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.

Further to this item, here’s more news of diversity down under:

“I’m sorry, you can’t come here. It’s a multicultural playgroup.”

And so it’s not for the likes of you. 

Heather Mac Donald on the farce and scope of UC Berkeley’s cultivated victimhood: 

UC Berkeley’s Division of Equity and Inclusion has hung vertical banners across the main campus reminding students of the contemporary university’s paramount mission: assigning guilt and innocence within the ruthlessly competitive hierarchy of victimhood… “I will acknowledge how power and privilege intersect in our daily lives,” vows an Asian female member of the class of 2017. Just how crippling is that “intersection” of “power and privilege”? The answer comes in a banner showing a black female student in a backward baseball cap and a male Hispanic student, who together urge the Berkeley community to “Create an environment where people other than yourself can exist.” A naïve observer of the Berkeley campus would think that lots of people “other than himself” exist there, and would even think that Berkeley welcomes those “other” people with overflowing intellectual and material riches. Such a misperception, however, is precisely why Berkeley funds the Division of Equity and Inclusion with a cool $20 million annually and staffs it with 150 full-time functionaries: it takes that much money and personnel to drum into students’ heads how horribly Berkeley treats its “othered” students.

Jade Haney on blatant indoctrination and replacing facts with pretentious guilt: 

Jack Flotte, a member of Regis University’s Social Justice and Spirituality Committee, opened the session by scolding his white peers and professors on their state of “white fragility,” saying, “Like it or not, we are already accomplices. The question becomes: to what end are we partners in the crime of continuing to perpetuate these systems that dehumanise and oppress people?” Flotte also advised white students and faculty to “spend less time being upset about accusations that you’re complicit and that white people are bad and spend more time being mad at the racism and suffering,” adding, “Stop changing the subject when race does come into a conversation. Not that you understand this concept of white fragility. You’re going to be made uncomfortable as white folks when the conversation of race comes up. But, just get over it and then channel that energy. Channel that guilt into activism.”

See also, Laurie Penny. 

Speaking of dehumanising people, and added via the comments, here’s Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Yusra Khogali being every bit as charming as you’d imagine. What’s particularly endearing – after all the boasting of genetic superiority, and her claim that “melanin directly communicates with cosmic energy” – is when she asks Allah to give her the strength “to not kill these men and white folks.”