Self-Identifying Is All The Rage These Days But College Students Unwittingly Reveal The Absolute Idiocy That Comes With It
[guest post by Dana]
If you are feeling all campaigned out, let me offer you a safe-space at Patterico’s. Also known as a Trump-free space. But, whatever you call it, it’s likely you will still end up pulling your hair out…
While the 2016 presidential campaigns power onward, culture continues it rapid decline as society nurture its ongoing self-indulgent identity crisis. It’s horrible, this collective navel-gazing. It’s the ultimate train wreck, you can’t bear to watch but you can’t make yourself look away either. Especially as you realize you are tied down to the very tracks upon which that big old locomotive of crazy is barreling.
It appears there is no end to the Orwellian rabbit hole in which we currently find ourselves tumbling down. Here, courtesy of the Family Institute of Washington, we can see the painful contortions and intellectual dishonesty that are part of the package deal when buying into the the entire mess of new social norms. Of course, none illustrate these societal shifts of insanity more beautifully and tragically than the quintessential dimwitted college student:
In other news confirming our ongoing identity crisis, the very white Rachel Dolezal, who I wrote about here, is penning a book about racial identity:
Race didn’t create racism, but racism created race.
Tell it, sister!
Since there is no rule book on these matters, let me ask you, exactly where does the line between self-identifying and cultural appropriation begin and end? See: Dolezal’s hair and the attack on this young man:
And I haven’t even gotten to the gender-neutral bathroom debacle. Suffice it to say, hats off to North Carolina’s Gov. McCrory for the decision to protect women and children, and shame on any lawmakers dismissing objections to gender-neutral bathroom laws as nothing more than fear-mongering. Let me tell you, that is a real LOAD OF CRAP destined to clog up any toilet, no matter to which gender it has been assigned.
Anyway, I decided that today I’m self-identifying as a size 2 supermodel. Yep. Feeling p-r-e-t-t-y good about myself.
How about you?
–Dana
Sigh.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:03 pmI think the bathroom wars should be made into a major political issue for the upcoming elections.
All sympathy for those individuals who have a conflict over their sexual identity,
but no female should be made to be in a locker room next to somebody with male genitalia,
and there ought to be enough people with a spine willing to say so while we still can.
And if America votes into office people who are all for unisex bathrooms,
MD back in Philly (f9371b) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:20 pmtime to make some artificial islands like the Chinese.
she really rocks that coat and the glasses are super cute
happyfeet (831175) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:21 pmalso i didn’t think she was particularly dumb either
happyfeet (831175) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:22 pmthe white dude that got molested by the black girl though
when he be all expressin himself he’s practically throwing gang signs
i think she probably has more or less the right impression of the kid
it’s harmless though and kind of charming
he doesn’t need her creepy ass intervention
happyfeet (831175) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:26 pmDouble sigh.
mg (31009b) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:48 pmNumb skulls displaying higher educations values.
mg (31009b) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:54 pmSo now you’re gonna act black with the “tell it, sister!” nonsense? Seems you like her little slogan too Dana. I thought it was only leftists who went in for the mindless slogans. For sure race didn’t create racism, elitists did. And racism did not create race, God did. (or nature if you don’t believe in God).
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:55 pmOh, and any place that involves nudity in the slightest should be separated by sex. Yes, SEX. If you use their terms like “gender” that’s where the problem comes in. There are two sexes. Period.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/17/2016 @ 5:58 pmSelective in-breeding and tribalism created race. And the absence of planes, trains, and automobiles or incest taboos. Kind of like Appalachia.
nk (dbc370) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:10 pmHoagie,
That was pure unadulterated mockery. You momentarily lost your sense of humor, I guess.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:13 pmbasically mind arson@robin, propagation center, also gramscian anterooms,
http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/04/16/white-privilege-conference-opens-day-2-by-lauding-cop-killer/
narciso (732bc0) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:22 pmOne thing to do — every time someone talks about their Facebook page or tweets or other social media, not that the NSA and FBI records all of it and saves it in a dossier with your name on it. Forever.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:45 pmOh, you mean self-identifying as something they are NOT? I keep failing to understand this whole thing. There must be something wrong with me.
Oh, wait! No there isn’t! I identify as a sane person, even though I live in California where it is assumed that everyone is INSANE, I demand safe spaces for SANE people.
I had hoped that PP would be such a place. But increasingly not.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:52 pmjust the crazy years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzK4kEkLzfs
narciso (732bc0) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:55 pmI also identify as a trillionaire. I think that credit card companies should extend credit (and banks should offer appropriate account balances) respecting one’s net-worth identification rather than the physical status that is indicated by financial records.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 6:57 pmOkay, I’m not going to type He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s name in this space, if we’re offering a safe zone.
I just wish we could enforce this rule on America more broadly. How about if New York is designated the “Trump zone,” and the rest of America is designated “Trump-safe”?
Actually, I like New York State and even New York City too much for that. SO how about if Trump Tower is designated as the “Trump zone,” and the rest of America (including New York State and City) are designated “Trump-safe”?
Anyway, as for college students: I told my then-24-year-old daughter last year, when she first started talking about Bernie: “You need to read up on two things first: Clean Gene McCarthy and the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and then George McGovern and the 1972 presidential campaign.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, is it? I’m not good at languages, but I’m getting old enough to see cycles repeat. Me, I’m just trying to fast-forward to the next 1980, which I believe Cruz is genuinely poised to usher in.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:18 pmDangit, you can’t talk about “Trump-safe” without typing his name! Sorry, Dana.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:18 pmAlso: I’m self-identifying today as Channing Tatum. (I had to Google that name, actually — I can remember the guy, but his name is too feminine to compute for me.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:20 pmI can’t get behind any bathroom legislation unless it includes replacing the roll and lead-sheets-hang-from-the-front.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:22 pmKevin M,
I’m gonna self-identify as a trillionaire tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that means I can retire!
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:30 pmI am so sorry Dana. Ya know, sometimes I should just watch a little TV before I start typing. I think being home all the time is causing me cabin fever. Anyway, that’s my excuse but I really do apologize.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:31 pmI’m gonna self-identify as a trillionaire tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that means I can retire!
But the taxes!
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:34 pmBeldar,
Or you could cut to the chase with your girl: Nothing’s free, kid. Not even that college education I’m paying for!
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:34 pmI can’t get behind any bathroom legislation unless it includes replacing the roll and lead-sheets-hang-from-the-front.
Clearly you don’t have cats.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:35 pmOh Hoagie, no apology necessary. I know you’re a good guy going through a bad time. Cheer up, though, if I really thought you had lost your sense of humor, I would help you look for it.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:36 pmWhat is “selective in-breeding” and if there is a tribe then there is a race. People did move about before planes, trains and automobiles believe it or not.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:36 pmI feel like self-identifying as Chaka Zulu:
nk (dbc370) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:39 pm[For I hear] the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
And “BLOOD” scream[] the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
“BLOOD” scream[] the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.
BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men,
HOO, HOO, HOO.
Me, I’m just trying to fast-forward to the next 1980, which I believe Cruz is genuinely poised to usher in.
Yes, but all Reagan managed to do was wind the clock back to about 1971. By the next time a “reagan” is elected, the Supreme Court will have 17 Communists on it.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:39 pmThanks, Dana. You know sometimes people go off at the mouth without thinking. Well, I’m people. Thanks for understanding. I didn’t lose my sense of humor, I just misplaced it. Temporarily.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:39 pmunderstandable hoagie, with everything you’re going through, one feels like mogatu in zoolander,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:43 pmalso this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvaTg1kd82E
narciso (732bc0) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:44 pmWhat is “selective in-breeding”
Marrying your own kind who looks and talks like you.
and if there is a tribe then there is a race.
I didn’t say there weren’t races — just how they came about.
People did move about before planes, trains and automobiles believe it or not.
Not to any significant extent, except through mass migration, because you can only travel so far from your tribe’s territory on foot and because the tribe over the mountains or on the other side of the river might eat you. With mass migrations, they still married within the tribe.
And of course it’s more complicated than that. People are more complicated than that.
nk (dbc370) — 4/17/2016 @ 7:48 pmMe, I’m just trying to fast-forward to the next 1980, which I believe Cruz is genuinely poised to usher in.
With all the lunacy going on currently — both socially and politically (the election still deemed as Hillary’s to lose) — and with a darkening horizon that suggests upcoming economic commotion worse than the stock market swoon of 2008 — I’d say the late 1930s, and not November 1980, may be just as plausible a future.
^ I didn’t realize there was a form of political correctness over 70 years ago, except it was providing cover to the extremists of Hitler’s Germany instead of the extremists of Islamism in the 21st century, who are often given big hugs by leftwing nitwits at college campuses throughout the US—whose predecessors gave big hugs to Soviet-era Communists.
History is repeating itself.
Mark (16bc93) — 4/17/2016 @ 8:19 pmAnd please smile. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boaty-mcboatface-wins-uk-poll-for-name-of-280-million-research-vessel/
nk (dbc370) — 4/17/2016 @ 8:50 pmWouldn’t a world full of private stalls be a better place though? One thing I liked about living in the UK was the floor-to-ceiling private bathroom stalls. Why not embrace this life improvement rather than worry about the nonsense that inspired it? Going into a private stall is not a ‘debacle.’ It’s actually kind of nice.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:02 amSo interesting. I watched the same video as you folks did, but we probably ID’ed different idiots.
Here’s one rule of thumb: the person with the camera crew is the idiot, more often than not.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:03 am“Wouldn’t a world full of private stalls be a better place though?”
– carlitos
Nice try, pinko. Think you’re gonna deprive us of our red meat in an election year? You’ve got Alinsky Ghost Spy written all over you, and I’m telling Mr. Lewandowski. You stay put, now.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:05 amI’m with Leviticus. Some people need to consume media outside of their comfort zone, I think.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:15 amas long as i don’t have to go anywheres near shondaland
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:28 amThe folks at FIRE put this video out, and it gives me hope. There are lots of folks on campus who cannot speak their mind. Some people are brave, and admirable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbM0RKeZYlQ
Simon Jester (2708f4) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:30 amSerious question.
Self-identifying as a gender other than my birth gender = bad.
A prosecutor trying a kid who commits a crime “as an adult” = also bad?
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:45 amself-identifying as a gender other than my birth gender. Irrational, cuckoo, nuts, crazy, bananas.
A prosecutor trying a kid who commits a crime “as an adult”. Rational, fulfilling a vital societal interest, providing constitutional protections such as trial by trial in exchange for a possibly harsher sentence, the law for “children” above the age of eleven for most of history, the juvenile court system being a Jane Adamsesque progressive 20th century invention.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 7:55 amThanks, nk. I appreciate your perspective.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:06 amThank you, carlitos. That should be “trial by jury”, BTW. And it’s not the only procedural right juveniles lose in the hands of black-robed social workers.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:20 amI figured you mis-typed that one.
I have never been able to get my head around the “as an adult” thing. Like the guy in this video, maybe a juvenile would like to be tried “as a Chinese person,” or “as a woman.” It seems inconsistent to me, but the argument for the societal benefit is interesting.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:27 amToday, I’m self-identifying as a man who is wondering where this whole bloody thing went so far sideways. A single stroke or death by a thousand cuts?
Colonel Haiku (dab36f) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:32 amJesse James was a month short of his sixteenth birthday when he raided Lawrence, Kansas with Quantrill. Juvenile or adult?
Teenagerism is a post-WWII thing.
And they would not have hanged Jesse in most places until he turned 21, BTW. Kept him locked up segregated from adult prisoners.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:40 amHonestly, most of the weirdnesses on campus in society comes from a kind hearted place: the wish for people to feel comfortable and accepted. But truthfully, most of life is about the reverse.
Simon Jester (2708f4) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:41 amThe Jesse James museum on Rt. 66 is worth seeing.
Do you understand my point on the ‘as an adult’ thing? It just seems inconsistent to me. Kids can either self-identify or they can’t.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:46 amAmerican kids have always been raised to appeal to adults for approval. The time to rebel against that was in college, but now colleges encourage the childishness — probably because society doesn’t have jobs for them when they graduate. We don’t force them to grow up because we need them to be docile.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:50 amAll kids for 200,000 years have been raised to appeal to adults for approval. I toured a college campus yesterday and was amused by the stuff written in chalk on the quad.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 8:57 amAll of society wants to feel comfortable and accepted. And safe. carlitos just gave us a good reminder. From trying teenagers as adults, to mandatory minimums, to tripling of sentences, to concealed carry permits, to legally shooting a sixteen-year old in the back for shoplifting a case of beer, when it comes to “safe space” we have not gotten “liberal” at all. As a matter of fact, we have gotten more “illiberal”. Will it end before “stand your ground” means you can shoot somebody for saying “Oriental” instead of “Asian”?
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:10 amCarlitos – you obviously weren’t at DePaul. They banned chalk on sidewalks because the special snowflakes might be exposed to ideas that were contrary to permitted groupthink.
JD (34f761) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:18 am“Most of the weirdnesses on campus in society comes from a kind hearted place: the wish for people to feel comfortable and accepted. But truthfully, most of life is about the reverse.”
– Simon Jester
Two good observations, and two healthy things to recognize. “Progressives” need to do their part in recognizing that much of what comes from that kind-hearted place (e.g. the inclusivity these kids are attempting) is quickly weaponized by political actors and exploiting for crass gains.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:22 amThe institutions of indoctrination have recognized the cash flow problem occasioned by stagnant birth rates in the ’90s for some time. They have responded to the challenge by lengthening the average time required to obtain a Credential of Indoctrination as well as coddling the least able of their captive client base. Intellectual rigor is not entirely absent from the indoctrination centers but the fact the wider client base contains greater numbers of those unable to benefit intellectually from the environment is rather unremarkable.
Rick Ballard (0aa2b3) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:22 amIt’s not just politics, Leviticus, it’s competition. Competition annoys young people and progressives because they view it as heartless, but competition makes things work better than the alternatives.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:34 amWhat makes you say that competition annoys young people, DRJ? And in any case, what does that have to do with an attempted deconstruction of progressive views of identity?
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:41 amI think open competition bothers young people who are still in school. They compete in school for grades, but there are rules and structure in schools that offer some protection from bad consequences.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:54 amI can’t respond to the rest. I don’t speak the deconstruction lingo.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:55 amWe protect kids for a reason but they can’t be protected forever. Whenever it happens, it’s hard to make the transition to adult life.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:57 amHeh! What is a
deconstruction of
progressive
views of
identity?
Is it like
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:01 ambrilig
slithy
toves
gyre
gymble
wabe
mimsy
borogoves
momeraths
outgrabe?
Or is it
Marxist
Dialectic?
Which is a thing. As opposed to Socratic dialectic. Personally, I go with Jabberwocky.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:04 amThe same people who opposed ‘parental advisory’ stickers on record albums/cds 25 and 30 years ago, are now trying to protect teenagers and college kids from being exposed to political ideas and historical facts.
What a world we live in.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:05 am“I can’t respond to the rest. I don’t speak the deconstruction lingo.”
– DRJ
The guy in this video is trying to demonstrate the flaws of what he views to be progressives’ poorly constructed ideas about identity.
I don’t know what that has to do with competition.
Does that help?
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:07 amnk,
I think the guy was going more for “pity this busy monster manunkind/not.” or “progress is a comfortable disease.”
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:09 am“Most of the weirdnesses on campus in society comes from a kind hearted place: the wish for people to feel comfortable and accepted. But truthfully, most of life is about the reverse.”
– Simon Jester
Two good observations, and two healthy things to recognize. “Progressives” need to do their part in recognizing that much of what comes from that kind-hearted place (e.g. the inclusivity these kids are attempting) is quickly weaponized by political actors and exploiting for crass gains.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 9:22 am
==========================================
Their noble objectives are offset by their exclusion of others. Inclusivity of society’s aberrations at the cost of excluding the traditional, even of those who are only making use of the rights afforded to them under our system of government. And the progs will always find much more value in good intentions than the results of those good intentions. Always.
Colonel Haiku (08efd8) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:11 am“Their noble objectives are offset by their exclusion of others. Inclusivity of society’s aberrations at the cost of excluding the traditional, even of those who are only making use of the rights afforded to them under our system of government.”
– Colonel Haiku
Yeah. I definitely do see that tendency, and that tension.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:13 amThe video is effective at showing us where colleges and students are when it comes to identity. I feel sorry for them because they are acting like children when they aren’t children, but that is their choice to make.
In addition, like Simon, I have no problem with students trying to be nice or schools trying to protect students. It’s in our nature to try to protect children. If they want to be perpetual children into their 20’s and 30’s and they have money to do it, so be it. (I would prefer it not be government money but that’s a political issue.)
Thesee students are living according the PC rules that schools and society impose on children. It’s really hard to standem uplease agains that. I like to think I would rebel if I were in their shoesystem but I doubt I would have unless my parents supported me. It’s hard to stand up to peer pressure when schools support it, too. The only solution I see is for parents not to educate their children in PC public schools. It’s happening where I live, even in K-12 and in college.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:20 amYou’re a size 2? Since 2 is the new 10, you’re fat! You need to be a double-zero or you can’t model for us. And since we make the rules of who’s beautiful and who’s fat, our decision is final.
–signed, the inspiration for The Devil Wears Prada
John Hitchcock (29bd19) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:20 amLeviticus, you’re being kinder to the video-taker than I feel. I think he’s a jerk who ambushed nice, polite kids. Nine out of ten (or more) just kept walking and of course we didn’t see them; he got a few who were nice enough and polite enough to humor him and said the things that helped make his point.
I’m responding to Dana’s broader message, not this guy’s.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:22 amCorrection: It’s really hard to stand up against that.
I had turned off Auto-Correct but then I got lazy and turned it back on. That’s a good lesson in not being lazy and in proofreading.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:22 amCompetition comes from the competing ideas. Traditional values (as noted by Haiku above) are left out. These kids are fine with that. In the real world, traditional adults aren’t.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:26 amtwo of the leading deconstructionists, de man and heidegger were nazi apologists, derrida, also lobbied for holocaust deniers like faurisson, so I don’t think deconstructionists are well intentioned, of course stateside you have houston baker and stanley fish, enough said there,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:26 amhttp://www.buysellfind.net/hotsprings/
Sammy Finkelman (366297) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:28 amHey JD. Heh. ™ I was at the University of Illinois. My godson is so awesome; I wish that I was as smart as he is.
indeed. http://downlode.org/Etext/zappa.html
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:31 amLiberals, including these students who care more about PC approval than principles**, don’t accept that it’s okay to have competing ideas and values.
** If the students cared about principles, they wouldn’t struggle so much over their answers. They clearly are struggling to give the “right” answer. That’s how modern students hzve to answer questions — they say what the questioner wants to hear.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:42 amLike much else in life, you can’t discuss this meaningfully without numbers.
Fill out your family tree back to 40 generations. 40 generations back, you have 1,099,511,627,776 slots to fill in with names of ancestors. 40 generations is about 1000 years ago, give or take (there are grandchildren of President John Tyler, born 1790, alive today, which is about 70 years per generation but that is highly unusual). All these ancestors are probably not all alive at the same time, but the whole world population then was only about 300 million. So that is 3600 times as many slots as there were people to fill them. The vast majority of your ancestors had to have been largely the same group of people.
My wife and I both have Chinese and Europeans in our ancestry. The difference is that 40 generations back, the overwhelming majority of my ancestors are the same group of European people, and the overwhelming majority of her ancestors are the same group of Chinese people. Our son splits 50/50.
So right there you can say that the concept of biological races is statistically valid. It is certainly the case that people will argue over how many there are, and who exactly belongs to which; but that does not invalidate the concept. We all are comfortable using the word “bald” to describe people who are missing most of their hair, even though the line has to be drawn in an arbitrary place. We can encode adulthood into our laws and institutions even though we draw the line in different places for different purposes.
None of that would prove that we should encode racial differences into our laws, or how our laws should treat them; it does not show that one is better than another, only that they are different and the difference can be quantified. Furthermore, a biological race is only going to be a set of population averages, and you cannot assume that any member of that population is going to have the average set of traits. You can only say that the probability of that member’s traits all being different from the population averages is very low, provided that you know nothing about that person.
There are Chinese-descended people with very fair skin, wavy hair, tall and with lots of body hair, but very very few. There are European-descended people with darker skin, straight hair, and epicanthic folds, but very very few.
A biological race is a set of correlated traits that are inherited from a small pool of ancestors. Very simple. People who try to argue that it is a biologically invalid concept are either being dishonest or being inconsistent, because they apply this logic in no other way. They do not deny that the labels “bald” or “tall” can be applied to some people, or that some colors can be called “black”, “white”, or “grey” without ambiguity.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:44 amFinally, nk may be right that 9 out of 10 students didn’t participate, but these students did. This is part of today’s college environment.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:45 amAnd Gabriel would fit right in.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:45 amWhen God made the first man out of clay, He didn’t bake him in the oven long enough and that’s how we got Northern Europeans. God tried again, but this time He left him in the oven too long and that’s how we got Africans. He tried a third time and this time He got it right, not too dark and not too light, and that’s where Mediterraneans come from.
Gabriel and Hoagie, you can score points with your better halves by making Mediterraneans “Ornamentals”.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 10:54 am“Liberals, including these students who care more about PC approval than principles**, don’t accept that it’s okay to have competing ideas and values.”
– DRJ
With all due respect, DRJ, you don’t know anything about these students. You are watching carefully edited footage from surprise interviews.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/18/2016 @ 12:04 pmyou just can’t say anything bad about that coat
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/18/2016 @ 12:06 pmIt’s not an M65 Field Jacket of which I scored two, one in dark blue for $14.50 and the other in OD for $12.50, brand new, at the army surplus?
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 12:14 pmthat’s value good job Mr. nk
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/18/2016 @ 12:20 pmI agree with Leviticus about it saying as much about the journalist as those that answered the question. But this carefully selectively edited canard is absolute unabashed balderdash. It might be one of he most tiresome narratives spewed, and it is used to not discuss the topic at hand.
JD (6aa855) — 4/18/2016 @ 12:55 pmSomebody skipped their anger management classes
steveg (fed1c9) — 4/18/2016 @ 1:09 pm@DRJ And Gabriel would fit right in.
What on earth did I say that you object to? And do you have any actual evidence to dispute it, or just snark?
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/18/2016 @ 1:24 pmSince every man, woman, and child can trace their heritage back to Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, there is only one race of humans.
John Hitchcock (29bd19) — 4/18/2016 @ 1:36 pmNot bad, just not true. I’ve never heard anyone say that it’s wrong to pretend to be something you are not, so long as nobody is defrauded thereby. It’s even polite for others to go along with the pretense, up to a reasonable limit. But pretending doesn’t change reality, and that is what this is really all about. The whole “transgender” issue is about a deliberate movement to undermine rational thought by insisting that there is no objective reality; that facts are whatever we think they are, and we think they are whatever we say they are, so by changing the words we use about something we can change its reality.
This is an entirely different type of thing. Comparing them is a category error if done unintentionally, or active participation in said conspiracy if done on purpose. “Minor” is a legal concept, not a physical one. It’s not like “female”, or “tall”, or “green”, it’s like “zoned residential”. A minor is whatever the law says it is; there is no reality that the term describes. The law decides whether a block is zoned residential or commercial, and it can authorize authorities to treat a block zoned as one way as if it were zoned a different way. In exactly the same way the law decides who is a minor and how such people are to be treated when they’re accused of crimes, and it can authorize authorities to treat them a different way if they think appropriate.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/18/2016 @ 1:53 pmAll humans are no more one race than all Chevrolets are Corvettes.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/18/2016 @ 2:11 pmA really good idea, if you are interested in what many students think, is look at their editorials in their college and university newspapers online. I have shared some deeply disturbing ones with Patterico, JD, and DRJ. The relativists have taken good intentions and turned them into diktat of the local culture. This fuels all the Trumpish overreaction, of course.
Why, it’s as if folks in power want us all to bicker instead of think. But I have always been the suspicious sort.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 2:26 pm@John Hitchcock:Since every man, woman, and child can trace their heritage back to Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, there is only one race of humans.
That doesn’t follow at all. Every human at some point becomes either an ancestor to every living person, or an ancestor to none of them. Even if you accept the Biblical account, the correlation of population averages is still there.
There is only one species of humans, true. The Bible does not say they were separately created, and modern science has never found evidence of independent evolution of today’s humans. None of that affects the existence of races.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/18/2016 @ 2:31 pmThank you. I tried to write that very piece a few weeks ago, but didn’t do nearly as good a job. Next time I need to I’m just going to point people here, or else quote you.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/18/2016 @ 2:36 pmLeviticus:
I appreciate your willingness to defend your generation, but it seems to me that I can draw conclusions based on my experience unless you think:
1. I can’t draw conclusions because I can’t identify with college students, i.e., I have never been young, have never had a child in college, and/or have never known young people who attended college so I can’t possibly understand them; or
2. I can’t draw conclusions because there is something special about this campus and these students that prevents me from doing that, i.e., there is something about this college and/or these students that makes them foreign from every other campus and student in America; or
3. I can’t draw conclusions because the sample size is too small and/or the video was edited by the journalist, so it can never be representative of anyone or anything; or
4. I can’t draw conclusions because I don’t know these students, and it is unfair to draw conclusions about someone I don’t know. In other words, it’s unfair to ever draw conclusions about anyone, because who truly “knows” anyone?
Which is it?
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 2:59 pmThat’s self-evidently incorrect. All it means is that the different races came about after that.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:00 pmThat was not snark, Gabriel. I said I think you would fit in on modern college campuses because I think you would. You have an academic bent.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:00 pmAnd, sadly, DRJ, I am an academic and decidedly lack that particular mind set. It has not helped my career path.
I just want to work with students in my classes and do experiments with research students in my lab. All the silly academic nonsense makes me sad. The nonsense I have heard, repeatedly…sigh.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:05 pmSimon Jester:
Good for you. That’s what we parents want in a college professor.
For some reason, that reminded me of when my oldest child started pre-school at 3 years old and the teacher told me that his character and the character of each child in his class would be evident within 2 years, when the children finished pre-school and were ready to start kindergarten. I thought she was crazy but she was right.
I saw those children from the time they were 3 and now they are 30, and you could tell who would be smart, honest, creative, happy, dependable, hard-working, etc., and who was not that smart, honest, or creative, and would be undependable, a complainer or lazy. I liked all the children and fortunately none of them ended up with all bad traits, but I realized it’s not that hard to recognize character unless you are dead set against admitting it. Now I look back on my friends in school, especially college, and where they ended up and I realize their character was easy to tell, too.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:18 pmDRJ, I am e-mailing you some essays I wrote about my late father. One of them is particularly accurate and appropos. But I didn’t know it at the time.
Thank you for the kind words.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:22 pmI look forward to reading it, Simon, and thank you for including me.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 3:31 pmYou know, DRJ, he never, ever understood me. But he stood by me.
That counts for more than a person who does understand me standing by me.
I hope, someday, to be half the man my father was.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:09 pmDRJ,
It’s #4, without the added second sentence. You know as well as I do that there’s plenty of middle ground between not being able to know anything about anyone, no matter how many words are spoken, and being able to know everything about anyone, no matter how few words are spoken.
I’m seeing your reductio ad absurdum and raising you a straw man, but my point is simply that you have not heard enough from these students to support your claims about their beliefs as to topics not addressed.
Leviticus (1dd53f) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:13 pmI thought about my response and how to discuss this topic in a fair and helpful manner. My mistake.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:23 pmAlright, then.
Leviticus (1dd53f) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:34 pmYou gave me four options to choose from, and very deliberately and very obviously built a flaw into each one. What do you want me to say? I don’t think you have the evidence to make the claims you want to make about these students.
Leviticus (1dd53f) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:37 pmwell leviticus, if you will admit that john stewart has been equally selective, in his 15 year s of agitprop, the same for his stooge camelbert
narciso (732bc0) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:44 pmI actually started writing a comment about Stewart’s shenanigans in response to JD. But honestly, my claim that these videos were selectively edited felt off the mark, in comparison to Jon Stewart’s stuff.
These interviews probably aren’t that heavily edited. The premise is dumb, but JD was right that the “selectively edited” accusation was a bit knee jerk on my part.
Leviticus (1dd53f) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:08 pmNot selectively edited. Selectively sampled. Classic man-bites-dog, commonly used by the media and not just Jonathan Leibowitz. Are the kids in the video the mean, the median, the norm or the p value? Can’t tell.
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:16 pmAgain, nk, read some university and college newspapers and letters to the editors.
True, many students keep their heads low.
But FIRE suggests weird things are going on.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:17 pmIf you feel threatened by a college kid saying “nice to meet you,” you might have issues.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:21 pmI don’t doubt it, Simon. I was in YUUGE urban state university myself. Basically, I avoided my fellow students. The only one I kept some contact with, because we were also in the same law school, I last saw maybe six years ago. Could be seven. But we still never talk sometimes. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:27 pmis that what the donald sutherland like shreaks from mizzou and new haven was about it,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:28 pmKids should be removed from this type of thought:
https://youtu.be/i_4-BqSIUD8
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/18/2016 @ 5:29 pmthe “selectively edited” accusation was a bit knee jerk on my part
yes yes this is why the red glasses chick with the fabulous coat comes off really well i think
she’s a sharp kid i like her plus she has style and poise
happyfeet (831175) — 4/18/2016 @ 6:01 pmR.I.P. Doris Roberts
Icy (4f33a9) — 4/18/2016 @ 6:03 pmOh, carlitos…wish you were on the committees I serve. It’s a weird place. Most universities are like that now.
Simon Jester (e1ccb9) — 4/18/2016 @ 6:07 pmAlright, then.
Leviticus (1dd53f) — 4/18/2016 @ 4:34 pm
==============================
Sling Blade reference… suhweeeeeeet!!!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/18/2016 @ 6:14 pmI took something entirely different away from this video. Differentiating between a man who self-identifies as a woman and a grown man who identifies as a seven your old boy is entirely reasonable (for those with the right mind set). There are plenty of studies (so I am told, haven’t read them) that “prove” there are women who are trapped in a man’s body. Enough reasonable people believe this that highly trained physicians are willing to operate on men to try to turn them into women. On the other hand, it is a matter of undisputed physical proof that the guy in the video has been alive more then seven years.
I am surprised that none of the students was able to articulate this. I can only assume that the groupthink which exists on campuses prevents anyone from challenging this sort of thinking, which in turn prevents the development of intellectual rigor.
Roscoe (d9df47) — 4/18/2016 @ 6:17 pmA barge carrying blue paint collided with a barge carrying red paint off of Burnham Harbor. The crews of both vessels are marooned.
nk (dbc370) — 4/19/2016 @ 5:17 amMake fun of them all you want. And I agree that it’s easy and fun to do so. But this is the end product of of years of indoctrination via the application of coercive persuasive techniques. The end product is powerless to think or act autonomously. They have had it beaten into them that there is no such thing as objective reality. And even in there were they are not capable of perceiving it. They have to depend on their controllers to tell them what it is.
So the point of inventing 5 or 10 or 500 different genders isn’t to protect anyone’s threatened rights. It’s to invent a cudgel to beat the idea out of people’s heads that they can look at the person showering next to them at LA Fitness and determine if that person belongs there.
Only a bigot is offended at the sight of another woman’s erect penis in the communal shower! These people are so thoroughly indoctrinated that when given the choice between believing the evidence in front of their eyes or what their controllers tell them to believe, they’ll go with their controllers every time.
In fact, they don’t want the choice. They’re so psychologically and emotionally damaged by the time they get to college they demand it be turned into a “safe space” where they will not be exposed to any information that contradicts their indoctrination. Even some liberals, who clearly weren’t clued in to the ultimate goal of the program, are alarmed by this. As mental health professionals have noticed, the indoctrination that takes place in our school system is the exact opposite of what therapists would do if they were trying to help someone get over a phobia. They would gradually build up to the point where they would expose the person to the object of their phobia, be it spiders or elevators or airplines, so that the person can learn that their fears are irrational. Which is of course the definition a phobia; an irrational fear. Our indoctrination system cultivates and magnifies these phobias, which increases the control of teachers and administrators over them. There really are monsters under their beds and in their closets, and only authority figures can keep them safe. By the time students get to college they are incapable of functioning without that protection.
Mind control depends on information control. All cults, or just sociopaths in domineering interpersonal relations, first gain a foothold by withholding information. They retain that foothold and increase their control by manipulating the controlled sources of information. Normal people aren’t going to remain in their orbit if they know up front the goal is to inhibit or destroy their capacity for individual thought and action. The ultimate goal is “phobia indoctrination;” the controlled has a phobia of losing the approval of their controller and in a cult of the indoctrinated group.
And we see this phobia in action when students demand their universities be “safe spaces” where they not only will be exposed to ideas and information that that threatens their dependency relationship on their controller (and peer group approval) but even hints at prompting thoughts that might cause them to think critically of what can never be criticized.
Such as the idea that a short white man can’t be a tall Chinese woman.
Look at the reaction to Ted Cruz’s attempted visit to a Bronx charter school.
https://patterico.com/2016/04/06/ted-cruz-goes-to-the-bronx-and-those-new-york-values-make-a-rude-appearance/
That’s the whole point of the indoctrination, isn’t it? The very last thing cult members are supposed to have are minds of their own to think independently with. Why would anyone expect these students to desire or even tolerate exposure to challenging ideas? These techniques aren’t new, by the way. In fascist, nationalistic pre-war and WWII the Japanese goal was to turn Japan into a nation of “100 million people, one mind.” (They were off by about 30 million in terms of population, but then the point of indoctrination is the “one mind” part and indeed the error underscores the typical cultic contempt for facts.)
One of the real dangers of this indoctrination is that when their phobias are real issues that authorities must address, speech is violence, and perceived slights are microaggressions is that the indoctrinated will lash out on their own irrationally and respond to speech with physical violence and perceived slights with actual aggression. Because their phobias are reality and their is no difference between speaking and an actual beating.
So, how did the school administrators respond to this plea for protection from Ted Cruz’s crimethink that threatens their groupthink?
Exactly as you’d expect if phobia indoctrination is the goal, and not education.
The dependency relationship between controlled and controller is reaffirmed and strengthened. A job well done.
It isn’t as if any of this is a mystery. The cultural marxists have been quit open about the whole point of their program. Currently Steve Hayward had a post up at Power Line discussing it.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/04/resolving-the-contradiction-of-progressivism.php
What we used to call “the new Soviet man.” Hayward goes on to quote a Leninist (Hayward mistakenly calls him a former Leninist). Ignore the terminology; the man calls himself, his aims, and his fellow travelers liberal, but as I mentioned earlier, mind control depends on information control. Those who would control you gain their foothold by withholding information. See the modern Democratic party which is actually socialist, and its candidate Bernie Sanders who calls himself a Democratic Socialist when he is actually a dictatorial communist, for further examples of how when it comes to coercive persuasion honesty is the worst policy.
Of course; that’s Marxism 101. “Truly Democratic” societies can not exist unless the proletariat has developed its proper class consciousness. Marxists despaired because the proletariat didn’t revolt against their capitalist overlords in the wake of WWI. The revolution happened in the last place it should have happened; backwards Russia. So a number of German Marxists formed what became known as the Frankfurt school to study the problem and they soon concluded that the proletariat was seduced and deceived by the superficial material benefits of capitalism. So they were not receptive to the scientific fact (Marxism is a science, remember) the bourgeoisie was exploiting them for their and oppressing them.
When the members of Frankfurt School relocated to the US (all were communists, most were Jews, and members of neither group was particularly welcome with the rise of the Nazis) they studied their new home which had given them life-saving refuge to figure out, in order to show their “gratitude,” how to destroy it.
The answer was to repackage the valid Marxist conclusion, i.e. that the bourgeoisie capitalist have structured society in order to solidify and maintain their economic hegemony, into more emotionally manipulative terms. That a powerful white male christofascist heteronormative elite had structured society to solidify and maintain their religio-racist, cisgendered patriarchy.
In other words they reversed the order in which they would achieve the “new Soviet man,” who once created by the maximization and intensification of the state would allow the withering away of the state. Conventional Marxism called for opening the proletariat’s eyes to the economic exploitation first, then point out how it was maintained by a system of social institutions and an artificial bourgeois moral system which would then be destroyed and replaced by socialist institutions and a socialist moral system. The Frankfurt School instead called for destroying the social institutions and artificial bourgeois moral system system first, then point out that the only way to prevent a return to such exploitation is reorder the economy so that the evil white male christofascist cisgendered patriarchs lack the means to oppress the “minority” races and genders.
It’s easy to be tricked into thinking the fact that these students can’t figure out on their own a short white man isn’t a tall white woman is somehow an independent issue from the #BlackLivesMatter crowd or the “affirmative consent” craze being promoted as the only way to fight the “rape culture” delusion or “climate change” and the 97% consensus madness. But they are not independent of each other. They all stem from the same source, and they all have the same goal. To construct a majority that is “truly democratic” in that it believes and accepts only the thoughts and values approved by what Thomas Sowell called “the anointed.” Such as Barack Obama; are you not feeling fundamentally transformed, comrades?
I mentioned mind control depends on information control. But to make sure that the proletariat only receives approved truth, and to filter out unapproved or dangerous contrary information, you must control the physical environment of those you would indoctrinate. So of course you must invade their privacy. In fact, privacy is suspicious and dangerous, as someone who is alone might start to think for themselves. So the transgender bathroom thingy and the affirmative consent thingy is designed to shatter the idea that there is a private sphere beyond big brother’s authority and control.
Only rapists or bigots don’t want big brother in their bedroom supervising their sex lives or in the bathroom when they’re taking a leak.
Only a racist imperialist who h8s the planet and wants women and minorities to starve or drown doesn’t want to empower big brother to save the planet from climate change. So of course we have to imprison anyone who doesn’t march in lock-step with the “scientific consensus.”
I could go on. I have gone on. But you’re looking at your future in that video. The cultural marxists own those students and after they finish with the Little Sisters of the Poor and wedding service providers they’re coming for you, too.
Steve57 (225587) — 4/19/2016 @ 1:06 pm