Reheated (126)
On a theme of Very Modern Education, some items from the archives:
The Psychology of “Social Justice” Is A Thing To Behold.
Don’t learn to spell, just insult potential employers. Says leftist professor.
However, Dr Strouse has foreseen this practical problem and proposes a bold, if unorthodox, solution: “The workplace has way too much power and should not be allowed to determine something as fundamental as how we speak,” says he. “People need to tell their bosses, ‘Fuck you.’” And a long and satisfying employment history will no doubt follow.
You see, Dr Strouse is – in his mind, at least – “dismantling linguistic racism.” And he’s doing this using minority students as his little foot soldiers. How very brave of him. And that ungrammatical job application, the one enlivened with incomprehensible sentences and lots of inventive spelling, will do just fine. Because by the time any sufficiently credulous students have pinned their hopes upon it, it won’t be his problem.
On San Francisco’s taxpayer-funded Woke Kindergarten.
Many young children are of course accustomed to being given a “word of the day,” though I would guess that such highlighted words don’t usually include “strike,” “ceasefire,” and “protest.” Nor, I suspect, would third-graders often be tasked with “disrupting whiteness,” which seems somewhat ambitious and just a tad question-begging, or with imagining “a world without police, money, or landlords.”
Yet here we are.
What your children are being taught and why you mustn’t find out.
Answers on a postcard, please.
The above does, I think, invite questions as to the vetting of public school educators and the kinds of personalities the job seems to attract in high concentrations. It also invites questions as to what kind of environment, what kind of workplace assumptions, might make a teacher of ten-year-olds think that such behaviour would be considered acceptable.
I mean, if nothing else, and even absent any conventional moral inhibition, you’d think that one of the obvious considerations for a teacher of ten-year-olds might at least be the assumption that parents will find out. In this case, when their children arrive home bewildered and distressed. And to therefore behave accordingly. And yet.
On the subject of parents being shocked to discover, belatedly, what their children are actually being taught, these three incidents came to mind. Among many others. Note, in the third link, the casual invention of a fake curriculum – yes, a fake curriculum – so as to deceive any curious parents. And all while insisting, “This is not being deceitful.”
In light of which, the “anti-fascist” snuff-video session mentioned above – the one for other people’s ten-year-olds – doesn’t exactly scream anomaly or aberration, or some unfortunate misreading of the room, so much as a ratcheting upwards.
For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Oh, and lest you forget, this rickety barge is kept afloat by the buttons below.
Spelling errors: My bank had a big sign up…with a typo. An obvious one. Oh, sure, hire bank tellers who are careless, what could go wrong? We are not herding sheep in the modern world, we are doing jobs that require some degree of timeliness, care, and precision. Almost every job. Even bagging groceries. Even driving a truck. Again, saying blacks can’t be precise or spell is flat-out racism.
Meanwhile, this charming young lady struggles somewhat with imposter syndrome.
https://x.com/i/status/2049291043229553046
That. ☝️
Well, it’s worth noting that during his own climbing of the career ladder, Dr Strouse has been careful to avoid taking his own advice.
Our terribly progressive educator may be keen for his browner students to pay for an education that leaves them sounding uneducated and not in full possession of their own thoughts, but Dr Strouse very much wants the world to know how articulate and educated – and statusful – he is.
And I’m still tickled by the idea of Thomas Sowell spicing up his many volumes with random fits of vagueness and urban patois, just to show Dr Strouse how incredibly, authentically black he is.
Also from the comments:
Utopia awaits!
See also Dr Asao Inoue of the Writing Centre at the University of Washington, Tacoma, the stated goal of which is to “help writers write and succeed in a racist society.” A feat to be accomplished by dismissing spelling and grammar as “racist” and “an unjust language structure.”
Because would-be writers who can’t spell or structure a sentence in a comprehensible manner will surely flourish. It’s progressive science, people!
Dr Inoue, the director of the centre, tells us that he and his peers took over a year to write a simple, 500-word press release.
Which bodes well.
Belated ping! (Missed your fundraiser.)
Bless you, madam. May your attempt to enjoy nectarines not be thwarted by a wildly inaccurate ‘best by’ date.
#TrueLifeDrama
Computer says no.
Well, quite. The perversity is eye-widening. The sheer brass neck of it.
Again, it’s not obvious how would-be writers will flourish if they’ve been told – quite emphatically, many times, by their supposed educators – that a grasp of even basic spelling and grammar are not only irrelevant and unnecessary, but actually oppressive. And told that paragraphs and punctuation are somehow racist.
In a saner environment, one less steeped in progressivism, these malignant grifters would be laughed out of the room and pelted with rotting fruit.
As leftists, that’s exactly what they want to do, in the name of the Revolution.
Not just sounding ignorant, because it is through articulate speech and writing that we actually think. Without that, all we have are incoherent feelings.
See also,
I mean, it might as well say POISON in huge red letters.
What were the traditional punishments for poisoners? Embrace tradition.
Thing is, mangled grammar and inept spelling convey information. This wasn’t proof-read, for instance. Which in turn implies other things. Seen in a small, old-school barber’s shop, this may not be of importance, but in a bank or solicitor’s or whatever, it’s likely to be noticed – and not taken as a basis for confidence in the business.
There is nothing unfair about this fact.
There’s only so much you can do with grunts.
Work expands to fill the
timemoney allotted.Given the context, the supposed service on offer, it’s an odd flex. A strange thing to mention. Unless we’re supposed to believe that what he does is so fractally complicated, so infinite in nuance, that mere words are insufficient.
Presumably he (justifiably) believes that his productivity will not be called into question because the indoctrinated, like children, will swallow any lies and because fellow academic leftists, complicit in the wholesale theft of resources, will approve.
And in economics news.
What things actually cost is “rightwing,” apparently.
pst314:
Well, incoherent feelings are ideal for being directed into rioting, protesting every damn thing (including the arrest of murderers), and assassination attempts. So, just what the Left finds useful.
Indeed. The last thing the left wants is people who can think.
Wayne’s post on capitalism/coffee shop: if you think oat milk is unnecessarily higher priced, this is a business opportunity. Open a business making oat milk and sell it to coffee shops for less. You will corner the market. Of course it is more expensive for reasons, not randomly.
Likewise, if you truly believe that women are paid 80 cents on the dollar of men’s salaries, open a women only business paying that rate and make tons of money. Of course in reality, single urban women in their 20s make more than similar men, but never mind facts.
For small businesses with a single owner (as I see all around me) the “profit” is their “wage”. For a corporation, the profit goes to dividends or stock growth that pays those who invested in the business. No dividends or stock growth, no-one will invest, therefore no business.
Two-tier justice system.
[ Watches Grand Tour episode about driving old Jaaaaaaaags in Colorado. ]
I wouldn’t say the data is flawed … more like highly curated.
Man from Somalia stabs two Jewish men in London:
The eternal question: Why wasn’t he in prison? Do the authorities want more non-British people committing acts of violence? Is this anarcho-tyranny?
When you don’t understand economics everything is a conspiracy…
The inability to grasp how things work is quite remarkable. And it does, I think, capture something of broader attitudes. Certainly, I’ve had several not dissimilar conversations.
I’m now poking at the implication that the All Powerful State should have an army of po-faced minions patrolling the nation’s coffee shops, correcting the price of oat milk and other disgusting boutique substances. Regardless of the actual cost to the owner of the coffee shop.
And so, not comprehending quite obvious things, despite being adults, they invoke conspiracies and call for a kind of ludicrous tyranny.
By the way, Mr Cohen – the chap upset at having to pay a few extra cents for oat milk in his coffee – is an assistant professor of sociology at Berkeley. He has pronouns in his bio.
He teaches those less knowledgeable than himself.
Oh, and being an assistant professor of sociology, Mr Cohen has, at the time of writing, not seen fit to respond to any of the numerous comments pointing out his error. Including polite and informative replies from owners of coffee shops.
I think we’ll give that one a post of its own.
Comments that-a-way.
Curious if anyone has been following the discussion regarding the hypothetical scenario where every person on Earth must choose between two buttons. I believe it started on TikTok. I really think we should implement that scenario. It could be the answer to a lot of our problems. Of course, in the real world…
I choose the button that kills all the ethicists.
He now says it was a joke. Yeah, sure. /sarcasm
On the evidence that’s a small pool to draw from.