapes me.
What catches the eye, I think, is just how narrow the permissible range of views is. Practically a Rizla, seen edge-on. Which necessarily entails all sorts of contrivance and pretending. A list that grows. Hence the farcical twitchiness.
For instance, the suggestion that all conceivable cultures and sub-cultures are not in fact equal, whether morally or intellectually, or in terms of resulting in success in the developed world. Apparently, any suggestion to that effect – i.e., that behaviour and values tend to have some bearing on outcomes – is to be condemned, categorically, as an outrage.
As was done by the National Lawyers Guild and a number of Professor Wax’s colleagues, other law professors, whose own culture, we’re to suppose – say, at home with their own children – is indistinguishable from that of carjackers and the fentanyl-addled underclass.
Pretending these things, and remembering the entire list of things to be pretended, must be quite exhausting. It would, I think, put one in a mood. Something very close to a state of chronic neuroticism.
Is that why you are still here and not enjoying the glory of the Peak District?
Is this where you go to find Peak Stupid? Find one, there will be others until the crack of doom. Besides you seem to do very well at observing the heights, just by sitting at home.
That.
The gall of the pretence is quite extraordinary. As I said here,
It’s absurd. And yet.
By the way, the interview to which I was responding is well worth listening to. Or reading, as there’s a transcript.
“Lasting trauma?” The students are presumably not simply adults but ones who have already achieved an academic degree, to be now in law school.
An interesting thing seen while I attended law school was that the younger “day” students would sometimes sneak into the evening classes. As with myself, many of my fellow evening students were working full time and spending every free moment at law school and in study. The reason the day students came to our classes was because they saw the professors were more open and treated us more respectfully, resulting in deeper and more profound discussion in class. I suspect the professors were also more relaxed, knowing that, say, a veteran LAPD officer or a 55-year-old Boeing engineer, could confront ideas anti-thetical to their own without a hysterical meltdown.
But Loury’s observation of Wax’s attitude is one we should embrace more: “I don’t care if you are offended.” The reason small children and dogs develop behavioral issues is because they are allowed to do so.
I believe it was an early comdey routine by Eddie Murphy that if you take four White guys and one Black guy, eventually the White guys will be imitating the Black guy.
Mind you, many of those Woke Denouncers of Bourgeois Values have been dutifully penitent when they’ve adopted the ‘hood persona only to be denounced for cultural appropriation. We can’t have White girls wearing hoop earrings!
Btw, Professor Wax is no slacker. From Wikipedia:
“Wax attended and graduated from Yale University (B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, summa cum laude, 1975). She then attended Somerville College, Oxford (Marshall Scholar in Physiology and Psychology, 1976).
She next attended both Harvard Medical School (M.D. 1981) and Harvard Law School (first year of law school, 1981). Wax practiced medicine from 1982 to 1987, doing a residency in neurology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and working as a consulting neurologist at a clinic in the Bronx and for a medical group in Brooklyn. She completed her legal education at Columbia Law School (J.D. 1987; Editor of the Columbia Law Review), working part-time to put herself through law school.”
So, unlike many of her colleagues in academia, her observations have some real world experience behind them. Fancy that.
The joys of modern software.
Just occurred to me we’ve been in these new digs for six months.
[ Straightens coasters. ]
The moment society at large is forced to recognize what we all already know – that Affirmative Action is a corrupt failure – is the moment the Leftist edifice of leftist pernicious, weaponized empathy begins to crumble. Their entire worldview is based on this premise that if only everyone was “nice” to minorities and the poor by giving them the trappings of a successful life, without the genuine dignity of earning those things, everything would be utopia.
Precisely the opposite is true. The vicious bigotry of exemption from expectations, and the cripplingly destructive effects of government largesse leads inexorably to a cultural dead-end of poverty, misery, and humiliating dependency. The only real question at that point, is “Was that the point from the get go?”
Progressive ideology is often difficult to distinguish from malevolence and wilful sabotage.
Found via Cdr Salamander:
Drug dealers are now “drug workers”:
Somewhat related.
The reason small children and dogs develop behavioral issues is because they are allowed to do so.
Anyone here remember “The Miracle Worker” and the scene at the dinner table with the child Helen Keller being an absolute little beast that’s ignored or indulged in her behavior. And when Annie Sullivan is enforcing some discipline, Helen’s father objects because Helen is ‘damaged’.
Just occurred to me we’ve been in these new digs for six months.
And it seems like only yesterday. Which could explain why epehemaratisation occurs every five minutes.
I’ll treasure the memory of the move. All the shouting and swearing, and the enormous .txt files.
[ Eye twitches. ]