Maggie's Farm

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Wednesday, March 11. 2009

Merit is racist. Let's go back to geneology and pedigree.

Related to our first link of this morning, Focus on Outcome, we see this from Dr. Clouthier: We need to redefine merit...because standardized testing is racist.


How come I always thought that merit was supposed to be the solution to genetic and ethnic bias? I guess not. Racism and ethnicism are the new anti-racism and anti-ethnicism. Silly me to have trouble with that, after all this time.


With this obsession with the genetics of skin tone, why don't we simply revert to the old way, where our genetic blood-line determines what we get to do? No, I have no African blood (well, way back we all do), or royal blood either. English serfs mostly - essentially slaves (does that give me a leg up?), I believe, back in the 1400s. Hard workers who survived long enough to reproduce. A random knight or two, I believe, for whatever that's worth, and a few clergymen.


Thank God, no Irish blood.

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays, Politics at 16:24 | Comments (16) | Trackbacks (0)

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So what they're really saying is that all men are not created equal, presumably with the subtext that the reason is because there is no God. Thus neo-liberalism requires that the major, or sole, purpose of government is to create equality of outcome. The only way Man has to do that is to grind the masses into poverty and death, as 20th-Century Communists have proven.

We've come full circle: from literally-liberal egalitarianism geared toward the pursuit of happiness by restricting government from hindering equality of opportunity, to literally-fascist collectivism geared toward the seeking of government-granted rents and funded by the restriction of economic opportunity and the conviscation of national wealth.

Needless to say, the kernel of fallacy, if we assume as pure intentions as possible, is the myth of the zero-sum game. Give that perverted assumption, power politics is the only righteous economic transaction. It is ridiculously easy to illustrate otherwise, but I suppose the religious-style tradition built around it is too strong.
#1 Anonymous on 2009-03-11 17:17 (Reply)
"Guinier goes on to insult hard working students and diminish their academic success in explaining her rationale, saying, “the reason that I’m calling it racism is because it is a state of mind that is indifferent to the fact that these tests, whatever you think about them, are having a disparate impact on different populations and violating that first principal that talent is equally distributed among all groups.”

You must forgive her: She is depending on "first principals".

I keep seeing that opening scene in Apple's Macintosh ad, '1984'.
`
#2 Meta on 2009-03-11 17:34 (Reply)
I have to add this: If I extend the metaphor, I see Obama swining that huge bludgeon in the Apple ad. What is he doing to this country? Why is he even entertaining such about education when everything is crashing all around him. He is that bludgeon.

Send Mr. President to Room 101 for some real education starting with the black boot.
`
#2.1 Meta on 2009-03-11 18:02 (Reply)
Whose 'first principal' is that, anyhow? And even if talent is distributed evenly across population groups, that does not mean that effort][i] and thus [i]results are distributed evenly across the pool of talented individuals.

Dr. Clouthier needs to go back for retraining in basic critical thinking.
#2.2 Dave in W-S on 2009-03-12 10:55 (Reply)
Dr. Clothier is mocking Guinier who, among many absurd statements, says this: "... the fact that these tests, whatever you think about them, are having a disparate impact on different populations and violating that first principal that talent is equally distributed among all groups.”

That should be 'first principles', not 'first principal'. Guinier should have been tested before her principal handed her her high school diploma.
`
#2.2.1 Meta on 2009-03-12 18:23 (Reply)
What do you mean by that last crack, B?
#3 Steve on 2009-03-11 18:30 (Reply)
Couldn't resist being a wise-ass, given the topic.
#3.1 B. on 2009-03-11 19:32 (Reply)
Thank God no Irish blood!???

That's the last time YOU'LL offend my Guinness-driven sensibilities. I'm off to have a potato and a six pack and be denied a job due to my Celtic roots....

Seriously, is she for real?
I had a friend who supports these people say to me today, "Logic is subjective" when I supplied him with a truly logical and devastating response to one of his comments.

Logic is subjective? This shouldn't surprise me because to these eggheads who suffer from analysis paralysis and are so self important truly believe everything can be subjective. It's all about perception.

His reply "perception is reality" was the root of his view that logic was subjective. I replied "Interesting. So 1+1=2 can be 1+1=3 in your world? This is logic. This is reality. But if I PERCEIVE that the two apples sitting on the windowsill are 4 apples, then I can share them with my 4 friends?"
"You can if you cut them in half."
"But then everyone doesn't get an apple."
"But they will all get SOME of the apple, and they are all happy."
"Not if I, or someone else, wants a whole apple and is willing to work for it."
"What you're willing to do for the apple is less important than what is justified."
"So logic and reality are about what is justifiable to....who?"
"Society"

Interesting. It's the most convoluted and absurd argument, but in their minds, this kind of thing is reality.
#4 Rick on 2009-03-11 20:14 (Reply)
Rick,
That "perception is reality" crap was laid on my once by a marriage counsilor shrink. That's when I first realized that shrinks are nuts. What can that possibly mean? It's an argument that denies any point of an argument (sorry, already posted the MontyPython skit a couple weeks ago). On an earlier thread someone posted about a bridge not caring how multi-culti it's builders were, it will either stand or fall based on a definitive reality. This lefty idea that "perception is reality" may work in the context of human relations, but then again, that's really just another perception.
#4.1 KRW on 2009-03-12 10:16 (Reply)
Rick, perhaps your friend meant "Logic is sometimes inconvenient?" That translation might illuminate.

Standardised testing has a misused usefulness but not No Usefulness. Jensen was much more thorough than people give him credit for.

I believe adaptability is going to slowly replace intelligence as the most useful survival quality. Not that they are in any way exclusive, but that we will shade increasingly to definitions of intelligence that include measures of adaptability.
#5 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2009-03-11 20:27 (Reply)
"Standardised testing has a misused usefulness but not No Usefulness." Exactly right, AVI. Might as well keep it in place so the learned lemmings won't have nervous breakdowns when they get tested at job sites over and over and over again and can't figure out why they can't get hired. From an insider's view, those tests do help with starting points to get kids the help they need so they don't fail and fail. We can't help them if they drop out.

I think adaptability came first. No denying your theory that some are recycling it as a means to live. They're already surviving in their own galaxy... :)
`
#5.1 Meta on 2009-03-11 20:46 (Reply)
Gentlemen and Gentle ladies: I have to tell you this; I say it to you very LOUDLY--so you will not be surprised when it happens. Ginsberg steps out (or dies) and Guanier will once again be put up for Supreme Court Justice. I have seen this woman in person on a large campus--she is far more skilled at being evil than Obama ever could be-SHE ENJOYS IT! Twisted, cunning, highly skilled and (should I add ugly?). We must start now with a loud, organized resistance so that they won't even try to put her up for the court again. START LOUDLY NOW! Call FOX--cover the internet. Any blog you go to--interrupt the conversation with this link and tell them to help the resistance! I will--will you?
#6 apple pie on 2009-03-12 00:47 (Reply)
Me thinks, Mudboy Hussein enjoys what he is doing, even if it does tucker him out, on ocassion.

Actually, people who don't enjoy evil ain't evil.

Barack Hussein Obama is still laughing at yall.
#6.1 Leag on 2009-03-12 12:14 (Reply)
Too much Irish blood...worse luck!
#7 thud (Link) on 2009-03-12 01:12 (Reply)
Prisons should be a valued pool for Mudboy and his girls to tap for talent.
#8 Leag on 2009-03-12 15:45 (Reply)
Most people are descended from slaves and nobility alike. Especially since most family trees have lies or mistakes here and there -- usually in the paternal lines but sometimes in the maternal line as well. There's been enough mixing in the U.S. that many more Anglos have Irish blood than perhaps know it.
#9 Geoff on 2009-03-12 16:55 (Reply)

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