"Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton —the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements. It replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.Those who self-indoctrinate via these types of programs will become the next generation of Messiahs, looking for the necessary Victim classes (including themselves of course), and the necessary Oppressor classes which they must persecute in the name of salvation of the persecuted.
In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare. . . .
Such defenestrations have happened elsewhere, and long before 2011. But the UCLA coup was particularly significant because the school’s English department was one of the last champions of the historically informed study of great literature, uncorrupted by an ideological overlay. Precisely for that reason, it was the most popular English major in the country, enrolling a whopping 1,400 undergraduates.
The UCLA coup represents the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class politics. Sitting atop an entire civilization of aesthetic wonders, the contemporary academic wants only to study oppression, preferably his or her own, defined reductively according to gonads and melanin."
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Death of Education
It has long been known that government K-12 education is insufficient (especially for males) to provide sufficient education for college entry, where remedial classwork is required in order to get up to speed. And in the unversities, the humanities and certain sciences have suffered due to PC dilution in university education as well. The following is from the WSJ via instapundit:
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It used to be that getting an education meant developing useful skills in the fields of English, math, social studies, et al. You'd acquire a skill and then put it to good use, because back then we still had something called jobs before all the greedy CEOs outsourced them (thanks also to a complicit government for their deregulation).
Nowadays, getting an education means being indoctrinated with sob stories about how minority groups have suffered injustice and how all the problems of the world are, naturally, the fault of the Anglo-saxons, particularly those who deny evolution and global warming.
It's true what those memes say: every inherently white country suffers forced integration. Meanwhile, other ethnic-centric countries enforce tight immigration laws, because they know damn well what would happen if they didn't.
What are they going to do, smear us with their nasty labels? Oooooh, so scary.
Interesting: "Greedy CEOs" outsourced all the jobs, the government was complicit by enabling them to do this by deregulation...
Maybe one of the useful skills that should have been taught is basic economics, instead of sob stories about how "greedy CEOs" (and all the other "greedy 1%) are the CAUSE of all economic woes in the world.
For the record, there is no such thing as "an inherently white" country. There are different cultures, with people of every race (presuming there is such a thing other than the simply human race) populating those cultures. The "victimized" culture is the predominant culture in the United States of America at this point in time; it is comprised of every known race, including the white race which enables and fosters this nonsense of "race" and "gender" as of primary importance.
And just so I'm clear about this, I am a so-called "white". (I tried a few times to select "Other" on the government job application forms and was told that I had to select "White" or my job application would not be processed. I found that highly offensive and discriminatory, because the instructions said to select the one that I most closely identified with - and in my case, that was "Other" [as in "Human race", which was NOT on the forms].)
Robert, people are divided by race and culture is the natural result of that division. People tend to be more at peace within their own racial community. White people cannot create Japanese culture because, obviously, we're not Japanese. And so forth. If, for instance, the Japanese assimilated with other cultures to the point where they became a minority or close to that, their identity, culture and heritage would eventually disintegrate. I've read that by sometime around 2040, whites will become a minority in America, essentially a form of genocide. White people of English and European ancestry colonized North America, therefore it's our country; it doesn't belong to the entire "human race" anymore than China or Turkey does. If you really feel that every country should just blend together (which even the Bible warned against) then would you care to list non-white countries flooded with millions of people from different ethnic backgrounds? Of course not, because there isn't any. Are all other countries enforcing strict immigration policies 'racist' simply for wanting to preserve their heritage or is that demonization reserved only for self-determined Anglo-saxons?
As for outsourcing, yes, the government and the corporate CEOs are to blame. Who are you going to blame, the working class? C'mon. The rich outsourced our jobs so that they wouldn't have to pay American wages, insurance, etc.
Part I: Culture is NOT a "natural result" of racial differences. The first definition of "culture" that I found using Google is "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively." Did I miss something in that definition about racial differences? I think not.
Although there is no "melting pot" in a real sense in the USA, there is more commonality between various cultures in the USA than one would suspect, given the continuously divisive grievance-mongering by the various Messiah-Victim groups. I am sure that I have much more in common with and share a common culture with Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams and Dr. Benjamin Carson (who are all "black") than I will ever have with Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi (who are all "white").
That you acknowledge that members from one culture become assimilated into a different culture underscores my point that "race" (as ill-defined as it is) is NOT the sine qua non of cultural differences.
That "white" Europeans "colonized" what is now the USA gives no a priori property nor cultural rights to "our country" to the majority "race." IIRC, there seemed to be a considerable number of people of a different "race" with different culture who were here for quite a long time prior to the arrival of the "white" European colonizers.
That the USA is in the process of destroying the majority culture is undeniable. However, it IS deniable that the destruction is occurring due to dilution through assimilation of other cultures. The government (populated in the majority by "white" people) is in the process of destroying one culture in favor of a different "progressive" culture. It is politically rector for "white" people to do anything and everything possible to denigrate anything and everything that might be associated with that culture, including the "outdated" notions documented in the US Constitution. That destruction cannot be foisted off on non-white minority groups.
Part II:
As for the "greedy CEOs" and the government outsourcing "our jobs":
First of all, capital will flow to wherever it will bring the greatest return. That holds true regardless of the economic system officially in place. The responsibility of a CEO is to increase the return on investment to the stockholders. (BTW, that is usually a lot of "little people" like you and me, who have retirement investments through mutual funds, 401K plans, etc.) If the CEO does not accomplish this, she will be removed by the Board of Directors and replaced with someone who will at least make a decent attempt to do so. That some CEOs make what is incorrectly termed "obscene salaries" (associated with "obscene profits") is economic idiocy. Consider this: suppose I were to offer you the CEO position of Exxon-Mobile. In spite of your manifest incapacity to perform effectively in that position and environment, I'm willing to compensate you with an "obscene" salary level; how about $100 million per year? There's just one little proviso: you have to show a profit percentage growth of just 2% per year. Are you going to take the job? I submit that you will NOT be able to do what the CEO of Exxon-Mobile does, no matter how much you get paid. But then, why do Boards of Directors compensate specific individuals with such a bountiful compensation package? Could it be that there is competition for that rare set of skills and experience that can direct such a large corporation to continuously make a profit for the investors? Do you think that Boards of Directors are too stupid to pay LESS, if they could find someone (anyone) like you that could and would do the job for considerably less? Do you honestly believe that you could do that job, and would be seriously considered for that position if you offered to take $1 per year, and the rest in stock options IF AND ONLY IF the company made its profit projections? I think not.
Part II:
Second, the government can foster (or inhibit) business growth or decline through tax policy and through regulatory means. The continual "tinkering" that occurs by the government creates major uncertainty in the business environment. Draconian requirements can (and are in the process of) putting major industries out of business. That is not the result of DEREGULATION but the direct result of OVER-REGULATION by the government. The government imposes and enforces these regulations. Businesses struggle to comply, often being unsure even how to comply. As a result, jobs move to a friendlier business climate. That is the nature of capital. If you want "our jobs" to remain in the USA, then maybe you should tell the unions TANSTAFFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).
Consider the lunatic proposal to raise the wages of McDonald's employees to a minimum of $15 per hour. No change in productivity required, just give me more money to flip burgers. There is more to business than just the profit side of the ledger sheet. There are costs, and labor often is one of the most significant. It can be readily proven that every increase in the minimum wage causes a disparate impact on the low-end wage earners. Yet over and over, those are the very "victims" who lobby for higher and higher wages (with NO productivity increases even considered) through their enabling Messiahs. TANSTAAFL. The inevitable result is a reduction in entry-level jobs for the least skilled. Businesses look at what it takes to do the job, and makes decisions predicated on projections of profit based on costs. Companies would not stay in business if they did not make a profit. Sometimes automation of routine unskilled jobs is the result, because it is less costly to automate (especially with today's computer systems and robotics) than it is to continue to hire totally unskilled people who cannot help the company make a profit.
The changing culture among "whites" (with "trickle down" impact on non-white minorities) is that they are all "victims" of "The Man" (those "greedy rich bastards") and that government is their Savior. That is a fiction perpetuated by the self-anointed "Messiah" class. If you want to see "greed" at work, look at your politicians. They do not produce anything of value, but they demand that others produce so that they can dispense the results of that labor and claim it is altruism and generosity on their part.
That it seems necessary to point out these basic economic facts underscores my assertion previously that basic economics is NOT being taught in the government school system.
Stan, the fact that you posted John's comment is very telling even though it's a small post. Clearly, it's a bot running a script which uses the title of the post with 'is really great...' after.
However, Stan being Stan, you didn't notice and didn't care to check because confirmation bias is how you roll.
Reading your blog once in while to see this, and your other irrational behavior, will continue to be a good source of information/entertainment. Always the same cynical views, depression in the face of society's "fall", denial of basic science, lack of rational morality, faith in mythical stories, generalization of 'others', links to shady sources of info and of course, control of the micro-cosmos that is this blog. Mocking remains your best tool while rationality is thrown away and replaced by Stan's personal truths.
That's all non-sense from the point of view of a narcissistic person. Everyone else is wrong, on everything. Mistakes are never conceded.
Sorry for calling a duck a duck but you won't care anyway :)
Hugo, it seems your eye surgery was very successful! Congratulations and Happy New Year!
I didn't pay any attention to the "John Slam" post, since it had nothing of interest in it regarding the topic under discussion (Death of Education). Since Stan periodically allows unmoderated comments, I presume he didn't check or pay any attention to this one post either. That would seem to be the generous assumption to make, absent any evidence to the contrary. How you jumped to this bot post as an example of Stan's confirmation bias is way beyond my meager logical faculties to grasp.
I can understand your desire to be entertained by the blog; I fail to see how it could be a good source of information given your obvious low opinion of Stan, his many in-depth articles on using proper logic from First Principles, and his blog contents in general. Your post appears to be a prime example of ad hominem attack, n'est ce pas?
I'm mildly curious: Do you have anything to say relevant to the current topic (i.e., the sorry state of higher education in the USA, even if that has not occurred in France)?
Hopefully, I have not offended Michael to the point of no return. Perhaps I should try to figure out how to encapsulate my thoughts into very short "sound bites" and slogans...
Hugo never has ANYTHING relevant to say in ANY of his posts. Proof? Go back and check any post he has ever made. He tries to warp reality through obfuscation and a zillion different Category Errors, but we (and objective reality) refuse, curiously enough, to participate in his delusions.
Go back to work, Hugo. I much prefer you when you are working, because then you are silent.
Robert, try as they might, Africans cannot create Chinese culture, Germans cannot create Brazilian and Americans cannot create Russian.
Where it concerns property right and heritage, this country belongs to the people who conquered it. You'd be hard-pressed to name a single nation without a history of conquest, enslavement and/or displacement. When I say that America is our country, I mean it belongs to us sovereign citizens and not the millions of third-world immigrants pouring in across our borders, leeching off the system and be granted special privilieges. Caucasians aren't disrupting other indigenous populations by pouring in by the millions and assimilating while making demands of the host nation.
Name for me whichever countries you feel should be flooded with white people, because it seems A-OK for others to think they can do it to us, especially Mexicans. I love how they parade around with their Mexican flags and their puffed up pride, yet refuse to go live in their own country. Why's that?
As for the white politicians who willfully go along with amnesty programs and such, they're doing it for easy votes at the ballot box, ruining this country in the process.
This isn't the same nation our founding fathers gave to us. It's been hijacked by special interest groups, secret societies and socialist radicals who seek to destroy the old order in order to replace it with their "new" one, which will inevitably resemble the former USSR. Every city will look like Detroit, every suburb crime-ridden and filthy, our Constitution and Bill of Rights flushed down the toilet.
The post called "Hugo" implies that I should examine every comment as soon as it is put up, 24/7. Since this poster is here under Hugo's name, I will have to either put comments back on moderation, or remove the offenders when I get around to them. If the offenders are consistent, then it will be moderation. But for the time being...
Just ignore them.
I leave Hogo's comment up this time because there are responses to it. But in the future, ignore them and I'll get around to dumping them.
I personally tend to doubt that this is actually Hugo, since Hugo was usually polite, even if only to push buttons. However, since he is slamming away at what he thinks are buttons, maybe it is the real Hugo, thinking that insults are intellectually valid. Either way, his future posts here will be dumped as I get to them.
Part I:
Members born into each culture carry significant parts of that culture with them when they move into an area that is dominated by a different culture. As a result, there is a cross-pollination between the two cultures. It provides the opportunity for both cultures to grow through the contributions of everyone. Unfortunately, there is a human tendency for some members of both cultures to view members of the other culture as inferior. Usually this is based in ignorance of the values and contributions of the other culture, coupled with resentment over perceived (or perhaps actual) unfair advantages codified in law.
None of that is necessarily race-based. Nor is culture necessarily related to race, as I pointed out with the definition given previously: "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively."
I refer you to the excellent works of Dr. Thomas Sowell, a member of the (previously?) dominant culture (based on the definition given above) who merely happens to be black. He is a towering intellectual and one of the staunchest conservatives (in the traditional sense of that word) living in and writing about the KultureSmog destroying the USA. (I love his book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals"!)
Would you define Dr. Sowell as a member of the black minority culture solely on the basis of his skin color? I would not, simply because the cultural values he espouses are exactly the same cultural values that I espouse as an accidentally white person. Surely there is more to each person and his possible contributions to the existing culture than simply the amount of melanin in his skin.
Part II:
By the same token, our current President is half black and half white (by the amorphous standard of "race"). Would you place him in the dominant "white" culture or in the minority "black" culture? His values certainly seem to be in full accord with the currently dominant "progressive WHITE" culture of Messiah-Victim group politics. By his actions, he has shown that he does not espouse the more traditional conservative values of the (previously) dominant "white" culture. Do not assume that the currently dominant "progressive" culture IS the black minority culture. The Progressive movement was founded by WHITE people and is closely associated with the philosophy which drove the eugenics movement (which advocated the sterilization and elimination of members of "inferior" races and cultures. It is NOT an accident of history that one of the most rabid advocates for "cleansing" the human race (advocating the elimination of the "inferior" black race was a white woman named Margaret Sanger - one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is the leading advocate for and provider of abortions, with most of their so-called "health clinics" located very close to or within predominantly black neighborhoods.
Examine Table 101, Abortions—Number and Rate by Race: 1990 to 2007 (Link: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/births_deaths_marriages_divorces/family_planning_abortions.html)
You will find that black abortion rates per 1,000 women is approximately 3 times higher than white abortion rates. Who is killing all those black babies and WHY?
I find it nauseating and morally repugnant that the most prominent provider of abortions goes by the euphemism "Planned PARENTHOOD." Planned parenthood is the idea of planning to be a parent, not planning to kill your own progeny in the womb because you lack any and all moral constraints on your sexual behavior.
Part III:
Regarding your statement, to wit:
"Where it concerns property right and heritage, this country belongs to the people who conquered it."
Given that position, I assume you are quite willing to allow this same process to be applied to you in return by all those "millions of third-world immigrants pouring in across our borders."
If not, then perhaps a re-think of that position might be in order.
Meta topic:
FWIW
That post by "Clover" certainly does not seem like a real person wrote it. I have NO idea what that statement and the ending means: "in favor of readers". I checked out the "www.n8fan.net" site; it doesn't look like a real person's Web site - it is a collection of links to other things, with no personal references or information at all.
Part II:
Your view that "... white people have a long history of building nations which others clamor for while imitating all of our ideas" is ludicrous on the face of it. There have been many great civilizations preceding the establishment of the USA, and many of them are NOT "white." Many of the great ideas from those civilizations are an integral part of the cultural development of the USA. That shouldn't be surprising, because we have been "blessed" by various contributions from many cultures and races and ethnic groups.
As for "ethnic-centric" countries: there is NO "ethnic-centric" country anywhere on the face of the globe. Name one, please. Every country contains some mixture of races, religions, creeds, and political groups. The Japanese were the last people that tried to enforce a Japanense-only society - and that ended in 1853 by force of arms by Commodore Perry.
That YOU (and I) don't want to live in a "predominantly black or Hispanic" neighborhood is a reflection of your (and my) perception of cultural differences, rather than merely a question of race. You state quite clearly "... I don't mind having neighbors with some other ethnicity... ". Given that statement, it should be obvious that you implicitly accept that members of other racial and ethnic groups can share your cultural values, and would therefore be welcome as neighbors, regardless of how many of "them" were living there.
I do not want to live in a neighborhood with a different culture either. It will probably astonish you, but neither do "black" or "Hispanic" people (or any other spurious grouping you can imagine, who share the same cultural values as you and me) want to live in the urban ghetto hell-holes with people who do not share those cultural values.
The definition of tolerance has many different meanings, depending on who is using the term. While I certainly agree with your definition, that is NOT the accepted definition used by the Atheo-Leftists. They use our vocabulary but they don't use our dictionary. (I think that's a quote, but I can't find the exact reference.)
Stan: If I write something that is logically contradictory or uses a logic fallacy, I would appreciate it greatly if you would point that out. That also applies to anyone reading this. TIA!
Cheers!
Stan:
"Those who self-indoctrinate via these types of programs will become the next generation of Messiahs, looking for the necessary Victim classes (including themselves of course), and the necessary Oppressor classes which they must persecute in the name of salvation of the persecuted."
Is it not schizophrenic (certainly logically inconsistent) to hold to the role of Messiah while concurrently holding to the role of Victim, in the same way in the same place at the same time?
What rational argument(s) could (even potentially) be capable of penetrating and (perhaps) changing that viewpoint?
The AtheoLeft is very capable of holding two or more viewpoints simultaneously: there is no "truth", so many viewpoints are simultaneously valid. Internal contradictions are not a failure of logic, if one makes up logical principles for oneself on the fly. The only failure is the failure to win (Alinsky/Obama). Example: Obama is now a super-victim, having failed and been held responsible, to his humiliation.
Being a victim gives one even more moral authority under the Atheoleftist mental gymnastic. In fact, it is a part of Messiahism: just look at Jesus, whom they are imitating, in their attempt to substitute themselves for Him.
I should have added this: there is no rational argumentation which can convict an AtheoLeftist of anything. That is because as Consequentialists, the only valid thinking involves the problem of how to reach their goals, which are emotionally selected to assuage the tortured psyches with which they are afflicted. They rescue themselves with Messiahism by asserting their superiority as Messiahs. They fill in the rest as they require it to be rationalized.
Hugo said:reading your blog once in while to see this, and your other irrational behavior, will continue to be a good source of information/entertainment.
That's great.Why don't you tell more atheists about this site where they can get free entertainment.Also,see if you can find one with balls to take on Stan's challege to Atheists.
Well Robert, there are those who go through the necessary legal channels to immigrate here and then there are those who sneak in across the border or by boat and cost the American taxpayer over $250 billion annually. The latter are the ones I'm taking issue with. It's very telling that $33 billion of it goes to California.
Funny you should bring up Japan: roughly 98% of their population is Japanese. Japan is very ethnic-centric, as is China and a host of other countries. Many middle-eastern countries are very ethnic-centric. Not to say that they don't allow foreigners in, but then they do have border security. Incidentally, there are a few countries where white people are not allowed to live, such as Rhodesia, Liberia and Haiti. Of course they have no qualms about receiving relief funds and such from us.
There's a lot more to the decreasing white population here in America than just abortion figures. It's estimated that there's somehwere around 11-12 million illegals here (but since that stat comes from Washington, I'm inclined to believe the actual number is greater).
If my wanting to preserve our culture, our heritage and our race is construed as *white supremacy* then so too must it be all self-determined races, otherwise you're operating a double-standard. I don't hear these special interest groups complaining about how racist and "non-inclusive" the Native American Indians are for living amongst themselves on reservations.
Michael:
I'm sorry; I got involved in another discussion on this blog regarding abortion, which is still raging. (I decided to duck out for a while, until the level of insane postings drops somewhat.)
You and I are totally in agreement regarding the necessary legal process that SHOULD be followed - not only by those who are immigrating into this country, but also by those who are responsible for enforcing the existing laws on immigration. I also expect that the number of illegal immigrants is (probably) higher than the official government statistics. After all, the government itself describes the majority of illegal immigrants as "living in the shadows" (meaning: uncountable).
There are ethnic-centric cultures around the globe. I know white people who would much rather live in Japan than in the USA, because they share the cultural values of Japan. There are Japanese who would much rather live in the USA, because they share the cultural values of the USA.
My issue with your statements is not concerned with retaining or preserving the valuable aspects of Euro-American culture per se. My objection is that there are many others (of many different "races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, etc." but all members of the HUMAN race) who bring their own unique perspective into the culture. Consequently, I see no valid reason to denigrate their contributions on the basis of "race." I see no particularly "white" superiority based SOLELY on "race." (I see "stupid white people" on a daily basis; there are more than a sufficient number of them posting comments on this blog.)
I DO see considerable value in accepting ANY member of the HUMAN race for their contributions to and continuing support for the culture you choose to designate as "white only."
Returning to the topic which started this discussion, I find it logically incredulous to confer an English Literature degree on a student who has never read nor been required to read a single English Literature text.
I value very highly the literary classics of our European heritage. I also value the Constitutional Republic which has been slowly eroded since its founding, with the most damage done to it by STUPID WHITE PEOPLE.
Regards!
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