We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
It is often claimed that the happiest two days for a boat owner are the day they acquire it and the day they sell it.
That is hyperbole of course, but it makes a point about the burdens, expenses, and hassles of ownership. Even having a closet full of firearms means taking them out and cleaning and oiling them once a year. Hassle. New roof for a house or barn? Major.
So our survey question is this: What were you once thrilled to possess and later thrilled to get rid of?
I hope nobody says a spouse, but they probably will. I'll start it off with more than several acres my wife and I inherited on Martha's Vineyard. The old house on the land had been sold decades ago to pay estate taxes, but an elegant family compound could have been built on the land. Just a dream. I never had the spare dough to do that, and, really, I have a perfect set-up now although we are too far from salt water. Sold the land a few years ago, big capital gains and fees, etc., but I got off the hook for the property taxes, maintaining the right of way, and maintaining the fields in the center of the property which we never used. Big relief. Fact is, if we love the Vineyard (it's an ok yuppie place) we can rent a house for ten days and go there whenever we want. We never do. We go to Rhode Island instead, and rent.
"Like a bearded nut in robes on the sidewalk proclaiming the end of the world is near, the media is just doing what makes it feel good, not reporting hard facts. We need to start seeing the media as a bearded nut on the sidewalk, shouting out false fears. It's not sensible to listen to it."
The guy says he has a "permissive" view of speech. "Permissive"? Americans do not need permission. "I am almost absolutist about speech, but..." Permission from whom? Students must be protected from provocative speakers?
Entrenched in a static, factory model of education, American public schools haven't changed much since the Industrial Revolution. "School, Inc." explores the 19th century origins of mass schooling, noting how the Prussian system of compulsory schooling that was ultimately adopted in the U.S. squeezed out other popular forms of education, and prevented ongoing innovation.
Fishing for bottom-feeders is not the most challenging fishing, but Halibut is, in my view, the tastiest seafood. Simply broiled with salt, pepper, and some butter. Overcooking fish is a crime.
Our public schools are a national disgrace with abysmal international rankings. Our test scores that haven’t budged in 40 years. Unions prevent bad teachers from being fired. Teachers are essential to academic outcomes but they are academically weak and unimpressive, the bottom feeders of college graduates. Administrators are crippled because they can’t fire bad teachers. We know what works in education. Choice will save our country by improving student outcomes. Charters have proven all kids can learn and poverty doesn’t matter. And so on.
All the conventional wisdom I’ve outlined in the previous paragraph is false, or at least complicated by reality. Any education reformer with more than two years experience would certainly agree that the public is mostly unmoved by rhetoric about teacher quality, tenure, curriculum changes, and choice—in fact, when “education reform” is a voting issue, the voters are often going against reform...
This hyperindividualism of “teach the child, not the subject” came into American schooling only gradually in the early twentieth century, taking over completely only in the 1950s and ’60s. It was a fundamental shift. Current political correctness in education is an updated variation on the theme of individualism. The social version of “teach the child, not the subject” became “respect the home ethnicity of the child; don’t impose an Anglo culture that is alien to his or her background and personality.” And the psychological version of individualism became: “Adjust the subject matters to the child’s interests and abilities.” Both multiculturalism and multiple-intelligence theory caught on like wildfire in recent decades. More recently, one’s individuality has become conceived through “intersectionality.” A child is to be understood as an intersection of multiple essential groups and tribes—“Hispanic and gay,” for example—not as an “American,” which is assumed to be a nonessential trait...
Traditions, rituals and ceremonies take centuries to build, and can be lost in an instant. Be careful of your inheritance.
– Unknown
The nuclear family must be destroyed…whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process.
–Linda Gordon
Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.
– Sheila Cronin
“Tribe.” How can there be tribe without clans? How can there be clans without extended families? How can there be extended families without patriarchy? How can clans become tribes without a chief? Indeed, how can there be families at all with divorce, contraception and infanticide and a ‘working ‘mother’? And as far as community goes, can you think of a people less prone to coalesce into community than Americans?
Judging people of the past by the moral standards of today is grotesque intellectual arrogance, what you expect from 19-year-old sophomores demanding trigger warnings. The people of the past lived in a different moral universe, just as the people of the future will.
RURAL AMERICA IS THE NEW ‘INNER CITY’. It's difficult to maintain the vision of pastoral innocent wholesomeness. Non-tourist rural areas are rapidly becoming creepy. There is no fix for this evolution.
A decade ago, in a moment of excessive candor, Watson referred to the (statistically true) lower average IQ of black Americans. He probably had some bad experiences, but there is no shortage of less intelligent white people in the world either. Half of white Americans have below average IQs and many of them sport college degrees.
Anyway, the warnings are out there. You can be blackballed in academia, and in life, so keep your disappointing experiences with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. to yourself and to your friends like everybody does. Lie if you have to. Thus experience and facts are driven underground.
Jordan Peterson, in one of his Youtubes, said "The alternative to free speech is tyranny." In Watson's case, as in Charles Murray's case, the consequence of free speech is being blackballed which is a sort of extra-legal social tyranny with financial consequences. Watson would be a very wealthy man if not for his indiscretion.
Fast is, there are plenty enough intelligent, energetic, and competent people out there of all colors and ethnicities. Statistics do not apply to individuals or to the task at hand, but only at the macro level.
My ethnicity is dumber, statistically, than Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians. I can see that, experientially, in my life. My competitive self is disappointed, but I am ok with it now. IQ is not the most important factor in success or life happiness anyway: it's just one of several limiting factors in high-complexity work. I know my limits.
In fact, I think I have seen more people with average IQs achieve their life dreams than I have high IQ people. It's just in different areas of endeavor. Depending on the area, any of these can be life- limiting factors: IQ, social skills and social graces, solid judgement, stick-to-it-iveness, stress tolerance, self-discipline, energy and drive, integrity and loyalty, articulateness, curiosity, dutifulness - and more. IQ, like height, is a life factor which can't be improved by effort.
Tenure in higher ed is gradually being squeezed out by academic administrative greed. Ironically, however lefty academia is, money is their motivation. Like any other business, they want the best product at the lowest cost. Non-for-profit is no different from business, since administrators took over the thing.
Tenure will only endure where it is least justifiable; in unionized government schools: The End Of Teacher Tenure?
Tenure, I suppose, used to be a substitute for high salary, but that no longer applies. Guaranteed job plus high salary plus great benefits no longer exists in the real world. Outside government jobs, that is. Why is that?
If ever there were a narrative worthy of being subjected to “stubborn skepticism,” in (Yale President) Salovey’s words, the claim that Yale was the home of “hatred and discrimination” is it. There is not a single faculty member or administrator at Yale (or any other American college) who does not want minority students to succeed. Yale has been obsessed with what the academy calls “diversity,” trying to admit and hire as many “underrepresented minorities” as it possibly can without totally eviscerating academic standards. There has never been a more tolerant social environment in human history than Yale (and every other American college)—at least if you don’t challenge the reigning political orthodoxies. Any Yale student who thinks himself victimized by the institution is in the throes of a terrible delusion, unable to understand his supreme good fortune in ending up at one of the most august and richly endowed universities in the world.
But the ubiquitous claim that American campuses are riven with racism is not, apparently, one of the “false narratives” that Salovey had in mind. Not only did the president endorse that claim, but the husband-and-wife team who had triggered the Halloween costume furor penned a sycophantic apology to minority students in their residential college: “We understand that [the original e-mail] was hurtful to you, and we are truly sorry,” wrote Professors Nicholas and Erika Christakis. “We understand that many students feel voiceless in diverse ways and we want you to know that we hear you and we will support you.” Yale’s minority students may “feel” voiceless, but that feeling is just as delusional as the feeling that Yale is not “inclusive.”
So Salovey’s claim that Yale resolutely seeks out and unmasks “false narratives” is itself a false narrative...
Hank Shaw 