Their legal team and PR team are formulating the small steps, to be announced at the most self-serving time and on the most self-serving platforms, a few days after which it will be forgotten by the public and the institution.
I meant to write a comment in the previous post about what the Jews in the U.S. should be doing. What they should be doing is arming themselves heavily and organizing a plan for self-defense.
I get why a drug dealer might plan for self-defense. The risk is big. Despite some horrible acts, it is not big for Jews. Living life prepared for battle isn't much fun. If I were a Jew I'd hope I didn't think I needed to live that way.
You misunderstand. If you choose to be armed, so be it, but most people don't and Jews don't really have more reason. The risk to most people is extremely low and not significantly different for Jews.
That is true. But how much difference does that make? I found an FBI hate crime against Jews number of 676 in 2000. There are 7.6mil Jews so less than 10 in 100,000 were victims of hate crime. Similarly I found US aggravated assault rate of 250 in 100,000. It would seem being a tall poppy makes a pretty small difference.
That said, it is true if we focus on Jews who wear identifying dress (skullcaps or something more) and general population that doesn't participate in crime or live in a violent neighborhood, doesn't have violent acquaintances or frequent bars, events, etc. where violence is more common, and doesn't transport cash from their business, the rates will come closer. How much? IDK.
There was a spate of home invasions of South Asian immigrants in the DFW area some years ago. They were known to be unlikely to be armed and also rumored to keep valuables in their homes.
Enough of their coworkers took them to the range so that enough of them took up shooting so that the incentives changed. Criminals don’t like getting shot. Neither do people in lynch mobs.
There are many reasons to want our fellow citizens to be armed.
If you don’t believe in the general deterrent effect, ask yourself how willing you would be to post a sign in your front yard: “This home is a gun free zone.”
Not sure of the exact decade but maybe in the ‘70s they started the Jewish Defense League to do just that. Self defense, then as it is now, was very controversial among NYC Jews. If I remember correctly upper income Jews looked down on the JDL while the Jew on the street appreciated it. Not sure whether it was before or after Curtis Sliwha’s Guardian Angels, who patrolled NYC subways wearing red berets as citizen vigilantes.
The most basic fixable problem of colleges is their secret, illegal discrimination against hiring Republicans. It’s fixable by requiring diversity, at least 30% Reps, 30% Dems, at every college claiming tax exempt status.
To avoid this primary bad behavior, Haidt does a good job condemning oppressor/ victim mind set. Stopping DEI won’t be enough.
That would still be preferable to today, in that the RINO prof either supports the Rep or publicly doesn’t for some reasons.
The enforcement problem is a real issue, but I can think of ways to minimize cheating, falsely claiming to be a Republican when not really. None perfect.
It seems to me that there are no good ways to prevent cheating, especially if the courts aren't with you. I can imagine a court (say the Colorado Supreme Court) saying that Donald Trump isn't a Republican. He doesn't support a small government, etc., etc. I can imagine the same court being ridiculously inclusive, in which case a Republican can be anything. It just seems like political affirmative action would fall apart in the rough and tumble of politics.
“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
― Thomas Sowell
The question is not so much whether the Harvard community was incensed by December 5. It is whether they perceive that December 5 represented a loss of status.
Yes, I really believe that is what a majority of our "elites" are.
Academic administration is now in total control of even the STEM fields and has been active in hiring on the basis of DEI for many years. In STEM, reality and technical understanding are required, if you want to have employable graduates.
As this demand for actual merit and knowledge in STEM can be economically filled by hiring Adjuncts and Lectures to actually teach the students with up to 500 student classes (EECS at UC Berkley) they just need a few real experts (even if they are White or Asian males) to obtain a viable graduate while having DEI tenured or tenure track department go without much merit or knowledge. However, this solution to the merit and knowledge problem depends upon the real experts being willing to teach for less money when they can get much higher paid industrial jobs.
You can keep under paid but excellent employees, but you have to treat them well. The new Woke academic administrations have become self-serving sub-institutions and I now seen cases where "lectures" or even older professors with real expertise in specific fields just telling the administrators NO and leaving.
Teachers, the culture, etc. Can you point me to *one* example outside of the manosphere that broadly celebrates young men, especially white men? Because all I see is "be less white".
I think you misunderstood. I was referring to. “If you are not succeeding here as much as you would like, blame the oppressors.” So who is the oppressor that they can blame?
I have no idea what you are replying to. Let me be more clear what I am saying. According to the oppressor-oppressed theory, every group of the young has an oppressor except straight white males yet many of these males aren't doing well. What does that say about the likelihood oppression is holding back everyone else?
In loco parentis (where the university assumes some parental-type oversight) was abolished long ago, so this is not as far-fetched as it might seem, especially when considering the influence of today’s helicopter parents, who micromanage every move their snowflake makes.
I'm not sure blame is the right word. One could go back a step by asking what caused the parenting to get worse. Also, Haidt sees a contribution from identity politics and arguably smartphones in how behavior of this generation has changed.
I take a different view of what happened on Dec 5th- I think the people who control the universities were delighted in rubbing their political opponents' noses in their basically unassailable power. It was a "What you gonna do about it moment", and the answer will be "Nothing".
No. First, one university President resigned. Beyond that I doubt the proponents see anything wrong. Regardless, I don't think Haidt was referring to them. He was talking about all the people who have been standing on the sidelines.
So Glenn Reynolds thinks "if" the Colorado ballot business stands, people will conclude the.whole system is illegitimate. Hmmm. I am reminded of how he sometimes uses the phrase "welcome to the party, pal" from a famous Christmas movie. That shop sailed a long time ago. Many of the "founders" themselves grew disillusioned with the United States ( https://oll.libertyfund.org/reading-room/Dennis_Rasmussen_Disillusioned_Founders ) for various petty reasons. But for many individuals outside the establishment, disillusionment with the legitimacy of the system probably began with the enactment of the de facto income tax on frontier farmers that sparked the Whiskey Rebellion, enactment of the original Alien & Sedition Acts or even Marbury v. Madison. The nation has survived this long largely in spite of the establishment, rather than because of whatever it may have had to offer besides buffoonery. Until the last few decades, it was the Individuals outside the establishment who, still having the opportunity to improve their lot by hard work. led the nation to flourish to the extent they were able to ignore the establishment's tomfoolery. Those days are past and the authoritarian regime we are stuck with today is indifferent to its decadence and depravity. The inability to turn things around through the political process has produced decades of deep dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the legitimacy of the system as a whole. (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/ )
Jurgen Habermas's 1973 book Legitimation Crisis is the book to read. Particularly Chapter 5, which observes "By increasing its capacity to process information and its indifference to other social subsytems, the political system acquires a unique autonomy within the socieity [... ....] Under these conditions it is meaningless to want to increase the reflexivity of the administration by tying it to the society through will-formation and participation."
The times call for reasoned and reasonable radicalism.
I was going to post this comment on yesterday's Substack, but the link to Glenn Reynolds on political lawfare makes it just as relevant to today's Substack. I want to apologize for chasing off one of your readers/subscribers with my ill-advised reply to his anti-Trump rant. After I sent it, I began to worry that I had made a fool of myself by responding to what was intended as a parody of someone with TDS, but no such luck. I'll stop there.
Has Harvard hit rock bottom? I say they’re still at the Precontemplation step.
1. Precontemplation - No buy-in that a problem exists.
2. Contemplation - Acknowledge the problem, but ambivalent about change.
3. Preparation - Small steps toward change
4. Action - Committed to new incentives.
Their legal team and PR team are formulating the small steps, to be announced at the most self-serving time and on the most self-serving platforms, a few days after which it will be forgotten by the public and the institution.
FWIW, I have spent my career on one of those teams.
I meant to write a comment in the previous post about what the Jews in the U.S. should be doing. What they should be doing is arming themselves heavily and organizing a plan for self-defense.
I get why a drug dealer might plan for self-defense. The risk is big. Despite some horrible acts, it is not big for Jews. Living life prepared for battle isn't much fun. If I were a Jew I'd hope I didn't think I needed to live that way.
LOL! The danger is never there until it is, Stu, then what do you suggest they do- call the police?
If I were a Jew in any large city in the western world, I wouldn't walk around un-armed these days.
You misunderstand. If you choose to be armed, so be it, but most people don't and Jews don't really have more reason. The risk to most people is extremely low and not significantly different for Jews.
Until it is. Tall poppy syndrome is real. It’s pretty much the basis for all the varieties of Leftism. Jews tend to be tall poppies.
That is true. But how much difference does that make? I found an FBI hate crime against Jews number of 676 in 2000. There are 7.6mil Jews so less than 10 in 100,000 were victims of hate crime. Similarly I found US aggravated assault rate of 250 in 100,000. It would seem being a tall poppy makes a pretty small difference.
That said, it is true if we focus on Jews who wear identifying dress (skullcaps or something more) and general population that doesn't participate in crime or live in a violent neighborhood, doesn't have violent acquaintances or frequent bars, events, etc. where violence is more common, and doesn't transport cash from their business, the rates will come closer. How much? IDK.
There’s also the deterrent effect.
There was a spate of home invasions of South Asian immigrants in the DFW area some years ago. They were known to be unlikely to be armed and also rumored to keep valuables in their homes.
Enough of their coworkers took them to the range so that enough of them took up shooting so that the incentives changed. Criminals don’t like getting shot. Neither do people in lynch mobs.
There are many reasons to want our fellow citizens to be armed.
If you don’t believe in the general deterrent effect, ask yourself how willing you would be to post a sign in your front yard: “This home is a gun free zone.”
Not sure of the exact decade but maybe in the ‘70s they started the Jewish Defense League to do just that. Self defense, then as it is now, was very controversial among NYC Jews. If I remember correctly upper income Jews looked down on the JDL while the Jew on the street appreciated it. Not sure whether it was before or after Curtis Sliwha’s Guardian Angels, who patrolled NYC subways wearing red berets as citizen vigilantes.
Higher ed is a combination of three different social institutions
1) training for a profession (enginners , medical doctors, lawyers etc)
2) academia - a place for scholars to think, discuss and publish
3) daycare and finishing school for future administrators
wokeness is the newest development in office warfare so is all the rage in the 3rd institution
everything else flows from that
The most basic fixable problem of colleges is their secret, illegal discrimination against hiring Republicans. It’s fixable by requiring diversity, at least 30% Reps, 30% Dems, at every college claiming tax exempt status.
To avoid this primary bad behavior, Haidt does a good job condemning oppressor/ victim mind set. Stopping DEI won’t be enough.
If you think there are RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) now, wait until there is a big incentive to say you are.
That would still be preferable to today, in that the RINO prof either supports the Rep or publicly doesn’t for some reasons.
The enforcement problem is a real issue, but I can think of ways to minimize cheating, falsely claiming to be a Republican when not really. None perfect.
Can’t you think of some ways?
It seems to me that there are no good ways to prevent cheating, especially if the courts aren't with you. I can imagine a court (say the Colorado Supreme Court) saying that Donald Trump isn't a Republican. He doesn't support a small government, etc., etc. I can imagine the same court being ridiculously inclusive, in which case a Republican can be anything. It just seems like political affirmative action would fall apart in the rough and tumble of politics.
It has never been a secret. Leftist professors have been quite open about the practice for decades.
“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
― Thomas Sowell
The question is not so much whether the Harvard community was incensed by December 5. It is whether they perceive that December 5 represented a loss of status.
Yes, I really believe that is what a majority of our "elites" are.
Academic administration is now in total control of even the STEM fields and has been active in hiring on the basis of DEI for many years. In STEM, reality and technical understanding are required, if you want to have employable graduates.
As this demand for actual merit and knowledge in STEM can be economically filled by hiring Adjuncts and Lectures to actually teach the students with up to 500 student classes (EECS at UC Berkley) they just need a few real experts (even if they are White or Asian males) to obtain a viable graduate while having DEI tenured or tenure track department go without much merit or knowledge. However, this solution to the merit and knowledge problem depends upon the real experts being willing to teach for less money when they can get much higher paid industrial jobs.
You can keep under paid but excellent employees, but you have to treat them well. The new Woke academic administrations have become self-serving sub-institutions and I now seen cases where "lectures" or even older professors with real expertise in specific fields just telling the administrators NO and leaving.
IDK, it kind of seems like Haidt thinks things can't get worse. And I don't see where he says it will get better. Isn't that a pessimistic statement?
As a group, young white males don't seem to be doing all that well. Who is their oppressor?
Teachers, the culture, etc. Can you point me to *one* example outside of the manosphere that broadly celebrates young men, especially white men? Because all I see is "be less white".
I think you misunderstood. I was referring to. “If you are not succeeding here as much as you would like, blame the oppressors.” So who is the oppressor that they can blame?
None so blind as those who will not see, I suppose.
I'm definitely the one who doesn't understand now.
You asked who's oppressing young white men. I answered.
I have no idea what you are replying to. Let me be more clear what I am saying. According to the oppressor-oppressed theory, every group of the young has an oppressor except straight white males yet many of these males aren't doing well. What does that say about the likelihood oppression is holding back everyone else?
Haidt blamed parents for the closing of college students' minds. Parents. You see, it was bad parenting.
He did not say it was the professors' fault. He did not even blame admins other than as responding to incentives.
But I'm sure they can fix their problems now.
In loco parentis (where the university assumes some parental-type oversight) was abolished long ago, so this is not as far-fetched as it might seem, especially when considering the influence of today’s helicopter parents, who micromanage every move their snowflake makes.
I'm not sure blame is the right word. One could go back a step by asking what caused the parenting to get worse. Also, Haidt sees a contribution from identity politics and arguably smartphones in how behavior of this generation has changed.
Haidt is being foolish.
I take a different view of what happened on Dec 5th- I think the people who control the universities were delighted in rubbing their political opponents' noses in their basically unassailable power. It was a "What you gonna do about it moment", and the answer will be "Nothing".
No. First, one university President resigned. Beyond that I doubt the proponents see anything wrong. Regardless, I don't think Haidt was referring to them. He was talking about all the people who have been standing on the sidelines.
And they will remain on the sidelines is my prediction.
I don't see where Haidt stated an opinion on that.
Arnold
“When the value of merit comes up against the value of justice, justice wins.’’
Well . . . Isn’t the idea ‘we will reap what we sow’ the essential definition of merit as justice?
Thanks
Clay
So Glenn Reynolds thinks "if" the Colorado ballot business stands, people will conclude the.whole system is illegitimate. Hmmm. I am reminded of how he sometimes uses the phrase "welcome to the party, pal" from a famous Christmas movie. That shop sailed a long time ago. Many of the "founders" themselves grew disillusioned with the United States ( https://oll.libertyfund.org/reading-room/Dennis_Rasmussen_Disillusioned_Founders ) for various petty reasons. But for many individuals outside the establishment, disillusionment with the legitimacy of the system probably began with the enactment of the de facto income tax on frontier farmers that sparked the Whiskey Rebellion, enactment of the original Alien & Sedition Acts or even Marbury v. Madison. The nation has survived this long largely in spite of the establishment, rather than because of whatever it may have had to offer besides buffoonery. Until the last few decades, it was the Individuals outside the establishment who, still having the opportunity to improve their lot by hard work. led the nation to flourish to the extent they were able to ignore the establishment's tomfoolery. Those days are past and the authoritarian regime we are stuck with today is indifferent to its decadence and depravity. The inability to turn things around through the political process has produced decades of deep dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the legitimacy of the system as a whole. (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/ )
Jurgen Habermas's 1973 book Legitimation Crisis is the book to read. Particularly Chapter 5, which observes "By increasing its capacity to process information and its indifference to other social subsytems, the political system acquires a unique autonomy within the socieity [... ....] Under these conditions it is meaningless to want to increase the reflexivity of the administration by tying it to the society through will-formation and participation."
The times call for reasoned and reasonable radicalism.
I was going to post this comment on yesterday's Substack, but the link to Glenn Reynolds on political lawfare makes it just as relevant to today's Substack. I want to apologize for chasing off one of your readers/subscribers with my ill-advised reply to his anti-Trump rant. After I sent it, I began to worry that I had made a fool of myself by responding to what was intended as a parody of someone with TDS, but no such luck. I'll stop there.
I agree this whole thing is like watching a slow motion train wreck, and I also agree the wreck is not over.