Wednesday, August 03, 2016

We Demand an Education that Will Make Us Even More Stupid!

Speaking of IQ, Black Lives Matter has issued its demands. One of the demands has to do with access to better education, which introduces an interesting paradox: if they are as educationally deprived as they are suggesting, then they are too stupid to know what they should be demanding. How did they get so stupid? It's certainly not our fault. Republicans have no say in the awful state of our educational system. Is there a majority black school district run by conservatives? Somehow I doubt it.

The whole manifesto is a monument to invincible ignorance, but here are the educational demands:

"Reparations for the systemic denial of access to high quality educational opportunities in the form of full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education including: free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities, technical education (technology, trade and agricultural), educational support programs, retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs."

Public education is of course already free, but there will be no access to a high quality public education so long Democrats are in charge, i.e., until such a time as education is private and competitive. You know the old joke: "The food is terrible. And such small portions!" Likewise, government education is completely dysfunctional, so can we please have more of it?

And we already have free -- or at least very low cost -- access to lifetime education. It's called books. I access them all the time, with no support whatsoever from the state. Indeed, I read a fair number of books that the state would never permit anywhere near a place of learning.

Next:

"Reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation, erasure, and extraction of our communities in the form of mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political, economic, and social impacts of colonialism and slavery, and funding to support, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of our collective struggles and triumphs."

Reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation, erasure, and extraction of our communities. What does that even mean? You can't exploit what has been erased. As to the "critical examination" of their metaphysical victimhood, what they are really asking for is a state-funded Marxist education to prevent them from ever outgrowing their childish beliefs. We already have whole university departments devoted to that, and it's been highly successful in producing stunted intellects.

There's more!

"A constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully-funded education which includes a clear articulation of the right to: a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wrap around services, social workers, free health services (including reproductive body autonomy), a curriculum that acknowledges and addresses students’ material and cultural needs, physical activity and recreation, high quality food, free daycare, and freedom from unwarranted search, seizure or arrest."

That's a tautology: a constitutional right to a free education that articulates the right to a free education. More generally, that word "free" certainly comes up a lot. Just because an education is "free," it hardly means it is accessible. For example, I am utterly free to learn advanced trigonometry, quantum mechanics, and vector calculus. Indeed, they could pay me to learn them, but that wouldn't help. There's this thing called "aptitude" that places constraints on learning, irrespective of its material cost. There are no extrinsic factors stopping blacks from majoring in science and engineering.

I've always said that if we could mandate high school courses in logic and basic economics, that would go a long way toward inoculating children against the left. Which is why they will never be mandated.

We mentioned last week that leftists habitually externalize their problems, whereas conservatives regard the locus of control as being interior. As such, the main obstacle to our success is ourselves. (It reminds me of the old Buddhist story about the king who wanted to pave the world with leather so as to be able to walk comfortably in it. This is what the left has done to the university: sensitive liberals want to pave it with leather instead of simply wearing shoes. Or -- the horror! -- developing mental calluses.)

Perversely, these warped leftists are demanding access to educational services that will only further warp them. It's really a kind of soul sickness demanding the conditions for its own perpetuation.

Which is what leftism is more generally: when the soul is in a state of "wrongness," it feels compelled to transform the world in order to mirror, support, and legitimize its wrongness. This is not true of the healthy soul, which will always be at odds with "the world." How prescient is it of Jesus to remind us that "you will be persecuted for my sake," and that "if the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first."

This goes to the ubiquitous totalitarian temptation of the left. Any reminder of their wrongness -- their sinfulness -- cannot be tolerated, hence the inevitable assaults on freedom of speech, conscience, and religion, to the point of absolute absurdity, e.g., microaggressions. Why is sin so darn touchy? It must be because it isn't safe so long as light exists to shine on it.

It reminds me of Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled. So long as one person fails to enter the group trance, it spoils the whole scapegoating ritual. Scapegoating is always "unanimity minus one" -- that one being the scapegoat.

Consider the current media trance of scapegoating Trump for daring to criticize Mr. Khan, the the high-end Muslim coyote and sharia devotee. It is an absolute, fevered unanimity, with no critical distance -- and no desire for it -- whatsoever. Rather, there is nothing that thrills the superego more than cultural sanction for the release of primitive aggression.

This also explains the psychology of rioting. Liberals, of course, give blacks the moral sanction for violent acting out, such that simple criminality becomes sanctified violence, AKA "rebellion," or murdering police officers is placed on the same moral plane as killing a thug in self-defense.

Back to The Fractured Republic. Levin says something at the very outset that I have always maintained, that "Life in America is always getting better and worse at the same time."

And it's not just America. At any point in history, it is always the best and worst of times. I am reminded of when Churchill was asked to name his favorite year: "1940, every time." That was the year good and evil paired off, to such an extent that "it was equally good to live or die." But good and evil are always pairing off.

Traditionalists tend to see in history only the best of times, while leftists tend to see the worst. But the bag is always mixed, largely because of the mixed nature of man. Under the best of circumstances, man's ambiguous nature ensures that the best, even if established, won't last long. Rather, as per the above, the good is always under attack. The more dangerous a conservative is to the project of the left, the more he will be equated with Absolute Evil. I just googled Trump Fascist, and 552,000 entries come up. But that is a fraction of the 23,000,000 that come up for Trump Hitler.

Indeed, even in my son's fourth grade class, at least one classmate casually mentioned that Trump is As Bad As Hitler. My son knows better than to argue with a liberal. More to the point, he knows that to equate Hitler and Trump is to trivialize evil to the point of meaninglessness.

But this is what the left does: as Dennis Prager has said, if you don't recognize and fight real evil, then you will end up elevating some non-evil to the status of absolute evil, and then fight that. In other words, humans are built to recognize and struggle against evil. This explains why John Kerry and the rest of the climate buffoons think that air conditioners are more of a threat then ISIS.

I didn't intend this to be a mere rant, but now I'm out of time, so, to be continued.

16 comments:

julie said...

There are no extrinsic factors stopping blacks from majoring in science and engineering.

Indeed, every incentive is in place for both schools and businesses to bring in as many blacks as they can find. I'm reminded of the choir I was in back in AZ: whiter than white, they were desperate for a genuine black person to join because then they could check off the diversity box on grant applications. Without "people of color," they had to scramble for funding. Never happened, although we did have the occasional guest performer.

Gagdad Bob said...

Or look at Silicon Valley. They're desperate for tech wizards of color that aren't Asian.

ted said...

I have a friend who is a CTO for a start up in Boston. They are always looking for a more diverse portfolio of employees, and just can't find them. If you are a black software engineer, the world is your oyster!

mushroom said...

Indeed, I read a fair number of books that the state would never permit anywhere near a place of learning.

"Is it true that long ago firemen put out fires instead of going to start them?"

mushroom said...

And it's always PUBLIC education. I have a friend, around age 50, who is really a nice guy, but his mother was a public school teacher. Their state (Oklahoma) cut back on some services for public schools, and he and his mom got their panties all twisted. Nevermind that education is probably half the state budget already. God forbid teachers would have to deal with seventeen students instead of fifteen, or that the school might have to get rid of the assistant vice-principal for diversity compliance.

They aren't teaching kids an f'ing thing. By the time we finished 8th grade, most of us already had more actual useable skills in terms of basic arithmetic, knowledge of the state and federal constitutions, history, spelling, and grammar than the average college graduate does these days.

Must be rant day, though mine is more of a back-in-my-day thing.

julie said...

Nevermind that education is probably half the state budget already.

We are taking school on a year-by-year basis. The boy starts kindergarten in a couple weeks; we'll see how it goes. The list of school supplies is long and ridiculous: why the fudge does a kindergartner need an entire ream of printer paper? Everything that was provided by the school as a standard when we were kids is now on the parents to provide. Not to mention some new ones including ziploc bags, tissues, and baby wipes. But hey, there's free breakfast for all! And apparently, a school issued ipad. The county spends a "mere" $9 or $10k per student each year. I'd ask where the money is going, but of course the answer is administration, administration, "free stuff," and administration. Then whatever is left over goes to teachers and classroom supplies.

mushroom said...

Fund-raisers, yes. They are getting three-fourths of my property taxes plus whatever chunk of my sales and income taxes topped by the house take from the lottery, but the grandkids still hit me up for Christmas paper or something so they can have all their stuff. We had crayons, pencils, and a Big Chief pad.

Of course, that was before there was a federal Department of Education. It's a seven-layer dip of bureaucrats.

Kurt said...

It seems we will soon be governed by the coalition of those who scream the loudest. In school it used to be that the screaming child was disciplined, isolated or otherwise silenced in order for the rest of the class to proceed with the lesson. But now, not just in school, but the whole world - education, media, government, law enforcement - must stop everything and bend to the will of the screamers. This observation, coupled with the knowledge that in any ideology that has separated itself from truth the only way to excel in the exercise of that ideology is to move even further away from truth, does not bode well for our nation. If the screamers rule using an ideology devoid and even antithetical to truth then think things are going to get much worse.

And I don't know why the ruling elites think that they will somehow escape the coming disruptions. In every other major societal upheaval the elites were always the first to go: the patricians in the fall of Roman Republic, the 'Ancien Regime' in France, the Czarist aristocracy in Russia...

'Revolutionaries wait, for my head on a silver plate...just a puppet on a lonely string, oh, who would ever want to be king?'

katzxy said...

"And we already have free -- or at least very low cost -- access to lifetime education. It's called books."

Today there is lots of free to the student online material at places like edX and coursera.

Leslie said...

Julie, oh, you don't want your precious child in a government school If you did nothing more than read him good books several hours a day, and teach him the alphabet, and let him explore, he will be WAY better off. KIndergarten takes about 45 mins a day to do. The rest should be play and art and music and more play. Boys, especially, need to NOT be at school. You have too much to offer him. We only have them for a short while.

Gagdad Bob said...

Looks like we'll be home schooling the young master starting this September. Twice the education (at least) in half the time, with six hours left for PE.

julie said...

Leslie. I hear you - and I know how well your kids have turned out. For now, though, it's just kindergarten. We would not be sending him without good reason, and next year may well be different.

Van Harvey said...

"Indeed, even in my son's fourth grade class, at least one classmate casually mentioned that Trump is As Bad As Hitler. My son knows better than to argue with a liberal. More to the point, he knows that to equate Hitler and Trump is to trivialize evil to the point of meaninglessness.

But this is what the left does..."

That trivialization of evil is deeply disturbing, and it's not just for the Left anymore, plenty on the Right (and especially libertarians) are getting into the act to fan their nevertrumpitivities. And right along with it, they are zealously grabbing onto every baseless media hyped charge (racist, sexist,etc) they can get their little egos on. The only thing that can, and will, benefit from such elimination of identity, of course, is evil, but, you know, for the greater good an' all.

Leslie said...

Gagdad Bob, you will be so blessed by it. When you start homeschooling, you think it is for the child, but, really, it is for the parents. A paradox, like all good things. Also, you are not joking about the 6 hours of PE. When my older daughter was in high school, she danced 15 hours a week, and didn't have time to "go to school", do all the homework and dance. Homeschooling gave her the time to pursue her passion, AND she graduated just short of a AA degree at the local CC. I tell everyone to, "get your kids out". School is NO place for children. Not if you love them.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes. It will give me the chance to learn all of the things I should have learned but was too bored to pay attention. For me, school is like a giant "hole" in my childhood. Reality took place outside the hole. Meanwhile, I've spent my adulthood trying to fill in the hole with the proper material.

Harry said...

"And we already have free -- or at least very low cost -- access to lifetime education. It's called books. I access them all the time, with no support whatsoever from the state. Indeed, I read a fair number of books that the state would never permit anywhere near a place of learning."
Exactly! Of course, the best and most worthwhile books require a bit of mental acuity and 'gasp!' effort.

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