Tag: Campus Follies

Adventures in academia

“Losing”?

Gummint, Law and Order, Media Assholes, Military

I yield to no man in terms of my respect for Victor Davis Hanson, but I’m afraid the worthy professor is extremely late to this party.

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization
Millions of citizens long ago concluded that professional sports, academia, and entertainment were no longer disinterested institutions, but far Left and deliberately hostile to Middle America.
Yet American conservatives still adamantly supported the nation’s traditional investigatory, intelligence, and military agencies — especially when they came under budgetary or cultural attacks.
Not so much anymore.

He then enumerates said institutions:  the FBI, the military (senior officers), Big Tech / Woke journalism, federal health agencies, and the criminal justice system in general.

I will admit that the above are relative newcomers to the conservatives’ hall of shame, but as we all know, we’ve always loathed and distrusted the alphabet soups of the IRS, ATF and DHS, as well as Cabinet departments like the EPA, Energy, Interior and Education — to name but a few.

Wake up, VDH:  they’re all on the shit list.  They are very close to being — and in some cases very much already — not the “pillars of our civilization”, but active destroyers thereof.

And if you Readers want proof of this, ask yourself this question:  would you rather deal with your local law enforcement, or the FBI?  Your county tax office or the IRS?

Q.E.D.

Of Course You Can’t Do That

CRT, Education, Homeschooling, Marxists

It IS the most fundemental issue facing us right now:

The American Left (aided and abetted by some conservatives) believes that the government, not parents, should determine the content of a child’s mind—their ideas, their principles, and their values. A few weeks after McAuliffe’s tone-deaf faux pas, two authors writing in The Washington Post summed up the Left’s position in the title of their op-ed: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” Parents should have neither the right nor the authority, according to the Post’s writers, to determine the ideas taught to their children. This task should be left to the “experts”—to the experts of the Education Establishment. The authors go on to claim that “education should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of their parents.”

And:

“When it comes to society’s interest in protecting children, the legal precedent is unambiguous: The rights of parents come second.” But the question is, if parents’ rights come second when it comes to protecting or educating their children, then whose rights come first? And the authors’ answer is obvious: society’s rights, the government’s rights, the rights of the public-policy experts trump those of parents.

I need to quit now, because bullshit like this makes one of my fingers twitch really badly.  Let’s call it this one, just for the official record:

(but I could be lying)

And that’s even after having completed my own kids’ homeschooling many years ago.  But despite that, this is a hill I’d be prepared to die on, if called to do so.

Quick reminder to the “experts” and the State-sponsored thugs they use for “enforcement” :  if you want to see a serious piece of social upheaval, start fucking with people’s kids.  Virginia parents’ reaction to the CRT curricula isn’t even an appetizer.

Our kids are ours.  They are not the possession of the State.  But go ahead and poke that nest of rattlesnakes with your short little sticks…

Unequal

Education

Ah yes, using inequity to try to achieve equity:

Universities ‘will give poorer pupils priority’: Private school teenagers will get short shrift in admissions as colleges look to prioritise the disadvantaged

This time, it’s not choosing Blacks over Whites, but poor over wealthy.  Yup, I can just see how this will help the poor overcome the “systemic bias” of the British education system.  It’s the academic version of the “magic dirt” theory:  that somehow, exposing the poor to better education will somehow raise all of them into successful careers after graduation.

Now, I agree that the earlier system of admissions — whereby the son of Lord Snotnose-Dribbling was guaranteed a place at Oxbridge simply he was the future Earl of Dunfartin.  But let’s be honest, here:  private school education tends to produce better students than state-managed warehouses do.  And yes, it’s unfair that a scion of a wealthy (or titled) man should have easier access to places like Eton or Harrow than those of a fishmonger in Whitechapel, ergo  a better chance of getting into, say, Cambridge.  But denying the “privileged” a place at university in favor of poorer individuals whose grades are worse than the former isn’t much better, is it?

Once again, they’re expecting equality of outcome by “equalizing” admission, when any fool will tell you from experience that it’s a fool’s pursuit.

But the Left have never allowed commonsense, history and logic to interfere with their stupid philosophy, have they?

Deceit And Coverup

Education, Marxists

Via Insty comes this latest bastardy, in Eureka MO just west of St. Louis:

Faced with complaints from parents about the indoctrination of children, an official in Rockwood School District, Missouri, instructed teachers to create two sets of curriculum: a false one to share with parents, and then the real set of curriculum, focused on topics like activism and privilege.

I should point out that the foul “educator” who sent out this loathsome message is, like First Lady Jill Biden, a Doctor in Education (EdD).

And the next time someone tells me that homeschooling is wrong for children, I’m going to punch them in the face.

Timeless

Anarchist thugs, BaconLettuceMayo, Education, Literature

A constant whine among stupid people — professors and students alike — is that Literature classes should no longer have to read Shakespeare because he’s “not relevant to today’s world” or some such nonsense.

Now I can understand why students whine about reading Shakespeare, because they’re ignorant and immature, and “that’s not English, dude” — IDK wht u sez LOL — as though if it’s not “modern” then it’s not worth learning.

I will also disregard the usual cant about Shakespeare being beyond the pale because he’s, like, old and a Dead White Male Patriarch to boot.

Over at Taki’s place, David Cole has written an absolute masterpiece on Aaron, the arch-villian in Titus Andronicus  (one of my favorite of all the Bard’s works, because if you think that Brian De Palma is the be-all and end-all of violent writing, Andronicus  has him beaten by a country mile).

What Cole proves (as though any proof were needed) is just how relevant Shakespeare is in today’s world.  And what Shakespeare proves is that when it comes to the human condition, there’s very little new under the sun.

Go there now and read it all.

And then read Titus Andronicus, for the full treatment of malevolence and violence.