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June 2018

Daryl McCann The Great Bohemian Cultural Revolution

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/06/great-bohemian-cultural-revolution-enemies/

The proselytisation of postmodernist theory, according to Jordan Peterson, is less an emancipatory project than intellectual charlatanry and the relinquishment of individual responsibility. If a truth is validated by its teller’s enemies, the Canadian academic is right on the money.

Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos contains the kind of advice the parents and teachers of Baby Boomers were keen to impart to us all those years ago, advice that we weren’t so keen to hear: “Stand up straight with your shoulders back” (Rule 1), “Make friends with people who want the best for you” (Rule 3), “Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world” (Rule 6), “Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie” (Rule 8), “Be precise in your speech” (Rule 10), and so on. They all sound like the message of some black-and-white television comedy from the 1950s. 12 Rules for Life, by my reckoning, is about seventy years too late.

It was one-time Quadrant editor Roger Sandall who, in The Culture Cult (2000), characterised the modern-day Left as less Marxian than bohemian. The 1960s social revolution was not so much against the bourgeoisie who owned and controlled the means of production as against bourgeois or Christian mores, which we might define as anything from traditional morality and workaday sobriety to enlightened patriotism. Everything, in other words, the Beatles and their acolytes circa 1963–69 wanted to discard. Sandall put it this way:

… it is certainly true that bohemianism is more deeply hostile to the values of the bourgeoisie than Marxism ever was. To understand why this is so, remember Ben Franklin’s useful virtues—temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, chastity and humility. Some of these values are compatible with social democracy. One or two of them found a place in the Communist world. But none are compatible with bohemia.

Peterson self-identifies as a British-style classical liberal, and yet so much of what he writes and says are the contemplations of an anti-bohemian conservative:

Because children, like other human beings, are not only good, they cannot simply be left to their own devices, untouched by society and bloom into perfection … This means they are much more likely to go complexly astray if they are not trained, disciplined and properly encouraged. This means that it is not just wrong to attribute all the violent tendencies of human beings to the pathologies of social structure. It’s wrong enough to be entirely backward.

The reader encounters an entreaty on Franklin’s useful vir

Socialist Protesters Chase Kirstjen Nielsen Out of D.C. Restaurant By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/socialist-protestors-chase-kirstjen-nielsen-out-of-d-c-restaurant/

Protesters affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) interrupted Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen while she was eating at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.

The protesters, who reportedly arrived after receiving a tip that Nielsen was eating at the restaurant, gathered around her table and began chanting “Abolish ICE,” “Shame,” and “End Texas concentration camps!”

A member of the Washington, D.C. chapter of DSA later explained that the protest was prompted by Nielsen’s defense of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration-enforcement policy, which has thus far resulted in the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents, who are being detained while awaiting prosecution for crossing the border illegally.

Nielsen emerged as the face of the “zero tolerance” policy Monday, defending the approach as the unfortunate product of legislative inaction, and calling on Congress to pass an immigration-reform bill that provides a solution to end family separations.

Professor: Learning Math Can Cause ‘Collateral Damage’ to Society By Katherine Timpf

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/math-can-cause-collateral-damage-to-society-professor/Some things in life are objective and rational, and that’s perfectly okay.

According to a new textbook written by a professor at the University of Exeter, learning mathematics can cause “collateral damage” to society because it “provides a training in ethics-free thought.”

“Reasoning without meanings provides a training in ethics-free thought,” Paul Ernest writes in “The Ethics of Mathematics: Is Mathematics Harmful?” — a chapter of his book The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today.

In an abstract for the book, Ernest claims that although he does “acknowledge that mathematics is a widespread force for good,” “there is significant collateral damage caused by learning mathematics.”

According to Ernest, this “collateral damage” happens in three ways. First, he argues, the styles of thinking involved with mathematics are “detached” and “calculated” ones, which value “rules, abstraction, objectification, impersonality, unfeelingness, dispassionate reason, and analysis” — which he claims “can be damaging when applied beyond mathematics to social and human issues.”

The second problem, he explains, is that “the applications of mathematics in society can be deleterious to our humanity unless very carefully monitored and checked.”

“Money and thus mathematics is the tool for the distribution of wealth,” he writes. “It can therefore be argued that as the key underpinning conceptual tool mathematics is implicated in the global disparities in wealth.”

Finally, Ernest claims, “the personal impact of learning mathematics on learners’ thinking and life chances can be negative for a minority of less successful students, as well as potentially harmful for successful students.” Ernest continues to explain that math is often viewed as “masculine,” and that that can essentially make it difficult for women to deal with learning it.

The Humanities are Dying, Poisoned by the Faculty By George Leef

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/humanities-education-harmed-by-faculty/

Fewer and fewer students choose to study the humanities these days and the main reason is that the field has been overrun by “progressive” notions. Those notions, of course, were introduced and spread by the faculty, eager to create lots of dedicated revolutionaries.

In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Mark Bauerlein examines the sad illness afflicting the humanities. Specifically, he looks at a recent statement put out jointly by the Association of American University Professors and the American Association of Colleges and Universities. “The incapacity of the experts and professionals who wrote the statement to understand why their own diminishment has happened is abundantly in evidence,” he writes.

The learned folks who wrote the statement are utterly blind to their own role in the decline of this once-grand field of study.

This paragraph of Bauerlein’s nails the problem exactly:

Today’s liberal arts professors have a different relationship to their subjects. Joy, wonder, awe, and inspiration are missing. The professors aren’t merely uncomfortable with Paradise Lost and Parsifal. They vigorously point out the sexism and racism of those works. But they even denounce earlier practitioners in their own fields, too, the New Critics, for instance, for their backward notions. We were told that opening the canon to women and persons of color was a positive and happy development, but that was only part of the project. The professors also had to denigrate the tradition, a turn proven by the dismissive label ‘Dead White Males.’ They got rid of the honorific term civilization and replaced it with culture, and then with cultures, which, they believed, eliminates the implication of the old term that some societies are civilized and others are savage.

Alumni From Elite New York City High Schools Unite to Fight Admissions Changes Graduates from Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech are joining forces to battle a bill in Albany that would eliminate tests By Leslie Brody

https://www.wsj.com/articles/alumni-from-elite-new-york-city-high-schools-unite-to-fight-admissions-changes-1529522342?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=1&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

As soon as Albany posted provisions that would eliminate the admissions test for eight specialized public high schools in New York City at about 10 p.m. one recent Friday, heads of the alumni associations of Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science began trading late-night emails and phone calls.

They sprung into action to keep the test. They released a joint opposition memo. They dispatched a lobbyist to plead their case with state lawmakers. Brooklyn Tech alumni have sent legislators thousands of emails to argue for the test, says Larry Cary, a labor lawyer and head of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation.

Their argument: The sought-after schools should be far more diverse but the proposed changes would introduce subjective measures and could admit students who aren’t prepared for the schools’ academic rigor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is championing the bill, saying that using only one exam to select students has been an unjust barrier to talented black and Latino teenagers. The Democratic mayor, whose son graduated from Brooklyn Tech, wants to admit applicants based on a mix of course grades and state exam scores, so that the top 7% of eighth-graders from each middle school citywide would get offers. In time, by Mr. de Blasio’s estimate, about 45% of offers to these eight schools would go to black and Latino students, up from 9% now.

The measure is expected to be debated in the winter legislative session that usually starts in January. The alumni groups say they will devise a battle plan during the summer.

“We want to make sure we have a seat at the table to craft a viable solution that preserves the academic integrity of specialized schools,” said Christina Bater, president of the Bronx High School of Science Alumni Foundation.

Advocating to keep the test has brought together alumni associations from three high schools that have long been rivals, competing for who had the most chess trophies, robotics triumphs and science awards (Bronx Science has eight Nobel Prizes, Stuyvesant has four and Brooklyn Tech has two.)

The Beginning of a Trump Trade Deal? Germany is prepared to lower tariffs. James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-beginning-of-a-trump-trade-deal-1529521189

Like most of the world’s investors, this column sees mostly downside from President Donald Trump’s confrontations with allies over the terms of trade. But the best news of the day is an intriguing possibility for trade peace and more open commerce with our friends in Europe.

At the rancorous G7 meeting recently in Canada, Mr. Trump suggested tariff-free trade among the participants. The proposal received no public endorsement from any of the assembled leaders of Europe or Japan. But maybe the beautiful idea isn’t dead yet. The Journal reports:

Germany’s leading auto makers have thrown their support behind the abolition of all import tariffs for cars between the European Union and the U.S. in an effort to find a peaceful solution to the brewing trade war.

The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, brought the proposal for a broader industry trade pact to the Trump administration on Wednesday, according to people familiar with the situation.

That would mean scrapping the EU’s 10% tax on auto imports from the U.S. and other countries and the 2.5% duty on auto imports in the U.S. As a prerequisite, the Europeans want President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing a 25% border tax on European auto imports off the table. CONTINUE AT SITE

Up to 60 organizations may sue SPLC for defamation By Rick Moran

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/up_to_60_organizations_may_sue_splc_for_defamation.html

According to a report from Tyler O’Neill at PJ Media, up tto 60 mostly conservative organizations may sue the Southern Poverty Law Center for being included in the organization’s list of “hate groups.” The SPLC just settled a defamation suit for more than $3 million with Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, whom the SPLC branded an “anti-Muslim extremist.”

Dozens of Christian and conservative groups have been similarly unfairly tarred by the SPLC as “hate groups,” and it appears they will exact their own revenge on the organization.

The SPLC published its “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” in 2016, listing Nawaz for an ever-changing list of reasons. The left-wing group first falsely claimed Nawaz had called for “an outright ban on the niqab,” or veil. This first charge disappeared from the website, and Quilliam accused the SPLC of “reverse engineering their justification to keep Maajid Nawaz on their list.” The SPLC later justified attacking him because he visited a strip club for his bachelor party.

Worse, the Islamist Muslim owner of the strip club who leaked the story to the press said he wanted to punish Nawaz for “being an atheist.” The SPLC, Quilliam argued, was “acting like religious police.”

“I’ve memorized half of the Quran, I am a Muslim, I am born and raised a Muslim, I learned classical Arabic, I’ve spent time in prison,” Nawaz declared last year, shortly after announcing his lawsuit. “You know who else lists heretics? The jihadists. We know what happens when you list heretics among Muslims in this way: They end up dead.”

The SPLC statement of apology was self-serving:

“The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists,” Cohen said. “Since we published the Field Guide, we have taken the time to do more research and have consulted with human rights advocates we respect.”

Rep. Meadows Names Trump-Hating Investigators the FBI Refuses to Identify By Debra Heine

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) on Tuesday outed two previously unidentified anti-Trump, pro-Hillary FBI investigators who were referred for investigation by the inspector general.

Meadows unmasked the pair during a joint House Oversight and Judiciary Committee hearing examining the IG report on the bureau’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Friday referred five current and former FBI employees — including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — for disciplinary action. In addition to Strzok and Page, the report identifies anti-Trump text messages from FBI employees referred to as FBI Attorney 2, FBI Agent 1, and FBI Agent 5.

According to the IG, one of the unidentified pro-Clinton FBI investigators interviewed Hillary Clinton on July 2, 2016, along with Strzok.

Rep Ted Poe (R-Texas) asked the IG if he could reveal the identities of the unnamed FBI officials who were mentioned in the report. But Horowitz said the FBI was withholding the names from the public “because they work on counterintelligence.”

“So the FBI does not want their names released?” Poe asked Horowitz.

“Correct,” Horowitz replied.

FBI Attorney 2 reportedly worked as the top lawyer on the Russia probe and also worked on the special counsel’s investigation until this February.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes referred to this individual in a tweet Monday:

Amy Schumer, Breaking the Wedding Glass, and Jerusalem by Moshe Phillips

https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/06/13/amy-schumer-breaking-the-wedding-glass-a

With the summer wedding season upon us, Jewish couples are preparing for marriage ceremonies that will conclude with the ancient ritual that many know simply as “the breaking of the glass.” Many a groom’s heel will crush a small glass under a handkerchief.

Unfortunately, for many assimilated Jews, the only Jewish aspect of the traditional wedding ceremony that they retain at all is the breaking of the glass.

What is this strange act? And what drives so many Jews, even those who are seemingly detached from the Jewish community and may even be marrying non-Jews, to nevertheless want to break the glass?

When Chris Fischer and actress Amy Schumer — not exactly a paragon of Jewish religious observance — married in a Malibu beach ceremony earlier this year, they too broke a glass.

Even some non-Jews have appropriated this aspect of Jewish wedding celebrations. At actress Cameron Diaz’s wedding in 2015, her groom stepped on a glass even though, as one newspaper account put it, “neither Diaz nor Madden are Jewish, so the reason for this elaborate traditional Jewish ceremony is best known to them.”

The sad truth is that an extremely high percentage of Jews break the glass because it is “traditional,” yet they have no idea what the deeper meaning really is.

Berkeley Jury finds Antifa NOT GUILTY of Violent Beating of Trump Supporter — Despite Multiple Witnesses! Jim Hoft by Jim Hoft

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/06/berkeley-jury-finds-antifa-not-guilty-of-violent-beating-of-trump-supporter-despite-multiple-witnesses Remember the Antifa riots in Berkeley back in 2017?At one of the rallies, several firefighters and police officers personally witnessed at close range a mob of Antifa rioters violently attack a guy who was just sitting on a wall; the attackers would have killed the man if the cops had not interrupted the attack […]