Via Franklin, Jamie Palmer and Sohrab Ahmari on the art world’s deadening ideological lockstep:
Patriarchy — that impregnable citadel of male privilege and the object of so much feminist anger and hatred — turned out to be a paper tiger, after all. Feminists discovered that in liberal democracies, radical activism can quickly become a casualty of its own success. Those for whom the attainment of political goals is less important than the romance of resistance itself, perversely require an immovable antagonist against which to hurl themselves. “Perhaps to their own disappointment,” Ahmari observes, “the identitarians today find that the liberal order has given in to most of their demands.”
Naomi Schaefer Riley on things you mustn’t notice or say out loud:
Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam [a son of Indian immigrants] wanted to become a doctor like his mother. But upon realising how hard it was, he tried another route. He saw that a friend of his from a similar ethnic and educational background did not get into a single medical school. So he decided to pretend he was African-American. Despite mediocre grades and board scores, he was interviewed by 11 of the 14 elite medical schools he applied to and was admitted to one. Though he made no claim to be disadvantaged — admissions committees were aware that his parents were well-off professionals, that he went to expensive schools and that he needed no financial aid — he was treated like someone who needed a leg up in life merely because he was ‘black’.
And in three parts, Thomas Sowell on the left and the masses:
One of the most recent efforts of the left is the spread of laws and policies that forbid employers from asking job applicants whether they have been arrested or imprisoned. This is said to be to help ex-cons get a job after they have served their time, and ex-cons are often either poor or black, or both. First of all, many of the left’s policies to help black people are disproportionately aimed at helping those blacks who have done the wrong thing – and whose victims are disproportionately those blacks who have been trying to do the right thing. In the case of this ban on asking job applicants whether they have criminal backgrounds, the only criterion seems to be whether it sounds good or makes the left feel good about themselves.
An empirical study some years ago examined the hiring practices of companies that did a background check on all the employees they hired. It found that such companies hired more black people than companies which did not. Why? Many employers, aware of higher rates of imprisonment among blacks, are less likely to hire blacks whose individual backgrounds are unknown to them. But those employers who investigate everyone’s background before hiring them do not have to rely on such generalisations. The fact that these latter kinds of employers hired more black people suggests that racial animosity is not the key factor, since blacks are still blacks, whether they have a criminal past or not. But the political left is so heavily invested in blaming racism that mere facts are unlikely to change their minds.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Those for whom the attainment of political goals is less important than the romance of resistance itself, perversely require an immovable antagonist against which to hurl themselves.
That. It covers most of the stuff you write about here. 🙂
Sowell as ever nails it! Simply, so that anyone can understand.
To be told in the face of massive corruption by the socialist party in Spain (as well as massive corruption, but in value 3 times less, by the centre-right but nearly social democratic Popular Party) I get told literally (well translated as literally as possible)by a socialist with 6 properties that she doesn’t even need to rent out:
‘I am consoled by the fact that underneath it all, people on the left are always just so much better than people on the right.’
She must sleep well at night. And maybe I should have taken it personally and clocked her just to show her she was right!
It covers most of the stuff you write about here. 🙂
It has been a recurring theme, yes. But if you think of leftism and political correctness as a kind of positional good, a marker of in-group status, and if you think of how the world has changed in, say, the last fifty years or so, or twenty, or ten, then the need for hyperbole and distortion is inevitable. As Kristian Niemietz put it,
And so the goal posts have to move, and keep moving, leading to ever greater contrivance and ever more absurd definitions of oppression. There’s an in-built neediness that leads to escalation and all manner of bizarre phenomena. From “social justice” warriors fabricating ‘hate’ crimes because they can’t point to any real ones, to agonised Guardian articles about the menace posed by heteronormative cupcakes and spellcheck software, and about how men discussing barbecues is not only “oppressively penetrating,” but about as “oppressively penetrating” as a thing can be.
And this adversarial posturing, this insatiable woe, has little to do with how the world actually is. It does, however, have a great deal to do with how those concerned wish to seem. In order to maintain a self-image of heroic radicalism and intellectual heft – and in order to justify funding, influence and status – new and rarer forms of exploitation and injustice have to be discovered, or conjured into being. Which leads to extremism, intolerance and absurdity, not because the mainstream of society is becoming more racist, prejudiced, patriarchal or oppressive – but precisely because it isn’t.
…on the art world’s deadening ideological lockstep:
Evidence:- It’s not art if I don’t like the artists politics.
Peter Thiel’s gay membership has been revoked. It seems that merely having “gay sex” isn’t enough to make one “gay” without the accompanying political stance. Does this conversely mean I can claim to be gay without ever having had same-sex intercourse, or will I just be guilty of appropriation?
“People paid money to go to a comedy show and found themselves in a political Q&A session. No wonder there was booing.”
And so the goal posts have to move, and keep moving, leading to ever greater contrivance and ever more absurd definitions of oppression.
Thus we eagerly await the appearance of “nano-aggressions” followed by “pico-aggressions.”
I hadn’t realised where Mindy Kaling got her stage name from before.
One of the most recent efforts of the left is the spread of laws and policies that forbid employers from asking job applicants whether they have been arrested or imprisoned.
Ah yes, this is like the law in France which banned photos on CVs because employers were discriminating against people of North African origin. Fortunately with this law now in place there is no longer any way by which employers can differentiate between Mohammed El-Hajaf and Jean-Pierre Leroux when it comes to hiring.
So he decided to pretend he was African-American.
He looks very Indian to me.
He looks very Indian to me.
According to his book, he used his middle name, shaved his hair, trimmed his eyelashes and joined the Organisation of Black Students.
He looks very Indian to me.
That’s the beauty of his “experiment.” Can you imagine the outcry had anyone suggested he didn’t look “black” enough? Identity politics enables its own destruction because it becomes impossible to police actual identity.
Identity politics enables its own destruction because it becomes impossible to police actual identity.
I’ve been trying to identify as a multi-billionaire for years, but sadly it isn’t working.
the spread of laws and policies that forbid employers from asking job applicants whether they have been arrested or imprisoned.
Because knowing less is always a good thing.
More evidence: Art Critics are literally signalling their status by their admiration of modern art.
We argue that this deviation is consistent with a Coevolutionary Aesthetics mechanism driven by prestige-biased social learning among art experts….
Furthermore, our findings provide initial support for our proposal that prestige-driven coevolution with expert evaluations plays a decisive role in modern art’s deviation from naturally selected preferences.
And they prefer ugliness to beauty too…
Because knowing less is always a good thing.
It’s a strange conceit, the idea that employers shouldn’t be interested in whether potential employees have a criminal history and might therefore be more likely to, say, assault someone or steal from them.
‘But the political left is so heavily invested in blaming racism that mere facts are unlikely to change their minds.’
The political left is heavily invested in blaming almost any ‘ism’ for almost anything, it seems to me: http://bit.ly/2cQt37l
“We’re starting anarchy here.”
http://therightscoop.com/breaking-james-okeefe-releases-new-video-hillary-dnc-inciting-violence-trump-rallies/
It’s a strange conceit…
Of course, the worthies have abolished the legal doctrine of respondeat superior and torts based upon “negligent hiring” to protect employers who are now forbidden from vetting new hires, right? Right!?!
“We’re starting anarchy here.”
The question that comes to mind is… at what point can we use the word evil…?
The question that comes to mind is… at what point can we use the word evil…?
“Because this is technically… voter fraud.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDc8PVCvfKs
Meanwhile,
Again, at what point can we use the word evil…?
“To be white is to be racist, period.”
Sounds like the basis of a federal lawsuit for racial discrimination. Punch back twice as hard.
To be white is to be racist, period.
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb then. I wonder (not really) whether the promoters of this nonsense ever consider the consequences if enough white people decide to embrace this sentiment. If we can’t do anything about it anyway, then why not? To thine own self be true!
When I was younger I went through an lefty-environmentalist/world-conspiracy phase but I couldn’t escape my desire for logic which was always desperately pleading for some data in which to reason with.
Once I came across things like Professor McCarthy’s page about the Sustainability of Human Progress it was impossible to go back. You couldn’t move the goalposts any further. Most if not all of these leftists are equally capable of this kind of reasoning. But as the Professor says “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense“.
That’s the beauty of his “experiment.” Can you imagine the outcry had anyone suggested he didn’t look “black” enough? Identity politics enables its own destruction because it becomes impossible to police actual identity.
Reminds me of when John Safran did a “Black Like Me” thing for a TV show. He “passed”, as it were, in large part because no-one could quite bring themselves to say, “You don’t look like a black guy.”
At least, that’s how I remember it. Here’s the episode, if anybody’s interested.
This is one of the few blogs where the comments are (mostly) worth reading.
“”To be white is to be racist, period.”
Sounds like the basis of a federal lawsuit for racial discrimination. Punch back twice as hard.”
Well, if possible. Might seem hypocritical , but “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Marx was wrong shock!
https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/788552667224088577
“To be white is to be racist, period.”
To which the proper response is, “So?”
but “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The problem with that is that it works poorly with the left. The only rule for the left is that the end justifies the means. Arguably, therefore, the left always lives up to its own book of rules.
This also has the advantage of explaining a lot of the left’s behavior, including its being seemingly impervious to cognitive dissonance. So “Don’t vote for Trump because he’s an asshole who makes uncouth statements about women” cannot be countered by the equally truthful “Don’t vote for Hillary Clinton because she is the enabler and defender of a serial groper and probable rapist.”
Holy crap …awesome smack down of the whole cultural-appropriation scam.
awesome smack down of the whole cultural-appropriation scam.
Nicely done.
awesome smack down of the whole cultural-appropriation scam.
I can’t help wondering what happened next. Did the person complaining about “cultural appropriation” offer some devastating riposte, or did they concede the point? Or did they just retreat while convinced they were right and the other person ignorant, possibly racist, all argument to the contrary? As blather about “cultural appropriation” tends to be done ostentatiously, for reasons of social positioning, my guess would be option three.
Someone else has noticed the way”art” is going:http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-culture-of-complaint-guerrilla-girls-tate
Tim Newman has spotted a development of possible interest:
Remember, class. If you start with a faulty premise, then stick with it, the errors will multiply.
Remember, class. If you start with a faulty premise, then stick with it, the errors will multiply.
This reminds me of a thread from a few months ago: https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2016/08/youre-doing-it-all-wrong.html
So, “If you are only attracted to able, ‘mentally well’, cis, normatively beautiful people, from class privileged backgrounds, then you are upholding violent norms.” Now we can add violating the fundamental human right to reproduce to the ever-increasing list of grievances.
This reminds me of a thread from a few months ago
That one was fun.
Important considerations.
![](http://assets.amuniversal.com/31da80d071670134d5fd005056a9545d)
European nations at odds over whether Brexit is masculine or feminine
In one of the most unexpected arguments over the UK’s decision to leave the European Union France, Germany, Spain and Italy are locked in a battle over how Brexit should be pronounced.
“Patriarchy — that impregnable citadel of male privilege and the object of so much feminist anger and hatred — turned out to be a paper tiger”
Indeed. It was only ever a threat to women in the minds of feminists. A strawman is always made of straw.