For newcomers, more items from the archives:

But Why Aren’t People Rushing To Buy My Art? 

In which we brave the bleeding edge of conceptual performance.

For those who may be confounded by the profundity of the piece, a handy walk-through guide points out that the performance will encourage among onlookers “a deeper level of critical thought.” The guide notes, rather earnestly, that the first attempt, by Mr Carvalho, to envelop his head in bread, string and assorted meat products, prompted more amusement from the tiny audience than the subsequent repetition of it by Ms Cochrane. This is presented as an invitation to “a fundamental shift in paradigm” and some allegedly profound insight into gender politics. Or, how “different actions are read on different bodies.” Our artistic deep thinkers are seemingly unaware of the concepts of novelty and diminishing returns.

An Eighteen-Year Project. 

Proud feminist Polly Dunning shares her experience of motherhood.

Thank goodness that Ms Dunning, who “felt sick” at even the thought of “something male” growing inside her, is totally opposed to all that “casual and ingrained sexism.” 

Insufficiently Swiped. 

Immense, frustrated love machine Caleb Luna wonders why his Grindr profile attracts so little interest.

The option of weight loss isn’t explored, at all. Instead, it seems, we should all “interrogate” and “expand” our desires via immersion in intersectional dogma: “You can start by diversifying the range of bodies you allow into your pool of sexual possibilities,” says he. Thus empowered, we will overcome our “phobias,” which is to say our preferences, and consequently start lusting after “alternative bodies.” Specifically, bodies like Mr Luna’s. 

Jonathan Haidt on the academic heresy of defending bourgeois values: 

[Law professor, Amy] Wax was correct, based on the available evidence and expert opinion, to argue that “a strong pro-marriage norm” would reduce poverty and blunt or reverse the pernicious social trends she described at the beginning of her article… Marriage, and norms promoting marriage-like behaviour, are among the most powerful known antidotes to American poverty… Now Wax is being pilloried for… saying that marriage and culture really matter, and that some norms, some cultures, are more conducive to success in modern America than others. Does anyone seriously believe that all cultures are equal – either morally or as packages of norms and practices that are likely to lead to success?

Somewhat related, this item from the archives, and this one too, and contrarily, this interview here. Readers will note which of the authors favours evidence over rhetorical breathlessness.

Bob McManus on the consequences of race and gender quotas: 

[Federal judge, Nicholas] Garaufis declared the New York Fire Department “a stubborn bastion of white male privilege.” He ordered that two of every five new city firefighters be black and one of every five be Hispanic. The jurist also ordered the FDNY to pay $129 million in retroactive salary and benefits to unsuccessful black and Hispanic recruits. The results of all this quota-setting and bean-counting were predictable. FDNY insiders say that the department struggles to fill the minority quotas despite degraded hiring standards. Standards for women have grown so lax… that one female recruit failed entrance exams six times and was hired anyway. Nine felons — each a beneficiary of Garafulis’s quotas — graduated in a class of probationary firefighters from the city’s fire academy last November.

And via Darleen, another ‘progressive’ experiment in crime prevention:  

After a violent weekend of suspected gang-related shootings, Tuesday the Sacramento City Council took action to reduce the bloodshed. It approved a controversial programme called Advance Peace, which offers cash stipends to gang members who remain peaceful… The programme targets key gang agitators, offering them cash stipends to graduate school and remain peaceful. 

We’ve been here before, of course, and claims made for the effectiveness of similar programmes – using taxpayers’ money to bribe local vermin and assorted sociopaths, with each receiving up to $1000 a month – were, shall we say, somewhat overstated. A scheme in Pittsburgh initially coincided with an increase in the murder rate; one in Chicago has been “overshadowed by escalating homicide numbers,” and a project in Boston is described as “ending disastrously.” 

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

David Rutz on the “woke eight-year-old” manoeuvre: 

The phenomenon came to my attention via @Neontaster, who discovered this trend of eight-year-olds (or children of a similar age, depending on their Woke Quotients) whose opinions, shockingly, seem to perfectly mirror those of their progressive parents… Let’s state the obvious: When pundits tweet out these little stories, all they’re doing is sending out their own opinions, but doing so in a way that (a) makes them look like great parents for raising such emotionally advanced children, and (b) shields them from criticism. Because what kind of jerk is going to attack a child, for God’s sake?

And what kind of person, I wonder, would be that preening and dishonest. And while we ponder that. 

Madeleine Kearns, a young Scottish woman, on a bewildering year at a ‘progressive’ New York university: 

It was soon obvious to my fellow students that I was not quite with the programme. In a class discussion early in my first semester, I made the mistake of mentioning that I believed in objective standards in art. Some art is great, some isn’t, I said; not all artists are equally talented. This was deemed an undemocratic opinion and I was given a nickname: the cultural fascist. I’ve tried to take it affectionately.

Tim Newman on life skills and the lack thereof: 

What isn’t normal is for a kid to run around swearing. Letting slip a swear word indicates the kid has his ears open. Running around swearing indicates his parents don’t care, and if they don’t care about his language you can be absolutely sure they don’t care about other things, some of which are essential to his development. A child who routinely uses bad language, especially in front of adults, is not going to do very well in life.

And again, entirely unrelated, of course, on polyamory and children: 

Were any of these friends shagging either or both of your parents? I ask mainly to understand how you’ve turned out.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Glenn Reynolds responds to what I can only describe as an example of malevolent feminism:

The quality men you want don’t want an angry feminist such as yourself, who’s disloyal even to her own sons. Why would they?

If you think that sounds unkind, see for yourself.

Update:

Added via the comments, a brief summary:

Theodore Dalrymple on the British general election: 

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the election was the recrudescence of the politics of envy and resentment… The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn radiated dislike of the prosperous, even the modestly prosperous. Corbyn and his party’s solutions to the country’s problems were supposedly to be paid for by higher taxes on the richest 5 percent of the population. This proposal overlooked the fact that the top 1 percent of earners already pay almost three times as much in income tax as the bottom 50 percent combined, and also the fact that wealth is dynamic rather than static, resembling more closely the bloom of a grape than a cake to be sliced. Taxes on capital (in other words, state expropriation) were Corbyn’s obvious next step, with capital flight the equally obvious consequence. None of this worried the young, who had as yet no stake in property, only what are sometimes called ideals. The Labour Party offered them and others the beguiling vision of living perpetually at the expense of others.

Related, a few of the beguiled. 

Ben Shapiro on a “toxic masculinity” that feminists rarely mention: 

The left routinely speaks about a world run by women and why such a world would create better men. But the most male-free environment in America exists in black communities, where well over half of black children grow up without fathers. This hasn’t made black boys less violent; it’s made them far more prone to criminality than their non-black peers.

Greg Piper on when “affirmative action” means acting out a racial caricature:

Not only did [Princeton] admissions officers refer to Asian-American applicants as all looking the same on paper and having no distinguishing activities, but they seemingly penalised students of other ethnic backgrounds for not acting ethnic enough… “Were there a touch more cultural flavour, I’d be more enthusiastic,” one officer wrote.  

Emily Zanotti pokes through Evergreen State College’s course catalogue:

This coming fall, for example, you can take a number of classes that count as biology, but actually aren’t biology at all. They include Reproduction: Gender, Race and Power, but also Dancing Molecules, Dancing Bodies, where you’ll use the art of dance to communicate with your body and understand the chemical processes within.

And via dicentra, when selfishness and dishonesty are hailed as virtues:

No, I don’t have to tell you I’m trans before dating you.

Interesting theory. What could possibly go wrong? As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.