We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Welcome to our horrible racist university Heather Mac Donald has written an important essay for City Journal, Conformity to a Lie. (Hat tip to Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
The essay contains much that saddens and enrages me, but in places it is funny. After quoting several examples of college presidents and deans craving pardon for the racism of their institutions, she writes,
All such institutional self-accusations by college presidents leave out the specifics. Which faculty members do not treat black students fairly? If that unjust treatment is so obvious, why weren’t those professors already removed? What is wrong with an admissions process that lets in thousands of student bigots? In other moments, college presidents brag about the quality of their student body and faculty. Are they lying? Shouldn’t they have disclosed to black applicants that they will face “racist acts” and “systems of inequality” should they attend?
Edit: Thinking about it, this is a smaller scale example of the rule that in time of revolution it is safer to be a Tsarist than an Old Bolshevik.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
That’s nothing; shouldn’t they advise their female students of the appalling risk of assault.
I remember Melbourne university offering a waffling ‘apology’ to the Aborigines, devoid of any specifics, as an early example of virtue-signalling (it came on the back of a general apology from Canberra by the Labor government of Kevin Dudd). Since my connexion with the institution was about to end, I asked what exactly they were apologising for. Answer came there none.
This behaviour may be sincere devotion to the Frankfurt School of Marxism – “Diversity”, “Critical Race Theory”.
Or it may be cowardice – fear of persecution, and grovelling and begging to avoid being attacked.
Or it may be some mixture of both these things – varying among different academics and different institutions.
But, either way, it has he same effect – the undermining of civilisation.
Any university, indeed any institution (including any POLITICAL PARTY) that goes down this Frankfurt School of Marxism “Diversity” “Systemic Racism” road is an active force for evil – and must be treated accordingly.
They are not some silly joke – they are an active, and important, force for evil.
Marxism could not win the ECONOMIC arguments – because it is based on absurd fallacies such as the Labour Theory of Value.
So Marxism came back in via the back door – the Cultural Door, using such things as “anti racism” and “anti sexism” to slip in the same false claims of “exploitation” and “oppression”. With Marxism as the false answer to the false “narrative”.
This seems to me to be a major fault on the left, namely the shibboleth. Saying things that you don’t mean to be part of the group.
The most glaring example of that is going on in our presidential election right now. Kalama Harris has publicly accused Biden of being a racist in her debate with him (in a “I’m not saying you are a racist but….” kind of a way) and also of being a rapist because she has said she believe’s Tara Reid’s accusation that Biden digitally penetrated her against her will.
Yes, despite the fact she has publicly called him a racist and a rapist she has decided to join his presidential ticket. The dishonestly and hypocrisy of this is quite shocking.
And how to explain it? Well partly it is a craving for power irrespective of integrity and honesty, but also because her accusation of racism and rape was more a shibboleth than anything real. When one uses the words “I believe women” the expression is more a statement of “I’m a member of the gang” rather than any indication of what she ACTUALLY believes about what women say. Which is ironic, since on its face it is a brutally sexist and ridiculously stupid thing to say. For sure, women should get a fair hearing if they make an accusation of rape, but an absolute claim she must be telling the truth belies any experience with actual human beings, male, female or in between.