A Kinder, More Caring World

A telling exchange, one of many: 

“It essentially sounded like you were being held hostage. If you wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to go with two escorts – is that true?”

“Erm, that’s what the students felt was true. I was going to go to the bathroom regardless and they wanted to escort me.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did they want to escort you to the bathroom?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you ask them?”

“No, of course not.”

From Michael Moynihan’s short film on events at Evergreen State College, where ‘progressive’ utopia is under construction.

Update:

In the thread below, several commenters note that the dramas at Evergreen - this Theatre of the Bedlamites™ - is merely an extension and enactment of the values being inculcated by the staff. After years of wearing away the customary moral and behavioural restraints, and after years of rewarding pathological vanities and delusions of persecution, the leftist bureaucrats and educators were caught off-guard by the speed and vehemence with which their own protégés turned on them, using mob force and well-practised spite, and merrily wielding baseball bats. Which reveals just how blinded by ideology, and how ludicrous, and unfit, those educators are.

And I think it would be unwise to file away this latest episode as merely specific to Evergreen Clown School. As we’ve seen, very similar patterns are evident elsewhere, with thuggery being excused and rewarded by faculty and staff, all in the name of progress and “social justice.” Readers will recall the mob delinquency at Middlebury, during which leftist students tried to push an elderly scholar to the ground and a leftist professor discovered that her “social justice” credentials didn’t spare her from being assaulted, indeed hospitalised, and subsequently made excuses for the thugs whose “righteous anger” had left her in a neck brace. At the time, I wrote:

Whether there are arrests and/or expulsions following this latest thuggish farce will tell us quite a bit about academia’s ongoing decay.

Needless to say, three months later, no-one has been arrested, no-one has been expelled. And until the campus Mao-lings experience the novelty of consequences – suitably severe ones – what we’re seeing, and seeing repeatedly, will only spread - and most likely escalate.

Comments

[Sam]

"I'm afraid of having a nuanced opinion".

Time to send in the bulldozers.

[David]

“I’m afraid of having a nuanced opinion”

What’s odd, I think, is that anyone should be surprised that this Theatre of the Bedlamites™ is what happens.

[Atempdog]

He's living the future he helped make.

[David]

He’s living the future he helped make.

Absolutely. Sympathy would be wasted on such people. But it’s a useful reminder that pretentious hand-wringing can be the enabling of monsters.

[Burnsie]

He’s living the future he helped make

"But I'm on your side!"

The last thing spoken by millions in Russia, China, Cambodia, and countless other Marxist-run countries in the past century.

It's amazing how quickly these little asswipes turned on their mentors. But I guess it's like that Hemingway line about how things go bad: gradually at first, then suddenly.

And once again, another example of how academics are the stupidest smart people on the planet.

[David]

“They’re being unreasonable and belligerent. Let’s give them free hits.”

See also this.

[WTP]

It's amazing how quickly these little asswipes turned on their mentors. But I guess it's like that Hemingway line about how things go bad: gradually at first, then suddenly.

And once again, another example of how academics are the stupidest smart people on the planet.

Again, fate has handed us an opportunity. It's like they've already boarded Ark B. The real problem is containment.

[R. Sherman]

What was amazing was the president's obvious distress of knowing something is not true, i.e. that he is a "white supremacist," yet being completely unable/unwilling to defend himself or contradict the Red Guard over whom he has (nominal) authority.

[R. Sherman]

BTW, as it happens I shall be in Olympia, WA is about two weeks traveling between Olympic N.P. and Mount Rainier. I'll send a dispatch and maybe a TESC sweatshirt.

[Joan]

What was amazing was the president's obvious distress of knowing something is not true, i.e. that he is a "white supremacist," yet being completely unable/unwilling to defend himself or contradict the Red Guard over whom he has (nominal) authority.

There are four lights.

[David]

There are four lights.

Quite. It looks an awful lot like gaslighting. Or at least a psychological knot. You’d think that if you were a grown adult and your own ideology left you psychologically paralysed and impotent, and this happened repeatedly and vividly, such that you felt obliged to submit to ritual humiliation by spiteful morons who delighted in telling you whether you could move your hands or go to the toilet unsupervised, then… you might pause to reconsider the merits of that ideology. But apparently not.

[ Edited. ]

[Pogonip]

Happy Father's Day to all dads here!

[Sam Duncan]

"I'm afraid of having a nuanced opinion".

Heh. Seems like just the other day that you could hardly move for Lefty types lecturing us dumb hicks about “nuance”.

[CayleyGraph]

"Look, escort services are expensive, so when I get not one, but two, people volunteering to escort me to the bathroom, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Or at least a psychological knot...you might pause to reconsider the merits of that ideology.

Speaking of which, Toronto appears to have a similar conundrum as "feminist rights" bump up against "transgender rights"

Toronto-based LGBTQ author Jia Qing Wilson-Yang tweeted last week that she was told not to visit the spa because they “won’t allow male genitalia.”

Mr. Wilson-Yang, it appears, has kept his factory equipment, much to the consternation of the actual females at the spa, and is upset because he was invited to decamp the premises. He is not the only one unhappy.

But the whole flap has been disappointing to client and York University Prof. Sheila Cavanagh, who specializes in gender and sexuality studies.

She says that aside from violating provincial laws governing gender discrimination, such incidents highlight the difficulty in adhering to strictly binary definitions of gender.

“There are many ways of being trans and there are many ways of being a woman,” says Cavanagh, noting that trans rights are enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code.

She goes on (unfortunately):

Cavanagh says the rules around gender-exclusive places are typically based on fears that men will enter a space in which they are not welcome or “that non-trans women will somehow be triggered or made afraid by the presence of a penis.”

Oddly enough, that which appears to have happened. However, the good professor appears not to be the sharpest knife in the marquee.

Marshall says she can’t see how a trans-positive policy could be abused.

“I don’t think a man is going to try and sneak in as a woman and pay $75 to go sit (in a pool). For what purpose?”

A puzzle for the ages, "doc", truly a puzzle.

[Squires]

All ideologies are mirrors of the psychologies of their creators.

Gaslighting is exactly what it is.

[Sam Duncan]

“such incidents highlight the difficulty in adhering to strictly binary definitions of gender”

Seems to me they highlight the difficulties that only turn up when you don't adhere to them. But maybe that's just me.

“I don’t think a man is going to try and sneak in as a woman and pay $75 to go sit (in a pool). For what purpose?”

I can't imagine. Er ... $75, did you say?

[Lisboeta]

For what purpose?

I'm not sure how much it would cost a man to visit a strip club. Is $75 over/under the going rate? Although I suppose, at a female spa, $75 could constitute a bulk discount?

[R. Sherman]

I'm not sure how much it would cost a man to visit a strip club. Is $75 over/under the going rate?

The problem is, strip clubs generally frown upon patrons getting their jollies from showing off their own non-binary, diverse & inclusive, chromosomally-determined accouterments as part of the proceedings.

. . .So I've heard.

[David]

In somewhat related news...

Being imprisoned in North Korea and sentenced to 15 years in a hard labour camp, for stealing a poster, then suffering extensive and mysterious brain injuries and being left in a persistent vegetative state… is just like being a middle-class black journalist who writes for the Huffington Post about how she’s oppressed by “white male privilege.”

Pretentious victimhood is quite a drug.

Via Mick Hartley.

[R. Sherman]

Pretentious victimhood is quite a drug.

Before the journalist Ms. Sha shifts into SJW high gear, she approaches making some valid points. Specifically, it's common knowledge that North Korea is a highly regimented and oppressive regime which takes a dim view of Westerners generally and Americans specifically. Thus, it is the height of stupidity to engage in behavior which is likely to result in consequences which, to the Western eye, seem extreme. Such is to be expected when cosseted Westerners insist upon trying to impose their own cultural mores on cultures which cannot or will not adjust to the West's concepts of civilized behavior. (Of course, it's only Westerners who are expected to adjust whether in other lands or when confronted with aliens who wish to establish their own little cultural enclaves in our midst. But I digress . . .)

This is not to say that Otto Warmbier got what he "deserved." Rather, he subjected himself to an environment where the risk of something horrific happening far outweighed any potential benefit to himself. And the same thing would happen to a La Sha no matter how much she claimed to be an "ally" of the oppressed Norks of color. Leftists insist upon engaging in philosophical contortions to avoid learning the correct lessons and so they wind up being astonished to discover North Korea or ISIS or whoever doesn't give a shit about the number of rallies they've attended or the Che Guevara t-shirt they're wearing.

[David]

And the same thing would happen to a La Sha no matter how much she claimed to be an “ally” of the oppressed Norks of color.

Ms Sha denounces the nefarious, all-explaining “privilege” of people paler than herself, and does so in terms that suggest a deeply obnoxious personality. The irony being that unpleasant racial attitudes are less likely to be challenged, and more likely to be excused and actively indulged – say, with articles in fashionable publications – if the person airing them is, for instance, a black woman with leftist views.

[PiperPaul]

"Gaslighting"

MSM re-definition of the term to imply something derogatory to anything not progressive in 3... 2...

I think the current favorite make-me-sound-smrt terms are:

- contemporaneous
- there's no there there
- unprecedented
- sustainable
-

[Trevor]

... the journalist Ms. Sha ...

For anyone tempted to follow the link to La Sha's Twitter and the Deep Thoughts contained therein, I offer a summary of her output: Black black black black blacketty-black black. Is it ever so beastly of me to find it all a tad tiresome?

[David]

he subjected himself to an environment where the risk of something horrific happening far outweighed any potential benefit to himself.

Well, yes. That said, I can just about see the appeal of visiting first-hand a surreal nation, even one that resembles the mind of a psychopath rendered in concrete. A kind of ironic tourism. Stealing the poster was, of course, immensely, tragically foolish. But it strikes me as indicating a hopeless naïveté, not uncommon among young travellers of any hue, rather than, as Ms Sha would have it, a result of being “socialised as a white boy,” and “pedestaled by the world” on account of some “shield of cis white male identity.”

Mr Warmbier may have been reckless and a fool, and has paid a very steep price. But Ms Sha sounds like an insufferable racist bitch.

[R. Sherman]

But it strikes me as indicating a hopeless naïveté, not uncommon among young travellers of any hue. . .

You took fewer words to say what I wanted to say and said it better. Ms. Sha's evident Schadenfreude, total lack of empathy and gleeful revelry in another's misfortune tends to indicate that her use of SJW/BLM/Identity politics is just cover for shitty personality.

[David]

Ms. Sha’s evident Schadenfreude, total lack of empathy and gleeful revelry in another’s misfortune tends to indicate that her use of SJW/BLM/Identity politics is just cover for shitty personality.

I think that applies quite broadly among enthusiasts of “social justice.” In my experience, it’s pretty much a default.

[Hopp Singg]

$75 could constitute a bulk discount?

Heh, in Munich in the park, around the English Gardens, there is a nudist area. The locals say that the number of nudists actually using it has declined over the years, but not to worry, the total mass has remained constant.

[Squires]

Presumably Ms. Sha has never read Utopias Elsewhere. Well, that would be the presumption if you were giving her the credit of being remotely sane, anyway.

More likely if you put a copy of it down in front of her and made her read it, she would just find some way to create a tortuous wringing of reason to keep her narrative "true".

Despite that whole bit about how any North Korean woman caught sleeping with a black man would be put to death.

[Darleen]

Student Hadley - she of the bleached hair, tattoos, piercings and speech pattern of entitled, whiny belligerence - is the face of America's Maoist Red Guard.

[Daniel Ream]

if you were giving her the credit of being remotely sane, anyway.

Oh, she's sane.

Since I can't let a post here pass without dragging BPD/PTSD into it, here's my rule of thumb when playing Sh*thead or Psycho: look at which way the toxicity is directed.

People with legitimate mental health issues will be self-destructive. When all the malice is directed outwards and always to the benefit of the malicious, then you're just dealing with a horrible person.

[Nate Whilk]

I think the current favorite make-me-sound-smrt terms are:

- contemporaneous
- there's no there there
- unprecedented
- sustainable
-

Posted by: PiperPaul | June 18, 2017 at 17:21

- problematic

[Sam Duncan]

“problematic”

That one's begun to grate so much I find myself wincing even when it's used in perfectly reasonable, apoliticial, contexts.

Also (speaking of the power of context):

- “intersection”, applied to anything but roads.
- “space”, not referring to a physical void in three-dimensions.

That one's been a long time brewing, in fact. I remember reading an article back in the early '90s which noted that “éspace”, used in a similarly non-physical sense, was the buzzword of choice in France at the time. It's been fascinating (for certain values of “fascinating”) to watch it catch on among the hard-of-thinking in the Anglosphere.

Which reminds me of a very old one, dating back to the days of Lefty Soviet-envy, but which you still hear from time to time: omitting the definite article, as in Russian. “Government should...”, “confererence has...”, etc. A sure sign of someone not worth listening to. (But keeping an eye on.)

[Lancastrian Oik]

People with legitimate mental health issues will be self-destructive. When all the malice is directed outwards and always to the benefit of the malicious, then you're just dealing with a horrible person.

David- please have the minions serve Mr. Daniel Ream a double of his own choosing and charge it to my account. Whilst they're at it, let Big Mary have a port and lemon too, just for medicinal purposes.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

People with legitimate mental health issues will be self-destructive. When all the malice is directed outwards and always to the benefit of the malicious, then you're just dealing with a horrible person.

Not necessarily, particularly those with anti social, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders who, per DSM-V definitions and criteria, would be externally destructive, and just going by the behaviors, demeanor, rantings, and appearance of most of the campus and other SJW snotflakes, most could fit in one of these three disorders, and/or borderline personality disorder.

The question is whether horrible people all fall in this kind of spectrum, or if there are just natural born jerks.

[Microbillionaire]

- “intersection”, applied to anything but roads. - “space”, not referring to a physical void in three-dimensions.

"Bodies" for people.

[TimT]

The adults in the situation seem particularly gormless. Too afraid to tell the kids they're stupid entitled prats. Too afraid to tell call in the authorities to remove them off campus. Too afraid to even speak out.

I mean, shithouse situation they're in and all that. But it seems evident that years of this progressive mentality has *led* to this situation occurring in the first place.

[David]

it seems evident that years of this progressive mentality has *led* to this situation occurring in the first place.

As Burnsie noted upthread, after years of wearing away the customary moral and behavioural restraints, and after years of rewarding pathological vanities and delusions of persecution, the so-called educators were caught off-guard by the speed and vehemence with which their own protégés turned on them, using mob force and well-practised spite, and merrily wielding baseball bats. Which reveals just how blinded by ideology, and how ludicrous, and unfit, those educators are.

And I think it would be unwise to file this away as merely specific to Evergreen Clown School. As we’ve seen, at times vividly, very similar patterns are evident elsewhere, with thuggery being cultivated and rewarded, all in the name of progress and “social justice,” and the question of outcome is just one of timing and degree.

[ Added: ]

As I said after the mob delinquency at Middlebury, in which shockingly ignorant leftist students tried to push an elderly scholar to the ground, and in which a leftist educator – whose “social justice” credentials didn’t save her - was assaulted and hospitalized:

Whether there are arrests and/or expulsions following this latest thuggish farce will tell us quite a bit about academia’s ongoing decay.

And as I’m sure you can guess, no-one was arrested, no-one was expelled. And until the little Mao-lings experience the novelty of consequences – suitably severe ones – what we’re seeing will only continue, and most likely get worse.

[Min]

until the little Mao-lings experience the novelty of consequences

That.

[Pogonip]

Hi PiperPaul, don't forget "I can't even." As a. Complete. Sentence.

[WTP]

Similar to ICE, "Bless your heart"

[Adrian]

My current favorites are “you don’t get to…” and “you need to…”

[Trevor]

'That's not who we are.'

[David]

In other news, Guild of Evil HQ is experiencing its third day of 30° weather. No breeze. Send ice cream, stat.

[wtp]

30, so that's like ... subtract 10%...86 on the human scale. We call that Springtime here in central FL. Humidity in the 70's/80's. As much as I'd like to help...

[Spiny Norman]

wtp,

It was 104°F here yesterday, but humidity was less than 10% - "but it's a dry heat". Oh, to hell with that, it's damned hot! Speaking of Hell, Thursday's forecast is for a high of 112... Less than 3 weeks ago, it might have been as high as 86. Summer in the Southwest has arrived with great suddenness...

[David]

Hair... wilting.

[Spiny Norman]

Ooh, goody! Weather forecast update - Thursday's prediction has been revised down to 101°F, and Friday is only 99° and windy - "excellent" brushfire weather...

[David]

I don’t think I’m constitutionally equipped for hot weather. And as a Brit, you can imagine the shock of it all.

[Spiny Norman]

Can I assume it's a stagnant, humid, muggy 30°C at Guild of Evil HQ, and the nuclear-powered climate control system is down for maintenance?

[David]

The maintenance team is busy working on the focusing array of the…

But I’ve said too much.

[Trevor]

Hair... wilting.

Not a problem for some of us. I'm vacillating between smugness and envy.

[champ]

"In other news, Guild of Evil HQ is experiencing its third day of 30° weather."

That's nothing. In Santa Clarita, CA, it's 44 degrees celsius today.

[David]

In Santa Clarita, CA, it’s 44 degrees celsius today.

[Sort-of-Mad Max]

"In other news, Guild of Evil HQ is experiencing its third day of 30° weather"

Nothing better on a hot day than a nice glass of iced tea!

(Ducks under table)

[jabrwok]

For David: http://www.bluebell.com/IceCreamFlavor?fid=17

[Spiny Norman]

champ,

That's nothing. In Santa Clarita, CA, it's 44 degrees celsius today.

Damn. That's Palm-Springs-level hot.

We only made it to 42°C today - and I live in the desert, not a Los Angeles suburb.

[R. Sherman]

Otto Warmbier's roommate offers information. It appears possible that he was framed by the Norks, in which case Ms. Sha's op-ed referenced above is even more reprehensible.

[Trevor]

Otto Warmbier has died.

[Alex]

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 121f / 49.4c in Phoenix, Arizona. I don't know how they do it.
---
Mundane thought on the baseball bat crew at TESC: Where did they get the bats? Did they raid the college athletic department? Did they purchase them at a sporting goods store? If option #2, I'd pay $10 to see the look on the face of anyone working there when that group came through the sliding doors.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Nothing better on a hot day than a nice glass of iced tea!

Nonsense, I say nonsense, son, pull up a chair here on the veranda and I'll have Bonnie and Connie whip you up a fresh frosty mint julep.

[Trevor]

... a fresh frosty mint julep

Be careful, that can lead to all sorts of shenanigans. Sarah Vaughan told me.

[Geezer]

Sarah Vaughan told me.

The Clovers told me.

[WTP]

Serendipity or something, but those Mint Julep links brought this John Cleese bit up that I hadn't seen before, bringing the subject back around to the, uh, subject...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9CnkLAB1mw

[Dr. Toboggan]

The adults in the situation seem particularly gormless.

Is it really gormlessness? I look at that college president and see a weasel, a nasty little coward, rather than a harmless fool who doesn't know what's going on. We've all seen somebody like that in our lives, generally in the form of the mediocrity promoted beyond their limited skills who deals with their newfound incompetence and insecurity by trying to bully somebody lower than them on the totem pole.

...as a Brit, you can imagine the shock of it all.

Britain isn't built for hot weather. Last time I went to London I was roasting like a suckling pig, but it was only thirty-odd degrees. I suppose that's because everything is built to retain heat, and buildings tend not to have fans or air-conditioners.

As for modern phrases that irritate, I'd like to nominate "because [thing]": the use of the word "because" without it being followed by a preposition or a definite article or some other piece of grammar. Although this particular affectation isn't restricted to politically correct types, sadly.

[PiperPaul]

"because [thing]"

Supposedly that started at Jalopnik with [racecar], but then of course others also glommed onto it and Jalopnik got bought by that Leftivist outlet Gawker.

[Darleen]

Rancho Cucamonga got to 97F/36C today...

[Jacob]

where ‘progressive’ utopia is under construction.

It'll never get off the ground.

[David]

It’ll never get off the ground.

Well, no. The players in the drama don’t even seem able to admit the kind of motives they’ve unleashed and given decisive influence. Maybe they’re too dense to understand, or maybe they’re just lying - either way, it’s clearly not a recipe for anything savoury. Unless a world full of George Bridges, all asking for permission to pee, would be a utopian transformation. But a lot of damage can be done in the attempt; a lot of harm and degradation can be inflicted. And for some - quite a few, in fact - that’s at least half the fun.

[George]

Not a problem for some of us. I'm vacillating between smugness and envy.

I take it that you have no plans for a holiday in the North of Mozambique...

[Trevor]

I take it that you have no plans for a holiday in the North of Mozambique...

... is the correct answer. I'm also so pale as - practically translucent - that I'd be considered top-notch muti.

[Dan]

"As for modern phrases that irritate, I'd like to nominate "because [thing]": the use of the word "because" without it being followed by a preposition or a definite article or some other piece of grammar."

No offence but this just means you are getting old. My grand-dad spent the last ten years of his life railing against singers on TV, and slang, and in particular was distressed by issues to do with prepositions. I religiously avoid grouching about grammar because it makes me sound like him.

Because language evolution.

;-)

[WTP]

Because language evolution.

No offense, and I am inclined to agree, except at some point we approach a Tower of Babel ... whatever the opposite of singularity is. With the explosion of participant media, social and otherwise, slang and idioms and such are expanding at a much greater rate just within the English language. At some point there's a price to pay. Being an engineer and not being much of a language guy, I'm about the last person to have say on this but I don't hear much from standard bearers.

[Alex]

I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was, and now what I’m with isn’t it. And what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.

-Grandpa Simpson

[Trevor]

No offense ...

It's part of the relativist infestation of everything, isn't it? Standards are judgemental, the Wise Ones tell us, and no one language/dialect/idiom/idiolect is superior to any other, for to rank them (even in one's mind) would be hierarchical, which I believe is even more worser than being judgemental, internal contradictions notwithstanding. All I know is that should I find myself on an operating table drifting into oblivion, and the last thing I hear is the surgeon babbling in Jafaican or Multicultural London English or whatever it's called this month, I wouldn't bet much money on having blissful dreams, no matter what anaesthetic is used.

[Trevor]

And what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.

I've never been able to work out the nature of the it we are exhorted to 'give up' whenever some talent-free singist is about to lip-sync to a backing track of the latest melisma-fest.

[David]

I’ve never been able to work out the nature of the it we are exhorted to ‘give up’

I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.

[Trevor]

I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.

You can't lay on the most delicious cat-nip - and in such profusion - and then affect surprise when the odd moggie wanders in!

[David]

I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my breakdancing.

[Trevor]

Excuse me while I try to put my hands on an Afrika Bambaataa 12".

I may be some time.

[WTP]

I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.

Well seeing as we're already down this path. Why does the word "threat" have an 'a' in it? And if it MUST have an 'a', due to some once-upon-a-time diphthong pronunciation, the 'a' should come before the 'e' as in "Aetna". This from a guy who has to spell check "diphthong" and "pronunciation". Now get off my lawn!

[Dr. Toboggan]

No offence but this just means you are getting old.

How dare you sir. I'll have you know I am extremely young and cool.

[Rich Rostrom]

"Because XXX" is an intentional ironic misusage.

As such, not a threat to grammar.

I don't know that I've ever seen it used by the PC - I see it used by the PinC to mock the incoherence of the former.