The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 24 Sept 2024Last week’s amphibious invasion of Incheon completely surprised the North Koreans, and there are now thousands of UN troops deep in their rear and their logistic system is totally compromised; on top of that, as this week begins in the south, the UN forces begin breaking out of the Pusan Perimeter, first in a trickle, but by the end of the week in a huge torrent of force, running through, around, and over the North Korean forces.
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September 25, 2024
The Korean War 014 – Breakout from the Perimeter! – September 24, 1950
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Freddie deBoer on “deference politics”
In the first of a series of articles, Freddie deBoer discusses the phenomenon of “deference politics” practiced by many (most?) progressives in the United States (and equally in Canada):
When I talk about deference politics, I’m referring to the tendency of left-leaning people to substitute interpersonal obsequiousness towards “marginalized groups” for the actual material change those groups demand.
If you’ve lived in any left-aligned spaces in the past decade, you’ve encountered deference politics many times. A white person in a humanities seminar, an organizing meeting, an industry convention, a workplace gathering, etc., who makes the conscious decision to avoid engaging or to engage from a position of proactive apology towards various identity groups is engaged in deference politics. Someone who insists that members of “dominant groups” should censor themselves or speak softly or avoid speaking too much or defer to or otherwise “make space” for members of minority identities is advocating for deference politics; someone from a dominant group who tells others in that group that they should defer is practicing (self-aggrandizing) deference politics. “Maybe men should just shut up for awhile,” voiced by a man, is quintessential deference politics. “I sat my white ass down and listened” is deference politics. “Teach me how not to oppress you,” spoken at an academic conference by a straight person to LGBTQ people on a panel, is deference politics. Avoiding sharing a challenging opinion on an issue of controversy for fear of running afoul of the wrong kind of identity accusation is deference politics.
The infamous image above, of Democratic leaders wrapped in kente cloth and taking a knee in memory of George Floyd, actually preceded a meaningful attempt at material change, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. While that bill would not have been a sufficient overhaul of America’s criminal justice system — it’s hard to use the federal government to reform policing, which tends to be governed by state policies and influenced by local conditions — it would have been a good start. The Democrats, sadly, were not able to pass the bill in two tries, though perhaps it could still be revived. That the party simply didn’t have the votes to make the bill law isn’t something that we should be particularly hard on the Democrats about, but the contrast between its failure and the theatrics that attended its announcement is deference politics in its essential form: at a moment of mass discontent over the state of race and policing, Black Americans got the absurd performance from Congressional leaders but not the substance of better policy. And this is core to the critique of deference politics; the point is not that the good intentions of the people who practice them are worthless but that the people who practice deference politics never seem to recognize that all of the deferring never makes positive action more likely. Like many great political crimes, deference politics privileges the communicative and the emotional over the material and the actual.
It’s important to point out that many Black activists and writers recoiled at the deference politics practiced after George Floyd’s death and pointed out that they had never asked for such theatrics.
Is “deference politics” just a way to say “woke”?
No. Deference politics could conceivably be practice or demanded in any given political context and by members of any given political tendency. Conservatives do occasionally advocate for deference politics, such as when they insist that only veterans should comment on issues of war and peace. Nor do woke people assertively practice deference politics all the time; in fact, for various demographic reasons most people practicing social justice politics are themselves members of dominant groups, and they have a tendency to assert their own superior right to speak rather than to defer to others. The term “deference politics” should likewise not be used to refer to all cringey elements of “allyship”, which involves a diverse suite of questionable tactics and attitudes, but certainly deference politics are core to the behavior of the modern ally. The practice epitomizes the modern liberal obsession with defining politics as a matter of interpersonal niceties rather than as the systems through which human values are expressed in material terms in the real world.
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The Life and Times of Xerxes
seangabb
Published Jun 10, 2024An occasional lecture for our Classics Week, this was given to provide historical background for a lecture from the Music Department on Handel’s opera “Serse” (1738).
Books by Sean Gabb: https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/e…
His historical novels (under the pen name “Richard Blake”): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Blak…
If you have enjoyed this lecture, its author might enjoy a bag of coffee, or some other small token of esteem: https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/…
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QotD: “Rooting for the meteor”
One of those common jokes you hear from people whenever two teams they don’t like are playing each other is “rooting for the meteor”.
So far, the meteor has a horrible track record. It showed up once in the clutch for mammals millions of years ago and that’s about it. We need to stop rooting for the meteor. If the meteor even does show up it’ll likely cause all kinds of problems. We need to start rooting for more sensible and practical ways to end a game with both teams losing. Options like:
- Root for Bane
- Root for the large sinkhole
- Root for the tornado
- Root for the alien abduction
- Root for spontaneous player combustion
- Root for lightning
- Root for the ball ending up being a bomb
- Root for the dune sandworm
- Root for the unexpected plane crash. We almost got this one once!
- Root for the Killdozer to show up
- Root for the nerve gas attack
- Root for the Brown Note
- Root for spiked Gatorade that gets everybody sick
- Root for stadium structural failure
- Root for both teams to become friends and refuse to fight
- Root for acid rain
- Root for the big squid from the end of the original Watchmen comic
- Root for the suitcase nuke
- Root for everyone to suddenly become naked, a state of being it is hard to play football in
- Root for a dragon to show up. Any dragon. Pick your favorite. I choose Volvagia from Ocarina of Time
- Root for the solar flare
- Root for the uprising of the skeleton army
Dave Rappoccio, “Rooting for the Meteor Only Worked Once”, The Draw Play, 2024-06-24.
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