Quotulatiousness

January 7, 2017

Artist immediately sells out of her new “Privilege Cards”

Filed under: Politics, Randomness, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Has someone around you said something out loud that might possibly offend someone else? Feel too intimidated to just shout out “Racist!” or “Homophobe!” or “Check your privilege!”? Here’s a way to get your passive-aggressive game face on:

A Brooklyn artist quickly sold out of “privilege cards” last month, a conversation-halting tool used to “check everyone in your life” in a “direct yet non-aggressive” manner.

“Uh-oh! Your privilege is showing,” the front of the cards proclaim. On the back, it says, “You’ve received this card because your privilege just allowed you to make a comment that others cannot agree or relate to.”

The card then lists checkboxes for several types of privilege, including “white, socioeconomic, Christian, male, heterosexual, able-bodied, citizen” and a fill-in-the blank spot.

January 6, 2017

QotD: The “Seven Bad Ideas” of the left

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The cult of darkness variously known as Leftists, Liberals, Progressives, Brights, Socialists, Pinkos, Late Moderns, Collectivists, Traitors, is controlled by a Seven Bad Ideas around which their various emotions and interjections orbit.

The Seven Bad Ideas are:

  • Solipsism — the paradox that asserts that truth is personal, hence optional: “It is not true that truth is true.”
  • Relativism — the paradox that asserts that virtue is subjective, situational, relative: “It is wrong for you to judge right and wrong.”
  • Subjectivism — the paradox that asserts that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As if putting a urinal in an Art Museum, and betraying the standard somehow proves the standard wrong, not the betrayal.
  • Irrationalism — the paradox that asserts reason is untrustworthy. Each man’s reason is too biased by upbringing, class self interest, sex, race, and background such that no one, aside from members of a given race and sex and victim group, can be expected to understand or advise other members of the victim group. Of course, reaching this conclusion from that premise is itself an act of reasoning, requiring the reasoner to trust his reason, despite the background and race and sex of the reasoner.
  • Pervertarianism — the paradox that asserts it to be licit to seek the gratifications of sexual union of the reproductive act without the union, without the reproduction, and, in the case of sodomites, without the act. The same insane paradox asserts that females should be feminists rather than feminine; and that sexual predation is more romantic than romance.
  • Totalitarianism — the paradox that asserts that freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength. The Constitution is a living, breathing document, ergo it must be smothered and killed.
  • Nihilism — the paradox of that the meaning of life is that it has no innate meaning.

No claim is being made that all Leftists believe all these things. They have their heterodoxies, as any heresy does. The claim is that about these seven core ideas most or all leftist ideas inch near and orbit near. They may throw up trivial distinctions or exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of Leftwing commentary follows these main lines of thought.

A Leftist who says he does not believe one of these seven will nonetheless speak of it with respect. A man who denies all seven is not a Leftist. Most Leftists are remarkably stupid people, unwilling to examine their own axioms, unaware of their own premises, and illiterate of their own founding doctrines and patrons.

No proof is being offered here that Leftists believe these ideas or make these assertions. The reader can discover that for himself, merely by listening to them talk, reading their works, and reaching his own conclusion.

If you cannot see it by reading what they say, you will not see it by my repeating what they say. Look for yourself.

John C. Wright, “The Hatreds of the Left”, John C. Wright’s Journal, 2015-06-12.

December 21, 2016

QotD: The hidden hypnotic power of glamour

Filed under: Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

We’ve seen the same effect over and over again with people who comment on blogs (clears throat) both cultural and political, and even historical and that, no matter how often they’re proven wrong, keep coming back and stating the same thing they said in different words, as though that would make it true. They seem incapable of processing challenges, doubts, or even factual disproof of their charges.

Glamor. They’re under an enchantment. Something has affected them so hard, they can’t think, but can only repeat what they were told.

It’s not true, of course. Or not quite.

The enchantment of the “cool kids” is the glamor of social approbation and of opinions as positional goods.

People who have bought into an hierarchy of opinions, with some of the opinions “politically correct” no matter how factually wrong, have agreed to put themselves under the arbitrary power of others, and to subsume their reason and thought to them.

In other words, they have agreed not to think or see for themselves, because if they do they will be cast out of the “cool kids” and treated as pariahs or the enemy. And they’ve seen what happens to those (us) the calumnies, the big lies, the personal character destruction.

They’re so scared of it, that they’ll do anything and say anything and believe anything. Including changing their opinions on a dime, as the opinions of the “in crowd” change.

It’s hard to break enchantments. Particularly enchantments as ambitious as this, which attempts to make an entire culture see what isn’t there and ignore what is.

To cast it, it required tight control of mass media and gate keeping of culture, both powers that are fast running out on the gatekeepers, as the internet replaces their magic.

Some magic remains. Those organs of mass media that still have whatever power like their sources to have credentials: “editor at—” or even better “won prestigious award.”

Those awards, those positions are things to conjure with. Which is why the fight over the awards matters to the establishment, the “cool kids”. No matter how debased in the real world, those awards help them cast glamor over the unwary.

Which is why the screaming and the moaning, the gnashing of teeth and the politics of personal destruction over an award that has no monetary benefit.

Because it’s an aid to a glamor that’s fast fading.

Those involved would do well to keep their minds clear on two things: the instruments of the glamor are fading. You can’t keep them from fading, short of the sort of cataclysm that plunges the world into a medieval reenactment. And that too will take their instruments away.

Sarah Hoyt, “Glamor and Fairy Gold”, According to Hoyt, 2015-06-02.

December 17, 2016

QotD: Otherkin, headmates, and multiple systems

Filed under: Health, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Turns out, crazy sex maniacs have cooked up new ways to be crazy sex maniacs.

“Come on,” you’re thinking, “sex is sex and crazy is crazy. There’s nothing new under the Krafft-Ebing sun. I saw that CSI episode about furries and read that article about bronies that made me want to kill myself (after I killed my wife and kids to spare them the horrors of living in America another second.)”

Fine. Meet the “otherkin.” Unlike cosplayers, these dudes genuinely think they are animals trapped in human form. Literally. They’re serious.

How’s about “headmates?” We used to call these “imaginary friends,” but they’re not just for kids anymore. (Cuz that would be age-ist!)

Next? “Multiple systems”:

    [A] person who describes themselves as a multiple system will likely refer to themselves as ‘they’ because they believe they are multiple people….

    And, because that isn’t already batshit insane enough, some multiple systems will have headmates who are animals, otherkin people, and, of course, fictional characters….I’ve not even got to the people who believe they have galaxies, nebulae, universes, and other space shit, either in their ‘headspace’ or as an otherkin. So some people will believe they are actually galaxies.

Or “demisexuals”? They’re “only sexually attracted to people” they have “an emotional connection to.” (We used to call them “normal” and “women.”)

Now meet the “transethnic” and “transabled”: paralyzed black women trapped inside functional white-male bodies.

Naturally, “the favorite pastime for SJAs [social justice activists] is to pretend they’re oppressed, and they are all professional victims. You may very well see otherkin telling people to “check their human privilege” while they talk about how oppressed they are because no one believes they’re really a cat…”

All very weird indeed, but so what?

Well, within living memory, gay “marriage” was unthinkable, transsexuals stuck to the stage, and a “bathroom bill” letting “transgendered” boys use the girls’ washrooms in elementary schools would be one of John Irving‘s forgotten subplots, not something that is about to become law.

Brace yourself for “otherkin-phobia” and the fines and firings that will come with it.

Kathy Shaidle, “My Otherkin Headmate is a Two-Spirited Starseed!”, Taki’s Magazine, 2013-03-05.

November 21, 2016

QotD: What happens when you offend followers of “the one true faith”

Filed under: Humour, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

One of my Federalist colleagues recently observed that, “When I write pieces that upset liberals, I get angry, personal hate mail. When I write pieces that upset social conservatives, I most often get this: ‘I appreciate your well written article and I will pray for you, sir, that you will find the God who loves you.’”

This absolutely tracks with my experience — and as an atheist, I’ve got a certain track record of writing pieces that upset religious readers. I get the occasional angry or dismissive comment, but on the whole the reaction is an almost annoying amount of Christian charity. Not so when I take on, say, the environmentalists.

Why the difference? Why is the Angry Left so angry?

Some of the Federalist staff were discussing this, and we came up with a couple of possibilities.

Rich Cromwell quipped: “It’s the difference between dealing with those who are certain they’re following the edicts of the one true faith and dealing with Christians.” Heh.

Robert Tracinski, “Why Is the Angry Left So Angry?”, The Federalist, 2015-03-26.

November 6, 2016

QotD: Why is the “angry left” so angry?

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… “Progressives” convince themselves that everything they’re doing is for the greater good, which supersedes the rights of any individual. It’s a case of “the humanitarian with the guillotine“: we’re doing this for the overall good of humanity, so it’s OK to start killing people. Or to be really, really mean to them in the comments field.

There’s the fact that advocacy of big government is by its very nature a quest for power and control, for the ability to use force against others — a cause that naturally attracts the bitter and intolerant.

There’s the fact that those of us on the right are accustomed to encountering a lot of ideological opposition. For most of our lives, the left has controlled the high ground of the culture, such as it is: the mainstream media, Hollywood, the universities, the arts. So we’re not used to crawling into a “safe space” and hiding from ideas we disagree with, which makes it easier for us to regard ideological opposition with a degree of equanimity.

But beneath all of these factors, there is something deeper, something more elemental. Something metaphysical.

I hate to say William F. Buckley was right, but I think it’s all about immanentizing the eschaton.

The “eschaton” is a term from theology, where it refers to the ultimate end state of creation — basically, what will happen after the final judgment. So “eschatology” speculates about the nature of heaven and God’s final plans for mankind. Outside of theology, the “eschaton” is a stand-in for the final, ideal goal we’re hoping to reach.

[…]

For the secular leftist, the end state is social and necessarily political. It is all about getting everybody else on board and herding them into his imagined utopia. There are so many “problematic” aspects of life that need to be reengineered, so many vast social systems that need to be overthrown and replaced. But the rest of us are all screwing it up, all the time, through our greed, our denial, our apathy, our refusal to listen to him banging on about his tired socialist ideology.

Robert Tracinski, “Why Is the Angry Left So Angry?”, The Federalist, 2015-03-26.

October 21, 2016

QotD: Check your privilege

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I’m privileged. We are privileged beyond the dreams of kings and queens of past centuries.

Unfortunately when they tell you to “check your privilege” that’s not what they mean.

This is a phrase increasingly deployed by people (usually women – rolls eyes) with an academic background and its meaning is … liberal squid ink. If you’re telling them that Welfare was a disaster for black families (it was) and that affirmative action not only has been a disaster for many organizations, but corrodes the soul (you never know why you were hired. I have friends in that position) and institutes birth-privilege based on who your ancestors were (aka nobility) they will say “check your privilege.” This really doesn’t mean a heck of a lot. It can’t, because they have no idea who you are, or indeed if you have ever received any privilege growing up.

What it is based on is the idea that our society is so inherently racist/sexist/homophobic that just by being straight, white and male someone receives better treatment than someone else who isn’t one or more of those things.

Like most lunatic ravings of the left, it has a point, except for the “male” thing.

Is there some sort of automatic boost you get for being a member of the majority (which women are, despite being accorded minority status.) Of course. You’re a known quantity. Just by virtue of people having interacted with someone like you, you’re going to get “helpful” treatment, even if you are supposedly a minority.

[…]

The reason so many academic liberals deploy it as a war cry, though, is because they are mostly academics from – da – privileged backgrounds. This sort of “insult” is the worst they’ve ever suffered. They’ve never been low man on the totem pole with sh*t flowing downhill for things you couldn’t even vaguely control.

So they imagine these casual slights are the worst thing ever.

It’s sort of like kids who always got all the candy they wanted, feeling crushed because you said “no chocolate before breakfast.” It’s the worst thing ever, because it’s the worst they’ve ever experienced.

They also find it useful to shut up opponents because well… if they say it, any normal rational people thinks of my opening to this post. They think “Well, I am unusually blessed, maybe—”

Don’t. Just don’t. Most of the people who use “check your privilege” could buy you and sell you outright. The real “downtrodden” battling to get to the top will often have the same reaction YOU have.

The point is, we’re all equal under the law. Human discrimination is not something you can stop, but it’s also not something that is triggered to the Marxist categories of race, orientation or even class. It’s usually more subtle. I might discriminate against someone because something about him bothers me: accent, gestures, something. I might not even know why. It might be unjust.

It’s just a result of humans not being perfect. No human society can get rid of it. Giving people the power to point and cry privilege to shut others up will just privilege a bunch of academics and bureaucrats who will use it to their advantage.

When told to check your privilege, I suggest you answer “it’s fine, thank you. How about yours? A bit overlarge, no?”

Sarah A. Hoyt, “Squid Ink”, According to Hoyt, 2015-02-10.

September 19, 2016

Cultural appropriation

Filed under: Food, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Larry Correia isn’t impressed when people scream “cultural appropriation” at him:

I’ve talked about Cultural Appropriation before, and why it is one of the most appallingly stupid ideas ever foisted on the gullible in general, and even worse when used as a bludgeon against fiction authors.

First off, what is “Cultural Appropriation”? From the linked talk:

The author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University who for the record is white, defines cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorised use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.”

The part that got left out of that definition is that engaging in Cultural Appropriation is a grievous mortal sin that self-righteous busy bodies can then use to shame anyone they don’t like.

Look at that definition. Basically anything you use that comes from another culture is stealing. That is so patently absurd right out the gate that it is laughable. Anybody who has two working brain cells to rub together, who hasn’t been fully indoctrinated in the cult of social justice immediately realizes that sounds like utter bullshit.

If you know anything about the history of the world, you would know that it has been one long session of borrowing and stealing ideas from other people, going back to the dawn of civilization. Man, that cuneiform thing is pretty sweet. I’m going to steal writing. NOT OKAY! CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!

Everything was invented by somebody, and if it was awesome, it got used by somebody else. At some point in time thousands of years ago some sharp dude got sick of girding up his loins and invented pants. We’re all stealing from that guy. Damn you racists and your slacks.

This is especially silly when white guilt liberals try to enforce it on Americans, the ultimate crossroads of the world, melting pot country where hundreds of cultures have been smooshed together for a couple hundred years, using each other’s cool stuff and making it better.

This weekend I painted miniatures for a war game from Spain, played a video game from Belarus, listened to rap music from a white guy from Detroit, watched a cop show from Britain, had Thai food for lunch, and snacked on tikki masala potato chips, while one daughter streamed K dramas, another read manga, and my sons played with Legos invented in Denmark.

A life without Cultural Appropriation would be so incredibly boring.

And most of you missed the really insidious part of that that academic, all-consuming definition. Without Permission… Think about that. So how does that work exactly? Who do you ask? Sure, these new Lays Tikki Masala chips are delicious, but are they problematic? Who is the head Indian I’m supposed to get permission from? Did you guys like appoint somebody, or is it an elected position, or what? Or should I just assume that Lays talked to that guy already for me? Or can any regular person from India be offended on behalf of a billon people?

This is all very confusing.

But hang on… India owes me. That’s right. Because vindaloo is a popular Indian dish, but wait! It was actually Culturally Appropriated from the Portuguese hundreds of years ago. I’m Portuguese! I didn’t give them permission to steal the food of my people!

So we will call it even on these chips.

And don’t get me started on Thai food, because the Portuguese introduced the chili pepper to Thailand. YOU ARE WELCOME, WORLD!

June 8, 2016

When Tony Benn was absolutely correct

Filed under: Britain, Europe — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

It’s a rare thing to find myself in agreement with the late Anthony Wedgwood Benn (formerly Viscount Stansgate), but in 1991, speaking in the House of Commons, he was quite right:

I do not want to go over old ground, because this is not a question of yes or no to the status quo; we are looking to the future. Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view. Others believe that the change is inevitable, and that the common currency will protect us from inflation and will provide a wage policy. They believe that it will control speculation and that Britain cannot survive alone. None of those arguments persuade me because the argument has never been about sovereignty.

I do not know what a sovereign is, apart from the one that used to be in gold and the Pope who is a sovereign in the Vatican. We are talking about democracy. No nation — not even the great United States which could, for all I know, be destroyed by a nuclear weapon from a third-world country — has the power to impose its will on other countries. We are discussing whether the British people are to be allowed to elect those who make the laws under the which they are governed. The argument is nothing to do with whether we should get more maternity leave from Madame Papandreou than from Madame Thatcher. That is not the issue.

I recognise that, when the members of the three Front Benches agree, I am in a minority. My next job therefore is to explain to the people of Chesterfield what we have decided. I will say first, “My dear constituents, in future you will be governed by people whom you do not elect and cannot remove. I am sorry about it. They may give you better creches and shorter working hours but you cannot remove them.”

I know that it sounds negative but I have always thought it positive to say that the important thing about democracy is that we can remove without bloodshed the people who govern us. We can get rid of a Callaghan, a Wilson or even a right hon. Lady by internal processes. We can get rid of the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). But that cannot be done in the structure that is proposed. Even if one likes the policies of the people in Europe, one cannot get rid of them.

Secondly, we say to my favourite friends, the Chartists and suffragettes, “All your struggles to get control of the ballot box were a waste of time. We shall be run in future by a few white persons, as in 1832.”

H/T to Natalie Solent for the link.

June 4, 2016

The tale of the Good Samaritan, updated for modern times

Filed under: Humour, Religion — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

James Bryant assures me that this isn’t original to him, but he doesn’t recall where he first encountered it. I thought it was a very appropriate re-telling of the old story:

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

But then two social workers, as they journeyed, came where he was: and when they saw him, were moved by a deep compassion.

And as they passed by on the other side one said unto the other “Whoever did that needs our help.”

June 3, 2016

The rising reactionary tide

Filed under: Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Self-described “libertarian sissy” Colby Cosh points out that every action has an equal and opposing reaction, especially in politics and culture:

Those signs are more obvious abroad — in central Europe, for example, where the principle of open borders and unlimited “welcoming” of refugees is colliding with the idea of nation-states as indigenous homes for distinct human collectivities. You would swear, at times, that European politicians were doing their best to revive fascism. There has been a long period of schizoid messaging from the political class, theirs and ours: when it comes to changing the makeup of neighbourhoods or transforming school curriculums, anything is possible. If you wish to preserve a small town, or save an old factory from global competition, or to raise your children in the beliefs you received in childhood, the iris of political possibility swirls shut.

Me, I like neoliberalism and globalization and diversity. It is revolutions and their mentality that I loathe. The liberal crusade, though it is essentially right and good, has a flaw in that it does not relent. It does not rest, and will not give ordinary persons a chance to take credit for what were supposed to have been heroic advancements in decency.

[…]

The “social conservative” side of these arguments gains no peace and receives no mercy when it loses, or even when it surrenders. Every new stage in the liberal jihad is a fresh opportunity for progressives to intimidate and castigate the hopelessly backward; the language and tactics used against those on the wrong side of the line grow ever more contemptuous and supercilious, not less.

Even to suggest that genuine social progress has actually taken place at an unprecedented and accelerating rate — that Western Democracy X is less sexist, less racist, less cruel to its minorities than ever — is to invite recrimination. You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you, Hitler? Haven’t you seen what’s happening on Twitter?

At some point, inevitably, people will tire of being urged to progress while being told that none has ever happened; and the natural next step is for those people to stop accepting the tacit premises of the aggressive-progressive crusade. You see this happening in what is called the “alt-right” circles of the Internet: we’re backward? We’re blockheads? We’re racist and sexist? Very well, we won’t argue with you anymore: we’ll build our own Backward Blockhead Racist Sexist World. We’ll socialize amongst ourselves; we won’t read your newspapers or watch your television; we won’t live by your social taboos, accept your rules about what facts can be stated and in what terms.

If politics is an endless irrational power struggle between identity groups, we’ll take our own side: game on. This is dangerous, but no “progressive” ever accepts that his own obtuse sense of innate superiority has helped create the conditions for this. It’s called “reaction” for a reason.

May 18, 2016

QotD: When emotional abuse is your means to an end

Filed under: Media, Politics, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Whenever I see screaming, hate-filled behavior like hers the important part never turns out to be whatever principles the screamer claims to be advocating. Those are just window-dressing for the bullying, the dominance games, and the rage.

You cannot ameliorate the behavior of people like that by accepting their premises and arguing within them; they’ll just pocket your concessions and attack again, seeking increasingly abject submission. In one-on-one relationships this is called “emotional abuse”, and like abusers they are all about control of you while claiming to be about anything but.

Third-wave feminism, “social justice” and “anti-racism” are rotten with this. Some of the principles, considered in isolation, would be noble; but they don’t stay noble in the minds of a rage mob.

The good news is that, like emotional abusers, they only have the power over you that you allow them. Liberation begins with recognizing the abuse for what it is. It continues by entirely rejecting their attempts at manipulation. This means rejecting their terminology, their core concepts, their framing, and their attempts to jam you into a “victim” or “oppressor” identity that denies your lived experience.

The identity-jamming part maradydd clearly gets; the most eloquent sections of her writing are those in which she (rightly) rejects feminist attempts to jam her into a victim identity. But I don’t think she quite gets how thoroughly you have to reject the rest of the SJW pitch in order not to enable their abuse.

This is why, for example, I basically disengage from anyone who uses the phrase “white privilege” or the term “patriarchy”. There is a possible world in which these might be useful terms of discussion, but if that were ever our universe it has long since ceased to be. Now what they mean is “I am about to attempt to bully you into submission using kafkatraps and your own sense of decency as a club”.

Eric S. Raymond, “Meredith Patterson’s valiant effort is probably doomed”, Armed and Dangerous, 2015-01-19.

April 7, 2016

“Galileo’s Middle Finger is about what happens when science and dogma collide”

Filed under: Books, Politics, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

A positive review of Alice Dreger’s recent book from Jesse Singal at New York Magazine:

I first read Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science when I was home for Thanksgiving, and I often left it lying around the house when I was doing other stuff. At one point, my dad picked it up off a table and started reading the back-jacket copy. “That’s an amazing book so far,” I said. “It’s about the politicization of science.” “Oh,” my dad responded. “You mean like Republicans and climate change?”

That exchange perfectly sums up why anyone who is interested in how tricky a construct “truth” has become in 2015 should read Alice Dreger’s book. No, it isn’t about climate change, but my dad could be excused for thinking any book about the politicization of science must be about conservatives. Many liberals, after all, have convinced themselves that it’s conservatives who attack science in the name of politics, while they would never do such a thing. Galileo’s Middle Finger corrects this misperception in a rather jarring fashion, and that’s why it’s one of the most important social-science books of 2015.

At its core, Galileo’s Middle Finger is about what happens when science and dogma collide — specifically, what happens when science makes a claim that doesn’t fit into an activist community’s accepted worldview. And many of Dreger’s most interesting, explosive examples of this phenomenon involve liberals, not conservatives, fighting tooth and nail against open scientific inquiry.

[…]

There’s a risk of getting too cute here, of drawing false, unwarranted equivalencies. In a sense, my dad was right in what he was getting at — conservatives have done a lot of damage to sound science in the United States. It’s conservative lawmakers and organizations who have refused to acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, who have rallied to keep evolution out of textbooks and comprehensive sex education out of classrooms, who have stymied life-saving research into stem cells and gun control.

But that’s in the world of politics and lawmaking, where conservatives often have a numerical advantage. In the halls of social-science academia, where liberals do, it’s telling that some of the same sorts of feeding frenzies occur. This should stand as a wake-up call, as a rebuke to the smugness that sometimes infects progressive beliefs about who “respects” science more. After all, what both the Bailey and Chagnon cases have in common — alongside some of the others in Galileo’s Middle Finger — is the extent to which groups of progressive self-appointed defenders of social justice banded together to launch full-throated assaults on legitimate science, and the extent to which these attacks were abetted by left-leaning academic institutions and activists too scared to stand up to the attackers, often out of a fear of being lumped in with those being attacked, or of being accused of wobbly allyship.

April 6, 2016

QotD: “Cultural appropriation”

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The whole notion that culture can be “appropriated” in any negative sense is one of the most absurd notions being bandied about (and that is really saying something given the carnival of absurdities that passes for critical thinking these days).

Such ideas about culture are profoundly fascist in origin, a collectivist notion that somehow culture and identity must be preserved in a “pure” state from outside influences and somehow “belongs” to an ethno-national grouping. It is very much akin intellectually to abominating miscegenation. Yet strangely the same people who spout such arrant nonsense tend not to picket performances featuring oriental ballet dancers or black opera singers (as well they shouldn’t). Sorry (not really) but the future is cosmopolitan and voluntary. I will take whatever aspects of any culture I think are worth incorporating and there is not a damn thing anyone can do to stop me.

Perry de Havilland, “No one owns a culture”, Samizdata, 2016-03-26.

March 4, 2016

How to minimize your Cis Het cultural butt-print of privilege

Filed under: Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

David Thompson helpfully linked to a fascinating blog by a self-described “Objective Cis Het White Male Intersectional Feminist”, providing (among other life tips for over-privileged white male readers) this recommended tactic for dealing with some of the most privileged beings in the Patriarchy — white waiters:

I never tip white waiters. I don’t want to enable their sense of entitlement. I want to break the cycle of them getting what they want. I only tip minorities. It’s time we balance the power structure, one gesture at a time.

But in case that’s not enough undermining of the Patriarchy, our hero also describes in detail his own way of minimizing his enjoyment of privilege:

My Appearance:

At its core, the patriarchy is all about men and their overarching power. I am reluctantly part of that system, but that doesn’t mean I can’t attempt to break my ties with it. I feel that the first step is to deny my body to the patriarchy. This system relies on men looking threatening as one way to ensure they benefit the most from it. It is my duty as an intersectional feminist to go completely against that.

I make sure not to wear any bright or highly contrasting clothing. I stick to neutral tones with a lot of grey. A very light salmon pink is probably my favorite color to wear. I don’t wear anything that includes sharp objects or features on it. My duty is to minimize anything that might be threatening to others.

Facial hair is too violent. As a result, I have my entire head shaved. Men with facial hair are often seen as alphas/leaders, and such positions are those of power and ultimately oppression. I don’t want to emulate such a male ideal. It is a power fantasy that is dangerous to society as whole.

I am also very thin. The patriarchy expects me to be a big burly man to soak up all the privilege I can. However, I find that the thinner you are as a male, the more willing people are to interact with you because you are not so threatening. As I get thinner, the patriarchy has a harder time keeping a hold on me because I can slip through its fingers more easily. This is metaphorical, of course, but I like to put my fight in poetic terms.

As NeilsR comments on David’s post: “Because being a skinhead (black or white) has no violent connotations, noooooooo….” The blogger is also extremely careful to avoid giving any kind of offense in the public sphere:

My visual interactions are at a mandatory minimum. My gaze is focused on the floor, away from anyone, and especially away from women. This ensures that they do not feel victimized in any way. The Male Gaze is a crux of patriarchy that actually promotes men to give into their animalistic desires and mentally orgasm over how they objectify women. This is a disgusting practice that I take no part in. I simply avoid looking at anyone and mind my own business.

If I need to socially interact with someone, I have a few guidelines that I follow to ensure the other party is not threatened in any way. Once again, I keep eye contact to a minimum. I also lower my voice as to show submission and I only reply with (at most) three word answers. This prevents me from enacting any type of micro-aggressions. The privileged class usually don’t know how ACTUALLY offensive they can be when they mindlessly address characteristics and stereotypes. I do my best to avoid this altogether.

Lastly, I try my best to go to minority-owned establishments when I spend money. However, if the circumstances are such that I need to tip a white waiter, well, I think you already know my stance on that.

However, our hero has a very different approach when among friends:

I’m not some kind of loner weirdo. I have a group of friends that I have been with since college. They are typical white cis het males as well but they don’t take intersectional feminism seriously at all. As a result, I find myself educating them constantly when I hear them state something problematic. I do this with everyone that I know personally because I feel the patriarchy can be dismantled if more people are aware of it.

Because everyone appreciates someone policing their conversation for even the slightest hint of deviationism…

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