Let’s turn to the pages of Slate, where left-leaning sophisticates mull the issues of the day. Among which, an obvious question for the woke and well-adjusted:

I (35, male) started dating someone (33, female) recently that I’ve really enjoyed connecting with and have found a higher level of chemistry with than anyone else I’ve dated. It’s exciting and has given me a chance to imagine a stable future with someone, something I’ve struggled to imagine in the past.

Ah, bless. And just in time for the holidays. Brings a tear to the eye.

But there’s something else that’s new for me this year that complicates things: I’ve started seeing sex workers.

At risk of seeming drearily conventional, the words stable future have suddenly taken on an ironic tinge. Still, the headline is memorable:

Do I Have to Tell My New Girlfriend I’m Going to Keep Seeing Sex Workers?

And hey, give the guy credit. He does a pretty good rhetorical dance:

To be clear, I’ve attempted to pursue it in the most ethical manner possible, being careful to consider everyone’s safety and consent. The moral issue of sex buying is a serious one for me, but one that I’ve ultimately come to believe can be ethical in the right context.

How immensely surprising.

I believe seeing a sex worker can make me a better partner. Not unlike seeing a therapist.

Because,

seeing a sex worker allows me to focus on myself.

Which, to date, has apparently been a struggle.

Belatedly, and via pst314 in the comments, Rob Henderson on luxury beliefs and conspicuous convictions:

The chief purpose of luxury beliefs is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Only academics educated at elite institutions could have conjured up a coherent and reasonable-sounding argument for why parents should not be allowed to raise their kids and should hold baby lotteries instead. When an affluent person advocates for drug legalisation, or anti-vaccination policies, or open borders, or loose sexual norms, or uses the term “white privilege,” they are engaging in a status display. They are trying to tell you, “I am a member of the upper class.”

Affluent people promote open borders or the decriminalisation of drugs because it advances their social standing, not least because they know that the adoption of those policies will cost them less than others. The logic is akin to conspicuous consumption—if you’re a student who has a large subsidy from your parents and I do not, you can afford to waste $900 and I can’t, so wearing a Canada Goose jacket is a good way of advertising your superior wealth and status. Proposing policies that will cost you as a member of the upper class less than they would cost me serve the same function. Advocating for open borders and drug experimentation are good ways of advertising your membership of the elite because, thanks to your wealth and social connections, they will cost you less than me.

Unfortunately, the luxury beliefs of the upper class often trickle down and are adopted by people lower down the food chain, which means many of these beliefs end up causing social harm.

Take polyamory. I had a revealing conversation recently with a student at an elite university. He said that when he sets his Tinder radius to five miles, about half of the women, mostly other students, said they were “polyamorous” in their bios. Then, when he extended the radius to 15 miles to include the rest of the city and its outskirts, about half of the women were single mothers. The costs created by the luxury beliefs of the former are borne by the latter. Polyamory is the latest expression of sexual freedom championed by the affluent. They are in a better position to manage the complications of novel relationship arrangements. And if these relationships don’t work out, they can recover thanks to their financial capability and social capital. The less fortunate suffer by adopting the beliefs of the upper class. 

Needless to say, many of the issues raised by Mr Henderson have, over the years, been given a chewing here. From the unconvincing contrarian Laurie Penny and her suboptimal lifestyle advice, and the naked hypocrisies of Simon Schama and Clive Stafford Smith, to our mulling of the 1970s sitcom The Good Life, supposedly a moral lodestone for the modern anti-capitalist.

Rod Dreher on Bad Whitey, Corrupter Of All Things: 

In New Jersey, two high school boys stand accused of racially harassing and intimidating four younger black girls. The accused are of South Asian (Indian) descent. You might think that this ugly display is a reminder that the sin of racism is a universal part of the fallen human condition. You would be wrong, according to Princeton historian Nell Irvin Painter. Writing in the New York Times, the L’Osservatore Romano of the Cult of Social Justice, Painter tells us that it’s really whitey’s fault… Even when racist harassers are brown-skinned, they’re really white, and their alleged actions are the fault of white people… I remind you that this racist screed was written by a Princeton professor, writing on the op-ed page of the most important newspaper in the world.

You see, when members of one racial minority assault and degrade members of another racial minority, they are, we’re told, merely “enacting American whiteness,” something seemingly akin to demonic possession. This, and only this, is apparently “what matters.” Such, then, are the standards of Princeton employees.

And Steve Salerno on woke education – and mediocrity for all: 

It should be apparent that implementing [‘Social-Emotional Learning Theory’] necessarily presupposes some dilution of the traditional nuts-and-bolts curriculum — the diversion of finite class time to topics and methodologies that have nothing to do with mastering, say, long division. The gurus of SEL make no apologies for this. Rather, as [New York mayor, Bill] de Blasio insists in his Fortune piece, “These are hard skills… just like reading and math, that must be taught, practised, and strengthened over time.” SEL’s unflinching emphasis on the so-called “non-cognitive factors” in cognition is bad news for all supporters of no-nonsense education — that is, the kind that doesn’t encourage students to devote class time to communicating their current emotional status to their peers via emojis, as has happened in some SEL implementations. 

Because the way to encourage mastery of a subject is to do away with red-pen corrections, which are “stigmatising,” and to embrace “individual” spelling – as opposed to the stuffy and outdated kind, with its rules and whatnot, and thus the possibility of being wrong. Presumably, on grounds that being precise, articulate and in possession of one’s thoughts – or just knowing the difference between ask and axe – is terribly racist.

Update, via the comments:

Another great moment in Clown Quarter contortion:

“How to assess writing without judging its quality.” 

We’ve been here before, of course. 

Also, open thread. Feel free to share links and bicker.

Or, Call It A Counter-Protest.

Lifted from the comments and further to recent rumblings, a safe space is violated.

“What is wrong with you?” they ask. 

Says Joan,

We’re going to see a lot more of this. Good.

It seems to me that these ladies actually got off lightly. If you choose to block the roads, determined to needlessly frustrate hundreds, even thousands, of people, just so you can indulge in some in-group preening, while ordering drivers to walk, then you should expect some physical push-back from the people on whose freedoms and imperatives you’ve chosen to piss. Because, hey, sabotaging attempts to get to jobs, airports and doctor’s appointments, while impeding emergency vehicles and thereby endangering lives, is such a lark, baby.

Acts of planned and gratuitous aggression, including narcissistic aggression – which is what these ‘protests’ are – should be treated accordingly. It’s important that these cossetted pinheads, so gorged on their own sense of entitlement, learn to fear those on whom they recreationally impose themselves. Their expectations of impunity should be shattered. Along with the conceit that the way to make people sympathetic with your cause, whatever it may be this week, is to screw them over – because you can – while applauding yourself for doing so.

Update:

Despite the pretence of martyrdom and claims by the participants that they “do not enjoy” exerting power over random passers-by – or would-be passers-by – it seems quite obvious that personal gratification is by no means incidental. These disruptions and obstructions – forcibly immobilising large numbers of people – are very much recreational, a rush of ego, as bullying often is. Now imagine being so privileged, so removed from normal concerns, that being arrested is a form of recreation, a leisure activity, a way to impress your peer group and accrue status.

If your go-to solution, your preferred mode of expression, is to frustrate and harass random people who are just trying to get to work, or to get home – and you do this while feeling enormously self-satisfied about your own imagined radicalism – then this tells us very little about the world or any purported cause. It does, however, tell us quite a bit about what kind of tosser you are.