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Academia Problematic Competence

Levelling

December 10, 2024 138 Comments

At Vanderbilt University, an honours programme intended to accommodate academic giftedness has been denounced as “inherently exclusionary.” Having now been identified as an affront to “equity,” an unforgivable wickedness, the programme is of course being shut down:

In his research, [sociology professor, Andrew] Cognard-Black… reported many college honours programmes do not have “proportional representation” of minority students, especially blacks and Hispanics, compared to the demographics of their student bodies.

And so, instead of all that problematic academic rigour, all those challenging tasks that not everyone can complete, exceptional students will now be obliged to mingle with those less academically inclined, and offered an education “accessible to all,” one “open to the voices of divergent experiences.”

The practised doublethink in play, in which precocious interest in advanced material is actively discouraged, and in which “access” is invoked while gleefully denying it, has been noted here before.

Along with educators’ hostility to students and parents who dared to complain about the downgrade, and whose concerns were dismissed as perpetuating “systemic racism.”

Update:

In the comments, sH2 quotes this,

offered an education “accessible to all,” one “open to the voices of divergent experiences.”

And adds,

*alarm bell*

Well, quite. The reliance on fuzzwords and rhetorical fluff is not an encouraging sign. And any unironic use of the word equity should raise eyebrows.

The restructuring above is a familiar conceit, heard many times, and somewhat unconvincing. We’re expected to believe that by phasing out the most challenging courses, in high schools and colleges, and by shafting the students who take them, somehow everything else will become every bit as good, every bit as excellent.

Yes, there will be excellence everywhere.

Albeit achieved in ways that are never quite explained. And despite the obvious disregard for students who excel, and whose ability is deemed troublesome and a basis for corrective measures.

Regarding the promise of glorious inclusion and excellence everywhere, this came to mind:

Dr Asao Inoue, whose “research focusses on antiracist and social justice theory,” and whose scholarly insights include “destroy grading,” and “standards… are white supremacist,” has been mentioned here before. As when we learned that grading a student’s ability to convey their thoughts in writing – and to formulate thoughts by writing – is merely a manifestation of “white language supremacy,” an allegedly lethal phenomenon, and therefore to be abandoned in the name of, and I quote, “inclusive excellence.”

Oh, and let’s not forget the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Inclusive Excellence Centre, where microaggressions are forbidden, including the words thug and trash, and where punctuation and grammar are unfathomable things, even among staff.

Update 2: 

On the subject of omnipresent excellence, arrived at by some opaque and supernatural means, Rafi adds,

They’ll just change the meaning of the words.

That would seem to be the most plausible option, the easier route. That, and cultivating a ludicrous unrealism. Habitual pretending. Something close to an inversion of reality, driven by fantasies of “equity,” which seems to mean something like equality of outcome regardless of inputs. 

As in California, where differences in “school experiences,” i.e., differences in ability and achievement, are something to be eliminated by holding back high-achieving students, with curriculum guidelines based on “social justice,” and educators who are visibly “committed to social justice work.”

And so, we have California’s Department of Education actively discouraging gifted maths students from taking calculus any earlier than their less gifted classmates. As if this were a good thing with no conceivable downsides. Because frustrating clever kids, boring them and demoralising them, is, like, totally progressive.

And likewise, we have Jennifer Katz, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia, scolding parents who question the conceit that bright children will somehow flourish if taught more slowly and in less detail in a more disruptive environment. While implying, quite strongly, that any parents who complain must be racist.

And then there’s San Diego, another bastion of progress, where teachers are instructed that in order to be “anti-racist,” they must “confront practices” deemed inegalitarian and which result in “racial imbalance” – say, norms of classroom behaviour, a disapproval of tardiness and cheating, and oppressive expectations of “turning work in on time.”

There’s a through-the-looking-glass quality. A fun-house mirror malevolence.

As noted in the comments following this, it’s quite easy to demoralise bright children, and the brighter they are, the easier it tends to be. Just bore them and frustrate them in an environment where precociousness is ideologically problematic and often results in social disapproval, from both peers and educators. Say, with accusations of racism, and the closure of their advanced programmes, where they’d previously been allowed to be better at things.

The pace at which learning happens is important. If a lesson is unfolding much too slowly for someone, if new information is barely trickling out, with endless delays and interruptions, boredom and frustration can be hard to avoid. If someone needs to work at a certain speed, anything less can, very quickly, be demoralising. And difficult to undo.

But hey, progress, baby.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Those Poor Darling Fare Dodgers

Only Suckers Pay Their Way

December 8, 2024 134 Comments

I paraphrase, of course. Though, judging by this piece in the San Francisco Standard, not by much:

It’s no secret in San Francisco that you can walk onto the bus without paying. Plenty of people do it – the indigent and homeless who can’t afford the fare, yes, but also professionals with healthy salaries.

“I don’t pay,” said a 35-year-old man wearing an orange puffy vest and clutching a beige shoulder bag and a banana. The man said he earns $75,000 working for an Oakland-based climate nonprofit. “Muni should be free, to make it accessible.”

Or, my activist lifestyle should be subsidised by others, the less important.

A 25-year-old research associate for a Google-owned subsidiary who also earns $75,000 a year said she almost never pays the fare. “I’d say 99% of the time, I just walk on,” she said, adding that she saw everyone else doing it when she moved to the city three years ago. “It’s like a San Francisco thing, I guess.”

Ah, that community spirit, a triumph of fairness over selfishness, in a city of good people. Good people who steal as a matter of routine. Because when it comes to paying their way, well, they’d rather not.

Even doctors are occasional fare-dodgers here. An SF General paediatrician earning $170,000 a year said she only just started paying for every ride. “Just when they started enforcing again,” she said. “But before, I’d pay maybe 80% of the time.”

Behold the moral clarity of Our Betters. The unwavering righteousness.

The doctor’s reason for skipping the fare was more politeness than protest: “Just when someone was standing in front of where you tap,” she said.

You see, stiffing others with the bill, the cost of you getting from A to B, is the very measure of politeness. It’s altruistic fare-dodging. Another terribly progressive innovation.

As one might imagine, this modish, habitual freeloading, now estimated at 20% of users, possibly higher, has had certain consequences, including the alienation of many paying customers. Say, those not impressed by orange-vested climate activists who repeatedly screw the law-abiding, and the taxpayer, while applauding themselves for their belief that “Muni should be free.”

Left unchallenged or actively reinforced, the disregard for paying bills may of course spill into other areas of life, and losses from municipal parking garages are also mentioned as a “concern.” The fiscal state of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is described by insiders as “incredibly dire,” with a deficit projected to rise from a mere $15 million to a rather more impressive $322 million.

Rafael Mandelman, the chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, is one of those concerned, though more by the election of Donald Trump, and the consequently dimmed prospects of further federal bailouts, than by the culture of fare-dodging among the network’s own supposed customers. Suggested solutions to these economic woes include taxing ride-share companies, parcel taxes, increased parking charges, and bake sales.

Action of a sort is, belatedly, being taken:

In an attempt to crack down, the transit bosses announced in May that they would hire 35 new Muni cops. So far, they have hired nine. It’s just one of the mitigating efforts to combat a raging financial crisis that could result in the loss of routes.

However, this being San Francisco, an uphill struggle is expected:

Another challenge is that fare evasion appears to be ingrained in the culture of SF living, showing up in viral TikToks. “Why would I sweat my eyebrows off in my apartment when I could take my free bus to the park and sweat my eyebrows off there?” Tasha Malan asked in a video that garnered more than 100,000 views during the October heatwave.

Ms Malan, whose progressive charisma can be viewed here, is, she says, “working smarter, not harder.”

@theedoodlebop Suddenly im having the best day of my life ! #sanfrancisco #sf #hotweatherhacks #fypシ゚ #missionsf #goldengatepark #sanfranciscobayarea ♬ original sound – Tasha 🧍🏻

Again, good people, Giving It To The Man. Or at least, giving it to those unhip, fare-paying suckers.

Ms Malan, a self-styled “artist,” was later caught fare-dodging by the aforementioned fare enforcement officers, or Muni cops, and given a $130 citation – an indignity Ms Malan describes, quite vehemently, as “bullshit.”

@theedoodlebop FINE yall win this time😔 #sf #sanfrancisco ♬ original sound – Tasha 🧍🏻

It’s worth noting that the replies to Ms Malan’s fare-dodging dramas are almost entirely sympathetic. Her admirers applaud her recreational mooching, a measure of hipness, and offer tips on doing the same. “Best way to live,” says one. “God, I love this city,” adds a likeminded bint. “It’s a simple and beautiful life,” says another. Albeit a life based on exploiting, and sneering at, those more honest. The ones being left to pick up the tab.

Other attempts at fare enforcement have, inevitably, resulted in hair-trigger accusations of “racism,” presumably on grounds that Magical Brownness entitles those so endowed to an indefinite exemption from normal proprieties.

Readers may recall our previous visits to the world of glamorised fare-dodging – for instance, in Washington DC, where progressive commuters, including lecturers, lawyers and screenwriters, aired their “exhausted rage,” not at the rapidly growing number of freeloaders eroding social trust and bankrupting the transport network, but at those careless enough to notice such things.

Because noticing routine and shameless thievery is apparently much worse than indulging in it. And certainly more likely to result in opprobrium.

Some will doubtless recall Ms Claudia Balducci, a scrupulously progressive woman responsible for Seattle’s public transport network, and who, when faced with evidence that up to 70% of passengers are now fare-dodging with impunity, replied:

People are feeling more welcome on our system and less afraid to use it because there’s less of a fear of fare enforcement.

Which, we’re to believe, is progress. An achievement unlocked.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget this feat of Bay Area ingenuity, complete with magic cardboard and public masturbators.

 

Update, via the comments:

Responding to this rather convenient excuse,

“It’s like a San Francisco thing, I guess.”

Clam replies, not unfairly,

So is shitting in the street.

Given the nature of public infrastructure and its bureaucracy, and given the city’s pronounced progressive leanings, I don’t doubt that the transportation system may be suboptimally conceived and suboptimally implemented. But as we noted recently, rules and systems can only do so much, and whether a system works, or works to some extent, will also depend on compliance and enforcement, on human capital, the quality of its inputs, its users.

And it’s not obvious how any system that one might realistically devise could function adequately if subjected to large enough numbers of people much like our “artist,” Ms Tasha Malan, or the activist with the banana, or the research associate who excuses her habitual freeloading as being “like a San Francisco thing, I guess.”

The weight of shitty, selfish people is not to be underestimated.

Update 2:

Regarding the self-satisfied justifications for being a selfish bum, a – dare I say it – parasite – commenter [+] adds,

Culture matters.

Well, yes. And I’m not sure how a struggling transport system can overcome the prevalence of such attitudes, unless the people running it are willing to add some serious Find Out to all the Fucking About. And I suspect that wouldn’t be regarded as “a San Francisco thing,” man.

It’s also, I think, worth pondering how those announcing their habitual freeloading, even boasting of it, don’t seem to regard themselves as being in any way uncivilised or morally questionable. 

As if their behaviour – their choices, made repeatedly – couldn’t possibly indicate something untoward or unsavoury. Something warranting shame. Perhaps they assume that “working for a climate nonprofit,” or being a “research associate for a Google-owned subsidiary,” or just living in San Francisco, a progressive Mecca, makes them a good person. An unassailable being.

It seems to me that political attitudes are to a very large extent downstream of personality and psychology, the kind of person you are. Say, the kind of adult, statusfully employed, who will make the kind of noises more typically expected from thick, delinquent teenagers. And if your super-progressive city has attracted a lot of shitty, self-entitled narcissists, the morally juvenile, creatures like Ms Malan, well, things will tend to degrade.

Whether the degradation can be reversed without addressing the underlying psychology, those shitty personalities, I leave to the reader. 

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Written by: David
Ephemera

Friday Ephemera (748)

December 6, 2024 158 Comments

Interspecies attraction of note. || The oxygen tank is, I suppose, an innovative touch. || Not new, but evergreen. Related. || At last, drinkable mayonnaise. || More adventures in modernity. || “How can anything made of matter be that cold?” || Bold artistic breakthrough. || The litter bins of Disneyland. || The chair bodgers of the Chilterns, 1950. || Hercules. || At last, sewing machine techno. || Unauthorised parking anthropology. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || The progressive retail experience, parts 599, 600, 601, and 602. || Oh, winter wonderland. || Swimwear. || When your foot’s hard on the brakes, but your car won’t stop, and you’re heading towards a lake, while pregnant. || Free at last. || Sweet potato, sharp knife. || The tomb of Queen Nefertari. || And finally, an uncanny deduction.

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Pronouns Or Else The Thrill Of Women's Shoes

And In Shoe-Related News

December 3, 2024 139 Comments

This just in: 

A trans-identified male in Austria is appealing his conviction after stabbing his elderly caregiver with his high heels in retaliation for a perceived insult towards a Barbie doll he considers to be his “girlfriend.”

Yes, I know. It’s a lot to unpack.

The man, who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, has a violent criminal record and 12 previous convictions.

How many of those incidents were shoe-related, or involved insulted Barbie dolls, is unclear.

According to the Kleine Zeitung, the unnamed perpetrator, aged sixty and dubbed Franz, attacked his 81-year-old carer, punching him repeatedly and,

stabbing him in the head, chest, and hands, with his high-heeled shoes.

When subsequently appearing in court, Franz decided against wearing heels, perhaps wisely, and opted instead for “a chic sweater” and “delicate sandals.”

During his hearings, Franz had been permitted to hold a blonde Barbie doll, which he refers to as “Carina” and considers to be his girlfriend. 

Franz, since you ask, was diagnosed with “a severe personality disorder” and a tendency towards violence, but was considered “still sane.”

The doll was at the centre of the case, with Franz claiming that his caregiver “provoked” him by mistreating “Carina” due to jealousy over their “relationship.” Franz claimed his caregiver wanted to have sexual relations with him, something the aide denied.

The defendant also claimed that his fit of violent rage had been “provoked” by arguments over expenses, and his elderly carer’s failure to bring him toy cars, or any gifts for his small, plastic girlfriend.

Modernity, dear readers. It’s an acquired taste.

Previously in the world of transgender shoe-related crime.

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Written by: David
Free-For-All Politics

For Having The Wrong Politics

39 Comments

Lifted from the comments, an excerpt from the Joe Rogan Experience, a discussion with investor and tech developer Marc Andreessen:

Forward this video to friends & family to understand just how evil the government has been
pic.twitter.com/XgRnikMK6J

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 29, 2024

The complete three-hour discussion, which I recommend making time for, can be found here. Topics touched on include progressive status bubbles, biased AI, debanking and other deep-state shenanigans, and a march towards dystopia only recently interrupted.

Update, via the comments:

As Dicentra says in reply,

The debanking thing is terrifying. It’s as dystopian as anything they’ve come up with yet, and that’s saying a lot.

It’s quite a revealing discussion, on many fronts, and worth finding three hours to hear the whole thing.

Much of it is dystopian in its implications, and there’s a recurring sense of getting a chance to avoid a path to nowhere good. The idea of a branch in the timeline, mentioned jokingly early on, did not strike me as inapt. And the description of living in a self-flattering progressive bubble, with continual anxieties about status and expressing The Correct Politics, may be familiar to regulars here.

I was in the car, listening distractedly and pretty much by accident, but soon found myself paying attention. The mechanics of unaccountable state power are not uninteresting, if somewhat disturbing; the sheer foolishness and perversity of Our Betters is a never-ending source of black comedy – say, with the US military using Chinese drones; and the insider description of elite liberals and their world – its vanities and its mismatch with reality – had a certain resonance.

As you might imagine.

Mr Rogan is known, and parodied, for his whoas and wows and what the fucks, but it’s an episode in which what the fuck is not an unreasonable response. And if you’ve wondered how an elite liberal, a Silicon Valley billionaire, starts to, as it were, leave the faith, it’s quite interesting. The process of registering the vanities and incongruities, the social dynamics, the outright lies about topics in which you have some expertise, and so forth.

Now please insert your political views into the scanner.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.