Reheated (98)
For newcomers, some items from the archives:
Don’t Oppress My People With Your Expectations Of Politeness And Basic Consideration.
A tear-inducing tale of racial victimhood.
“One day, when I accidentally sat down to study in the library’s Absolutely Quiet Room, fellow students Shhh-ed me into shame for putting on my Discman… I soon realised that silence was more than the absence of noise; it was an aesthetic to be revered. Yet it was an aesthetic at odds with who I was. Who a lot of us were.”
A bold admission. One, I suspect, that reveals more than intended. Also, the claim that one can sit down in a library accidentally.
Inevitably, Ms Gonzalez blames her own moral shortcomings on other people’s race and class, as if, by expecting politeness, they were imposing on her in cruel and unusual ways. Because – magic words – “of colour.” But the common variable, the one that’s hard to miss, is the author’s own rudeness and self-absorption. And so, she blunders into the library’s “Absolutely Quiet Room,” and fires up her music.
On the non-random nature of who you are.
The newborn me was a result of a particular lineage, of choices made by specific individuals and the genes of those individuals – who can of course say the same thing about themselves. To imply that anyone’s birth is a random thing, as if it could have happened anywhere, at any time, as if the particulars were immaterial, is, it seems to me, a little odd. Indeed, arse-backwards. And I doubt that many parents see the birth of their child as some random occurrence, unmoored from any context or preceding events. I’d imagine it wouldn’t seem random at all.
Unless you imagine a queue of souls waiting to spawn in some small but arbitrary body on a continent chosen by the spin of a wheel. Or cosmic bingo balls.
Ontario teachers’ union forbids “right-wing” opinions, endorses deception.
It occurs to me that when your solution to such complaints [from parents regarding classroom indoctrination] includes the words “so parents cannot see it,” it may be time to revisit your assumptions.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
The answer to that is, I fear, that the ideas and ideals of Marx and his -ism are organic growths of the sort of dysfunctional people that frequent universities.
Few who have experience of the “real world” can maintain the illusions required to continue adherence to that entire school of thought.
Once upon a time, I had an earnest young sort working for me, who insisted on the ideals of the collective, human altruism, and all the rest of that delusional sort of thing. He and I had semi-frequent discussions on the matter, in the lees late-hour duty. Despite his delusions about the perfectability of man, he was a hard worker himself, and diligent in his duties.
So, I did the cruelest thing possible: I promoted him, and put him in charge of things. He’d been constantly bitching at me about my early-morning “harassment” in the barracks, said that he and the other soldiers didn’t need it, and that it was insulting to be treated like irresponsible children.
I think you can see where this is going…
Put in charge, he implemented his ideas. We went from me yelling at people in the morning to get their areas cleaned up and ready for the day to him instituting a laissez-faire sort of arrangement wherein the guys were supposed to “clean as you go” and be responsible for the common areas. I’d already cleared it with my bosses to cut myself out of the “chain of blame”, as I was intending to deliver a salutary lesson on human nature for our young Corporal. My immediate boss was pleased to go straight to the source of what he also saw as a bit of insubordination in someone we thought would make a good leader, sooooo…
Took about three weeks of him getting chewed on by the First Sergeant about the state of the common areas in his part of the barracks, and then he instituted a draconian regime of daily harassment and punishment that put anything I had done straight into “Gee, I wish the old days were back, again…” territory in short order.
Basically shattered that young man’s illusions about his fellow man, and he went from socialist-leaning libertarian to straight-up fascist police state believer in what amounted to a heartbeat. After a few more weeks, he and I had duty together again, and I asked him what, if anything, he’d learned.
I quote him nearly verbatim, here: “People are assholes, and you have to put your foot up their ass to get them to do the right thing…”
I was so proud of him, finally getting it. I term such experiences “Latrine Cleaning Epiphanies”.
Of course, there are certain fine points to the whole thing… You also have to adjust fire on the whole thing, and work within the constraints of specifically who you’re dealing with. There are some folks who will actually manage to make a “clean as you go” system work, but in the general ruck of life, that ain’t happening. If nobody is responsible, nobody is in charge… Then, nothing will be done, and it’ll all vanish in the haze of “someone else’s problem…”
[ Glares in righteous indignation. ]
Jordan Peterson cites two key problems in some recent interviews:
First, liberals have no conceptual understanding of when the left goes too far: He has spoken with numerous Democrat politicians and public figures, and essentially none of them could provide an answer when he asked “When does the left go too far?” Peterson points to “equality of outcome” dogma as a very good answer, but liberals cannot come up with such an answer on their own.
Second, liberals won’t publicly criticize the radical left, although they will privately tell Peterson that they disapprove. They say they are afraid of the consequences of speaking up.
If I can later recall which podcasts, I will reply to this comment with links.
Hey, spiffy haircut.
Bombast in a boba bottle
You give us citizenship in the nation your ancestors carved out of the frozen wilderness, and we might give you permission to sell flavored tea drinks as long as you kow-tow to our community and cut us in on the revenue.
There must still be a way of buying a crate of tea from China without importing a Chinaman to call you racist. And if Chinamen want to try out the ideals and institutions that make Canada an attractive place to live, Canada won’t complain about cultural appropriation if they implement those ideas in China and even if they adapt them to local sensibilities.
Has sharing a nation with the round-eyed barbarians inspired wonder and growth in Simu Liu? It’s made the man miserable. Even white Canadians are probably starting to think that goshdarn it this is a fellow you just couldn’t invite to <strike>your country</strike> – strike that, it would be unthinkable that you’d have any say in that matter – but at least a fellow you couldn’t invite to a barbecue.
Well, resentment is easier than gratitude and gets you social cred.
Theodore Dalrymple has remarked that resentment can be a pleasurable emotion for some people.
What is perhaps missing context from the Simu Liu incident is the oft-suppressed fact that Canada is owned lock, stock and barrel by the CCP. High-status Chinese immigrants here frequently comport themselves as colonizers.
Not something I’m familiar with.
But I did wonder, some years ago, about the joyful reports of many mainland Chinese buying homes in Canada: Who are they really? What are their intentions? None of the news items I saw addressed such questions, as if to do so was unimportant or in bad taste.