Well, this blew up & became super popular! Some of you are having your own within-thread chats already while I really do need to respond to some other people directly. Unfortunately that won't be this evening due to consulting commitments.
Fascinating piece Helen. It triggers for me a question that I think conservative discourse has never really got a grip on. What exactly is it that makes stupid pseudo-intellectuals quite so SUCCESSFUL in their stupidity? The usual line of discourse is to attack the vacuity and wrong-headedness of their 'ideas'. But this is to take them too seriously. There is some strange psychological syndrome that makes such people both self-inflate their egos whilst simultaneously be magnetically attracted to academia. Once enough of their ilk have already got ensconced there, the new recruits will of course get a huge leg-up from those peers. Also the more patently absurd, self-engrossed and self-pitying their 'ideas' are, the more click-baity they are for journalists - even conservative ones - so they get unwarranted traction that way as well. I've tried many times to come up with a neat encapsulation of the nature of this psychological syndrome in an accesible few words but never quite got there. And of course psychology, as a discipline, is itself now just too full of just such people to be any help. Maybe Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis 'Games' and 'Life Script' concepts would be a good place to start.
Alas modern Western feminism is not spending much time trying to influence Islam (see the relative lack of response to the Taliban or the women bravely protesting the Hijab in Iran). That kind of thing used to be a big part of discussion among campus feminists 20+ years ago. But now the focus is entirely on discrimination etc in the West, which while it exists, is nothing like living under the Mullahs. This is partly the narcissism of victimhood, partly parochial ignorance, and in a big part a reluctance to critique any situation where the misogynists are not white.
In a meritocratic system, individuals are motivated to develop their skills and contribute meaningfully, fostering a culture where merit, rather than background or privilege, paves the way for success. While not without its flaws and imperfections, meritocracy remains the most effective framework for human progress.
Terrific. I have had the privilege of working with some genuinely intelligent and wise people in the engineering and aerospace fields, and its a truism that the highest general IQs are to be found (in academia, and hence life) within the faculties of math, physics and engineering (in that order). The IQs of the humanities faculties are considerably lower (not even considering the modern 'studies' faculties). It is also true that physicists are often categorized as being one-dimensionally intelligent, this is broadly not true, higher IQs (general cognitive ability) translate mostly into being more capable in EVERY area of intellectual ability. So while I agree that is not wise to write off your opponents as being thick, the evidence is that many of today's (and yesterdays) 'philosophers' including the 20th C Frenchmen were just not that bright. They may have on occasion had valuable insights, and we can value this, but overall their writing was atrocious. It is quite easy actually to spew sophist drivel, sound smart, but be dumb. It its FAR harder to write clear meaningful pithy prose.
I also appreciate your comments about the competency crisis, its a genuine problem, and we have only seen the very beginning of the serious consequences of diversity hiring.
I was taught one of the rules of reading fiction is not to confuse the author with what they write. Harlan Ellison wrote good science fiction whilst having a reputation as a shit human being. Toni Morrison might have written good books and still be a numptie. I wouldn't know, if an author comes with a bow-wave of PC politics as to why I should read them; I don't. In my experience it'll be worthy tripe. Achebe and Morrison at a glance seem to be confusing the authorial voice with the author; they are akin to statue topplers in that respect. Even the great have clay feet; Achebe will always occupy a special place with me, not so much as an author but as Biafran nationalist and spokesperson.
> Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not.
It is truly bizarre how some people don’t want to recognize differences between men and women.
In 2017, former tennis player John McEnroe said that Serena Williams was the greatest female tennis player of all time. Asked by the NPR radio host why he wasn’t saying “the greatest player of all time,” he answered quite reasonably that Serena would be ranked about 700th if she were to play against men. This (somehow) was seen as controversial by some and created a furor.
A few years ago there was talk in the US about retraining coal miners as software engineers or nurses. The implicit assumption was that most men could be just as good nurses as women.
I have recently seen a movie (No Hard Feelings) and a TV series (Ballers) in which the nanny is a man. Nannies are rarely depicted on the screen. This gives the impression that either male nannies are common or should be. There are always exceptions, but I don’t believe most men have the interests, qualities and skills to be as good nannies as women.
Savor the irony that CRT/DEI benefits Robin DiAngelo and Tema Okun over pretty much any two other proponents of it. I suppooooose you could argue that they know white privilege better than anyone.
Affirmative Action started in the US in about 1968, at least for blacks, so any black American age 73 or younger could have been a beneficiary of it. (That is, born in 1950 or later, and of age to enter college in 1968 or later.) Of course, the practice started small, then was expanded to more and more groups over time, with government making it a requirement at some point.
Another great contribution - making me glad I did jump for paid subscriptions for both your and Lorenzo's Substacks.
But is it a Substack controlled feature to put the text of a footnote on a separate line from the number? And double space between notes, to boot?
Also a good essay you linked to at Law and Liberty. I like L&L, as about half their essays/ reviews seem useful and helpful (at least the ones that are not too long, or those not too deep into the legal issues under discussion). And too often I find myself going down a rabbit hole following up on the "related" essays shown at the bottom. But around Oct. 2018 they dropped allowing comments for some reason. I went away for three weeks and when i came back, that feature was gone, with no explanation that I learned about. Maybe that was because the comments were more often critical of the content, thus indirectly insulting the editorial effort in selecting the essays displayed?
While my mother called herself a feminist in the 1950's, and let her sons know they should treat women with respect and that there were no significant intellectual differences between the sexes, I have not been able to keep track of the different "waves of feminism" evolving since then. Can you define or summarize them for me/us?
Great clear essay, thank you. As a side note, Foucault was an early supporter of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Paris had the privilege of hosting both Khomeini and Pahlavi.
I haven't read any Fanon, but am very interested in your categorisation of him as "thick as mince". I've never known your judgement in these matters to be wrong - but I recently listened to Leon Wieseltier on Eli Lake's "Re-education" podcast, and while joining Lake in rejecting Fanon's thesis, he had some very positive things to say about Fanon's analysis and prose in some of his other work (specifically the last chapter of Black Skin, White Masks, an earlier work than The Wretched of the Earth). He describes it as "...some of the most stirring human universalist pages I've ever read., and needs to be shoved in the face of all kinds of progressives who think they know who Fanon was".
Wieseltier does not appear any dummy, although I suspect that, prior to October 7th I would agree with him on very little. So is there two (or more) Fanon's?
The attraction of mediocrity is predictability and docility. Midwits and affirmative action hires don't rock the boat. A regime that seeks to perpetuate itself will always aim to develop and deploy talent only where it is needed for absolutely essential tasks. The last thing that bureaucratically managed institutions want is an excess of intelligent people. They are a challenge to manage and potentially disruptive. And midwits are perfect at constraining talent at peer level and below.
Half-educated feminists police academia to ensure that things remain torpid. The mind-numbing education on offer in the social sciences and humanities is a humiliation ritual for those on the receiving end and feminists help ensure that it stays this way.
Well, this blew up & became super popular! Some of you are having your own within-thread chats already while I really do need to respond to some other people directly. Unfortunately that won't be this evening due to consulting commitments.
Promise to get my finger out in due course.
Thawed it much better than I could. Thanks.
Fascinating piece Helen. It triggers for me a question that I think conservative discourse has never really got a grip on. What exactly is it that makes stupid pseudo-intellectuals quite so SUCCESSFUL in their stupidity? The usual line of discourse is to attack the vacuity and wrong-headedness of their 'ideas'. But this is to take them too seriously. There is some strange psychological syndrome that makes such people both self-inflate their egos whilst simultaneously be magnetically attracted to academia. Once enough of their ilk have already got ensconced there, the new recruits will of course get a huge leg-up from those peers. Also the more patently absurd, self-engrossed and self-pitying their 'ideas' are, the more click-baity they are for journalists - even conservative ones - so they get unwarranted traction that way as well. I've tried many times to come up with a neat encapsulation of the nature of this psychological syndrome in an accesible few words but never quite got there. And of course psychology, as a discipline, is itself now just too full of just such people to be any help. Maybe Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis 'Games' and 'Life Script' concepts would be a good place to start.
Alas modern Western feminism is not spending much time trying to influence Islam (see the relative lack of response to the Taliban or the women bravely protesting the Hijab in Iran). That kind of thing used to be a big part of discussion among campus feminists 20+ years ago. But now the focus is entirely on discrimination etc in the West, which while it exists, is nothing like living under the Mullahs. This is partly the narcissism of victimhood, partly parochial ignorance, and in a big part a reluctance to critique any situation where the misogynists are not white.
I like the term "competency crisis".
In a meritocratic system, individuals are motivated to develop their skills and contribute meaningfully, fostering a culture where merit, rather than background or privilege, paves the way for success. While not without its flaws and imperfections, meritocracy remains the most effective framework for human progress.
Terrific. I have had the privilege of working with some genuinely intelligent and wise people in the engineering and aerospace fields, and its a truism that the highest general IQs are to be found (in academia, and hence life) within the faculties of math, physics and engineering (in that order). The IQs of the humanities faculties are considerably lower (not even considering the modern 'studies' faculties). It is also true that physicists are often categorized as being one-dimensionally intelligent, this is broadly not true, higher IQs (general cognitive ability) translate mostly into being more capable in EVERY area of intellectual ability. So while I agree that is not wise to write off your opponents as being thick, the evidence is that many of today's (and yesterdays) 'philosophers' including the 20th C Frenchmen were just not that bright. They may have on occasion had valuable insights, and we can value this, but overall their writing was atrocious. It is quite easy actually to spew sophist drivel, sound smart, but be dumb. It its FAR harder to write clear meaningful pithy prose.
I also appreciate your comments about the competency crisis, its a genuine problem, and we have only seen the very beginning of the serious consequences of diversity hiring.
I was taught one of the rules of reading fiction is not to confuse the author with what they write. Harlan Ellison wrote good science fiction whilst having a reputation as a shit human being. Toni Morrison might have written good books and still be a numptie. I wouldn't know, if an author comes with a bow-wave of PC politics as to why I should read them; I don't. In my experience it'll be worthy tripe. Achebe and Morrison at a glance seem to be confusing the authorial voice with the author; they are akin to statue topplers in that respect. Even the great have clay feet; Achebe will always occupy a special place with me, not so much as an author but as Biafran nationalist and spokesperson.
> Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not.
It is truly bizarre how some people don’t want to recognize differences between men and women.
In 2017, former tennis player John McEnroe said that Serena Williams was the greatest female tennis player of all time. Asked by the NPR radio host why he wasn’t saying “the greatest player of all time,” he answered quite reasonably that Serena would be ranked about 700th if she were to play against men. This (somehow) was seen as controversial by some and created a furor.
A few years ago there was talk in the US about retraining coal miners as software engineers or nurses. The implicit assumption was that most men could be just as good nurses as women.
I have recently seen a movie (No Hard Feelings) and a TV series (Ballers) in which the nanny is a man. Nannies are rarely depicted on the screen. This gives the impression that either male nannies are common or should be. There are always exceptions, but I don’t believe most men have the interests, qualities and skills to be as good nannies as women.
What we have done by comoditizing and tokenizing people is reprehensible.
Savor the irony that CRT/DEI benefits Robin DiAngelo and Tema Okun over pretty much any two other proponents of it. I suppooooose you could argue that they know white privilege better than anyone.
(I can't speak for the US.)
Affirmative Action started in the US in about 1968, at least for blacks, so any black American age 73 or younger could have been a beneficiary of it. (That is, born in 1950 or later, and of age to enter college in 1968 or later.) Of course, the practice started small, then was expanded to more and more groups over time, with government making it a requirement at some point.
Another great contribution - making me glad I did jump for paid subscriptions for both your and Lorenzo's Substacks.
But is it a Substack controlled feature to put the text of a footnote on a separate line from the number? And double space between notes, to boot?
Also a good essay you linked to at Law and Liberty. I like L&L, as about half their essays/ reviews seem useful and helpful (at least the ones that are not too long, or those not too deep into the legal issues under discussion). And too often I find myself going down a rabbit hole following up on the "related" essays shown at the bottom. But around Oct. 2018 they dropped allowing comments for some reason. I went away for three weeks and when i came back, that feature was gone, with no explanation that I learned about. Maybe that was because the comments were more often critical of the content, thus indirectly insulting the editorial effort in selecting the essays displayed?
While my mother called herself a feminist in the 1950's, and let her sons know they should treat women with respect and that there were no significant intellectual differences between the sexes, I have not been able to keep track of the different "waves of feminism" evolving since then. Can you define or summarize them for me/us?
Great clear essay, thank you. As a side note, Foucault was an early supporter of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Paris had the privilege of hosting both Khomeini and Pahlavi.
I haven't read any Fanon, but am very interested in your categorisation of him as "thick as mince". I've never known your judgement in these matters to be wrong - but I recently listened to Leon Wieseltier on Eli Lake's "Re-education" podcast, and while joining Lake in rejecting Fanon's thesis, he had some very positive things to say about Fanon's analysis and prose in some of his other work (specifically the last chapter of Black Skin, White Masks, an earlier work than The Wretched of the Earth). He describes it as "...some of the most stirring human universalist pages I've ever read., and needs to be shoved in the face of all kinds of progressives who think they know who Fanon was".
Wieseltier does not appear any dummy, although I suspect that, prior to October 7th I would agree with him on very little. So is there two (or more) Fanon's?
The attraction of mediocrity is predictability and docility. Midwits and affirmative action hires don't rock the boat. A regime that seeks to perpetuate itself will always aim to develop and deploy talent only where it is needed for absolutely essential tasks. The last thing that bureaucratically managed institutions want is an excess of intelligent people. They are a challenge to manage and potentially disruptive. And midwits are perfect at constraining talent at peer level and below.
Half-educated feminists police academia to ensure that things remain torpid. The mind-numbing education on offer in the social sciences and humanities is a humiliation ritual for those on the receiving end and feminists help ensure that it stays this way.