Elsewhere (250)
Heather Mac Donald on “diversity” voodoo’s encroachment on science and technology:
Columbia’s vice provost for faculty diversity and inclusion regurgitates another classic of diversity boilerplate to justify this enormous waste of funds. “The reality is that you can’t really achieve excellence without diversity. It requires diverse thought to solve complex problems,” says vice provost Dennis Mitchell. Mitchell’s statement is ludicrous on multiple fronts. Aside from the fact that the one thing never sought in the academic diversity hustle is “diverse thought,” do Mitchell and his compatriots in the diversity industry believe that females and underrepresented minorities solve analytical problems differently from males, whites, and Asians?
Somewhat related, this. It’s remarkable just how readily all of this “diversity” and wokeness boils down to a mental image of a teacher turning to one of his students and saying, “You, the brown boy. What’s the negro perspective on this engineering problem?”
See also this, added via the comments.
Arthur Sakamoto on what happens when you challenge the racial assumptions entrenched in sociology departments:
People are afraid to critique this paradigm [of “white privilege” and systemic racism] because it’s so ideologically popular. Privately, some people have told me that [by challenging it,] I’m, quote, “suicidal.” […] I’ll be frank with you — I’ve been submitting to the American Sociological Review on Asian Americans for the past 25 years and apparently there’s no data good enough to convince the reviewers that Asian Americans have reached parity with respect to white people. Every single one gets rejected. What happens is, when the paper doesn’t conform to the conventional wisdom [of “white privilege”], the methodological standards are raised. But if you argue that there is discrimination, then the methodological standards are relaxed.
Mark McGreal and Richard Sander on what happens when you question the effectiveness of “affirmative action”:
“Michael Schill (the former dean of the UCLA Law School) told me privately that he thought it was a breakthrough study,” Sander said. But after it was published, Sander said that Schill sent an email to the student body suggesting “there are those of us who seriously question the credibility of this research.” Sander cited additional examples in which editors of peer-reviewed journals, including one at the University of Pennsylvania, told him privately they would publish his study, then later had to back out due to their financial backers’ dislike of the content of the study’s findings.
And Ed Driscoll quotes Mark Lilla’s book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics:
As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate. Over the past decade a new, and very revealing, locution has drifted from our universities into the media mainstream: Speaking as an X…This is not an anodyne phrase. It sets up a wall against any questions that come from a non-X perspective. Classroom conversations that once might have begun, I think A, and here is my argument, now take the form, Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B. What replaces argument, then, are taboos against unfamiliar ideas and contrary opinions.
What we’re seeing is an attempt to obscure an underlying vanity and pompousness – essentially, “How dare you question my unimpressive ideas?” Which, stated plainly, would invite derision. Instead, however, the phrasing is, “How dare you question my cartoonish identity, my pretence of victimhood, my vast, unknowable brownness?” A framing that is so emotionally theatrical and personalised, and often so baffling, as to discourage further challenge, even though the dynamic, and the intent, is basically the same.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
It’s remarkable just how readily all of this “diversity” and wokeness boils down to a mental image of a teacher turning to one of his students and saying, “You, the brown boy. What’s the negro perspective on this engineering problem?”
That. Remind me again who the racists are…
That. Remind me again who the racists are…
And that’s the thing. If you tease out the implications of “diversity” ideology, it all sounds rather archaic and absurd, and just a tad racist. And taken to its ideological conclusion, you end up in some very strange places.
Also from the Heather Mac Donald piece, this:
Note how the university’s “diversity” bureaucrats casually insult large swathes of their “community.”
And from the same, this:
Again, note the diversi-crat’s casual patronising of female engineers, or astronomers, or whatever. As if the girly engineers can’t cut it without expensive bureaucratic hand-holding. Because all those smelly boys will just put them off.
The real problem with sexism and racism is that they are justified, a fact which even this courageous blog and its commenters sidle around.
Blacks and women, statistically, are not as good as white males at mathematically based disciplines like engineering, Jews and Orientals are better. All the bureaucratic help in the universe won’t change genes so as to raise IQ and create a work ethic.
Years ago in the course of an honours math degree I proved to myself that I had at best a second class mathematical mind. I also found that the 5 students from the faculty of education sent over to sit in on my 1st year algebra class had third or forth class brains. One man, four women, none of them able to comprehend more than the simplest algebraic concepts.
We all claim to believe in biology and evolution and then ignore them, or even heap scorn on them, or their necessary implications. If perhaps 30% of white males have the ability to do serious engineering, Orientals and Jews have 35 or 40% and Black men have 15 or 20%, with women at perhaps 40% of those percentages, what are the implications? They are so obvious and painful we can’t even bear to look at them. Yet.
Because all those smelly boys will just put them off.
I’ve mentioned on these pages before, my son is a maths and engineering student at a STEM university with a 65/35 male to female ratio among the student body. His favorite professor is a women in her sixties, who is deeply beloved by the mostly male students who flock to her classes. She also happens to be the most demanding professor in the department. Evidently, the students are not “woke” enough to get beyond merely respecting and rewarding competence in order to see her as demographic box which must be checked.
It’s remarkable just how readily all of this “diversity” and wokeness boils down to a mental image of a teacher turning to one of his students and saying, “You, the brown boy. What’s the negro perspective on this engineering problem?”
I think you already answered that.
I will now go denounce myself as a rayciss white devil (BIRM).
I don’t think I saw a single female lecturer in the engineering school during my four years at Manchester. There was a lady teaching a business module, and I only remember this because I suspected my mate was shagging her.
I suspect the desired solution for “white privilege” is forced confiscation of white property and assets and redistribution. You know, for “justice.”
In fact, I’m sure that sends a thrill up the leg of every campus sociologist. It’s probably pillow talk among themselves.
But how’s that working out in Zimbabwe?
The secret of success is singleness of purpose, not diversity. Which means that a group, to be successful, has to be uniform in cultural values, like the US, or the British Empire (formerly). Saying that diversity brings strength is like mixing clay with steel. Yes, it is diverse, but your bridge won’t remain standing.
I don’t see the two as necessarily being in opposition, Douglas. I’ve been part of teams where having a diversity of perspectives came in really handy, as somebody would come up with a solution to a problem that would never have occurred to me. The trick is that our diverse players were all focused on the mission at hand (singleness of purpose, in your words), as opposed to each player being focused on “winning” the diversity jackpot as part of a zero-sum game.
If the various Angry Studies graduates brought practical creative problem-solving skills to the table, we’d happily review their resumes and bring them in for interviews. Unfortunately for all concerned, they’re not at all interested in solving problems, but rather in creating stupid new problems for which Danegeld is always their suggested solution.
Of course, if you ask them, their resumes aren’t binned because they’re all toxic mediocrities; it’s because the rest of us are blinkered bourgeois bigots. Thus, we must be forced to hire them into our organizations. It’s for our own good, really. A dose of medicine to cure our outdated modes of thinking, focused as they are upon such petty interests as “creating valuable products” and “turning a profit.”
“That is the reality”
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/919383714492116993
“Because all those smelly boys will just put them off.”
A young woman I know peripherally decided to transition to male (I don’t know what the current status is, though). Apparently s/he had gotten to the point where s/he was disgusted by the antics/visuals seen in the male locker/dressing room.
A young woman I know peripherally decided to transition to male… Apparently s/he had gotten to the point where s/he was disgusted by the antics/visuals seen in the male locker/dressing room.
I’m not sure I understand that combination of sentences.
We are doomed.
“The reality is that you can’t really achieve excellence without diversity.”
I’ll just leave this here.
I.e., once s/he was able to access male-only areas due to her trans status s/he was appalled at the icky behavior of the smelly boys.
I.e., once s/he was able to access male-only areas…
Oh, I see. Derp.
I’m not going to ask about the, um, antics.
I suspect there might have been copious proud farting and other crudities.
proud farting and other crudities.
And people laughed when I said the bowls of trail mix also double as potpourri.
Unfortunately for all concerned, they’re not at all interested in solving problems, but rather in creating stupid new problems for which Danegeld is always their suggested solution.
So it’s not about the nail?
I’ve been part of teams where having a diversity of perspectives came in really handy, as somebody would come up with a solution to a problem that would never have occurred to me. The trick is that our diverse players were all focused on the mission at hand (singleness of purpose, in your words), as opposed to each player being focused on “winning” the diversity jackpot as part of a zero-sum game.
Bingo.
The point of genuine and viable diversity is always to have on hand the possible variety of doing whatever is being worked on, to always get the best ideas in play while never forgetting that the only constant is change.
The mere identity of the source of an idea remains irrelevant as long as the idea works . . .
—And yes, what equally pisses off the right wing is that the mere ideology of some idea will also remain utterly irrelevant.
—Whether the mere right wing liberal and the fantasy of faith and ideology, or the mere left wing liberal and fantasy of the idealized identity, either and both will continue to get eclipsed by the conservative focus on just getting whatever done.
I’ll just leave this here.
Quite So—
What do you like doing in your spare time?
I read French literature and calculate satellite azimuth angles. . . . . .
Heh.
I’ll just leave this here.
One notices the abundance of neckties in the room. To borrow a bit from Sam Johnson: “Nothing sharpens the mind like a noose around one’s neck.”
A demonstration of the success of actual diversity, rather than the left wing variety . . .
To Fred Z: Unfortunately, even you do not state the truth.
You postulate perhaps 30% of white males have the ability to do serious engineering, Orientals and Jews have 35 or 40% and Black men have 15 or 20%, with women at perhaps 40% of those percentages.
The truth is actually much more lopsided than that. If it were true, then those percentages would be evident in the STEM classes. As a matter of fact, your average STEM class has perhaps a quarter or a fifth white, with the rest Asians. You would rarely find a black. That is the fact, whatever the reason. Part of it has to be the abysmal conditions of the schools in predominantly black areas, but that is probably not the major reason. But yes, I believe a big part of it is genetic, just as genetics is why three quarters of the NFL is black, and nine tenths of the NBA.
I have known just a few black engineers in my career. Most of them are very competent. One I especially relied on. But they were few and far between. However, the only one who made it to a management position had no such ability, but managed to BS himself to his position in the affirmative action climate. The others really prefer engineering, and were no different than all the other math nerds and lab rats.
We were nerds long before programmers existed.
And they are less and less comfortable with debate.
This is something I have increasingly found. The Daily Californian, the student newspaper for the University of California at Berkeley, regularly runs editorials saying that there’s no such thing as free speech, and speech is violence if used against the oppressed, and so on on.
So I’ll rebut, politely and coherently. I’m trying to convince, not bully.
I rarely get a response, and if I do get a one it’s invariably vacuous and abusive, a transparent attempt to sideline the discussion.
So what’s happening? Is no one in one of the most prestigious universities in the world capable of responding to disagreement in a constructive manner?
My guess is this — they can’t defend a position because they don’t know how. They haven’t been trained to argue, only to posture.
When I do teach classes, the female students let me know how much they appreciate seeing a woman in front of their classroom
If I were a woman and were stepping into an area with few of them, I might appreciate having a few authoritative women around, just as if I were from Luxembourg and watching the Olympics I might appreciate having a few medal winners from Luxembourg there. But that’s as far as it goes.
First shared some time ago, but not entirely unrelated:
I can’t say things have improved in the five years since that was posted.
My guess is this — they can’t defend a position because they don’t know how. They haven’t been trained to argue, only to posture.
Well, that’s the basic dynamic of identity politics, and no doubt its appeal. It short-circuits the customary obligation to be rational, or knowledgable, or to address an issue dispassionately, independently of oneself and one’s own immediate preferences. Almost anything can be dismissed as a personal affront, and any questioning of that display of offendedness, however dubious or dishonest the offendedness may be, is itself considered offensive, and therefore taboo. And so you can see the appeal, especially for people who struggle to construct convincing arguments.
The irony being that the people who bang on about their identity and race, and their all-excusing victimhood, at every opportunity, are much more likely to be bigoted and insufferable than those who don’t. And so you can find self-styled “anti-racists” who deploy racial epithets with hair-trigger enthusiasm. As when Ian Miles Cheong parsed some “social justice” hokum and was immediately referred to as a “house chink,” or Dr Ben Carson being gleefully disdained as an “Uncle Tom” and a “house negro.” Or as the leftist Daily Kos put it, a “political Mandingo.” “He can shine my shoes,” quipped the ‘progressive’ comedian Laura Levites.
Apropos of this:
they can’t defend a position because they don’t know how. They haven’t been trained to argue, only to posture.
I yesterday came across this article and heaved deep sighs of disappointment with the state of things:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/traditional-college-debate-white-privilege/360746/
I yesterday came across this article and heaved deep sighs of disappointment with the state of things
We touched on that here. Apparently, these budding intellectuals are “hacking traditional college debate’s white privilege problem” by mouthing gibberish, hyperventilating, and repeatedly invoking their “nigga authenticity.” And of course begging questions at a rate of knots. For those who missed the edifying spectacle, here’s a brief transcript of the “debate”:
I must confess, I’m not sure how to respond to that. Which I suppose is the idea.
I yesterday came across this article and heaved deep sighs of disappointment with the state of things:
Actually, the above “debate” is quite symbolic of the broader Angry Studies hustle. Credulous and ungifted students are being told, by ungifted educators, that the way to win a debate and to establish one’s intellectual heft, is to retreat into a degrading racial caricature, a cartoonish pantomime of blackness, complete with actual jabbering, while ignoring the ostensible topic, disregarding the rules for reciprocation, and shouting profanities at the moderators. As if this behaviour, for which they’re applauded by their peers, will serve them well in the adult world. Say, when looking for a job.
And so we have pseudo-students who are laughably unsuited to an academic environment receiving a pseudo-education that’s intellectually vacuous and actually hinders their chances in life, thanks to incompetent and dogmatic pseudo-educators, all bankrolled with loans that may never be repaid. If it weren’t actually happening, for real, at great expense, it would be darkly hilarious.
Which I suppose is the idea.
Orwell. Control the language. They’re taking it a step further by essentially owning it. Words mean whatever they want them to mean and if you fail to understand them, better for them and aren’t you the stupid one. At which point the only means of effective communication that are left are the physical ones.
Our legal system is effectively playing the same game, only a bit more subtly.
I must confess, I’m not sure how to respond to that.
“Which would you like first, to see the neurologist, or the speech therapist ?”
. . . that the way to win a debate and to establish one’s intellectual heft, is to retreat into a degrading racial caricature, a cartoonish pantomime . . . while ignoring the ostensible topic, disregarding the rules for reciprocation, and shouting profanities at the moderators. As if this behaviour, for which they’re applauded by their peers, will serve them well in the adult world. Say, when looking for a job.
No jerks.
—Following up on when that was written, Laurie Voss is now the COO of NPM Inc.
I yesterday came across this article and heaved deep sighs of disappointment with the state of things
I found the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8&feature=youtu.be&t=40
I’m genuinely shocked.
I’m genuinely shocked.
It’s intellectual vandalism dressed up as some kind of Ultimate Woke Championship. And naturally, the left-leaning Atlantic swoons with approval.
But for the minority students who participate in this farce – and who simply ignore the issue they’re supposed to debate, and ignore time limits, and ignore any semblance of logic or evidence or formal argument, and spout what is for minutes on end literal gibberish, a kind of Dadaist jive – for these students, what’s the message they’re being given here?
Because it seems to me that the lesson they’re expected to take away is that all rules can be broken with impunity, and all standards and proprieties dispensed with as and when convenient, provided you’re sufficiently black and pretend to be oppressed, while actually being cossetted and flattered at every turn. This is not, I suspect, a recipe for success in the world, or for any lasting personal happiness.
Somewhat related:
Anthropologists tell us that science isn’t real:
https://twitter.com/Alec_Ksiazek/status/918511763326406657
This “social construct” BS is getting real old. Social constructs are a social construct. Yes, that’s so obvious it’s almost stupid to say. Almost, and yet seemingly necessary.
I found the video.
Wow.
Wow.
Yes, it’s quite a thing to behold.
Perhaps it’s just me, but the indulgence of this half-witted claptrap seems a tad condescending. Sort of, “If you can’t actually structure a rational argument, never mind. Just keep shouting ‘racist!’ and flap your arms about.”
Dadaist Jive
Album title sorted.
I do hope someone’s been compiling all our band name and album title ideas.
I think Unexpected Scrotum was my favorite (band name).
Meat Tissue.
Meat Tissue.
Yes, that one lingers in the mind.
Also, The Gratuitous Plurals and Noisy Cock Anger.
We should do this professionally. Imagine the riches.
I found the video.
Wow. Just wow. I don’t know what to say.
Perhaps apocryphal, someone asked a Python, “What is the least likely name for a band”? “Toad, the Wet Sprocket”. And so it was.
Audrey Pool O’Neal told the Daily Bruin that she never saw anyone who looked like her (black and female) when she was an undergraduate and graduate student. “When I do teach classes, the female students let me know how much they appreciate seeing a woman in front of their classroom,” O’Neal said.
Now any student be they male or female going up to their teacher after a class and stroking the teachers vanities in such away would a) Hurt their future success. b) Help their future success. or c) Make no difference.
My moneys on b).
We should do this professionally. Imagine the riches.
Clearly there needs to be a Homer And Jethro cover band, and the Official Band Name can change from week to week . . .