As a non-American, I look upon what's happening to our world leader and ally and watch its destruction. Spirit of confusion and hatred. The US is in so much trouble...and it will filter out (it has already). Such a shame.
This is the kind of incident that will help put DeSantis in the White House. From the Left's perspective, big mistake in letting it be captured on video.
I'm just old enough to remember when this pseudo-therapeutic totalitarianism was something you saw in humanities hothouses at American universities and was treated as something of a joke everywhere else. Consider this 1993 skit, which is not so parodic anymore: https://youtu.be/JKkb0qXbyUY
Now it's institutionalized, to use the current DEI terminology, "embedded" in our institutions and bureaucracies. It's not a joke anymore, and classical liberalism will not be enough to dislodge it.
Senator Schumer shows up at the steps of SCOTUS and threatens Justices Gorsuch and Kavenaugh over abortion. Dobbs is leaked and USAG Garland will not use his authority to prohibit nasty protests in front of Justice Kavenaugh's home. A crystal clear violation of federal law. It is not surprising that the crybullies at Stanford Law are emboldened. Governor DeSantis has it right: DEI programs at public universities need to be dismantled root and branch. God Bless Judge Duncan!
"All of this was delivered, as anyone can see from the video, in the voice and idiom of a therapist. I found it profoundly creepy. It was the language of “compassion” and “feelings,” but it came across as deeply controlling and aggressive."
Not to denigrate the entire modern therapeutic industry, but let's be clear, it is a secular priesthood. It is the science of the soul, conducted by people who don't actually believe in the soul. They believe in the psyche, the Freudian aspects of mind and consciousness. I have been in Freudian analysis as well as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. There is nothing mysterious about any of it, whether you're talking about your parents and analyzing your dreams, or filling out questionnaires that organize your thoughts and clarify your patterns of belief. Ultimately, in my experience what matters most is not the latest theory of the science but your relationship with the therapist. If any healing and change comes, it is from within that dynamic. And it is completely mutual. I have not met a normal therapist, I believe they chose the field of study primarily to understand their own dysfunctions. The dysfunctions have to do with core family relationships, obviously. We are all trying to understand what happened to those that surround us most intimately, so we can understand ourselves.
Since we have rejected the primordial divinity as superstition, we only have ourselves to talk to, and to talk about. There is no doubt that the psyche is not the same thing as the soul, that it is personality and mind, at best augmented by an unnamed mysterious secret, a remnant of a memory. The therapist's office is the field hospital of the materialist mind, alienated and looking for connection. That much it may find, but it won't find the secret to happiness. However, the connection is also fraught with danger. The science is an edifice built on sand, but it has true believers, who are exactly like religious believers. And they believe that their psyches have been healed, while yours is damaged. The DEI dean is one of those helpful therapists.
Personally, I don't mind a doctor of medicine telling me that they know how to heal a broken bone, and if I have a broken bone, I will consult a doctor. There is a lot of scientific evidence for a broken body, for patterns of healing and resilience. A broken mind, however, is a different story. A personality is complex beyond belief merely in our standard perception, not to mention the unsayable, the indescribable parts. Was Van Gogh's mind broken? Stalin? Putin? Rod Dreher? Myself?
I have a "schizophrenic" cousin. He was perfectly fine until his late teens. According to one of my aunts, Attila's mind was broken by the conflict in him regarding his father. His father abused him mercilessly while growing up, and Attila's desire to kill his father in revenge combined with his profound inability to actually carry out the murder, so his mind snapped instead. Maybe something else would have triggered the collapse anyway, because maybe Attila was born with that kind of fragile genetic structure -- who knows? I do not. The point is, professionals claim to know, and he has been labeled. Something is "wrong" with him. Surely, he can't take care of himself properly. He needs help. But I say there is nothing especially wrong with him that also isn't wrong with us, those who surround him and claim to be "normal."
Do you not see how easy it is to denigrate and dominate and insult people with this kind of setup? Meanwhile, the real therapy happens inadvertently. The real therapy happens when people treat Attila like a totally regular person. Attila desires normalcy, after all. And he might be capable of more justice than his father, who is basically a sane criminal.
If we got rid of this paradigm entirely, and returned to the concept of the soul, salvation and sin, right and wrong, moral act and immoral act, Attila's contribution would be judged quite differently.
Shock’s a word over employed these days, but I was genuinely, jarringly shocked by this incident. What has happened to the Free Speech-Kerouac-Ginsberg Left (should I say in ‘Days of Yore’) that in what seems an almost bizarre convergence intersects now with the Free Speech Right. Only maybe it’s bizarre at all. I remember reading a lucidly discerning essay (was it in Modern Age?) by the Agrarian-Thomist Literary Critic Marianne Moore about even In the Beginning
Cont... ‘In the Beginning’ the writings of Richard Weaver were as much ‘Anti-Establishment’ as anything on the New Left. I was intellectually weaned on the Fugitive Agrarians, the Distributists, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. And in those days even Catholic Conservatives had a weak spot -- rightfully so I would say -- for the Kennedys. What is to be done? Live not by lies is the first thing but to speak up, speak out, to engage politically seems a close second. I’m hoping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will declare for the Presidency. He at least has the courage of his convictions, a sincere Truth Teller if there ever was one, Truth-Telling as he sees it, honestly, outspokenly with the courage of real convictions. So what is to be done? Live not by lies and don’t tell them either. Pray, speak up and vote.
The Red Guards and the rapist. Er, therapist. This is not soft totalitarianism. Why, some time not long hence, new Marshals will arrest him. Coming very soon to a country near you.
Elite colleges were established as Christian organizations. This helped to balance their elite power with an education in altruism. Over time, people stepped away from the church, as it became seen as an unneeded vestige from the past. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth were the zeitgeist of the times (1970's). Breaking things is what we did. Building things and instilling values was a much more difficult task. The politicians couldn't be bothered with it and opened the flood gates to Asian immigrants, assuming that it would make their lives easier, but it only hurt the middle class who now had to compete with endless competition for resources. Parents, schools and churches struggled to care for the kids.
Over time, a new religion seeped into the schools and replaced Christianity in the background (an intentional change, made by the avowed Marxists). As Cynical Theories has noted, postmodernism is a fascist ideology. It replaced healthy skepticism with nihilistic cynicism. It weakened the resolve of the young and replaced a love of capitalism with a love for socialism. The enthusiastic quest for truth, handed down from the Enlightenment, was replaced by a cynical power grab, offered by the elites. Our liberal, Western culture was transformed into a Marxist power grab where everything is for sale and nothing matters.
Where Christianity has dissipated, capitalism took over as the ruling ideology. The markets replaced the people as the center of the economy as corruption took over the halls of power. In the midst of all this, a void opened in the hearts of children. Searching for meaning and purpose, the leftists offered the answer, Marxism. Now we are seeing the results of this evolution. Judge Duncan was shouted down by Woke Marxists. He symbolizes the past and their ideology is all about the future. It is about pinning one group against the other and hating on the past. We have a sick culture that needs a moral infusion, but few leaders are willing to offer it. They are afraid to promote Christianity over aggressive Woke Marxism.
Now I counsel against war, which the more unhinged are determined to wage, in concert with the Woke. The current and future elites can terrorize us, but we are going to get a hell of a chaotic defeat from their foreign enemies, as those who are not only incompetent, but devoid of reason, not only lead us into temptation, but deliver us over to evil.
I suppose Stanford needs to be added (along with Yale) to the list of law schools from which no graduate should ever be selected to be law clerk. Also, this is another demonstration that DEI must DIE.
Say it again: the little creeps who actually carried out this hit are not the problem. No white shoe firm, even one "committed to diversity", is going to hire morons like this, let alone encourage this kind of behavior. They're probably at Stanford in the first place because of a bump up in their LSAT scores for reasons anybody can guess. The people to be afraid of are not even the "Dean"; though the first thing Stanford should do is fire her ass and take the consequences. Their endowment can stand the hit, I can assure you.
The people to be afraid of are the ones who are using these idiots, and that would be white men, and BIPOCs who have enough sense to act like white men. Who teach these little craps that this kind of behavior is cute. Believe it: when Thermidor comes around these loudmouths get one-way tickets to the GULAG.
Once again, Stanford is a research institution, is it not? Does it not receive truckloads of federal dollars? Has the federal government been shy about influencing university policy through this kind of money? No wonder the New York Times ran three hit pieces on DeSantis above the fold yesterday. This isn't pretty, but it's effective.
Always on hand with idiocy, Michelle Goldberg yesterday wrote a column that our "obsession" with wokeness is really weakness. Right.
As a non-American, I look upon what's happening to our world leader and ally and watch its destruction. Spirit of confusion and hatred. The US is in so much trouble...and it will filter out (it has already). Such a shame.
This is the kind of incident that will help put DeSantis in the White House. From the Left's perspective, big mistake in letting it be captured on video.
I'm just old enough to remember when this pseudo-therapeutic totalitarianism was something you saw in humanities hothouses at American universities and was treated as something of a joke everywhere else. Consider this 1993 skit, which is not so parodic anymore: https://youtu.be/JKkb0qXbyUY
Now it's institutionalized, to use the current DEI terminology, "embedded" in our institutions and bureaucracies. It's not a joke anymore, and classical liberalism will not be enough to dislodge it.
Senator Schumer shows up at the steps of SCOTUS and threatens Justices Gorsuch and Kavenaugh over abortion. Dobbs is leaked and USAG Garland will not use his authority to prohibit nasty protests in front of Justice Kavenaugh's home. A crystal clear violation of federal law. It is not surprising that the crybullies at Stanford Law are emboldened. Governor DeSantis has it right: DEI programs at public universities need to be dismantled root and branch. God Bless Judge Duncan!
"All of this was delivered, as anyone can see from the video, in the voice and idiom of a therapist. I found it profoundly creepy. It was the language of “compassion” and “feelings,” but it came across as deeply controlling and aggressive."
Not to denigrate the entire modern therapeutic industry, but let's be clear, it is a secular priesthood. It is the science of the soul, conducted by people who don't actually believe in the soul. They believe in the psyche, the Freudian aspects of mind and consciousness. I have been in Freudian analysis as well as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. There is nothing mysterious about any of it, whether you're talking about your parents and analyzing your dreams, or filling out questionnaires that organize your thoughts and clarify your patterns of belief. Ultimately, in my experience what matters most is not the latest theory of the science but your relationship with the therapist. If any healing and change comes, it is from within that dynamic. And it is completely mutual. I have not met a normal therapist, I believe they chose the field of study primarily to understand their own dysfunctions. The dysfunctions have to do with core family relationships, obviously. We are all trying to understand what happened to those that surround us most intimately, so we can understand ourselves.
Since we have rejected the primordial divinity as superstition, we only have ourselves to talk to, and to talk about. There is no doubt that the psyche is not the same thing as the soul, that it is personality and mind, at best augmented by an unnamed mysterious secret, a remnant of a memory. The therapist's office is the field hospital of the materialist mind, alienated and looking for connection. That much it may find, but it won't find the secret to happiness. However, the connection is also fraught with danger. The science is an edifice built on sand, but it has true believers, who are exactly like religious believers. And they believe that their psyches have been healed, while yours is damaged. The DEI dean is one of those helpful therapists.
Personally, I don't mind a doctor of medicine telling me that they know how to heal a broken bone, and if I have a broken bone, I will consult a doctor. There is a lot of scientific evidence for a broken body, for patterns of healing and resilience. A broken mind, however, is a different story. A personality is complex beyond belief merely in our standard perception, not to mention the unsayable, the indescribable parts. Was Van Gogh's mind broken? Stalin? Putin? Rod Dreher? Myself?
I have a "schizophrenic" cousin. He was perfectly fine until his late teens. According to one of my aunts, Attila's mind was broken by the conflict in him regarding his father. His father abused him mercilessly while growing up, and Attila's desire to kill his father in revenge combined with his profound inability to actually carry out the murder, so his mind snapped instead. Maybe something else would have triggered the collapse anyway, because maybe Attila was born with that kind of fragile genetic structure -- who knows? I do not. The point is, professionals claim to know, and he has been labeled. Something is "wrong" with him. Surely, he can't take care of himself properly. He needs help. But I say there is nothing especially wrong with him that also isn't wrong with us, those who surround him and claim to be "normal."
Do you not see how easy it is to denigrate and dominate and insult people with this kind of setup? Meanwhile, the real therapy happens inadvertently. The real therapy happens when people treat Attila like a totally regular person. Attila desires normalcy, after all. And he might be capable of more justice than his father, who is basically a sane criminal.
If we got rid of this paradigm entirely, and returned to the concept of the soul, salvation and sin, right and wrong, moral act and immoral act, Attila's contribution would be judged quite differently.
Shock’s a word over employed these days, but I was genuinely, jarringly shocked by this incident. What has happened to the Free Speech-Kerouac-Ginsberg Left (should I say in ‘Days of Yore’) that in what seems an almost bizarre convergence intersects now with the Free Speech Right. Only maybe it’s bizarre at all. I remember reading a lucidly discerning essay (was it in Modern Age?) by the Agrarian-Thomist Literary Critic Marianne Moore about even In the Beginning
I would not accept the apology until the DEI Dead is fired and students disciplined.
Cont... ‘In the Beginning’ the writings of Richard Weaver were as much ‘Anti-Establishment’ as anything on the New Left. I was intellectually weaned on the Fugitive Agrarians, the Distributists, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. And in those days even Catholic Conservatives had a weak spot -- rightfully so I would say -- for the Kennedys. What is to be done? Live not by lies is the first thing but to speak up, speak out, to engage politically seems a close second. I’m hoping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will declare for the Presidency. He at least has the courage of his convictions, a sincere Truth Teller if there ever was one, Truth-Telling as he sees it, honestly, outspokenly with the courage of real convictions. So what is to be done? Live not by lies and don’t tell them either. Pray, speak up and vote.
No college student is an "elite". No doubt some few of them will eventually ascend the ladder to become elites, but time will tell on that.
The jerks who misbehaved in this matter should be thoroughly censored for it. Expulsion from the university should be on the table.
The Red Guards and the rapist. Er, therapist. This is not soft totalitarianism. Why, some time not long hence, new Marshals will arrest him. Coming very soon to a country near you.
Elite colleges were established as Christian organizations. This helped to balance their elite power with an education in altruism. Over time, people stepped away from the church, as it became seen as an unneeded vestige from the past. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth were the zeitgeist of the times (1970's). Breaking things is what we did. Building things and instilling values was a much more difficult task. The politicians couldn't be bothered with it and opened the flood gates to Asian immigrants, assuming that it would make their lives easier, but it only hurt the middle class who now had to compete with endless competition for resources. Parents, schools and churches struggled to care for the kids.
Over time, a new religion seeped into the schools and replaced Christianity in the background (an intentional change, made by the avowed Marxists). As Cynical Theories has noted, postmodernism is a fascist ideology. It replaced healthy skepticism with nihilistic cynicism. It weakened the resolve of the young and replaced a love of capitalism with a love for socialism. The enthusiastic quest for truth, handed down from the Enlightenment, was replaced by a cynical power grab, offered by the elites. Our liberal, Western culture was transformed into a Marxist power grab where everything is for sale and nothing matters.
Where Christianity has dissipated, capitalism took over as the ruling ideology. The markets replaced the people as the center of the economy as corruption took over the halls of power. In the midst of all this, a void opened in the hearts of children. Searching for meaning and purpose, the leftists offered the answer, Marxism. Now we are seeing the results of this evolution. Judge Duncan was shouted down by Woke Marxists. He symbolizes the past and their ideology is all about the future. It is about pinning one group against the other and hating on the past. We have a sick culture that needs a moral infusion, but few leaders are willing to offer it. They are afraid to promote Christianity over aggressive Woke Marxism.
"What if, in ten or twenty years time, this kind of behavior is the norm in the courtroom, the law firm, the board room?"
It's already started: we already have judges who will not allow "cis-hetero-normative" perspectives to be presented in their courtrooms.
Now I counsel against war, which the more unhinged are determined to wage, in concert with the Woke. The current and future elites can terrorize us, but we are going to get a hell of a chaotic defeat from their foreign enemies, as those who are not only incompetent, but devoid of reason, not only lead us into temptation, but deliver us over to evil.
I suppose Stanford needs to be added (along with Yale) to the list of law schools from which no graduate should ever be selected to be law clerk. Also, this is another demonstration that DEI must DIE.
Say it again: the little creeps who actually carried out this hit are not the problem. No white shoe firm, even one "committed to diversity", is going to hire morons like this, let alone encourage this kind of behavior. They're probably at Stanford in the first place because of a bump up in their LSAT scores for reasons anybody can guess. The people to be afraid of are not even the "Dean"; though the first thing Stanford should do is fire her ass and take the consequences. Their endowment can stand the hit, I can assure you.
The people to be afraid of are the ones who are using these idiots, and that would be white men, and BIPOCs who have enough sense to act like white men. Who teach these little craps that this kind of behavior is cute. Believe it: when Thermidor comes around these loudmouths get one-way tickets to the GULAG.
Once again, Stanford is a research institution, is it not? Does it not receive truckloads of federal dollars? Has the federal government been shy about influencing university policy through this kind of money? No wonder the New York Times ran three hit pieces on DeSantis above the fold yesterday. This isn't pretty, but it's effective.
Always on hand with idiocy, Michelle Goldberg yesterday wrote a column that our "obsession" with wokeness is really weakness. Right.