Elsewhere (195)
College Fix on the attempted indoctrination of middle school 12-year-olds:
A Tampa, Florida, mother was livid after her seventh grade daughter brought home an assignment – from her Spanish class – asking about students’ so-called privilege.
Apparently, being a white-skinned child automatically means you’re “privileged” and by implication guilty. The teacher in question also felt that the 12-year-old children should announce whether they were intersex or “genderqueer.” Somewhat related, the second item here.
Peter Fricke finds the obligatory campus blather about “diversity” somewhat superficial:
Unable to prevent Ben Shapiro from speaking at Penn State despite aggressive chanting, student protestors vented their frustration by defacing flyers and throwing papers on the floor.
There’s more, but the self-righteous littering pretty much sums it up. Shapiro’s talk, video of which is here, was on what happens when “diversity” ideology and leftist censoriousness stifle free speech and intellectual pluralism. An irony that may have escaped the protesting students, who were busy feeling pleased with themselves while threatening violence if the talk didn’t stop and drawing swastikas on the face of a Jewish visitor.
And in entirely unrelated news, the Wall Street Journal reports:
More than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government’s main student-loan program aren’t making payments or are behind on more than $200 billion owed, raising worries that millions of them may never repay.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
drawing swastikas on the face of a Jewish visitor.
The classy left.
The classy left.
They’re protesting against “hate speech” via the medium of littering. And vandalism. And mob intimidation. And by indulging in racialised graffiti. And by shouting “Come out here, bitch!”
Feel the love.
On the subject of sexual discrimination I was doing some….er…research……for a friend.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/230804/
Incidentally, if you’ve the time, the Ben Shapiro video is worth watching in full. It’s quite an odd experience, seeing someone trying to give a lecture above a mob din and while looking over his shoulder every time the lecture hall door bursts open in case one of the screaming idiots outside, the ones threatening violence, is going to try to physically attack him. And I have to remind myself that this is happening at a prestigious university, a supposed place of learning, in 21st century America.
They drew swastikas on a visitor’s face? Actually, or a picture of the visitor?
Because the former… Well. There’d be fisticuffs.
or a picture of the visitor?
Just the flyers and posters, thankfully. But hey, it’s the thought that counts.
Regarding Shapiro’s speech, the related article on the near-‘riot’ at CSULA is filled with gems
http://campusreform.org/?ID=7345
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have the right to free speech or to speak here, but a lot of what he says sounds like hate speech.”
Dr. Robert Weide—a sociology professor at CSULA who had challenged Shapiro’s supporters to fight him in the school gym while warning that “I lift bro”
In case anyone doubts Weide’s intellectual prowess form a further click-through:
“Dr. Robert Weide, a sociology professor at Cal State LA, claimed that Shapiro’s rhetoric, through his denial of this systemic racism, is hate speech.”
Wow. Just wow.
CSU-LA is where you go when you’re too stupid to get into USC, never mind UCLA.
Affirmative Action in action.
A Tampa, Florida, mother was livid after her seventh grade daughter brought home an assignment – from her Spanish class – asking about students’ so-called privilege.
Make no mistake. In American colleges of “education,” students are required to express fidelity to an SJW curriculum which pervades every subject and every class year from primary school up. The teacher in question may be reassigned to a different school within the district until the furor dies down, but such “lessons” will continue in other courses. The answer is not in protests or complains. The answer–if you want your child to actually learn Spanish–is to remove your child from the public school system.
“Dr. Robert Weide, a sociology professor at Cal State LA, claimed that Shapiro’s rhetoric, through his denial of this systemic racism, is hate speech.”
Translation: “He’s using facts and statistics to make us look like the stupid liars we are.”
The Shapiro video is great. 🙂
The Shapiro video is great. 🙂
It does address some quite common conceits. And as so often with these kinds of protests, the contrast speaks for itself. On one side there’s someone articulating a position using logic and evidence, and inviting audience questions, which are answered at length. And on the other side, a wailing mob of narcissistic mediocrities making threats and scrawling graffiti, while exulting in an entirely unearned sense of virtue.
Ultimate white guilt:
“I don’t feel anger against my rapist, because I look at him as a product of an unjust world.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/ultimate_white_guilt/
Anna, it’s worse than that. ‘Dr’ Weide doesn’t even acknowledge any facts (‘rhetoric’), merely asserting that disagreement with strongly-held views is enough to count as hate-speech…
David, “the contrast speaks for itself” – so much this.
so much this.
Well, the contrast is now a standard feature of student protest and pretty hard to miss, and what it says about the protestors is fairly unambiguous. The participants imagine themselves as intellectuals and you’d think that at some point the whole thing would just be embarrassing. Though that presupposes an appreciation of realism and some personal growth.
[ Added: ]
I suppose it’s another example of why leftism is very bad for analytic thought and mental autonomy in general. Evidently, the protesting students, whose attitudes and slogans have been encouraged by left-leaning educators, have not been taught to be wary of self-flattering arguments and wallowing in glib self-exaltation. And on which, oddly enough, leftism is psychologically premised.
And on which, oddly enough, leftism is psychologically premised.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
The fact of the matter is, the Humanities as areas of serious study are dead, and I speak as one with multiple literature degrees. Fortunately, I left academe about the time the rot began to set in. I would have loved to be a be-cardiganed, pipe smoking professor of German literature, but by the time I was staring at a potential Ph.D., nobody cared about 16th and 17th century German poets. Faust was deemed irrelevant for B.A.s in German, for heaven’s sake. Absent an “SJW” angle to one’s “research,” there were no career prospects, and that was in the early 1980s.
“But Is It True? – The Research of Aaron Wildavsky Twenty Years Later” by Dr. Tim Ball
The quote from H.L. Mencken “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” still holds true if one substitutes “modern university teaching in non-STEM subjects” for “practical politics”.
“Ultimate white guilt” and “wallowing in glib self-exaltation” are both manifestations of the same delusion, part of which supposes this ‘privilege’ which we white folks apparently have in spades (I’m sorry, just couldn’t help it. I hereby denounce myself).
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Karsten Nordal Hauken that his rapist was one of a criminal minority and that there will be other Somalian men, refugees or not, who won’t engage in violent criminal acts. It’s an arrogant and fundamentally (sorry) racist assumption, and he is also being arrogant- “This happened to me because not enough of us care, m’kay?”
This isn’t a case of Harken turning the other cheek (There I go again. I’m sorry, OK? I’ll report to the Correction Booth as soon as I’m done typing this), it’s a case of him jumping up and down going “Whoop-de-do! Look at me everybody! I’m a metaphor!”.
“imagine themselves intellectuals” – quite. It’s tribalism with a veneer of intellectualism-by-association.
There’s no attempt to actually convince the people they are protesting against, it’s playing out the herioc narrative of sticking it to The Man. So steeped in catastrophic narrative of a grand conspiracy that there’s no point to actually think about what’s going on. It’s just violent mobs trying to bludgeon their way to presumed superiority, convinced that a few navel-gazing social studies educators agreeing with them somehow justifies any action they choose to take.
At present rate … the left and the right in America will be shooting at each other in the very near future … it’s coming because the left will not longer allow the right to ever speak. That is a damned good reason to start the shooting. It’s about freedom of speech at it’s most basic. The war with the left has also become part of the war on terror since the left employs a faggoty form of terror at Trump rallies and support the muslims in their much grander form of terror.
Bang Bang Unicorns.
There’s no attempt to actually convince the people they are protesting against
Of course not. In a battle of wits and mustering of facts, who do you think would win? (See also the attempts to shut down talks by Janice Fiamengo, David Horowitz, Milo Yiannopoulos, etc.)
And so it’s chiefly a mix of grandstanding and psychodrama with lots of exciting mob thuggery and attempts to intimidate. And the preferred tactic – the mob dynamic – offers lots of moral anonymity, cover under which one can misbehave, which for certain kinds of personalities is very useful indeed. Typically, the argument – or rather, the rhetorical ruse – is “I am being oppressed by your reference to reality, which makes me virtuous, and therefore I am entitled to behave obnoxiously.” Or, “Being virtuous and heroic, I am acting on behalf of people who are being oppressed by your reference to reality and therefore I am entitled to behave obnoxiously.”
That these ruses and their variants tend to lead to the same conclusion – a presumed entitlement to break things and scare people, and thwart them, and make them fear for their safety – is what gives the game away.
It’s hard for me to tell since I finished college (mumble) years ago. Is this just a small minority getting the attention or is this a majority of the student body? When I was in school, 90% of us would have ignored BS like this and just gone on about our daily life. Granted it was an engineering school in the American south so there wasn’t much in the way of hardcore moonbats there.
Is this just a small minority getting the attention or is this a majority of the student body?
Usually, it’s a minority – ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred students – but it’s a minority that has disproportionate influence among administrators and Clown Quarter faculty, and which is often indulged and encouraged in ways that would be unthinkable if the mobbing and disruption were being done by non-leftists. (See, for instance, the Janice Fiamengo video linked above. See also these examples of opportunist racial thuggery, which were subsequently excused and applauded by left-leaning members of staff.)
“In a battle of wits and mustering of facts, who do you think would win?” sure, granted. It just constantly amazes me that people can spend so much time and emotional energy on something they consider so important, and not notice that it’s not just unproductive, in that no-one will listen to a mob shouting slogans abstracted into meaninglessness, but counter-productive. In that the mob thuggery and grand-standing makes them a more obvious and immediate problem than the subtle, systematic and unconscious discrimination they’re trying to eliminate.
I know, I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore….
It just constantly amazes me…
Yes, on one level it’s staggering in its obliviousness. But self-awareness and narcissism rarely go together.
“a wailing mob of narcissistic mediocrities making threats and scrawling graffiti”
Have to disagree with you there; these mutts have a lot of work ahead to even achieve mediocrity.
..but it’s a minority that has disproportionate influence among administrators and Clown Quarter faculty…
Largely because they themselves came from that same loudmouth minority.
But self-awareness and narcissism rarely go together.
It is a sub-set of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
“There’s no attempt to actually convince the people they are protesting against”
That’s how the Left behaved in the sixties too. So this is nothing new. The only difference is that today the Stalinists are running the universities.
“student protestors vented their frustration by defacing flyers and throwing papers on the floor.”
Also their toys out of their prams. These kids need to do some growing up.
Seriously. I don’t just say that as my own knee-jerk reaction. Nobody is ever likely to take them seriously if that’s all they’ve got.
I saw it with my own eyes last night at the Grassroots Out meeting in Glasgow. Bunch of Lefties outside chanting… something or other. Couldn’t make it out. A few of them made it past the (light) security into the hall. And started yelling about “racism” before anyone had even spoken, so got chucked out.
Had they actually bothered to sit quietly and listen to the speakers, they might have noticed that a great deal more time was devoted to the contradictory position of the SNP and the bureaucratic nature of the European Commission than anything involving immigration. And the speaker who droned on the longest about it (“driving down wages for British workers” and all that) was some class-warrior nutcase from a trades union who nearly sent me to sleep.
But no. They’d already made up their minds. Remind you of anyone?
OfayCat | April 08, 2016 at 15:32:
For each of the last 11 months, firearms sales in the U.S. have set a record for that month. (Measured by number of NICS background checks.) The last four months were the highest and 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest ever. Increases over previous year:
December … 43.51%
January …… 43.60%
February ….. 40.56%
March ……… 25.40%
However, I don’t think many of these sales are to leftists. So “at each other” may not be accurate…
Grassroots Out meeting in Glasgow
They’re protesting gay events now?
That these ruses and their variants tend to lead to the same conclusion – a presumed entitlement to break things and scare people, and thwart them, and make them fear for their safety – is what gives the game away.
That.
That.
Well, while the Clown Quarter of academia is the left’s proving ground and fiefdom, where leftist ideas are developed, institutionalised and prevail all but unopposed, it’s also where the incoherence and absurdity – and the underlying malice – are most vividly revealed. It tells us quite a lot about who they are, and who they would be, given power.
“However, I don’t think many of these sales are to leftists. So “at each other” may not be accurate…”
I’d bet many of them are. Suppressing counter revolutionaries and all that.
Don’t worry Obama will forgive those student loans. Small problem with those students who actually try to pay back these loans, but I’m sure something will be worked out.
When I went to university in the 70’s all but two university newspapers were leftist rags.
At present rate … the left and the right in America will be shooting at each other in the very near future …
Or, certainly, in America the left and right wing liberal extremes have already started shouting at each other past the rest of us in the middle . . .
Situations like this in the US do rather help delineate the gulfs that separate us in the center from both of those bookending loony extremes . . . Where yes, in the UK it’s easier to note the right wing liberals being UKIP and other lot on the right, the Conservatives in the centerIsh, the left wing liberals then off to the left . . . .
Tabletop gaming, harassment, and “white male terrorism”
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/7/11371194/tabletop-harassment-malifaux-controversy
“They’re protesting gay events now?”
Heh. 🙂 Sorry. Forgot we’ve got furriners here. It’s (one of) the anti-EU campaigns for the forthcoming referendum in the UK.
Tabletop gaming, harassment, and “white male terrorism”
Evidently there is no hobby geeky and insular enough to avoid the baleful lecturing of these narcissistic control freaks. Somebody please get me off this gay earth.
It’s (one of) the anti-EU campaigns for the forthcoming referendum in the UK.
Yeah, with this issue, even the Royals are getting involved, with Prince Phillip selected to take the lead in keeping the UK in the EU . . .
From that link by Isneezeinthrees:
“Garland’s post identifies three major areas of concern for women and genderqueer tabletop gamers”
We’ve reached peak nerd.
We’ve reached peak nerd.
I read the post. I found this quote interesting:
“The majority of gamers do not engage in online terrorism, but are instead complicit in lower levels of harassment.”
Her experiences consist of harassment at a place of work and sexual assault at a sci-fi convention, as well as a single player of a single game . . . a board game played by people who are not controlled or policed in any way by the game’s manufacturers. Yet, this is sufficient to label an entire group with the SJW epithets one can conjure up.
And this:
“Responses were civil and ranged from a thoughtful discussion of inclusivity to a collection of boob jokes. Garland said she felt belittled. . .”
She felt “belittled” by civil responses?
Basically, her beef seems to be that people just want to enjoy themselves and not jump onto her SJW bandwagon. Therefore, there is a “systemic” problem.
As someone once said, “you will be made to care.”
Seems a good time to re-post a link to this.
As I said at the time, it’s sort of ‘Borg hive mind meets amateur dramatics.’
Triggered: The Board Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE9mswQbz6M
Re Dr Robert Weide, mentioned upthread, this seems relevant. Because nothing says “responsible adult educator” like trying to shut down a lecture in favour of free speech, and then vandalising other people’s property like a tantruming child, while denouncing other people – those opposed to thuggery and in favour of open debate – as “fascists.” This is the same Dr Robert Weide who was keen to fight students who disagreed with him, boasting, “I lift, bro.”
And these are the tactics that our leftist intellectual, our professor of sociology, finds righteous and exciting. You see, if you can’t get a free speech event cancelled by invoking pretentious victimhood and making pre-emptive threats of violence, you can always obstruct and barricade every entrance to the venue and physically intimidate and forcibly repel anyone who tries to get in. Say, by assaulting people and pushing them underfoot and then kicking them. While campus security do nothing.
Note the rather symbolic exchange filmed outside the venue, starting around 9:09, in which one of the protestors mouths the usual witless slogans about discussion being “violence” and then pointedly turns his back on the person he’s supposedly debating, so as to show his virtue in not listening to people who might show him to be wrong. Or, in fact, an idiot.
It’s the new intelligentsia, people, as developed by the left. And as you can see, they’re such sweet and delicate creatures.
Brexit/Royals: I note that the Grauniad is just fine with a “potential constitutional crisis”, just so long as it’s for their “team”.
If the Duke of whatever came out publicly in favor of leaving, think he’d get such mild treatment?
“In a battle of wits and mustering of facts, who do you think would win?” sure, granted. It just constantly amazes me that people can spend so much time and emotional energy on something they consider so important, and not notice that it’s not just unproductive, in that no-one will listen to a mob shouting slogans abstracted into meaninglessness, but counter-productive. In that the mob thuggery and grand-standing makes them a more obvious and immediate problem than the subtle, systematic and unconscious discrimination they’re trying to eliminate.
Of course, they continue to use these tactics, not because they’ve failed, but because they have been enormously successful. Pretty much every institution, where SJWs have launched violent protests against people or ideas, has caved in to them. To paraphrase Clausewitz, it’s the continuation of politics by other means.
they continue to use these tactics, not because they’ve failed, but because they have been enormously successful
And as any parent should know, they will only stop their delinquent misbehaviour when it starts to cost them something – and their faculty enablers. Lawsuits, expulsions, loss of alumni donors, some high-profile firings, things like that.
And as any parent should know, they will only stop their delinquent misbehaviour when it starts to cost them something – and their faculty enablers. Lawsuits, expulsions, loss of alumni donors, some high-profile firings, things like that.
Sadly, the chances of that happening in the current climate are probably around zero. Another example of tolerance and love of free speech on campus