For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:
On tongue-bathing the primitive.
It’s hard to miss the pretension around this “ancient wisdom,” the patronising dishonesty, and the implication that the rest of us are expected to pretend too. But the definition of astronomy – a branch of science that uses mathematics, physics and chemistry to study and explain celestial objects – is being stretched in order to flatter primitive mythology with zero scientific content beyond a very rudimentary calendar.
And I’m not sure what’s achieved by gushing over the fact that what we now know as the constellation of Orion was referred to as a canoe by an arrested Stone Age foraging culture. A culture that, despite tens of thousands of years of purported “astronomy,” had bugger all to show for it. While Galileo Galilei was calculating the heights of lunar mountains and discovering the moons of Jupiter, our aboriginal “astronomers” had little to say on the subject.
On “social justice” and other pernicious academic fuzzwords.
In much the same way, “diversity” seems to be the belief that the less we have in common, and feel we have in common, the happier we will be. An unobvious proposition, to say the least. And then there’s “equity” – another word favoured by both educators and campus activists – and which is defined, if at all, only in the woolliest and most evasive of terms. And which, when used by those same educators and activists, seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” Inputs including diligence and punctuality.
Shamelessly, He Quotes Himself.
On Portland’s mentally uniform radicals, and their malevolence.
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