Or, Dissonance, Baby. Laurie Penny alerts us to a major cultural breakthrough: 

For those who missed it, Laurie’s own contribution to this “deeply, unapologetically intellectual” venture can be savoured here. 

Thomas Sowell on the appetites of unions: 

Many people think of labour unions as organisations to benefit workers, and think of employers who are opposed to unions as just people who don’t want to pay their employees more money. But some employers have made it a point to pay their employees more than the union wages, just to keep them from joining a union. Why would they do that, if it is just a question of not wanting to pay union wages? The Twinkies bankruptcy is a classic example of costs created by labour unions that are not confined to paycheques. The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa. All of this was obviously intended to create more jobs for the unions’ members. But the needless additional costs that these make-work rules created ended up driving the company into bankruptcy, which can cost 18,500 jobs. The union is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Mathieu Deflem on “the politics of exclusion”: 

Universities today have lowered their standards of admission and accepted more students regardless of their level of preparation. For example, at the University of South Carolina, where I am presently employed, the number of undergraduates has gone up from about 18,000 in 2006 to 22,000 in 2011. As a result of the increased number of undergraduates, pressures are placed on teaching faculty to accommodate students regardless of intellectual skills… Students of lesser skill-levels are not only admitted, they are also given degrees, and that is the most worrisome trend. Obtaining a college degree has become a matter of justice. The notion that prevails today is not only that access to education is a right, but so is the successful exit thereof. Under these conditions, the very notion of an earned degree has become a mockery. 

And Victor Davis Hanson on the rise (and dishonesty) of identity politics: 

Since the election, some fatalistic Washington conservative elites have accepted — and Obama operatives have rejoiced in — a supposedly new and non-white-male ethnic electorate: Americans will be categorised, and collectively so, on the basis of largely how they look and, to a lesser extent, how they sound… Only in the hyper-racialist America can we take quite distinct Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Chinese third-generation citizens and create from them the artificial rubric “Asian” in their shared antithesis to “white,” or take disparate Cubans and Mexicans and likewise reinvent them as identical Latinos, or take Jamaicans, Ethiopians, and American blacks and call them all “African-Americans” on the similar logic of not being something equally artificial like white — which I guess covers Americans who used to be Greeks, Irish, Armenians, Jews, Poles, and Danes… Are Asians “overrepresented” at UC Berkeley — or are the 20% of the student body who are white males the ruling establishment? Are blacks “overrepresented” at the U.S. Postal Service, but “underrepresented” at the DMV? Such are the absurd questions that arise in a tribal society where one’s primary allegiances are not to universal values or collective traditions and customs, but are first pledged to those who look most like oneself.

Feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments.

Or, Correcting Wrongthought. Bill Whittle on campus censorship and the narrowing of minds:  

65% of the 392 top colleges surveyed maintain speech codes and other restrictions on expression that violate First Amendment principles… No wonder a study of 24,000 students conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2010 revealed that only 30.3% of college seniors strongly agreed with the statement that, “It is safe to hold unpopular opinions on campus”… The students were downright optimistic compared to the 9,000 campus professionals surveyed. Only 18.8% strongly agreed that it was safe to hold unpopular opinions on campus… As the sociologist Diana C. Mutz discovered in her 2006 book Hearing the Other Side, those with the highest levels of education had the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view, while those who have not graduated from high school can claim the most diverse discussion mates. In other words, the most educated among us are also the most likely to live in the tightest echo chambers. 

Background on three of the incidents mentioned in the video can be found here, here, and here. See also this demonstration of “social justice education” and just how creepy it can get. And if you can, make time to watch this eye-opening lecture by David Horowitz.

Via Samizdata, Frank J Fleming ponders the role of President:

What was the concept of the U.S. government when it was created? That it’s our servant — we’re in charge of it. The president serves at our pleasure. So the president trying to lead us is like your butler dictating your agenda for the day. What would you do if your butler tried that? That’s right: You’d lock him in a small room in the wine cellar for a couple of days to teach him his place. Yet somehow we not only put up with the president trying to lead us, but we’ve come to expect it.

Related, Jeff Goldstein on two visions of government:

Either you believe the government owns you, and therefore you owe it tribute which it will then, in its wisdom, distribute as it sees fit; or you believe you own the government, and that while you keep more of your money and the fruits of your labour and allow the bureaucracies to molest you less, the federal government can learn to make do with what we decide to give it in revenue. And if that means, for instance, Big Bird or Planned Parenthood or solar energy companies have to compete in the marketplace with Cartoon Network or Wal-Mart or frakking, oil drilling, coal mining, and natural gas pipelines, then so be it.

Somewhat related, Zombie is compiling a “complete list of Barack Obama’s scandals, misdeeds, crimes and blunders.” It’s an ongoing crowd-sourced project so submissions are welcome.

And from the vaults, Heather Mac Donald on fatherhood and poverty:

The premise of the Young Men’s Initiative, like that of its predecessors, is that government has the capacity to produce upstanding, bourgeois citizens – if it just gets all its agencies to act in a coordinated fashion. […] Since Mayor Bloomberg claims to be a fan of managing by information, here are some more data for him to focus on: in the Bronx’s Mott Haven neighbourhood in 2009, 84 percent of births were to unmarried women, according to city health statistics, followed by Brownsville, Brooklyn, at 81.2 percent; Hunts Points, the Bronx, at 80.4 percent; and Morrisania, the Bronx, at 79.1 percent. East Tremont (the Bronx), Bushwick (Brooklyn), and East New York (Brooklyn) all had out-of-wedlock birth rates well above 70 percent. Compare those with the rates in largely white neighbourhoods, such as Battery Park (6.8 percent), the Upper East Side (7.9 percent), and Murray Hill (8.6 percent).

The breakdown of the family lies behind all other urban dysfunction. Until marriage is restored as the norm for child-rearing in the inner city, black and Hispanic crime rates and education failure will continue to be disproportionate. No government programme can possibly compensate for the absence of fathers in the home and the absence of the cultural expectation that men will be responsible for their children. […] The mayor is eager to talk about marriage for gays and lesbians, but he cannot bring himself to use the word when it comes to black and Hispanic heterosexual couples.

But hey, let’s do what Laurie Penny says instead. Yes, “fuck marriage,” “fuck monogamy” and fuck all of those other “small ugly ambitions.” Because, rather like Laurie herself, it’s all so incredibly radical and defiant. Just don’t look too closely at the practical results.

Update:

Speaking of practical results, or the denial thereof, let’s not overlook the bewildered educator Grover Furr. A Professor of Medieval English and a devout Marxist, Furr has been mentioned here before and readers may recall his indignation at the fact that a few non-leftists still have the temerity to remain in the humanities, despite the professor’s wishes for ideological purity. Well, it seems our unhinged academic is still sharing his wisdom with students.

Feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments.

Victor Davis Hanson ponders a certain, quite common kind of leftist mindset. Among its attributes, this:

For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a sort of irrational furore at “the system” governs their political make-up. Why don’t degrees and vocabulary always translate into big money? Why does sophisticated pontificating at Starbucks earn less than mindlessly doing accounting behind a desk? We saw this tension with Michelle Obama who, prior to 2009, did not quite have enough capital to get to Aspen or Costa del Sol, and thereby, despite the huge power-couple salaries, Chicago mansion, and career titles, felt that others had far too much more than the Obamas. “Never been proud,” “downright mean country,” “raise the bar,” etc., followed as expressions of yuppie angst. The more one gets, the more one believes he should get even more, and the angrier he gets that another – less charismatic, less well-read, less well-spoken – always seems to get more.

So do not discount the envy of the sophisticated elite. The unread coal plant manager, the crass car dealer, or the clueless mind who farms 1000 acres of almonds should not make more than the sociology professor, the kindergarten teacher, the writer, the artist, or the foundation officer. What sort of system would allow the dense and easily fooled to become better compensated (and all for what – for superfluous jet skis and snowmobiles?) than the anguished musician or tortured-soul artist, who gives so much to us and receives so much less in return? What a sick country – when someone who brings chain saws into the Sierra would make more than a UC Berkeley professor who would stop them.

Speaking of professors, remember Jere Surber, whose nuanced and complex socialism – and resentments about status – are exceeded only by his self-flattery? Of course you do. But still, the last paragraph should bear some repetition. And while we’re on the subject of superior beings and their benign and selfless wisdom, here’s a cheering thought. Occupy announces that the ongoing flooding and destruction,
and the hospitals without power, along with the frightened, the cold, the injured and the dead… all
of this is good for us. With capitalism “in retreat,” we’ve been “unchained,” you see.

Update:

In the comments, rjmadden notes how socialist bloviating often implies the need for a corrective caste system, under which society will be reorganised, regulated and, oh yes, made fair. Indeed, it’s surprising just how often professed egalitarianism coincides with assumptions of superiority and hierarchical entitlement. There are dozens of examples in the archives. Among them, John Jordan, an “artist and activist” and co-editor of We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism. Writing in the Guardian, Mr Jordan demanded taxpayer subsidy on the basis that he is “showing us how to live differently.” You see, talentless, recidivist anti-capitalists are our teachers – messiahs, in fact – and so we should be forced to hand over our earnings. It may be your money, the money you had to work for, but he, being so special, is more deserving.

An assumed caste system might also explain why George Monbiot flies around the world to promote his own books while insisting that other, less enlightened, less important people shouldn’t. Mr Monbiot is also annoyed by the fact that some people can afford to buy jet skis, and therefore go jet skiing, of which he disapproves. So much so that in 2007 he prayed for a recession to teach us all a lesson and put us in our place. Beneath him, presumably. And maybe that’s why Polly Toynbee grumbles about non-leftwing people earning almost as much as she does. Perhaps, like George, she imagines herself as part of the impending nomenklatura, and therefore entitled, unlike those boorish nobodies who just run businesses. Know your place, peasants. Our betters have big plans.