It’s an ad trying to attract students to Monash University. This is what academics wish to teach our future leaders at School.
If you can’t be part of the solution, at least you can be part of the problem.
[Just watched it on Andrew Bolt.]
HINT: IT DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT. How A Generation Lost Its Common Culture.
My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.
It’s difficult to gain admissions to the schools where I’ve taught – Princeton, Georgetown, and now Notre Dame. Students at these institutions have done what has been demanded of them: they are superb test-takers, they know exactly what is needed to get an A in every class (meaning that they rarely allow themselves to become passionate and invested in any one subject); they build superb resumes. They are respectful and cordial to their elders, though easy-going if crude with their peers. They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting to run America and the world.
But ask them some basic questions about the civilization they will be inheriting, and be prepared for averted eyes and somewhat panicked looks. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach? How did Socrates die? Raise your hand if you have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales? Paradise Lost? The Inferno?
Who was Saul of Tarsus? What were the 95 theses, who wrote them, and what was their effect? Why does the Magna Carta matter? How and where did Thomas Becket die? Who was Guy Fawkes, and why is there a day named after him? What did Lincoln say in his Second Inaugural? His first Inaugural? How about his third Inaugural? What are the Federalist Papers?
Some students, due most often to serendipitous class choices or a quirky old-fashioned teacher, might know a few of these answers. But most students have not been educated to know them. At best, they possess accidental knowledge, but otherwise are masters of systematic ignorance. It is not their “fault” for pervasive ignorance of western and American history, civilization, politics, art and literature. They have learned exactly what we have asked of them – to be like mayflies, alive by happenstance in a fleeting present.
And not, as I said, by accident.
From Instapundit
And from Powerline: Trump is now more popular than Obama.
Media hostility to President Trump has been unremitting since he secured the Republican nomination. It didn’t stop, or even slow down, with his inauguration. The many achievements of his young administration haven’t given the press pause, either: his coverage continues to be just about 100% negative.
What, then, to make of the fact that Rasmussen Reports, which conducts the only daily presidential approval poll of likely voters, finds Trump at 50% approval and 49% disapproval? Those are better numbers than Barack Obama had in the same survey at the same point in his administration, and the press boosted Obama almost as relentlessly as it denigrates Trump.
At a minimum, it means that a great many Americans have figured out that the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC, CNN, etc. are partisan outlets and not to be trusted. This, of course, is a process that has been going on for a long time. Indeed, it largely brought into being the “blogosphere” of a decade and more ago. But it seems to me that we are seeing something like its culmination. The liberal media have so thoroughly squandered their standing with the public that their capacity to do ill is limited.
That doesn’t mean that the press does no damage at all. As I have often said, we can’t even imagine what a world without a liberal press, academia and entertainment industry would look like. In a neutral world, among many more profound consequences, President Obama could never have won a second term, President Trump would be riding high, and no one would be worried about the midterm elections. Still, the fact that most Americans seem to be tuning out the press can only be a good thing.
It must have been the Stormy Daniels story that’s made the difference.
Lindsay Shepherd was the bunny caught between the Moloch of the modern left and a three minute video of Jordan Peterson which she showed in her classroom on communications at Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario last year. Her story was told here: Resolved: “there are no biological differences between men and women”. Her experience has caused her to have done some serious soul-searching, and has come out non-left which means, by definition, she is on the right. This is what she says at the end, and bless her for her bravery and moral strength.
What I want to get across is that I no way want to be associated with what the left has become. I am not a leftist any more, I would not call myself that. Does that make me right wing, or does that make me a centrist? I don’t know. You tell me. But all I know is I do not want to have any part in this disgusting leftist culture. Sometimes I see myself brought up as an example of leftists who advocate for free speech. I just want to clear the air. That does not describe me anymore.
From Small Dead Animals which also provides this convenient list from her presentation:
What is the Left all about?
- They’re pro-censorship
- They are victimhood culture
- They are all about moral righteousness
- They are taught that claiming to be offended results in a moral victory
- They don’t believe in personal responsibility
- They are completely intolerant of diversity of thought
- They are humourless people
- They want to make society boring
- They want to make it that no one can make a joke
- If you are not on their side 100% they will slander you mercilessly
No doubt many more can be added.
The rest is from Steve Hayward’s post at Powerline: REMINDER: THE LEFT HATES OUR CIVILIZATION.
I know I’ve made the point before, but there is fresh evidence in recent weeks of how much the left today hates western civilization and human excellence in general. Once again the left is determined to flunk what I’ve long called “the Churchill test.”
Once upon a time leading liberals loved Churchill. Think of Isaiah Berlin’s great 1949 Atlantic Monthly essay, “Churchill in 1940,” or how much Arthur Schlesinger loved him, not to mention the total fanboy crush JFK had on Churchill. Remember, too, that in the 1950s some leading American conservatives were not all that enthusiastic about Churchill; William F. Buckley Jr. was downright hostile to him (though he changed his mind), and Pat Buchanan still dislikes Churchill.
But in the aftermath of Darkest Hour and the best actor Academy Award going to Gary Oldman, voices on the left are at it again, calling Churchill a “war criminal” and mass murderer on the same scale as Hitler or Stalin. A popular Indian politician, Shashi Tharoor, wrote in the Washington Post that “In Winston Churchill, Hollywood Rewards a Mass Murderer.” Apparently the Washington Post has decided to reward morons.
Here’s the breathless conclusion of Tharoor’s Post piece:
This week’s Oscar rewards yet another hagiography of this odious man. To the Iraqis whom Churchill advocated gassing, the Greek protesters on the streets of Athens who were mowed down on Churchill’s orders in 1944, sundry Pashtuns and Irish, as well as to Indians like myself, it will always be a mystery why a few bombastic speeches have been enough to wash the bloodstains off Churchill’s racist hands.
Many of us will remember Churchill as a war criminal and an enemy of decency and humanity, a blinkered imperialist untroubled by the oppression of non-white peoples. Ultimately, his great failure — his long darkest hour — was his constant effort to deny us freedom.
Tharoor’s case depends on repeating a number of undying myths about Churchill, or gross distortions of badly tangled affairs. Soren Geiger does a terrific job of unwinding the more egregious claims Tharoor makes in this article in the American Spectator. But Tharoor has lots of company. Shree Paradkar, the “race and gender columnist” of the Toronto Star . . . actually I could pretty much just stop right here, couldn’t it? But no, you need to take in some of her “Winston Churchill, the barbaric monster with the blood of millions on his hands” article to believe it. It includes gems such as:
Oldman might as well have danced on 3 million dead bodies, many of whose loved ones were too weak to cremate or bury them. Such tributes for a heinous white supremacist who once declared that “Aryan tribes were bound to triumph.” Words as hollow as the tunnel-visioned ideals on which people fashion this man, but they can’t stem the drip, drip of blood from his hands.
Fortunately we have Terry Reardon of Hilldale College’s Churchill Project on the job refuting Paradkar’s paranoia point-by-point, but see also Richard Langworth, who offers up a catalogue of fresh attacks on Churchill from leftist ignoramuses. Richard notes at the end of this bibliography of nihilism:
Nearly forty years ago an equally great Churchill performance, Robert Hardy in The Wilderness Years, was received with equal acclaim by press and public. There was no chorus of hate, no trumped-up charges, no hint that Churchill’s overall record was in any way debatable. Alas times have changed.
As for the calumny of Churchill’s supposed role in the Bengal famine of World War II, I wonder if any of Churchill’s detractors have ever asked how many would have starved if Japan had succeeded in conquering the Asian subcontinent, which is what surely would have happened if any of them had been in charge?
Times have changed indeed. The left’s fundamental self-loathing of the western inheritance, hostility to human excellence, and childlike grasp of political reality has led to these increasingly candid expressions, for which in a sense we should be grateful—at least the left is being more honest.
Here once again we should repair to the observation of British historian Sir Geoffrey Elton, who wrote: “There are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchill: whether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains, quite simply, a great man.”
Ah—that “great man” thing: contemporary leftist egalitarians cannot tolerate such distinctions among human beings.
Original title, and correct title, “This is what mind control looks like.”
UPDATE FROM ACE OF SPADES: With a few videos at the link worth a watch.
This is one of those videos.
The twitter feed is from Legal Insurrection, with its reminder to “Remember Khybar”. Khybar must be some awful moment of Jewish impropriety and wrong-doing, and recent as well, for which Khybar represents a justification for what is being done today. It is therefore worth understanding the battle’s historical significance and the point of bringing it up. From The American Thinker.
In videos and news reports related to the Middle East, one can often find this chant: “Khaybar, khaybar ya yahud, jaish muhammad saya’ud,” meaning, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Mohammad’s army will return.”
The chant means little to people who are unfamiliar with the history of Muhammad’s religion, yet it needs to be understood because it is a chilling reminder of one of the major atrocities he committed against the Jews when he attacked their oasis of Khaybar. People who chant these words today do so to warn Jews that they intend to repeat Muhammad’s horrors against them — and everyone else who is not a believer for that matter.
You should, of course, go to the link since almost nowhere will you be able to find the above kind of account which explain exactly what Khybar means to those who ask us to remember the battle.
You may be sure the Jews remember the Battle of Khybar and are as willing to trust those who remind them of the battle as you just might imagine. Thus, even yesterday, counting on the ignorance and complicity of the media, we have what you see above.
Is there a connection, having the among the best athletes in the world with some of the stupidest sports officials. Let me take you to the case of Dawn Fraser.
Dawn Fraser is regarded as the finest female sprint swimmer of them all; winner of four gold and four silver Olympic medals, holder of 39 world records (27 of them individual) and first in her sport of either sex to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics. Her many early handicaps included severe respiratory troubles. She was a natural rebel, often in conflict with authority, and was even disqualified, for alleged professionalism, at the age of 14.
At her first Olympics, in 1956 in Melbourne – where Australia dominated the freestyle swimming – she won the 100m freestyle, was a member of the winning 4 x 100m relay team, and finished second to Lorraine Crapp in the 400m. She went on to win the 100m freestyle in Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964), collecting silver in the sprint relays at both those Games, and silver again in Rome in the medley relay. Her troubles with officialdom continued – in 1960, after the Rome Games, she was a suspended from international competition for two years for assorted indiscretions, and in 1964, she was given a 10-year suspension. The term was later reduced to four years, but had the effect of ending a career which might have concluded with triumph in 1968.
Fraser’s greatest victory, against the odds, occurred in 1964, when she came back to win in Tokyo after a car crash that killed her mother and seriously injured her neck and spine. Such was her dominance of the 100m freestyle that she held the world record for 16 years.
Doesn’t mention what the suspension was for so see if we can find out. OK, here’s the story: Dawn Fraser Part 2: The Infamous Flag Incident of 1964. Read it all, but it makes me sad even now:
The business of the police captain was not yet finished. During the Closing Ceremony, he paid a visit to Fraser’s guarantor, Lee Robinson, and handed him a package for Miss Fraser, “with the compliments of the Police.” It was the stolen Olympic flag!
Unfortunately, the Australian authorities were not as amused as the Japanese authorities as they proceeded to ban Fraser from competitive swimming for 10 years! But Fraser knew her career was already coming to a close. A brilliant career, for one of Australia’s most well-known and beloved athletes.
Lions led by donkeys again. I cannot follow this latest story because it is too depressing.
Where was Jordan Peterson then to tell me what I needed to know:
“It’s what I tell 18 year olds. Six years ago you were twelve. What the hell do you know? You’re under the care of the family or the state, you haven’t established an independent existence, you haven’t had children, you haven’t started a business, you haven’t taken responsibility for anything, you don’t have a degree, you haven’t finished your course, you don’t know how to read, you can’t think, you don’t know how to present yourself, well Jesus, it’s not right to tell people in that situation that they should go out and change the world.”
And while this was taken in Toronto well before I came out to Oz, the hat I am wearing was an Australian soldier’s slouch hat which I wore for many years!
This is my own version of the marginal revenue and marginal cost diagram with the traditional version a complete waste of time. The traditional version has a series of lines many of which can never be drawn (such as the demand curve) with the ultimate point to show the price-quantity configuration for the sale of a single product. The conclusion is that if a firm wishes to maximise profitability on the sale of some good or service, it will price the product just exactly where a lower or higher price would lead to a lower return over cost. Fatuous and useless, with various bits of the real world left out, such as the actual ability to work out the effect on revenue of changing a price. Modern micro truly is as useless as modern macro.
The above diagram – discussed fully in my Free Market Economics – brings in a number of crucial factors:
This is the way a business, or anyone else for that matter, makes a decision: in the present with only one’s own conjectures as a guide.
I will lastly mention a very nice note I received the other day:
Steve
Just finished reading your book Free Market Economics and wanted to congratulate you.
I have read plenty of economic texts, but yours is the best by far and helped crystalize a number of things that have been swirling around in my mind.
Great work.
It was truly appreciated. You can get a copy for yourself here. I didn’t make any of it up myself. It is just a distillation of classical theory, the economics of John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries.
Law of Markets 