21 January 2018
Fantastic Fables: The Broom of the Temple
The city of Gakwak being about to lose its character of capital of the province of Ukwuk, the Wampog issued a proclamation convening all the male residents in council in the Temple of Ul to devise means of defence. The first speaker thought the best policy would be to offer a fried jackass to the gods. The second suggested a public procession, headed by the Wampog himself, bearing the Holy Poker on a cushion of cloth-of-brass. Another thought that a scarlet mole should be buried alive in the public park and a suitable incantation chanted over the remains. The advice of the fourth was that the columns of the capitol be rubbed with oil of dog by a person having a moustache on the calf of his leg. When all the others had spoken an Aged Man rose and said:
“High and mighty Wampog and fellow-citizens, I have listened attentively to all the plans proposed. All seem wise, and I do not suffer myself to doubt that any one of them would be efficacious. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that if we would put an improved breed of polliwogs in our drinking water, construct shallower roadways, groom the street cows, offer the stranger within our gates a free choice between the poniard and the potion, and relinquish our private system of morals, the other measures of public safety would be needless.”
The Aged Man was about to speak further, but the meeting informally adjourned in order to sweep the floor of the temple—for the men of Gakwak are the tidiest housewives in all that province. The last speaker was the broom.
--
The phrase "government school" is overbroad in the way conservative and liberal, left and right, have become. It tells you something, but less than you might hope. However, I am beginning to wonder what fraction of school boards would consider Ambrose Bierce to be politically incorrect.
If the guys in The Broom and the Temple were put in charge of doping out immigration policy, we'd be more or less in the same place as we are today, except the congress critters would sweep the floors instead of tweeting about the dust now that the government has shut down.
20 January 2018
Poor enforcement of immigration law is unjust
Some say the United States is governed by the rule of law, and that is true to a degree. While many would say that we strive to provide equal protection for all people under a just set of laws, many would admit that is an unreached ideal. Indeed, for many that goal lies beyond their sight.
That laws must be respected and obeyed is a statement that begs qualification, for what is the moral justification for respecting and obeying unjust laws? Setting aside a the deeper discussion of "what is just", etc., let us for the moment take a "we know it when we see it" perspective for the sake of illustration.
For instance, let's say "thou shalt not kill" is a law, but it is qualified by "unless you are wearing a blue shirt and use a knife between 8 and 14 inches in length, then you can kill whoever you want". That doesn't require deep philosophical introspection to fail WKIWWSI.
Now, let's say it's illegal to be between 72 and 73 inches in height. That also doesn't seem to serve the cause of justice, and one might expect that would induce a market in shoes with concealed lifters.
How about, then the legality of a non-citizen infant or child brought illegally to the United States? Libertarian arguments about the legitimacy of citizenship aside, let us accept that there are arguments to be made for a sovereign people to exert over control over their citizen's public and private property through immigration policy. Now, if the law was enforced quickly and the child was returned from whence it came, it would be back, more-or-less in its prior state with whatever disruption the travel has imposed upon it. That may not be kind, but its life might have been little impacted in comparison to a clone that had never made the trip in the first place. The point of this argument is not about the cruelty of some perfectly implemented zero immigration policy: it's the justice of the slipshod enforcement of an immigration and guest worker policy that provides incentives for people to work outside that system.
By refusing to establish and enforce policies that encourage participation in the legal immigration system, the US Federal Government has invited a vast number of immigrants to be here illegally. Undocumented doesn't make a lick of sense, since many of them absolutely are documented with driver's licenses, registration with DACA, high-school and college diplomas and the like. And, by the willful refusal to establish and enforce reasonable policies over the years, the USG has created a moral condition that enforcement of the law via deportation renders the law unjust for a large swath of people who have really known no other life than the one here, or who have been here so long that they have become more-or-less cut off from their lives in a previous country.
Not only is the moral hazard pernicious, it renders the rule of law a contemptible artifact and undermines the foundations of our republic. Just as slavery and Jim Crow laws eroded and debased our founding principles, so too does a wink-wink, nudge-nudge enforcement of immigration laws. You cannot have equal protection for all people under just laws if the laws don't actually mean anything. Similarly, you can't have just laws if they're not just.
Now, a big part of the issue is that most the congress don't care about any of this. Their main objective is to raise funds so they can get on committees and pass laws that spend tax dollars and debt accrual on pet projects and constituents. If they were serious, they could write out a solution in a page or two of Simple English. Key components would include:
Border enforcement is important, but it should largely be aligned with drug interdiction activities. Wacky drug policy which makes drug interdiction policies necessary is a discussion for another time.
Leaving immigration policy poorly conceived, implemented, and enforced is not only immoral and unjust, it erodes the rule of law and the principles upon which the United States are founded. The hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle is rank, and the longer congress leaves this unresolved, it merely proves how unserious they are about creating a more perfect Union.
* Immigration is the purview of the USG, so if a legal status is required for work and benefits, then it needs to have some reliable means for establishing the validity of that status. E-verify used here is simply that means, and not necessarily some pre-conceived specification, design, or implementation.
That laws must be respected and obeyed is a statement that begs qualification, for what is the moral justification for respecting and obeying unjust laws? Setting aside a the deeper discussion of "what is just", etc., let us for the moment take a "we know it when we see it" perspective for the sake of illustration.
For instance, let's say "thou shalt not kill" is a law, but it is qualified by "unless you are wearing a blue shirt and use a knife between 8 and 14 inches in length, then you can kill whoever you want". That doesn't require deep philosophical introspection to fail WKIWWSI.
Now, let's say it's illegal to be between 72 and 73 inches in height. That also doesn't seem to serve the cause of justice, and one might expect that would induce a market in shoes with concealed lifters.
How about, then the legality of a non-citizen infant or child brought illegally to the United States? Libertarian arguments about the legitimacy of citizenship aside, let us accept that there are arguments to be made for a sovereign people to exert over control over their citizen's public and private property through immigration policy. Now, if the law was enforced quickly and the child was returned from whence it came, it would be back, more-or-less in its prior state with whatever disruption the travel has imposed upon it. That may not be kind, but its life might have been little impacted in comparison to a clone that had never made the trip in the first place. The point of this argument is not about the cruelty of some perfectly implemented zero immigration policy: it's the justice of the slipshod enforcement of an immigration and guest worker policy that provides incentives for people to work outside that system.
By refusing to establish and enforce policies that encourage participation in the legal immigration system, the US Federal Government has invited a vast number of immigrants to be here illegally. Undocumented doesn't make a lick of sense, since many of them absolutely are documented with driver's licenses, registration with DACA, high-school and college diplomas and the like. And, by the willful refusal to establish and enforce reasonable policies over the years, the USG has created a moral condition that enforcement of the law via deportation renders the law unjust for a large swath of people who have really known no other life than the one here, or who have been here so long that they have become more-or-less cut off from their lives in a previous country.
Not only is the moral hazard pernicious, it renders the rule of law a contemptible artifact and undermines the foundations of our republic. Just as slavery and Jim Crow laws eroded and debased our founding principles, so too does a wink-wink, nudge-nudge enforcement of immigration laws. You cannot have equal protection for all people under just laws if the laws don't actually mean anything. Similarly, you can't have just laws if they're not just.
Now, a big part of the issue is that most the congress don't care about any of this. Their main objective is to raise funds so they can get on committees and pass laws that spend tax dollars and debt accrual on pet projects and constituents. If they were serious, they could write out a solution in a page or two of Simple English. Key components would include:
- Clarification that recent and further illegal immigration will not be tolerated
- People here illegally for more than some number of years will be given permission to stay (work permit), but put at the back of the queue for green card and citizenship
- Provide a working E-verify system and punishment for people who hire illegal immigrants outside E-verify*
Border enforcement is important, but it should largely be aligned with drug interdiction activities. Wacky drug policy which makes drug interdiction policies necessary is a discussion for another time.
Leaving immigration policy poorly conceived, implemented, and enforced is not only immoral and unjust, it erodes the rule of law and the principles upon which the United States are founded. The hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle is rank, and the longer congress leaves this unresolved, it merely proves how unserious they are about creating a more perfect Union.
* Immigration is the purview of the USG, so if a legal status is required for work and benefits, then it needs to have some reliable means for establishing the validity of that status. E-verify used here is simply that means, and not necessarily some pre-conceived specification, design, or implementation.
19 October 2017
Guaranteed predictions and what's illin' "the press"
Predictions:
- POTUS DJT will say something not particularly germane to the running of the Executive branch, but whack, provocative, insane, whatever.
- It will get play on social media.
- The mainstream media (MSM) will cover it ad nauseum as if it's real "news".
- Faith in MSM will continue to erode.
That's probably not going too far out on the limb.
MSM is perhaps too broad a category, and there is plenty of good mainstream reporting, but as it's distilled by "headline news" on TV, cable, Internet, etc., it's primarily echoing what's already reverberating on social media or relaying reportage by some local source, which may or may not be of the highest quality. When these converge, you can get nonsense amplified up to 11.
Why do they do it? Um... because it goes up to 11. The real answer is because they (feel they) don't have a choice. If CNN is running it, then Fox and MSNBC have to counter, because if they don't then people might go watch CNN. You can add whatever network or outlet and permute who's doing what. It doesn't matter. They're all doing the same thing, but adding their spin to appeal to their "base".
The biggest problems of this approach are the incentives for intellectual and ethical sloppiness created by the need to be "me too" and the danger of giving an imprimatur of truth or accuracy to a false, misleading, or poorly reasoned narrative (cf. the James Damore kerfuffle). Moreover, histrionics about what Trump might have said to a grieving widow or how he said it takes time and attention from much more important stuff, like what's going on with, say HHS? What is going on with HHS? Who in the hell knows, because you're not going to stumble upon it because there is some interview with someone whose opinion is particularly germane to the etiquette of Presidential condolence speech on followed by some interviews of people protesting, then commentary by some panel of experts, to be summarized later by one of the marquee anchors managing a studied look of grim concern. You might get the occasional "holes in staffing" report about some agency (especially State), but it's often dismissed as incompetence. What if that's the plan? Does everyone really think that Mike Pence is giving Trump the gaga eyes because he's effectively pushing through conservative reforms where the President has purview: the Executive branch of government. I'm sure those reforms are being covered somewhere...
11 September 2017
Disasters, natural or self-imposed, do not help the economy
So, one of the big ideas that's completely wrong is that disasters like Hurricane Irma or WWII, or, forsooth! Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/Yemen/Libya are good for the economy. Of course, they're good for sectors of the economy. But, rebuilding a house is not the same as building a new school. Supplying bombs to kill enemies is not the same as supplying scholarships for people to study how to keep people alive after clashes with cancer. None of this crap is any good most people. It's always better to invest than rebuild or destroy.
Are we looking at the end of science?
So, "gaydar" is a real thing.
Rather than read all the nonsense, go straight to the authors' statement first, then look to those who would debunk. Now, lest you think me a homophobe for using the word gaydar, I've been busted -- mocked might be the better word -- by my gay friends for my gaydar not being very good. They also mock me by saying I should look into Garanimals so I can go into public wearing clothes that match and there is this 18th century technology called an "iron" that could help with the rumpled look. There has been some angst in some of the LGBTQ.* community about the study, but they're wrong for all the wrong reasons (cf. authors' statement), what's really at stake here is the implication that there is a correlation between "behavior" -- in this case sexual preference -- and physical traits.
Before you get all bowed up about where I'm going, go away and listen to the Radiolab podcast on Alex the Gondolier. People are people and have the right to the pursuit of happiness. The best way, if imperfect, is to lead with equal protection for all under just laws that allow folks to live how they please as long as they don't unduly impinge on the rights of others. Equal protection for all. All. Got that? All.
OK.
The notion that we simply should not study certain things is not out of the mainstream. One of my very favorite public intellectuals, John McWhorter whom I've read with great interest and pleasure for years made the case to "stop obsessing" about evidence for race and IQ correlations, that it serves no purpose, in National Review. Read it by all means, and be sure to follow the link to the excellent reference he makes to "On the Reality of Race and the Abhorrence of Racism".
The problem is, that in modern society where outcomes are increasingly correlated to IQ, g, cognitive horsepower, whatever, in order to enable all our citizens the best shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- a goal I hope you won't find too cretinous -- perhaps we need to structure our values and programs toward actually achieving that goal as opposed to conflating the means with their ends. This is pretty much why Charles Murray got lynched for saying in The Bell Curve. That we should care about people. I won't link to SPLC or other slander, but you can google if you like about the lynching bit. Read what he actually writes, listen to what he actually says, then decide for yourself if he's all of those horrible things that have been said about him.
So, if g is heritable (relatively uncontroversial), and other stuff is heritable like height, eye color, whatever, what happens when we turn machine learning algorithms on correlating g and physical traits that can be gleaned en masse from Instagram, Facebook, oh, the DMV, etc. What if the correlation is between other behaviors we don't think as necessarily heritable or caused by prenatal hormone levels, etc? What happens if algorithms can pick out, I don't know, you name it, probability of rape accusation with 70% accuracy? 55% accuracy? I am not endorsing physiognomy writ large -- I have never really much cared or thought about it -- but what if the evidence turns out to support it? The gaydar thing works pretty well, it seems.
It might be argued that much of this information would be useful or useless in a different contexts. But it must be argued that the potential for misuse is tremendous. Here is the problem with population statistics: they're incredibly useful about saying things about populations, but they really can't tell you anything about any individual.
To illustrate, let's play a game. You get 10 pennies and I get 5 six sided dice. We're going to play a game where we put in matching antes for each roll, let's say $100. Whoever gets the larger sum (tails 1, heads 2, and each pip on the die counts as 1), takes the pot. My minimum low at 5 is lower than yours at 10, but my maximum 30 is higher than your 20. We're going to play, oh, 1000 times. 10000 times. A million. I don't care. Who wins roll 42? Who knows? But you'd never play that game. Um, unless you do, let's get in touch, because I'll play all day long. Night, too, even if it means coffee after 1500 or so.
If you can play enough games, it's enough to flip 10 pennies against 9. The thing is, if the difference in the odds is detectable, then it's exploitable, but it's also, perhaps, understandable.
We need to press on with the science and let the evidence lead us where it may. But, so too, do we need our shared mythology, or belief, in the the right of all people to live their lives. Science is, in my opinion, our best and most effective collective reasoning construct we have created (beats reading entrails or thrown knucklebones or thinking that Congress can understand the definition of hypocrisy) and one we cannot afford to lose, even at the cost uncomfortable truths. But this is a really big deal, and I'm not sure this is a conversation we're collectively ready to have.
Rather than read all the nonsense, go straight to the authors' statement first, then look to those who would debunk. Now, lest you think me a homophobe for using the word gaydar, I've been busted -- mocked might be the better word -- by my gay friends for my gaydar not being very good. They also mock me by saying I should look into Garanimals so I can go into public wearing clothes that match and there is this 18th century technology called an "iron" that could help with the rumpled look. There has been some angst in some of the LGBTQ.* community about the study, but they're wrong for all the wrong reasons (cf. authors' statement), what's really at stake here is the implication that there is a correlation between "behavior" -- in this case sexual preference -- and physical traits.
Before you get all bowed up about where I'm going, go away and listen to the Radiolab podcast on Alex the Gondolier. People are people and have the right to the pursuit of happiness. The best way, if imperfect, is to lead with equal protection for all under just laws that allow folks to live how they please as long as they don't unduly impinge on the rights of others. Equal protection for all. All. Got that? All.
OK.
The notion that we simply should not study certain things is not out of the mainstream. One of my very favorite public intellectuals, John McWhorter whom I've read with great interest and pleasure for years made the case to "stop obsessing" about evidence for race and IQ correlations, that it serves no purpose, in National Review. Read it by all means, and be sure to follow the link to the excellent reference he makes to "On the Reality of Race and the Abhorrence of Racism".
The problem is, that in modern society where outcomes are increasingly correlated to IQ, g, cognitive horsepower, whatever, in order to enable all our citizens the best shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- a goal I hope you won't find too cretinous -- perhaps we need to structure our values and programs toward actually achieving that goal as opposed to conflating the means with their ends. This is pretty much why Charles Murray got lynched for saying in The Bell Curve. That we should care about people. I won't link to SPLC or other slander, but you can google if you like about the lynching bit. Read what he actually writes, listen to what he actually says, then decide for yourself if he's all of those horrible things that have been said about him.
So, if g is heritable (relatively uncontroversial), and other stuff is heritable like height, eye color, whatever, what happens when we turn machine learning algorithms on correlating g and physical traits that can be gleaned en masse from Instagram, Facebook, oh, the DMV, etc. What if the correlation is between other behaviors we don't think as necessarily heritable or caused by prenatal hormone levels, etc? What happens if algorithms can pick out, I don't know, you name it, probability of rape accusation with 70% accuracy? 55% accuracy? I am not endorsing physiognomy writ large -- I have never really much cared or thought about it -- but what if the evidence turns out to support it? The gaydar thing works pretty well, it seems.
It might be argued that much of this information would be useful or useless in a different contexts. But it must be argued that the potential for misuse is tremendous. Here is the problem with population statistics: they're incredibly useful about saying things about populations, but they really can't tell you anything about any individual.
To illustrate, let's play a game. You get 10 pennies and I get 5 six sided dice. We're going to play a game where we put in matching antes for each roll, let's say $100. Whoever gets the larger sum (tails 1, heads 2, and each pip on the die counts as 1), takes the pot. My minimum low at 5 is lower than yours at 10, but my maximum 30 is higher than your 20. We're going to play, oh, 1000 times. 10000 times. A million. I don't care. Who wins roll 42? Who knows? But you'd never play that game. Um, unless you do, let's get in touch, because I'll play all day long. Night, too, even if it means coffee after 1500 or so.
If you can play enough games, it's enough to flip 10 pennies against 9. The thing is, if the difference in the odds is detectable, then it's exploitable, but it's also, perhaps, understandable.
We need to press on with the science and let the evidence lead us where it may. But, so too, do we need our shared mythology, or belief, in the the right of all people to live their lives. Science is, in my opinion, our best and most effective collective reasoning construct we have created (beats reading entrails or thrown knucklebones or thinking that Congress can understand the definition of hypocrisy) and one we cannot afford to lose, even at the cost uncomfortable truths. But this is a really big deal, and I'm not sure this is a conversation we're collectively ready to have.
06 September 2017
ACLU defends the folks they don't want to because they have to
This rant was precipitated by David Cole's (National Legal Director, ACLU) article posted on the Fabius Maximus website. It's worth a read.
The calls for the end of free speech as we know it by relatively mainstream media types and, more alarmingly, "kids" is a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices might suddenly cry out in terror, but were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible might happen.
The ACLU remains one of most effective bulwarks protecting free speech and other Constitutionally-derived civil liberties that one can contribute to by just stroking a check. Their example of defending the rights of people, or the actions of people, that they truly despise, as reflected in the article, should inspire us all.
While it seems that many (though not all) in "the media" have lost the courage to defend what they believe using evidence and principled reasoning, but resort instead to ad hominem attacks, deception, lies, and fear mongering (cf. Charles Murray, James Damore, or Amy Wax, etc.). With the ACLU, it's all about the principles, not the people, even when the people, or their actions at least, might merit vitriol. That's a lesson I need to remind myself every doggone day. I can even agree with Jeff Sessions that there is something to this rule of law thing, but we diverge very quickly after that on many issues (cough *civil asset forfeiture* cough *torture* cough pardon my coughing fit).
Anyway, why don't folks argue the principles and not the "feelings" or whatever? Maybe they can't. Hell, maybe I can't very well, either! It's not like we spring from the forehead of Zeus fully equipped to make reasoned arguments grounded in empirical facts and principles. What kind of epithets would be hung around my neck if I were to Old Man Grumpus "they should be teaching rhetoric and logic in the schools these days"? It might be more useful than WTF 101: Intersectionality, wokeness, hypermasculine arrangement of live wells at the bait shop, and the underrepresentation of the Oppressederati in stumpknocker angling, or so it would seem to me.
There is something further that some "kids these days" don't seem to get, or it just doesn't matter so much to them anymore, but there is a power in virtue, civility, principle, honor, honesty, and courage. Hell, if you want to make me burst into tears (I know it's unmanly) just say "Tank Man". Compare the courage to stand up to tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989 China (89 was a hell of a year!) to macing a girl in a MAGA hat giving an interview to a reporter or that jacknozzle who punched/assaulted that antifa dreadlocked waif.
It's good that the ACLU can still stand up for people they don't like because the principles they're defending are more important than their feelings. I wonder if the Oppressederati will ever grok that.
The calls for the end of free speech as we know it by relatively mainstream media types and, more alarmingly, "kids" is a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices might suddenly cry out in terror, but were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible might happen.
The ACLU remains one of most effective bulwarks protecting free speech and other Constitutionally-derived civil liberties that one can contribute to by just stroking a check. Their example of defending the rights of people, or the actions of people, that they truly despise, as reflected in the article, should inspire us all.
While it seems that many (though not all) in "the media" have lost the courage to defend what they believe using evidence and principled reasoning, but resort instead to ad hominem attacks, deception, lies, and fear mongering (cf. Charles Murray, James Damore, or Amy Wax, etc.). With the ACLU, it's all about the principles, not the people, even when the people, or their actions at least, might merit vitriol. That's a lesson I need to remind myself every doggone day. I can even agree with Jeff Sessions that there is something to this rule of law thing, but we diverge very quickly after that on many issues (cough *civil asset forfeiture* cough *torture* cough pardon my coughing fit).
Anyway, why don't folks argue the principles and not the "feelings" or whatever? Maybe they can't. Hell, maybe I can't very well, either! It's not like we spring from the forehead of Zeus fully equipped to make reasoned arguments grounded in empirical facts and principles. What kind of epithets would be hung around my neck if I were to Old Man Grumpus "they should be teaching rhetoric and logic in the schools these days"? It might be more useful than WTF 101: Intersectionality, wokeness, hypermasculine arrangement of live wells at the bait shop, and the underrepresentation of the Oppressederati in stumpknocker angling, or so it would seem to me.
There is something further that some "kids these days" don't seem to get, or it just doesn't matter so much to them anymore, but there is a power in virtue, civility, principle, honor, honesty, and courage. Hell, if you want to make me burst into tears (I know it's unmanly) just say "Tank Man". Compare the courage to stand up to tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989 China (89 was a hell of a year!) to macing a girl in a MAGA hat giving an interview to a reporter or that jacknozzle who punched/assaulted that antifa dreadlocked waif.
It's good that the ACLU can still stand up for people they don't like because the principles they're defending are more important than their feelings. I wonder if the Oppressederati will ever grok that.
The rise of the Oppressederati and the Fall of Reed College(?)
"Hum" (pronounced "Hume" like, yeah, that guy (but that's 220)) at Reed College is a spectacular sequence of classes, starting with Hum 110. IIRC, 110 is the only required class in the whole school, but who knows what might have happened in intervening decades since I was there. But I don't doubt if you look up the definition of "awesomesauce" in the Pan-Cosmic Dictionary, one of the alternative definitions near the top would be "Reed College Hum 110". Who can turn awesomesauce into doucebag pruno? The Oppressederati.
I'm coining the word Oppressederati here, and have actually fired a #Oppressederati out on the twitters, but I will refrain from formal definition until after I rant a bit.
Turns out, elements of the Oppressederati have decided to raise hell and not let anyone take in the goodness that is Hum 110. Go check that stuff out, especially the videos (the other). If the Oppressederati had descended upon my contemplation of Homer, I might have been tempted to go Diomedes on their asses (cf. book five of The Iliad (for readable first cut at The Iliad, read Graves)).

There are a few things that make me a mite less tolerant of the grievances of these elements of the Oppressederati, including:
I'm coining the word Oppressederati here, and have actually fired a #Oppressederati out on the twitters, but I will refrain from formal definition until after I rant a bit.
Turns out, elements of the Oppressederati have decided to raise hell and not let anyone take in the goodness that is Hum 110. Go check that stuff out, especially the videos (the other). If the Oppressederati had descended upon my contemplation of Homer, I might have been tempted to go Diomedes on their asses (cf. book five of The Iliad (for readable first cut at The Iliad, read Graves)).
There are a few things that make me a mite less tolerant of the grievances of these elements of the Oppressederati, including:
- They're at Reed f'in College, one of the most selective, wonderful schools ever conceived. If they're looking for a place that exacerbates their place in Crenshaw's Hierarchy of Oppression, I think they could do a better job than Reed. Try the Central African Republic or North Korea.
- If the dollar-per-lecture-hour cost of that class were to be calculated, it would be between an ass load and a shit ton. Maybe more. How am I going to get my Aristotelian bang-for-buck with them disrupting the lecture that I paid for?
- What, exactly, are they trying to accomplish? I'm pretty sure that Professor Elizabeth Drumm would have announced and facilitated a discussion hosted by the Reedies against Racism titled On the Bullshit that is Western racio-phallocratic Dominance of the Oppressed and the resultant destructive Resonance that destroys Oppressed Bodies in Crenshaw's Hierarchy of Oppression. Open to all, of course, but not to be interrupted by Reedies for Cold Beer and Convivial Conversation.
When I was at Reed, Hum was central, of course, but so too nuclear reactors and goddamn Rugby. Has it become a place where people who tell you that you must listen, even though you have no possible chance of understanding, are allowed to sacrifice our darling baby Hum 110 on the altar of Intersectionality Theory?
Lord, I hope not.
Oppressederati - noun - that group of people who derive their primary identification from a perceived location within Crenshaw's Hierarchy of Oppression that believe simultaneously that it is essential for people above them in the Hierarchy are obligated to listen to them even though it's impossible for those people to understand them.
PS: Any Intersectionality theorist who wants to snarf the title of the imagined talk, go right ahead. I'll put it into the public domain, or CC0.
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