Category Archives: Ideology

PC Professoriat and Non-PC Stars

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“A major new study of the political correctness of faculty members may challenge assumptions all around. For those who deny that there is an identifiable group of PC professors, the study says that there is in fact a group with consistently common perspectives, largely based on their views of discrimination (that it exists and matters).

But for those who say that these tenured radicals have all the power in academe, the study finds that politically correct professors’ views on the role of politics in hiring decisions aren’t very different from the views of other professors. Further, the study finds that a critical mass of politically incorrect professors is doing quite well in securing jobs at the most prestigious universities in the United States, despite claims that such scholars are an endangered species there……”

More at Inside Higher Education News.

“Simmons analyzes disciplines, and finds sharp differences — largely consistent with previous studies about disciplines and political leanings. Humanities and social science fields tend to have higher politically correct rankings, while professional and science disciplines do not. The table that follows is in order of political correctness. Psychology is the only field where a majority of professors are politically correct. Four fields — finance, management information, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering — had no one who was politically correct….”

 Comment 

Childless and Cheerful in the US…

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“The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term “bundle of joy” may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. “Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers,” says Florida State University’s Robin Simon, a sociology professor who’s conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. “In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It’s such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not.”

More at Newsweek on some evidence undermining one of the great mythologies of modern life.

Comment:

Mind you, despite what family-value adherents will tell you, you can’t call this a Christian mythology. The Gospels are pretty clear on that. Jesus even comes right out and says his values are…or can be…. pretty much opposed to the family. On the other hand, sociological surveys of the emotional states of random individuals aren’t exactly deep thinking either and they’re not likely to offer up much solid evidence one way or other.

Still, once in a while, it’s nice to see the childless off the hook and the fecund squirming to defend their choice.”

Shooting for Justice: Supremes Uphold Right to Self-Defense

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“The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact…..”

 

More at AP News.

Rights to self defense are for individuals not just for state militias, as liberals like to argue.  Notice it’s the only time you’ll hear liberals defend any rights for states…

 

Supremely Confused: Rat Out the State – Die…..Rape Kids – Live.

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“[Justice] Kennedy concluded that in cases of crimes against individuals — as opposed to treason, for example — “the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.”

The decision does not affect the imposition of the death penalty for other crimes that do not involve murder, including treason and espionage, he said…..”

More at the Washington Post on the Supreme Court’s latest piece of muddled thinking.

Comment:

If treason warrants the death penalty, it must be because of its heinousness as a crime, not because of any inherent tendency to lead to murder, since not all treason leads to anyone’s death (besides which, of course, the state is a far larger killer than any traitor).

But, if heinousness is a criterion, then isn’t raping children (at least in certain instances – let’s overlook mentally defective rapists here) heinous?

Right here, I find the rationale for my blogging and the source of much left-wing and right-wing confusion: the pervasive belief that most harmful things in society are physical and material; that most good things are physical and material; and that we can leave out the mind when we discuss the body politic….

Raping people is a form of torture – rape attacks your feelings about your own sexual identity and others’ that form the core of human personality and integration into society.

Children who are raped repeatedly grow up, like torture victims, with suffering that almost never leaves them. The lives of the most savage criminals often have childhood rape as a common theme. Growing up to be a serial killer or a future rapist seems to me to be a fate worse than being killed. You might not end up that way, but only because of a heroic effort on your part.

Parents, which would you rather have – a child who dies in war, is decorated as a hero and honored forever, or a child who is kidnapped and repeatedly raped and tortured, survives…. but only as an emotional and physical wreck, who for the rest of his life stumbles from one crisis to the next, eventually turning to crime himself.

If you find that difficult to answer, I rest my case…

DNA, IQ, and the New Racialism….

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“On Oct. 14, 2007, one of Watson’s former assistants, Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe, wrote an article about him in London’s Sunday Times that quoted him making racist comments about black people by suggesting there are inherent, unalterable biological differences in intelligence between black people and everyone else. The response was swift and impressively devastating. The father of DNA had spoken the unspeakable. Echoing racist remarks that have been used to justify the enslavement and colonization of black people since the Enlightenment (think Hume, Kant, Jefferson, Hegel), Watson’s comments implied that he believed that nature had created a primal distinction in intelligence and innate mental capacity between blacks and whites, which no amount of social intervention could ever change.

He had uttered the unutterable, the most ardent fantasy of white racists (David Duke would wax poetic on his Web site that the truth had at last been revealed, and by no less than the discoverer of the structure of DNA). His words caused a ripple effect of shock, dismay and disgust among those of us who embrace the range of biological diversity and potential within the human community. It was as if one of the smartest white men in the world had confirmed what so many racists believe already: that the gap between blacks and whites in, say, IQ test scores and SAT results has a biological basis and that environmental factors such as centuries of slavery, colonization, Jim Crow segregation and race-based discrimination—all contributing to uneven economic development—don’t amount to a hill of beans. Nature has given us an extra basketball gene, as it were, in lieu of native intelligence….”

More at The Root by a scholar of race theory, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Immoral Market or Incompetent Marketer?

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As you’ve probably noticed, I’m interested in the way the market operates….and how it intersects with the way we think….. our perceptions, our misperceptions,  our ethics — or lack thereof

Can you be good…. and make good?

Is conscience always tugging at your bottom-line like a whiny brat?

Should it?

The Triple Bottom Line comes up with some answers:

“It seems as if there’s a bit of angst among believers in sustainable business over the demise of Nau, an apparel company based in Portland, Oregon, that aimed to make and sell outdoor clothes and sportswear made from recycled materials using environmentally friendly business methods. “Is this a bad omen for sustainable startups?” wonders at least one blogger.

For what it’s worth, my answer is No. The failure of Nau reflects less the inherent weakness of the sustainable business concept and more a series of miscalculations made by the company’s management, most of which had nothing to do with environmentalism or social consciousness but rather with plain old business sense.

As this article details, Nau committed some of the same management blunders that have doomed thousands of other startups. They counted on a website to generate 50 percent of their sales, then dawdled over repairing the site when it proved to be awkward and difficult to use. They chose not to make their products available through traditional retailers, thereby eliminating a potential source of vitally-needed early revenue. They decided to “mute” the appearance of their logo on their garments, eschewing a powerful tool for building brand awareness and loyalty.

And most dangerously, they overspent, especially on personnel: “Among the 60 employees at [Nau’s] Pearl District headquarters, about 10 held the title of vice president or higher . . . Most hailed from large companies such as Nike.” In other words, they hired pricey talent accustomed to big-company perks and working conditions–always a risky choice for a brand-new company.”

(Read more here)

Bad Subjects On The Right Not to Drive…

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“I certainly don’t’ fault people for using cars or supporting their right to drive, because like every other critic of automobility, I recognize that there are few options for people to do otherwise. But that’s exactly the point that automobile critics are trying to make: people are significantly limited in their ability to choose between different forms of mobility. Pro-automobile advocates love to talk about the ‘right to drive’ or the ‘freedom’ to travel, but they never talk about the freedom to choose any other mode of transportation—particularly ones that don’t pollute the Earth or require an infrastructure that engulfs most of the usable public space in our cities. Pro-automobile advocates don’t like to talk about how automobile accidents are the #1 cause of death for people between the ages of 4-34, killing approximately 43,000 people a year. Nor do they address the fact that the 2.9 million annual injuries caused by auto accidents costs our society roughly $230 billion a year. Even when people aren’t getting maimed or killed, the literal financial costs of automobility are staggering. According the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic congestion collectively costs an average of $168 billion a year and the Texas Transportation Institute estimates that the 75 largest metropolitan areas experienced 3.6 billion vehicle-hours of delay, resulting in 5.7 billion US gallons (21.6 billion liters) in wasted fuel and $67.5 billion in lost productivity, or about 0.7% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. One would think that this raw financial data alone would surely convince people that there are better ways to simply get around. However, it’s hard to make informed decisions about transportation when groups like the Reason Institute can utilize major news outlets to push their agenda.”

More here at Bad Subjects.

Lord Acton on the Rule of the Unfit

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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
Lord Acton, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881

Comment:

And of all classes, “the ruling classes” are usually the least fit. Now, who are the ruling classes today?

Some would say capitalists and corporate leaders.

Here at The Mind Body Politic, where we claim to look more deeply than others into the innards of the political organism, we demur. Our capitalists (that is, the few that remain so among the many more who’ve turned into technocrats) are ruled themselves.

Only look around. Open The Wall Street Journal – Vox Capitis – and check for yourself. Out tumble words and phrases that might as well have come from the Soviet Politburo…. and all of them as soiled, over-handled and badly-fitting as spandex tights in a thrift store: the public good……. democracy… women’s rights…. the national interest….

Now, when have any of these meant anything other than whatever it is any speaker chooses them to mean? (Note: we don’t object to any of these things.  We just object to the way these terms are roped into the pursuit of just about any political or economic goal – including those diametrically opposite of the terms themselves”. Remember that “women’s rights’ were a reason we bombed Iraq and Iraqi women and children; we censor political speech for “the public good,” and we want to remake the world “in the national interest.” )

And who, may we ask, shines up these second-hand souvenirs to foist on the average uncritical citizen?

Is it leaders of business….or leaders of opinion ?

My bet is the latter. Over-exposed academics, under-educated journalists, and the whole tribe of professionals experts, prolix pundits and cacophonous commentators who eat up band-width around the planet…..

These are the leaders…as well as the followers…of public opinion.

And it’s public opinion,  that great uncouth, whiskered, whisky-soused, splay-footed, smelly-arm-pitted tramp who leads us all around by the nose. High-browed or low-browed, we’re brow-beaten.. one and all… by the chatter of the chattering classes.

The Only Way to Control Greedy Capitalists

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“I agree with the sentiment that society’s problems can only be solved by a select group of individuals. However, I don’t believe this select group of people is composed of well-meaning politicians, but rather greedy capitalists. Both are self-serving, but while the politician cares only about your vote, the capitalist cares about your actual needs and wants. Furthermore, a politician only has to care towards the end of the election cycle, whereas a capitalist has to care at every moment a business transaction takes place. Ask yourself this question: in a world of greedy self-serving individuals, is society better off with more politicians or are we better off with more competing capitalists?

A free market’s fruits in a particular sector of the economy produce the optimal situation where product innovation increases dramatically, wages increase proportionally, and prices lower substantially. After time, the price, product and wages in a particular sector will plateau and entrepreneurs will look elsewhere for unexploited vistas where the cycle of better products, lower prices, and higher wages begin anew.

So yes, a capitalist only cares about himself, but by extension he must care for the customer – lots of them, or someone else will. Part of that customer care is hiring the right people, and to attract them, he must care about their needs too or some other employer will.

If you want the capitalist to care about the people, if you want the capitalist to pay his employees higher wages, I have one piece of advice – compete with him…..”

More at Lew Rockwell by Todd Steinberg.

Secretary Gates Announces New Key-log Pact: Cyber-War Without End, Amen…

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“With that in mind, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently gave two sharp-edged speeches, one at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, the other at West Point, each expressing his frustration with the slowness of the armed services to adapt to a counterinsurgency planet and to plan for the next war.

Now, there’s obviously nothing illogical about a country’s military preparing for future wars. That’s what it’s there for and every country has the right to defend itself. But it’s a different matter when you’re preparing for future “wars of choice” (which used to be called wars of aggression) — for the next war(s) on what our secretary of defense now calls the “the 21st century’s global commons.” By that, he means not just planet Earth in its entirety, but “space and cyberspace” as well. For the American military, it turns out, planning for a future “defense” of the United States means planning for planet-wide, over-the-horizon counterinsurgency. It will, of course, be done better, with a military that, as Gates put it, will no longer be “a smaller version of the Fulda Gap force.” (It was at the Fulda Gap, a German plain, that the U.S. military once expected to meet Soviet forces invading Europe in full-scale battle.)

So the secretary of defense is calling for more foreign-language training, a better “expeditionary culture,” and more nation building — you know, all that “hearts and minds” stuff. In essence, he accepts that the future of American war will, indeed, be in the Sadr Cities and Afghan backlands of the planet; or, as he says, that “the asymmetric battlefields of the 21st century” will be “the dominant combat environment in the decades to come.” And the American response will be high-tech indeed — all those unmanned aerial vehicles that he can’t stop talking about.

Gates describes our war-fighting future in this way: “What has been called the ‘Long War’ [i.e. Bush’s War on Terror, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq] is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies.”

“There are no exit strategies.” That’s a line to roll around on your tongue for a while. It’s a fancy way of saying that the U.S. military is likely to be in one, two, many Sadr Cities for a long time to come. This is Gates’s ultimate insight as secretary of defense, and his response is to urge the military to plan for more and better of the same. For this we give the Pentagon almost a trillion dollars a year…..”

From Tomgram.

Comment:

Please note Secy. Gates’ promise of war in cyberspace .

In 1928, there was the pact to end all war (the Kellogg-Briand Pact). And now some 80 years later, out of the mouth of the secretary of defense, we have what amounts to a declaration of perpetual war; war that reaches into cyberspace, into your computer hard drive, into your innermost thoughts……like some sordid, key-logging snoop.

Yes, dear reader, as you read this humble missive, you too have become part of the great cyber-war-of- the -worlds; you too are a cyber-trooper, cyber-civilian, cyber-POW…… or cyber-kill…. as the case may be.

Whether you realize it or not.

The new frontier of the state’s aggression (actually, it’s always-and-forever frontier) is now your mind…your thoughts…indeed the space between your thoughts, from keystroke to silent keystroke…..