Theodore Dalrymple on the ruminations of superstar philosopher Slavoj Žižek: 

So what is true freedom, unlike the false variety that I enjoy, or rather mistakenly thought that I enjoyed? Professor Žižek tells us, in a rather roundabout way, that our freedom is circumscribed by our circumstances. I can’t say that this came as a great surprise to me, since I cannot imagine what it would be like to have no circumstances at all, or to exist free of any situation whatever.

George Leef on the myths of “diversity”: 

When Americans hear that research has shown that diverse groups are superior at solving problems, they probably assume that detailed studies were carried out to confirm that. They will be surprised to read [mathematics professor, Abigail] Thompson’s rebuttal that [Scott] Page’s work, including a co-authored paper with economics professor Lu Hong, “does not contain information that can be applied to any real-world situation involving actual people.”

Brendan O’Neill on campus-style “justice,” in which mere proof is transcended: 

A male student told me my insistence that individuals suspected of a crime must be fairly tried and found convincingly guilty before we ruin their lives — and being expelled from a prestigious university for rape would undoubtedly be life-ruining — was evidence that I had fallen for the “liberal paradigm” of justice, which tends to benefit white, well-off men. Apparently there is another “paradigm,” a better one, in which women who accuse men of rape are instantly believed and the men in question swiftly and severely punished.

And Victor Davis Hanson on post-Ferguson policing: 

[Officer Darren] Wilson’s second apparent error was in winning the fight over Brown for his gun. Had he allowed Brown to beat him, then Wilson might well have had a chance of surviving the wounds, and thus he might now still be a policeman with a career, rather than ostracised, in danger, and unemployed. Neither the community nor the media would have found newsworthy the shooting or beating of a white policeman by an African-American youth — in the manner that the murder of two California sheriffs by a twice-deported illegal alien was one-day news… Will some law enforcement officials now surmise that it is wiser to ignore some crimes in the inner city on the practicable logic that the denouement for the officer will likely be negative — either by stopping the assailant through force or not stopping the assault and thus being assaulted? If the suspect is unarmed but attacks, the post-Ferguson choice will either be to suffer physical harm or to respond in ways that may equate with the end of a career.

As always, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.

Kevin Williamson on the ‘progressive’ racial narrative and its dishonesties: 

When former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani takes seriously the operative slogan of the Ferguson protests — “Black Lives Matter!” — and asks the obvious question — “Don’t they matter in the 93 percent of cases when the lives of black murder victims are taken violently by black criminals?” — the Left’s reflexive response is to denounce him as a racist. The Washington Post’s hilariously Orwellian fact-check column labelled Giuliani a liar even as it confirmed that his observation is, as a matter of fact, entirely true. […]

The reality is this: Black men, especially young black men, die violent deaths at appalling rates in these United States. But they do not die very often at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, thugs reminiscent of characters from American History X, police officers of any race or motivation, lynch mobs, the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Walmart, the Tea Party, Goldman Sachs, carbon dioxide, or any other bogeyman currently in vogue among so-called progressives. As Giuliani noted, blacks die violent deaths almost exclusively at the hands of black criminals. But attempting to accommodate that reality in any serious way does not pay any political dividends for the Left. It does not put any money in Jesse Jackson’s pockets or create any full-time jobs for graduates of grievance-studies programs.

See also the second item here. And of course this. 

Mr Williamson also wades into the deep waters of Russell Brand’s mind, where all things are possible:  

Mr Brand is fond of having himself depicted as Che Guevara, a figure for whom he shares the daft enthusiasm of many members of his generation. He frets that Guevara was “a bit of a homophobe,” but insists that “we need only glance at Che to know that that is what a leader should look like,” i.e., a bit like Russell Brand. Guevara was a mass murderer who shot people for amusement. The cause in which he fought was the cause of gulags and murder. There are today, at this moment, thousands of political prisoners being tortured in prisons that Guevara helped to establish, and millions foundering in the totalitarian police state he helped to found off the coast of Florida. But… sure, great hair.

And Charles Cooke on when students are left stunned and distraught by the workings of democracy: 

Some participants were so upset that the faculty had to bring in a counsellor to tell them that it was all going to be alright.

As always, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.

Here’s an essential purchase for the coming festivities. 

We may live in a materialistic world, but Aussie educator Andrea Thompson has created a fun way to help the next generation understand the importance of social responsibility in a new family board game. Fair Go is a unique board game where the winner is determined by who has the best reputation for philanthropy and social justice. 

From what I can make out – and it’s not always easy to follow – it’s a kind of “social justice” Monopoly, in which rolling a double six doesn’t get you an extra turn and you don’t get any money when you pass ‘Go’. The game is advertised, proudly, with the following endorsement by an unspecified grandma: “Great holiday fun – nobody finishes before the others.” And yes, there’s a thrilling video of Fair Go being played, albeit in a somewhat unexcited manner, by two right-thinking persons who, I’m sure, are feeling good about themselves. 

Andrea observed how hard it was to find a family game which could be adapted for different ability levels and where winning depended on making good choices, so she decided to create her own. She hopes that players learn how to win in a fun way “without hurting their friends.” 

As Tim Blair says, “Because so many board games end in terrible violence.” 

Further to this comment here, Laurie Penny wants us to know that she knows more than the Ferguson jury:

Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit has coverage of the ongoing violence. 

As you can see, nothing says “we are righteous and entitled to deference” like smashing and looting a local woman’s cake shop. And smashing and looting the mini-market that Michael Brown robbed and then running away laughing, and looting the local phone shop, and burning down the local pharmacy, and burning down the local auto spares business, and the local pizza restaurant, and the local beautician’s, and then shooting at the firemen who are trying to put those fires out before other people lose their livelihoods too. You know, for “social justice.”

Other locals, however, have taken the high road – by bragging on Facebook about those lovely new shoes that were sourced somewhat mysteriously during the commotion. Note the new owner’s chosen hashtags: #NoJustice. #GotMine. Here’s a fellow protestor expressing his grief via the classic medium of big screen TV theft. And when words alone can’t express the woe, there’s always the option of carjacking the elderly and then running them over. 

Linked in the comments earlier but worth wider attention, here’s Heather Mac Donald’s latest essay on the academic cultivation of pretentious victimhood: 

The pattern would repeat itself twice more at the UCLA that fall: students would allege that they were victimised by racism, and the administration, rather than correcting the students’ misapprehension, penitently acceded to it. Colleges across the country behave no differently. As student claims of racial and gender mistreatment grow ever more unmoored from reality, campus grown-ups have abdicated their responsibility to cultivate an adult sense of perspective and common sense in their students. Instead, they are creating what tort law calls “eggshell plaintiffs” — preternaturally fragile individuals injured by the slightest collisions with life. The consequences will affect us for years to come.

One of the incidents mentioned, in which students claimed to be oppressed by corrected grammar and any public questioning of their far-left politics, will be familiar to regular readers.

Other debates centred on the political implications of punctuation. [Professor] Rust had changed a student’s capitalisation of the word “indigenous” in her dissertation proposal to the lowercase, thus allegedly showing disrespect for the student’s ideological point of view… During one of these heated discussions, Rust reached over and patted the arm of the class’s most vociferous critical race–theory advocate to try to calm him down — a gesture typical of the physically demonstrative Rust, who is prone to hugs. The student, Kenjus Watson, dramatically jerked his arm away, as a burst of nervous energy coursed through the room. […] The student, a large and robust young man… eventually filed a criminal charge of battery against the 79-year-old professor.

Mr Watson has subsequently been awarded academic credit for instructing other “Students of Colour” – a tribe that excludes students from East Asia – in the subtleties of “constructive intergroup relations” at Penn State, St. Louis University, and the University of Michigan. Mr Watson describes his fellow grievance-seekers – and of course himself – as “courageous.”

Ms Mac Donald discusses the vanities and dysfunction of modern academia in this 90-minute video.