The Good
Essay of the week! Frank Buckley has written a nice piece on the role of curiosity in education and how it’s being stamped out by the Wokken-SS: “Curiosity is Important, but Colleges are Suppressing It.”
Professor Glenn Loury at Brown University brings down the hammer on the infantile regression that is identity politics. Watch the video at the link.
And the beat goes on. Critical Race Theory IS racism and there is now a growing movement in state legislatures around the country to ban it from the government schools. Oklahoma is now the second state in the Union to keep it out of its schools, and several other state legislatures have passed such bills as well. Let me be clear: this is only a Band-Aid and not the proper solution to the various maladies that infect America’s government school system. What these state legislators and governors do not understand is that CRT will be taught in the schools despite their laws banning it. The education establishment will find a work around. Count on it. In the end, these laws are only for show. The truth of the matter is that the government should not be in the business of prescribing or proscribing ideas. The only proper solution consistent with a free society is a free market in education. See link here.
Not to be outdone by the Okies, the Vols move to ban CRT from Tennessee schools as well. See link here.
“Real” communism has never been tried, they say. Well, after over 100 million dead, here’s a chance to get it right. No more genocide, no more secret police, no more show trials, and no more gulags. An ethno-eco-commie-commune of Soy Boys (I feel sorry for the lone young lady in the photograph) is being founded in the mountains of Colorado. The founders claim that the soil is “very rich” at their 10,000-foot compound. You may be wondering why I’m including this under “The Good” category. Well, because it’s always a good thing when ideologues get “mugged by reality.” Three cheers for reality!
The compound—to be known as Hammer City—will be racially exclusive. White folk will not be permitted. Not sure if these lads have spent a winter in Colorado’s high mountains, but this venture has Alferd Packer written all over it. I wish them well! If you would like to join our idealistic comrades at their high-elevation, yak compound, you can learn more about them here.
The Bad
Disney has gone full woke. Do NOT go to Disney Land, Disney World, and do not watch their movies. More great reporting from Christopher Rufo at City Journal:
I have obtained a trove of whistleblower documents related to Disney’s “diversity and inclusion” program, called “Reimagine Tomorrow,” which paints a disturbing picture of the company’s embrace of racial politics. Multiple Disney employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, told me that the Reimagine Tomorrow program, though perhaps noble in intent, has become deeply politicized and engulfed parts of the company in racial conflict.
The core of Disney’s racial program is a series of training modules on “antiracism.” . . .
In [one] module, called “What Can I Do About Racism?,” Disney tells employees that they should reject “equality,” with a focus on “equal treatment and access to opportunities,” and instead strive for “equity,” with a focus on “the equality of outcome.” The training also includes a series of lessons on “implicit biases,” “microaggressions,” and “becoming an antiracist.” The company tells employees that they must “reflect” on America’s “racist infrastructure” and “think carefully about whether or not your wealth, income, treatment by the criminal justice system, employment, access to housing, health care, political power, and education might be different if you were of a different race.”
. . . The document claims that “competition,” power hoarding,” “comfort with predominantly white leadership,” “individualism,” “timeliness,” and “comprehensiveness” are “white dominant” values that “perpetuate white supremacy culture”—and must be rejected.
I wonder if Disney executives are willing to put their money where their collective mouths are and redistribute Disney profits with the people who sweep the floors of their studios.
Of course it’s not good enough that your children and grandchildren be indoctrinated at school and when watching their favorite Disney movies, their palates and digestive systems must also be cleansed of all bad -isms. True wokedom must therefore begin every morning with breakfast and Tony the Tiger. Kellogg’s Cereal Company has announced that it has a new cereal coming out called “Together with Pride.” Each box of the new cereal asks America’s five year olds to pick their gender pronoun. Before your kids head off every morning to their woke indoctrination center, they now can load up on sugary cereal and practice their pronouns before their teachers quiz them on the subject at school. Perfect. “Wokification Update: Kellogg’s Creates New Work Cereal for Kids.”
“All Three Finalists to Be President of The Evergreen State College Withdraw From Process.” I am offering up myself to be president of Evergreen State College, but on one condition: that I be given sole discretion to hire and fire whomever I want. I vow to “Make Evergreen Great Again!” That is my promise, that’s my guarantee to the Board of Trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, and students at Evergreen State College.
This is bad—very bad—and it won’t end well—for the United States. Not sure this is what America’s founding fathers did with the Barbary pirates. “Colonial Pipeline Paid Nearly 5 Million in Ransom.”
We live in “The Age of Delirium.” I’m seriously considering starting a new column titled “Dumb and Dumber.” First up: “Penn State Faculty Move To Erase the Terms ‘Junior’ and ‘Senior,’ Calling Them ‘Male-Centric’.”
The Ugly
2 + 2 = Racism. “California’s New Math Framework Demands Educators ‘Teach Toward Social Justice’.”
2 + 2 = ZERO in California.
California educators are considering a new mathematics instruction framework that purposefully de-emphasizes calculus, though calculus is required or heavily encouraged for applicants to several of the nation’s top colleges and universities. The framework, which is still under consideration, proposes eliminating advanced math classes in middle school and eliminating a “push to calculus in grade twelve,” which it calls “misguided.”
The framework prioritizes equity and instructs teachers to “teach toward social justice.” It argues against beginning advanced math classes in middle school, saying, “Many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration in grade eight (or sooner in some cases) because of an incorrect conclusion that Calculus is an important high-school goal.”
This setup would “enable all students to engage in a common pathway in the first two years of high school,” thus eliminating advanced classes prior to junior year. Calculus could be a possible option in 11th or 12th grade, but there would be no path created intentionally to lead to calculus.
Full article, see here.
What happens when you downgrade or no longer teach calculus? Here’s what happens: bridges collapse:
Hollywood is going to have to make a new version of “Inherit the Wind,” only this time Darwin and the theory of evolution will be made to look silly: University: Charles Darwin a ‘racist’ because theory of evolution ‘justifies white male superiority’.”
Book burnings. Coming to an American college near you. At the link.
Irving Kristol once wrote that the greatest threat to liberal democracy was not socialism but nihilism. Kristol was only partly right. What he didn’t understand is that nihilism and socialism work together. Nihilism is the means and socialism is the end. We now seem to be reaching peak nihilism (and socialism), by which I mean the hatred of life itself. We now have something called the Centre for Eschatology, which is run by a group of professors from Arizona State University. The Centre’s mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to non-being” and “to ending the world.” The Centre’s academic staff believes “the greatest doomsday machine is human creativity.” These people want to “Jonestown” all human life, although I assume that they will be at the back of the line. Welcome to the world of “higher” education.
Quote of the week: “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation”—Vladimir Lenin. The Leninization of America continues apace. It’s coming to a town near you.
. . . the Beautiful
America the beautiful in South Carolina.
America the beautiful in California.
Don’t forget to submit your aesthetic recommendations to: redneckaesthetic@gmail.com. Please always use as your subject line: “The Beautiful.”
Have great week!