Culture
Industrialism
It is a monstrous piece of bogus liberalism to deny that industrialism has done much for the highest interests of humanity by raising the standard of living. It is as foolish as to deny the harm it has done them by not raising it enough, by poisoning the skies and fields with cheap cities, and taking away the will of its employees by keeping them in political and economic subjection.
Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Who thinks learning is the point of university?
[I]n the American university system the vast expansion of DEI apparat simply follows the previous (and not yet complete) expansion of the mental-health apparat, all of which siphons resources away from the teaching of students. But that’s okay, because almost no one — least of all students and their parents — thinks that learning is the point of university. The university is for socialization, networking, and credentialing, and I expect to see a continuing expansion of the bureaucracies that promote these imperatives and a corresponding contraction of the number of teachers. And anyway, insofar as teaching and learning remain a burdensome necessity, if an annoying one, much of that work can be outsourced to ed-teach products and, now, to chatbots.
Genuine teaching and genuine learning will always go on, but for the foreseeable future it will happen at the margins of our universities or outside the universities altogether. Meanwhile, the symbolic work of the party-state will grind on ….
… that all men are created equal …
This meant bringing together supporters and opponents of slavery. (Not free and slave states: in 1776, every state recognized slavery. The Betsy Ross flag shows us thirteen stars in a circle, and every star represents a slave state.) Some of the colonists disliked slavery; others were very attached to it. In consequence, the Declaration adopts a political theory that has no direct implications for slavery: it is about the rights of insiders and focused on the question of when the governed may reject the legitimate political authority of their governors.
Kermit Roosevelt III, The Nation That Never Was
1619 Project versus the Standard Story
What the 1619 Project is, really, is the extreme progressive version of the standard story: it tells us that we have fallen further short of our ideals, more frequently, more consistently, and more deliberately than we realize. Yet it still tells us that “our founding ideals” were written in 1776—and it is still a profession of faith in them, of faith in an America we can work to perfect.
Kermit Roosevelt III, The Nation That Never Was
Protesters and vigilantes
From Tuesday more motorists must pay to drive in London. The Ultra-Low Emissions Zone—in which a surcharge applies to high-polluting vehicles—will be expanded to all 32 boroughs of Britain’s capital. The £12.50 ($15.75) daily levy will cover diesel cars and vans that do not meet “Euro 6” standards (typically those bought before 2015), and cars that don’t meet “Euro 4” (which typically predate 2006). A scrappage scheme has been introduced to help owners of non-compliant cars buy greener vehicles.
London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, a member of the Labour Party, argues that the move will improve health, especially of children. But it has provoked a fierce backlash, particularly among drivers who live in peripheral parts of the city. That has been seized upon by Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, which has had a hard time winning votes in London in recent years. The party is now portraying Labour as anti-driver. Some vigilantes have vandalised the cameras used to enforce the clean-air scheme.
The Economist’s World in Brief 8/29/23. A thousand takes on this story could be, and probably are being, written. I noted it for the trajectory of western governments and to note that another publication might have used “protesters” where the Economist chose “vigilantes.” After all, it’s “mostly peaceful,” isn’t it?
Travel
People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.
Dagobert D. Runes. But God help me, I love it anyway.
Legalia
No-fault divorce
Professor Lynn Wardle has shown that the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution approach to fault has serious inconsistencies. If one party squanders family wealth, this fact can be considered in the property settlement, almost like an “economic fault.” Allegations of assault, battery, or abuse of the children can be handled as criminal acts.
So, if the ALI’s Principles still effectively permit the consideration of economic faults and abuse faults, what does no-fault amount to? It means that the major fault removed by “no-fault” was adultery or sexual infidelity.
Jennifer Roback Morse, The Sexual State
(I gritted and ground my teeth through this book not because of its substance but because of a style I found grating. Caveat emptor.)
Tortious spam filters?
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta granted Google’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) claiming the company’s Gmail spam filter unfairly suppressed RNC messages. “While it is a close case,” the judge wrote, “the court concludes that … the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC’s messages into Gmail users’ spam folders, and that doing so was protected by section 230.” As Sarah wrote last year, Republican fundraising appeals are likely flagged by spam filters at higher rates due to abuse of email lists.
Sobering statistic
The prison population roughly doubled during Reagan’s years in office, from 329,000 Americans in jail in 1980 to 627,000 in 1988. This trend accelerated during the Bush and Clinton presidencies. By 2008, there were 1.6 million people in American prisons, with the US leading the world in total prison population and imprisonment rate.
Jon Ward, Testimony. That should be enough to make anyone think twice, two or three times, about how “free” we really are.
Politics
What is this “white trash”?
Once, coming back on his plane with a billionaire friend who had brought along a foreign model, Trump, trying to move in on his friend’s date, urged a stop in Atlantic City. He would provide a tour of his casino. His friend assured the model that there was nothing to recommend Atlantic City. It was a place overrun by white trash. “What is this ‘white trash’?” asked the model. “They’re people just like me,” said Trump, “only they’re poor.”
Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury (I have not read this book but ran across this quote anyway.)
Manly men
[Ted] Cruz is one of the many singing the totally-normal-and-not-at-all-weirdly-homoerotic praises of Donald Trump’s recent Fulton County Jail mugshot: “Trump’s mugshot where he looks like a pissed off and angry badass is an iconic historic photo. It’s going viral, and it’s making a heck of a statement.” Jesse Watters of Fox News, affirming his “unblemished record of heterosexuality,” said of Trump: “He looks good and he looks hard.”
In reality, Trump looks like the Grinch after a makeover performed by John Wayne Gacy—I’d love to know what the last man booked into that jail while wearing that much makeup was charged with, and I’ll bet it was hilarious—but it is of interest to me what these guys with their unblemished records of heterosexuality think looks and seems tough. Donald Trump is a guy who has never lifted anything heavier than money and blasts Broadway show tunes and the Village People at his rallies for totally normal people who are by no means members of a cult. I don’t know how much time you can spend dancing to “Macho Man” before your record of heterosexuality gets a blemish, or at least a footnote. And then there’s the inevitable playing of the music from Cats.
Williamson doesn’t have much use for Mike Pence, either (same column, titled The Whited Sepulcher. Ouch!).
We are in the grip of a grim, despairing rebellion against reality that imagines itself to be the engine of moral progress.
The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 