Splendid Isolation

Category: Seen On Campus

Observations from an elderly student

Evil Totalitarians Etc.

Gummint, Seen On Campus

“But what about the Chiiiiiildren?”  I can hear the wails already, in response to this latest example of Antipodean totalitarianism:

Cellphones will be banned in schools across New Zealand, conservative Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Friday, as his fledgling government looks to turn around the country’s plummeting literacy rates. The move would stop disruptive behaviour and help students focus, he said.

New Zealand’s schools once boasted some of the world’s best literacy scores, but levels of reading and writing have declined to the point that some researchers fear there is a classroom “crisis”.

Luxon declared he would ban phones at schools within his first 100 days in office, adopting a policy tested with mixed results in the United States, United Kingdom and France.

I know the thinking behind this:  what has changed with schoolkids since (say) 1980 when literacy rates were X, but which are now X/5?

Cell phones!!!!!!

So it’s to the banning table we go.

Of course, what has also changed in the interim is that (dare I say it) teacher quality has plummeted, teaching methodology has deteriorated, and classroom educational standards have dropped.

But those are sehr schwierig (nay, even impossible) issues to tackle, because we know that all teachers are dedicated professionals who have only the kids’ best interests at heart, teaching methodology is much better now that we’ve dropped silly things like rote learning of arithmetic tables and lowered spelling standards in favor of feelings, and we won’t even talk about topics like strict grading and corporal punishment (eek).

It’s so much easier just to ban cell phones.

Now understand that I’m actually in favor of banning the fucking things in schools because at best, children have the attention span of gnats and the blessed ability to Goooogle stuff is so, like, cool and easy and twenty-first century, Dad;  while old-fashioned learning is difficult and so, like, nineteenth century.  (I’m hopefully assuming that the modern generations are actually aware of the existence of a 19th century, but let’s move on.)

And I’m not interested in the supposed safety of the Chiiiiildren that cell phones are supposed to bring.  In fact, the proven negatives of cell-phone slavery amongst kids outweigh every single aspect of supposed in-class student safety, so there ya go.

Have the little shits turn their precious phones in at the school doors, to be returned when they leave the premises.  And have “backup” phones permanently confiscated when found.

So go for it, KiwiPM Luxon:  ban the poxy things.

And then, when literacy rates remain stubbornly in the basement, you can tackle the real problems, as outlined above.

Actually, No

Psychos, Seen On Campus

I think we all remember this little incident, where a 6’6″ schoolboy thug beat a teacher’s aide unconscious over a Nintendo Switch.  No?  Here’s the story, along with his mother — predictably — begging for clemency because “prison will kill him”.

Here’s the thing, Mommie Dearest:  your precious little baby belongs in prison, because he has demonstrated quite beyond doubt that he is a menace to society.

And frankly, I don’t care that he’s autistic, any more than I would care that voices in his head are telling him that Switch Is God, and therefore beating someone savagely is somehow acceptable.

He belongs in prison.  And if that “kills him”, that is just too bad — because if he’s allowed to run free, who’s to say that he won’t go nuts and beat someone (to death, this time) because they wouldn’t give him Cheerios for breakfast?

Maybe — just maybe — he should be confined to a mental institution instead, except that such institutions are usually staffed with bleeding-heart psychologists wearing wizard hats, who solemnly declare that after a few months’ therapy, little Johnny is Ready To Be Released Into Society.

Whereupon little Johnny murders someone else, because he doesn’t like Mondays.

And then people like myself call for the psychologist to be executed for being an accessory to murder (which they are, in cases such as these) under Hammurabic principles.

So the whole thing spirals out of control, simply because we as a society somehow think that mentally-retarded sociopaths like this Brendan Depa shouldn’t be incarcerated and kept from being a danger to anyone they come into contact with (e.g. a 5’4″ slender teacher’s aide).

Throw him in jail and melt the key.

The fact that modern prisons are dangerous places is a topic for another time, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion.

And some people might disagree with me, but they’d be wrong.

Provocation

Legal Stuff, Seen On Campus

I know that most university students have brains like rice pudding, unencumbered as they are by any experiences with actual reality in their scholastic years — K-12 and whatever college years they’ve completed to date.

One would think that law students would be a little brighter than, say, the average Female Studies major, but that really doesn’t seem to be the case, what with law students coming out against Israel / Jews and supporting — publicly! — the amoral assholes known collectively as “Hamas”.

Let’s also keep in mind that in American law firms there is a very real chance that Jews are going to be, shall we say, very well represented as a proportion of the staffs thereof — despite the WASPy-sounding names of the firms.  In other words, if a freshly-minted lawyer from, oh, Cornell or Yale is going to begin his career at, say, Debevoise & Plimpton, Kirkland & Ellis or Winston, Strawn — to name but some notables — there is a real chance that his manager is going to be someone named Hyman Goldstein, Avi Cohen or Rachel Nathan.

How is said manager going to act towards a junior associate who once went public and signed a letter / marched in a protest which supported the genocidal “From The River To The Sea” slogan?  With compassion, kindness and forgiveness?

I’ll take “none of the above” for $400, Alex.

The pink-cheeked junior is going to be given megatons of overtime shitwork, the results of which will be mercilessly picked apart not only by the manager but also by partners (e.g. David Rosenblum or Myra Feldstein), resulting in terrible performance reviews and eventual termination.  And their next job is going to be even worse because — incredibly — senior lawyers at different law firms know each other and often talk amongst themselves about their employees at their weekly klabejas games or golf outings.

One may say that this is unjust or whatever, but it’s what’s known as “reality” — the thing from which these precious snowflakes have been sheltered by parents and teachers for over a dozen years of their lives to date — and it’s going to bite them in the ass, painfully and repeatedly.

So then, I think these idiot students can be grateful for this development (no link because NYT fucking paywall):

Law Firms Warn Universities About Antisemitism on Campus

Two dozen major Wall Street firms sent a letter to top law schools to crack down on discrimination and harassment amid an escalation in incidents targeting Jewish students.

With universities across the United States grappling with a rise in antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, elite law firms are putting schools on notice. In a letter to some of the nation’s top law schools obtained by DealBook, about two dozen major Wall Street firms warned that what happens on campus could have corporate consequences.

…nipping the careers of this little bunch of starry-eyed young idiots in the bud, so to speak.

The Gods Of The Copybook Headings say:  “Actions have consequences, and often those consequences are unpleasant.”

As these pro-Hamas-terrorist ingenues are finding out.

Preaching To The Choir

Marxists, Resistance, Seen On Campus

Of course the Left wants to muzzle people who disagree with their agenda:

The College of Psychologists of Ontario, which has embraced radical gender theory in recent years, has threatened to remove Peterson’s clinical psychology license over his social media activity if he did not go through a so-called “specified continuing education or remedial program.” 

…and unsurprisingly, the Canucki courts (another bunch of Stalinists) has sided with these assholes:

On Wednesday, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered Peterson to pay $25,000 to the College of Psychologists and upheld the order that he go through a social media education program. 

Also unsurprisingly, Jordan Peterson has told them to fuck off, in his polite manner.

Here’s my thought on the matter.  If there’s some wealthy conservative tycoon out there who wants to put his money where it will do a lot of good, he should announce the endowment of a Department of Modern Psychology at, say, Hillsdale College, to be headed by Dr. Jordan Peterson.

Why Hillsdale?

Regular Readers of this website know my philosophy about education.  It is based on the principles of Albert Jay Nock, which can be summarized as follows:  “Educate only those who are receptive to being educated, instead of trying to educate everybody.”

Kids who attend Hillsdale College are likely to be conservative (or at least their parents are), and Peterson’s teachings are more likely to be appreciated and reinforced by their receptive audience.

From a practical perspective, this would take Peterson away from the toxic College of Psychologists of Ontario and still-more toxic Canadian environment, put him in a position which encourages his thinking and analysis, and would create a platform for his message.  Also, Peterson would be forever immune to censure and “re-education” (a.k.a. psychological bullying).

In the long run, this would be far more effective than contributing to Chris Christie’s doomed presidential election bid.

Just a thought.

Legacy Issues

Seen On Campus

Reader Mike L. sends me this little snippet:

The U.S. Department of Education has launched a civil rights investigation into Harvard University’s policies on legacy admissions.

Top colleges’ preferential treatment of children of alumni, who are often white, has faced mounting scrutiny since the Supreme Court last month struck down the use of affirmative action as a tool to boost the presence of students of color.

The department notified Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, on Monday that it was investigating the group’s claim that the university “discriminates on the basis of race by using donor and legacy preferences in its undergraduate admissions process.”

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed its Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation at Harvard. The agency declined further comment. 

I’ve always thought that giving alumni preference for their kids’ admissions was a nice touch, in that it established some kind of continuum or legacy (hence the name) for families.  (My old school St. John’s College absolutely thrived on such a legacy — to see fathers and even grandfathers wearing the Old Boys’ tie was a sign of belonging like few others — and legacies always got automatic admission into what was an extremely limited enrollment.)

But nowadays, tradition and (especially, it seems) father-son or mother-daughter traditions are anathema to the Egalitarian Set, who equate what is essentially a courtesy into some kind of “inheritance” Bad Thing, akin to keeping title transference within the same family.

It’s a good thing we don’t have nobility titles Over Here, because otherwise some Human Rights pests in our Gummint would no doubt call for its abolition in the name of “equity”.

A pox on all of them.

By the way, I have no dog in this fight because I happen to think that any private institution should have the right to determine whom they prefer to see inside it as members — country clubs, universities, fraternities, companies, whatever.

The fact that Harvard, of all places, is getting bitten by this is satisfying, but only because Harvard is a stupefyingly-PC and much-overrated institution, and they deserve every bad thing that happens to them, the elitist bullshit artists.

Melting Snowflakes

Seen On Campus, Snowflakes

This one made me giggle like a little girl:

Academic researchers condemned students’ irreverent and offensive responses to an LGBTQ survey, claiming the pushback indicates “fascist ideologues” are “living ‘inside the house’ of engineering and computer science.”

In an article for the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, academics from Oregon State University wrote about their shock at receiving sarcasm and mockery in response to their research into undergraduate LGBTQ students studying in STEM fields. 

The team claimed 50 of 349 responses to their questionnaire on the topic contained “slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team.” Labeling them “malicious respondents,” they adapted their project to examine how the joke responses “relate to engineering culture by framing them within larger social contexts — namely, the rise of online fascism.”

Oh, diddums.  So the “researchers” asked a bunch of engineering students some stupid questions, and a few of the responders responded with ridicule, the little scamps.

The result?

The research team declared that the mockery they received “had a profound impact on morale and mental health,” particularly for one transgender researcher who was “already in therapy for anxiety and depression regarding online anti-trans rhetoric.” The paper claimed that “managing the study’s data collection caused significant personal distress, and time had to be taken off the project to heal from traumatic harm” of having to read students’ responses in the survey.

Sorry, I can’t carry on because tears.

Of scornful laughter.  Fucking snowflake weenies.

Oh, and the response to their survey’s conclusions?  Rejection.  Read it all for the full flavor.