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Anthropology Free-For-All Parenting Politics

She Should “Just Be Able To Have” Things

November 14, 2023 61 Comments

Via Mr Muldoon in the comments, umbrage is detected:

As this chap quips in reply,

Like, I get that someone has to work for society to function, but why does it have to be me?

And this one,

A lot of complaints about capitalism are more properly bug reports to God.

Update, via the comments:

Rafi adds,

I like that you tagged this ‘parenting’.

Well, addressing the matter earlier might have spared our unhappy madam a lot of pierced and tattooed grumpiness.

There is, of course, plenty of scope for grumbling about the seemingly endless range of things that can be taxed. And existential angst – or existential pouting – can be difficult to avoid, the human condition being what it is. See the aforementioned “bug reports to God.” But the emotional assumption that Things Should Just Be There For Me, Forever, In Unlimited Quantities™ is, I think, something best addressed before one’s children venture out into the world.

Children who, as adults, may then make TikTok videos of themselves bemoaning the fact that they aren’t simply being given a free house, and free food, and a free car, and free petrol for the free car. Children who, as adults, may then seem genuinely bewildered by the prospect of being responsible for the feeding and clothing of any children that they, in turn, might have.

Another thing occurs to me. If pretty much everything you need, or want, should just somehow be there anyway, on an indefinite basis, via some oddly unarticulated rearrangement of the universe, then it’s not obvious how gratitude might fit into such a mindset.

Also, open thread.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Politics Those Poor Darling Thieves

I Know, Let’s All Pretend That Behaviour Doesn’t Matter

November 8, 2023 30 Comments

Lifted from the comments, a difference of opinion:

As I posted in reply,

Flattening values, such that the criminal and their victims are somehow equal in moral worth, is a staple of progressive schtick. But it seems to me that the decision to try to steal someone’s dog is precisely how you know that that person’s wellbeing is of very low importance.

A slightly different perspective:

The better way to understand this is that the thief himself values your stuff more than his life. He’s the one who made that decision.

If an example of the aforementioned schtick is needed, this comes to mind:

To recap. According to Mr Ford, our “proud SJW,” the lone woman being attacked at a bus stop on her way to work shouldn’t have defended herself – because, we’re told, “If she had let him rob her, even at gunpoint, both likely would have survived.” And apparently, the well-being of the mugger – who was mugging while on probation – trumps any desire for self-defence, even if the victim fears for her life.

At which point, I think one has to ask an obvious question. In the case of the mugger, survived to do what? Continue mugging women, presumably. Which, in turn, raises the question of exactly how many assaults and armed muggings, or worse, a mugger’s survival is worth.

Answers on a postcard, please.

In the archives, you’ll find many variations on this theme. As when we were told – by Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender – that a dislike of having your home invaded by feral, malevolent predators, and having the lives of your family put in mortal danger, “comes from a place of privilege.”

Or, this rather nightmarish example of antisocial liveliness:

Following which, I added:

It’s perhaps worth noting that egalitarian assumptions don’t exactly help on this front – say, the belief that such creatures are just like us, only more oppressed, and that their wellbeing is somehow a matter of great importance. A conceit that is not only wrong, and insulting, but which is often disabling when it really matters.

If, for instance, someone with a big, shiny knife is breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you should not, ideally, be distracted by any great concern for whether or not your attempt at self-defence results in them getting injured or ceasing to be. Not least because their ceasing-to-be would be a very good thing. A gift to the world.

Among our betters, however, all manner of contortions can be performed:

Readers may wish to ponder the implicit conceit that the burglars – the ones brandishing carving knives – are the real victims and should therefore be spared any meaningful consequence of their own chosen actions, their own sociopathy. Because, apparently, one should sympathise with the people breaking into one’s home and driving off with one’s stuff. In one’s own car. 

Though perhaps these are skills only available to more elevated beings, including, obviously, Guardian columnists.

Update, via the comments:

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Written by: David
Anthropology Free-For-All Politics

Our Betters At Large

November 1, 2023 44 Comments

Incoming plot twist:

A woman who organised the Black Lives Matter protest that toppled the statue of Edward Colston has been jailed after spending more than £30,000 donated to a youth charity on Ubers, an iPhone and computer, beauty products and takeaways.

I’ll give you a moment to steady yourselves. What with the shock and all.

Ms Xahra Saleem, formerly Yvonne Maina, is a co-founder of the activist group All Black Lives Bristol, and was hailed by Rife magazine as one of Bristol’s “most influential under-30s.” Ms Saleem’s merry band of megaphone-waving statue-topplers have been the subject of endless gushing and deferential commentary, with the local university subsequently promising to “decolonise” All Of The Oppressive Things.

Discarded placards and assorted detritus from the group’s protests were fondled reverentially by staff of the local museum and stored for later worship as holy artefacts.

Ms Saleem’s trajectory of righteousness will, one assumes, also be a subject of study by tomorrow’s progressive devotees:

Alistair Haggerty, for the prosecution, told Bristol crown court that £32,344 was raised by the GoFundMe page from 588 donations. He said the youth group was unable to open a business bank account during the pandemic, so a decision was made for the money to be held in Saleem’s personal account. “It was a sign of how much she was trusted,” Haggerty said.

To borrow from Father Ted, the money was just resting in her account.

Between July 2020 and June 2021 Saleem spent the money on a new iPhone and iMac computer, hair and beauty products, Amazon purchases, clothes, taxis, takeaways, and general lifestyle expenses.

Those general lifestyle expenses included Uber taxi rides totalling £5,800, spent in a mere eleven months, and a remarkable amount of hairstyling. Readers may wish to ponder the degree to which disparities in life outcomes, which so animate Ms Saleem’s organisation, may be explained by Ms Saleem’s own frivolous spending choices and the mindset they imply.

In April 2021, the other directors of [Bristol youth group] Changing Your Mindset asked Saleem to transfer the donated money into a new business account they had set up.

At which point, as you’d imagine, some awkwardness ensued:

Saleem told them various lies about why she could not transfer the money, including that Black Lives Matter had advised her not to because “some of the people the charity had worked with had made homophobic comments.”

No laughing at the back.

Subsequently quizzed on her prodigious appropriation of other people’s money, Ms Saleem explained,

my brain spent it.

And, somewhat belatedly, apologies were offered.

In the email she said: “I am so sorry. I am trying to understand my actions as well. I take full responsibility… as my actions have consequences, I don’t want to pardon myself from them.” Saleem told the directors she would go to the police that day.

Dramatic pause.

She failed to do so.

Ms Saleem can be seen here, suitably shrouded in piety, shortly before being sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
Academia Policing Politics Problematic Competence

Elsewhere (320)

October 30, 2023 62 Comments

Emil Kirkegaard on schooling and intelligence, and their limited relationship:

These results should certainly not be interpreted as showing that one can easily boost learning by merely adding more schooling. In fact, there is no easy way to boost learning. Everything has been tried. There are more resources on the internet to learn from than ever before in human history, yet general knowledge hasn’t increased, and children and adults aren’t any better at arithmetic. Clearly, opportunity to learn isn’t an important variable in explaining differences between people. And dare I say, it never was?

From a cost-benefit perspective, more forced school for children means more teacher salaries to be paid. Since the effects of this on children’s actual learning seem to be somewhere between non-existent and minor, I suggest that this isn’t worth the price. 

And speaking of education:

Students At University of Augsburg Call For “Gloryholes” To Be Installed In Lecture Halls, Cite Benefit To Queer Community.

A group of students at the University of Augsburg in Germany have called for “gloryholes” to be installed in lecture halls in order to contribute to the “diversification” of the campus. Gloryholes are holes in walls or partitions created with the intention of allowing people to engage in anonymous sex acts in public. 

The specifications for said installation are quite detailed, including soundproofing, wall handles, and knee pads. For safety and comfort, one assumes.

Heather Mac Donald on progressive evasions and the consequent cultivation of anti-white sentiment:

We are tearing down the fundamental standards and values of western civilisation based on a lie. And that lie is that any racial disparity today is by definition and necessarily the product of racism and discrimination.

So any standard that has what’s known as a “disparate impact” on blacks, whether it is a teacher licensing exam, a medical doctor licensing exam, enforcing the law – if any of those standards have a disparate impact, resulting in either the underrepresentation of blacks in meritocratic institutions, or overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, the only public explanation that is allowable is that the standards resulting in that disparate impact are racist, and the next step is that they must come down.

I argue that that assumption of racism as the explanation for disparity is wrong, that the far more plausible explanations for any disparities in representation are the vast academic skills gaps, on the one hand, when it comes to meritocratic institutions, and vast gaps in rates of criminal offending, when it comes to the criminal justice system.

But as long as racism remains the only allowable explanation, we are going to continue tearing down ideas of excellence, of merit, and moving towards, at best, a state of mediocrity, and at worst, one of risk to people’s lives, stunted scientific and medical progress, a mediocre judicial system, and the inability to push young people to reach their highest achievements.

We see gifted and talented programmes being torn down across the country – not because they’ve been shown to be unsuccessful in cultivating our best young math talent, but simply because they don’t have 13 per cent black students in them. 

We’ve been here before, of course. More than once.

Helen Joyce on the perversity of wokeness:

For me, the revelation has been that when an institution enshrines a lie at its heart, that destroys its integrity and subverts its mission… Organisations that should have child safeguarding at their heart, such as the NSPCC and Girlguiding, now allow men who identify as women to oversee girls’ private spaces and intimate care. Gay rights campaigners press for children confused about their gender to be put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that turn them into sterile facsimiles of the opposite sex. Since these children are statistically more likely than others to grow up gay, this is a form of gay conversion therapy. 

And finally, a thread on what happens when, in the name fostering progress and sensitivity, the police start hiring the sexually dysmorphic.

Apparently, these be-wigged individuals are bringing tolerance and understanding by harassing people manically, and repeatedly lying, and stalking women and sending them headless birds, and strangling people, and attacking a woman with a hammer. Oh, and hoarding explosives, obviously.

If that isn’t sufficiently bizarre, I do have more.

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

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Written by: David
Anthropology His Pretty Nails Politics Pronouns Or Else

The Perils Of Panto Season

October 2, 2023 38 Comments

Further to this, and lifted from the comments:

The New Rules Of Pretending, illustrated here, aren’t entirely coherent, even if one were willing to play along. On the one hand, fat, screeching drag queens are supposedly comedic and a kind of jolly panto, something exaggerated and silly, and suitable for children. Something to make the kiddies laugh.

But on the other hand, dysmorphic men and autogynephiles, who are often difficult to distinguish from drag queens, are supposedly Beings Of Infinite Seriousness And Validity, and even a raised eyebrow can result in finger-wagging and accusations of hatred. And so the sight of a cross-dressing man is something that we must find both absurd and amusing, and, simultaneously, not at all funny.

It’s a tricky manoeuvre. I mean, do we chuckle or not?

And what about this sinewy nymph?

Answers on a postcard, please.

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Written by: David
Politics Pronouns Or Else Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders

Members, You Say

September 25, 2023 54 Comments

Some more this-never-happens news, this time at a gym in Monroe, Georgia. We’ll start with the gym’s profession of modish piety:

All members, including transgender members, may use Planet Fitness locker room facilities and programs based on their self-reported gender identity; these facilities include bathrooms, showers, and all other facilities separated by sex…

Some members may feel uncomfortable with a transgender member using the same locker room facilities, bathrooms, showers, or other facilities/programs separated by sex. This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender member. Planet Fitness staff should work with members and employees to address this discomfort and to foster a climate of understanding consistent with the judgement-free character of Planet Fitness. 

In short, female customers who perceive incongruity, discomfort, and possibly danger should simply ignore those perceptions. Danger, it seems, is something one can now just pretend away.

Needless to say, reality begs to differ:

A man has been arrested for exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl in the locker room of a Planet Fitness gym in Monroe, Georgia. Despite being aware that the man had a history of indecent exposure, Planet Fitness employees reportedly stated the man had a “right” to use the women’s facilities as per the gym’s gender self-identification policy.

JaKorbie Dixon, 25, was arrested on September 14 following a brief manhunt by Monroe Police. Dixon was charged with multiple counts of indecent exposure, all related to incidents at a local Planet Fitness gym. In addition to exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl, Dixon is also alleged to have exposed himself to a 19-year-old female gym employee. 

I’ll spare you the more graphic details, which can be found via the link above. However, Mr Dixon’s history of indecency, threats, and sexual intimidation is quite extensive, and the women and girls on whom he preyed were left in little doubt as to his maleness and state of erotic agitation.

No less eye-catching are the gym’s efforts to pretend away the events occurring on its premises and as a direct result of its own stated policy:

[The fifteen-year-old’s aunt] said that she and the girl’s mother went to the gym the next day and spoke to the management about the incident. Although staff told her that they were aware of several other complaints about the man and knew who he was, they insisted he had a right to use the women’s locker room. 

You see, in the progressive pecking order, the fantasies of sexually dysmorphic men – and the preferences of male sex offenders – are of much greater importance than any “discomfort” felt by the women and girls on whom the former groups choose to impose themselves. Women and girls whose role, it seems, is merely to understand and tacitly affirm. To be reluctant accessories to some strange man’s psychodrama, while remaining free of judgement. Which is frowned upon.

Staff also promised to warn him not to expose himself to other people. 

Because the modern, not-at-all-insane response to repeated acts of indecency and sexual intimidation – by a predatory man in the women’s changing rooms – is to ask him not to keep waving his erection at women and children. On grounds that what he’s waving could somehow be a lady’s penis. Such is the sophistication of our times.

But hey, could be worse:

When a dysmorphic man demands to be perceived as a woman and to be allowed among actual women in a supposedly women-only space – say, a shelter for abused women – and he then goes out of his way to show, repeatedly and unequivocally, that he is not in fact what he claims… well, this probably tells us something. And so, we get a demand that others ignore the evidence swinging about in front of them – and instead submissively pretend. Think of it as an attempt to dominate and erode probity, a form of psychological bullying.

It turns out that when you make women, many of whom have been brutalised, share a space with mentally ill men, the result is not, amazingly, one long, girly pillow-fight.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the new, utopian role for women and girls – to understand and quietly affirm, while ignoring their own concerns and being entirely free of judgement:

Because dysmorphic men – and male predators – are higher than mere women in the progressive pecking order.

Ladies, know your place.

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Written by: David
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