I am too busy now to comment on this self-serving piece, but it is not surprising that people who fill their bellies from some job or profession have no trouble finding reasons in justification of it.
A vegetarian once asked a man who worked in a slaughter house whether he had any moral reservations about his work. The man replied, "People have to eat."
To tolerate and excuse Harvard president Claudine Gay's plagiarism has been cited by some as an example of the so-called 'racism of reduced expectations' (RRE). For what you are then doing by your toleration and excusal is lowering the standard for blacks when, or rather on the assumption that, they are as capable as any other group of meeting those standards. Such a slighting of blacks would indeed be racist.
But is the assumption true? The assumption underpinning RRE is that blacks as a group are the equal of Jews, Asians, and whites in respect of intelligence, intellectual honesty, love of truth, interest in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, commitment to the traditional values of the university, respect for high standards of scholarship, and the like. If this is the case, then it is indeed racist to tolerate and excuse the bad behavior of blacks such as President Gay, and in her case 'sexist' as well.
So whether there is racism here or not depends on whether the underlying assumption is true. Most establishment conservatives believe that it is. They believe that blacks are the equals of the other groups mentioned in respect of the attributes mentioned. I don't doubt their good faith. Jesse Watters a few nights ago played the RRE card: to tolerate and excuse President Gay's plagiarism is to treat her as either incapable or unwilling due to her race of being objective, truth-seeking, and intellectually honest. It is to suggest black intellectual and moral inferiority when they are not inferior. Hence the racism of reduced expectations. But if blacks as a group really are inferior when it comes to the appreciation and implementation of the values in question then the reduced expectations are justified and there is no racism of reduced expectations.
My point is that reduced expectations are racist only if the assumption is true. If the assumption is false then a reduction in expectations is in order and there is no racism. One is entitled to play the RRE card only if one has already shown or given good evidence for the truth of the assumption.
How important are they? Top o' the Stack.
I just now came across this comment:
PH112A
Nov 16th, 2005
Very into Philosophy, too bad he's the only one in the class that is . . . good guy, but the subject is just so boring, therefore you do horrible.
Which group has contributed more to science and technology? Jews or Muslims? And why?
Question prompted by this:
Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that call themselves the CAA [Coalition Against Apartheid, apparently].
. . . when its super-wealthy Jewish benefactors withhold their support. Mark my words.
The most effective way to combat the preternaturally destructive Left is by refusing to fund them. For the common currency of human-all-too-human understanding is the lean green, the filthy lucre, money. Everyone, no matter how twisted, nihilistic, or demon-driven, understands it.
Meanwhile, prepare quietly, you know how, for you know what. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
UPDATE (1o/14). I was right. Now the billionaire punch-back begins. CEOs want the names of students who blame Israel for the Hamas attacks.
Top o' the Stack.
Substack latest.
Said destruction is a special case of the Left's destruction of everything it touches. Here we read about a professor failing a student for refusing to condemn her Christian faith. This case is a few years old, but characteristic. Things are worse now.
Since the Left has captured the Democrat Party in the USA, if you vote Democrat you are voting against freedom of religion, and thus against the First Amendment, which in its very first clause states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The educational institution in question, Polk State, is not private; hence the First Amendment applies. But even if it didn't, it is anti-American to oppose the spirit of 1A's opening clause, which is the spirit of religious liberty.
Religious liberty includes the liberty to practice no religion, to criticize religion, and of course to practice some religion other than Christianity as long as that other religion is not antithetical to the values enshrined in the founding documents. Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism, but of course toleration has limits: the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
To vote Democrat is to vote for the continuing politicization of the universities and their ongoing transformation into leftist seminaries. This is part of the reason decent Dems have jumped ship. Prominent examples of those who have left the party include Tulsi Gabbard and Tammy Bruce.
A Quillette article. (HT: JIO)
'Institutional capture' by anti-civilizational wokesters is fait accompli and we are collapsing on all fronts. Imagine being a English professor facing the daunting task, not of Higher Education, but of Higher Remediation.
Top of the Stack.
. . . but don't pay to publish. Leader of the Stack.
DEI and the collapse of the universities.
Substack latest.
Substack latest. Do you want to feed the unhungry in a leftist seminary?
Comments and replies:
Tony: One of the best, and certainly the most concise, essays on the problem. The mild criticism when I was at NYU was that the universities were offering "higher skilling." Higher infantilization was right around the corner.
Bill: Thanks, Tony. One could go on to mention what a lousy deal a college degree is these days: as the quality goes down, the price goes up. And then the trifecta of corruption: overpaid do-nothing administrators pushing the destructive DEI agenda; federally insured loans without oversight; stupid students and their parents who go into deep debt for something of little or no value. One absurdity leads to another: bad financial decisions are then to be rewarded by student loan forgiveness! Let the waitresses and the truck drivers pick up the tab. The law, unmoored from morality, and positively promotive of immorality, becomes a mere power tool for the advancing of the interests of amoral if not immoral elites. Talk about moral hazard!
Tony: Which connects to the inherently fraudulent banking system and the Ponzi scheme called Social Security. A perfect storm of moral hazards.
Bill: I agree. But permit me a quibble. Ponzi schemes are set up with fraudulent intent. The SS system was not so set up. Initially, at least, it was reasonable and well-intentioned: to keep workers from ending up in the gutter, subsisting on cat food. It was insurance against destitution, and like all insurance, the premiums were relatively small. Of course, it soon enough transmogrified into an ultimately unsustainable retirement program. My main point at the moment, however, is the pedantic one that SS is not a Ponzi scheme strictly speaking. But it may be more than pedantic inasmuch as lefties could take it as a smear against SS as opposed to a legitimate criticism. Or as I put it about a dozen years ago, though not in a reply to Tony Flood:
Language matters. Precision matters. And if not here, where? If you say what you know to be false for rhetorical effect, then you undermine your credibility among those whom you need to persuade. Conservatives don't need to persuade conservatives, and they will not be able to persuade leftists. They must pitch their message to the undecided who, if rational, will be put off by sloppy rhetoric and exaggeration.
I note that W. James Antle, III, the author of the linked article, refers to the SS system as "the liberals' Ponzi scheme." But of course it is not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme, by definition, is a scheme set up with the intention of defrauding people for the benefit of those running the scheme. But there is nothing fraudulent about the SS system: the intentions behind it were good ones! The SS system is no doubt in dire need of reform if not outright elimination. But no good purpose is achieved by calling it a Ponzi scheme. That's either a lie or an exaggeration. Not good, either way. The most you can say is that it is like a Ponzi scheme in being fiscally unsustainable as currently structured. Why not make the point accurately without a distracting rhetorical smear? Conservative exaggeration is politically foolish. Is it not folly to give ammo to the enemy? Is it not folly to choose a means (exaggeration and distortion) that is not conducive to the end (garnering support among the presently uncommitted)?
Tony: I take your point about imputing ill-intent, but the passive voice of the "SS system was not so set up" (as a Ponzi scheme) obscures agency and its motives (which you were not writing an essay about). Before the Social Security Act of 1935 there was the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which was not hatched overnight. The conspiracy to nationalize US banks was at least a decade in the making. The propaganda seeding the mass media (as today, post-SVB collapse) was that there's nothing worse than a bank run or "panic" (or is it a "threat to public health"?). That line served those who wanted to bring banking under governmental control (with the bankers overseeing the government). The easy money of the '20s led to the crash that engendered the destitution you referenced. Intelligent people engineered the FRA, and equally intelligent, educated, sober, well-meaning people came up with the SSA (and other agencies) to address the former's unforeseen consequences. Their ideological heirs now prevent the inevitable insolvency of SS with easy money: the central bank writes a check to itself with "our" money (denominated in federal reserve notes), postponing the day of reckoning. My issue is moral hazard, and one seems to engender another. As Tucker reminded us last night, the bankers effed up, but none went to prison. The government moved heaven and earth to shore up the same morally hazardous system because, as all the right people know, "there's no alternative." As I wrote in Christ, Capital & Liberty:
Just as advances in technology decreased the fear of “getting caught” consuming pornography, so did the central bank in the financial markets decreased the fear of suffering losses for making bad loans. As Peter Schiff put it regarding the 2008-2009 Meltdown:
Just as prices in a free market are set by supply and demand, financial and real estate markets are governed by the opposing tension between greed and fear. Everyone wants to make money, but everyone is also afraid of losing what he has. Although few would ascribe their desire for prosperity to greed, it is simply a rose by another name. Greed is the elemental motivation for the economic risk-taking and hard work that are essential to a vibrant economy. [Peter Schiff, “Don’t Blame Capitalism,” The Washington Post, October 16, 2008.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/15/AR2008101503166.html
But over the past generation, government has removed the necessary counterbalance of fear from the equation. Policies enacted by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which were always government entities in disguise), and others created advantages for home-buying and -selling and removed disincentives for lending and borrowing. The result was a credit and real estate bubble that could only grow—until it could grow no more. [CCL 126-127]
I'll stop here before I write an essay!
It is fitting that a demented man should 'preside' over the decline and fall of our republic and in particular over the decline and fall of its once-great universities. No one other than Joey B among American pols could better represent a nation in steep decline by every measure, a nation that has lost the will to defend its borders both on the ground and above it — I allude to the Chinese spy balloons — and to maintain domestic order within its borders.
Here:
The Ohio State University is currently seeking a professor of “Philosophy of Race,” an area of expertise that includes “the epistemological significance of race or racism” and “race in the philosophy of science.” Its Department of Physics seeks a professor whose main focus is “issues relevant to educational equity.” And its Department of Anthropology recently sought an archaeologist whose work emphasizes “decolonization, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, and/or Indigenous ontologies.”
The sheer destructive lunacy of the DEI agenda reaches its apogee in the Physics Department's quest for a professor whose main focus (!) is on educational equity. 'Equity' is Wokespeak for equality of outcome or result. So the search is on for a candidate who will dumb down physics to the extent necessary to insure that each student, regardless of race or ethnicity gets the same grade, presumably an 'A.' For of course any other result would be — wait for it — racist! We are all equal in every respect, hence any inequality of outcome as between, say, Asians as a group and blacks as a group, can only be explained by the Original Sin of systemic, institutional racism visited upon us by the Founders. (This is why the monuments to them must of course be destroyed.)
And so physics, the least ideological of the natural sciences, must be ideologized, politicized, and racialized.
The insanity of this is evident. But what explains it? We like to think of university faculty and administrators as intelligent and sane people. So what's the explanation? Perhaps it is like this.
There is a hard-core of committed, strong-willed leftists who are positively evil and bent on destroying the USA and the West in general. They enlist and manipulate a huge cadre of useful idiots and fellow-travelers who are not evil but are moral mediocrities who go along with the revolutionary vanguard for one or a combination of the following reasons: fear of losing their jobs and perquisites; laziness and inattention; a strong need to be liked and accepted; conformism; inability to think critically; misplaced white guilt; absorption in private life.
Essential to my explanation is the conservative conviction that evil is a reality with deep metaphysical roots, and that some of our fellow mortals are, in the main, agents of evil. They are few in number but very powerful due to their ability to manipulate half-way decent, timorous and ovine, moral mediocrities. The latter are the useful idiots and fellow-travelers, latter-day 'pinkos' if you will.
Do you have a better explanation? If so, I'd like to hear it.
