Listen now (75 min) | This week we’ve got Heather Mac Donald on The Glenn Show. Heather is a fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to City Journal, and author of several books, including The Diversity Delusion, The War on Cops, and The Burden of Bad Ideas
Quoting Heather Mac Donald: "Everybody that's committing a so-called crime of poverty has a smartphone nobody who has a smartphone is poor I'm sorry."
I was taken aback by that statement. Maybe the situation in the US is different from what it is in Europe but over here the only people not having a smartphone are some of the very elderly and those that voluntarily abstain. Correct me if I am wrong in assuming a similar situation in the US but as it is I consider that statement to be inducing a lot of prima facie disbelief in the veracity of the other data points she presents to support her arguments. This I say as someone who is way above 85% in agreement with what Glenn Loury and John McWhorter argue for in their podcasts. I would really liked to have put this link forward to the more liberal minded than I but I am quite certain a priori that they will conveniently take this as a reason to bail out from watching or at least taking her way less seriously.
Heather MacDonald claims that no one who has a smartphone is poor. This shows how totally disconnected from reality she is. She does not even understand what it means to be poor. A smartphone will not feed someone, pay their rent and other bills. Plenty of poor people, including in countries much poorer than the US, own smartphones. Doesn't Ms MacDonald realize that even in Africa many ordinary people have smartphones?
It is also astonishing that she calls the riots after George Floyd's death "savage and sadistic" - this is wildly hyperbolic and I see a subtle racial undertone here. The really savage and sadistic thing was kneeling on a man's neck until he died. And when Heather MacDonald mentions the "inner city pathologies", again it is interesting that she chooses to see poor Black people who break the law as pathological or immoral, but does not think about the socioeconomic circumstances which encourage the poor *all over the world*, including poor WHITES, to break the law.
Of course people are responsible for their crimes, but it is utterly ridiculous to claim that there is no poverty in the inner cities. Ms MacDonald mentions all these famous Black authors, but to me it just sounds like empty virtue signalling and an attempt to prove that she is not racist. She claims that she has been reading Malcolm X and even Eldridge Cleaver, but she continues to look at the problems of poor Black people from the perspective of a judgemental upper-middle class white lady unaware of her privileges and prejudice.
Re: singularity of our violence in he wake of the pandemic, the fact that everyone was fine(ish) March through Floyd's death actually aligns with "phases of a disaster", which I just happened to learn about during my employer's (municipal) resiliency training. Evidently directly after a disaster's impact there are two phases (Hero and Honeymoon) when everyone comes together and feels optimistic, actually boosting our collective happiness. Then comes disillusionment, and the long slow climb back to normalcy.
I'm not disputing that our violence rates aren't singular, or causally tied to the anti police sentiment drummed up in the wake of Floyd's death, just that to omit that established pattern struck me as dubious.
Thank you greatly for this impassioned and powerful discourse. Just as you were considering the lack of female participation in this landscape, in walks Heather MacDonald, and what a voice she has. I nominate today's self-proclaimed "rant" to serve as a highlight on the next Best Of The Glenn Show. Please keep up this very important work.
Black Lives Matters comes out every Presidential Election cycle, we had BLM riots in 2016 and 2020. Got to vote Team Blue o' else Whitey gonna kill U. Got to vote Team Blue or you are Nazi. If Team Red wins, its gonna be a return to the Slave Patrol.
No, of course they don't care about Black Lives. Its about promoting racial division and animosity against whites and "white-adjacent" institutions like policing. Remember the Klan? Remember they only got worked up about rape when it was Black man on a white woman? Why is that? Its the same reason BLM doesn't care about Black men killing Blacks. [Conservatives debating Klan: But Grand Dragon, sexual assaults against white women actually went up after you lynched and castrated those WWII veterans trying to register to vote.]
BLM is all about firing people up through appeals based on racial hatred and turning them out to vote. In other words, its about power, and utilizing racial hatred, which is the lowest common denominator in so-called democracies, to increase power. The Left doesn't actually believe in the rainbow b.s. that spout on about, not for one second. Conservatives who take this stuff at face value are fools, everything the Left says is just instrumental. You don't win by calling them hypocrites, because they don't believe in anything other than naked power.
Thanks for having Heather Mac Donald as guest. It's sad how our populace is lied to for political reasons. The patently false narratives from Democrats and the media about crime and law enforcement have done incredible damage to our nation's stability.
Republicans are far from angels, but their tirades about taxes haven't yet created a narrative wherein they supposedly worry about IRS agents murdering their children for walking down the street. To borrow a phrase: Democrats, have you no decency?
---4 unarmed african americans were killed by the police (using the liberal definition of unarmed and "black" used by the Washington Post)
---A "black" civilian is about 400 times as likely to kill a police officer as a police officers is to kill an unarmed "black" civilian assuming that 40% of the 73 police officers murdered were murdered by an african american suspect in 2021
Look forward to verifying this calculation. What was the population of US police officers in 2021?
By my estimates about 14,000 non latino african americans were murdered in 2020. Look forward to verifying this as the FBI releases revised statistics.
10 minutes 20 seconds in she talks about lgbtq+ rights and implies that Lagos doesn't have as much of it.
Lagos, from what I understand, has a thriving lbgtq+ community. The suppression of lbgtq+ rights in Nigeria has come from extreme Islamists and Churchianity extremists, both of which were foreign imperialistic hegemonic invaders. Pre these invaders, I would argue that lgbtq+ had more rights in Nigeria.
Can Nigerians please share their thoughts about this?
A lot of what Heather says is useful and valuable. I am writing as a long time admirer of Heather who has learned a lot from her.
From the internet: "According to the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project, 97 percent of Nigerian residents believe that homosexuality is a way of life that society should not accept, which was the second-highest rate of non-acceptance in the 45 countries surveyed."
But anti-gay sentiment in Nigeria (and not only there) is linked to the condemnation of homosexuality by Christianity. Heather MacDonald does not mention the impact of *Western* colonialism and neocolonialism on Nigerians' attitudes towards homosexuality. Moreover, Western pressure to embrace "LGBT rights" is often perceived as a new form of colonialism.
I think the way to promote LBGTQ+ rights is to reference great LBGTQ+ luminaries who lived in Africa before Christian and Muslim influence; all the amazing things they did, their ideas, math, science, technology, art, poetry, spirituality.
To reference pre Abrahamic African religion on LBGTQ+ and refer to LBGTQ+ rights as part of African decolonialism, African freedom and African independence.
Currently Nigeria is locked into a death match with Daesh Boko Haram (a splinter from Al Qaeda) and there is a significant chance that millions of Nigerians might be killed.
The global nonmuslim woke back extreme Islamists such as Al Qaeda and Daesh against liberal muslims, nonmuslims and Nigerians. Ergo, the Nigerian government has to be very careful about promoting LBGTQ+ rights to avoid being demonized by the global nonmuslim woke as black white supremacist islamaphobic fascist supporters of structural racism. I wish this was a joke, but it is not.
A large part of the lbgtq+ challenge inside Nigeria is driven by powerful foreign imperialist actors:
1) nonmuslim woke
2) extreme islamists
3) extreme churchianity (I won't deem to call it "Christianity" . . . I think Americans have no idea how extreme and bad some evangelical churches are to poor people in poor countries. They behave much better with Americans inside the USA)
Philip van Zandt, I blame the extreme islamists in part on nonmuslims who support extreme islamists against good liberal muslims. Nonmuslims (Say Charlie Wilson and Jimmy Carter) also often use extreme Islamists to attack other nonmuslims that they don't like (say communists and the eastern block).
The problem is that the "LGBTQ+" concept is a very recent Western concept which does not reflect people's attitudes and perceptions in the past. Many powerful men had sex with young men and even boys, but they did not see themselves as a sexual minority. Moreover, these young men and boys had to obey the demands of the powerful men. It is impossible to celebrate nonheterosexual African rulers etc. without taking into account their power to subjugate other people.
The only African example of such an abusive man I know is king Mwanga II of Buganda. In 1886 22 of his pages were burnt alive because they no longer agreed to have sex with him after converting to Christianity.
I'm listening through the discussion now, but I think remembering John McWhorter's point that for progressives it's all combating disparities in power can help make sense of liberal hypocrisy. A Black person killing another Black person in the hood doesn't exhibit the sort of power differential between perp and victim that would exist if a white cop killed a Black civilian, at least in the minds of erstwhile progressives. I agree with Heather that the phrase Black Lives Matter seems misleading given how little the Left oftentimes cares about Black lives that are lost. The movement would be better off branding itself as Power Disparities Matter, because ultimately those are the types incidents they choose to focus on, where there supposedly exists some power differential between the prepetrator and the victim that feeds into a larger narrative about societal inequity.
"A Black person killing another Black person in the hood doesn't exhibit the sort of power differential between perp and victim that would exist if a white cop killed a Black civilian, at least in the minds of erstwhile progressives."
I agree with you Yan that they really think something similar to this. But I can't understand it for the life of me. It seems like gobbly gook.
I think it is extremely racist to assume that people of african ancestry lack power, free will, intelligence, agency. Even if these are limited in this exact moment of time, these are fluid things that we can sharply improve.
We know that in the past ADOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery) were far less likely to be victims of property and violent crime than is the case now. The fact that some people are okay with this is cruel and mean.
"tolerence and openness, those are exclusively western concepts". These concepts were held by many great ancient civilizations.
They were "ALSO" held by the USA, which is why the USA has similarities with many great ancient civilizations and many around the world emphathize with the USA and associate with the USA.
For me, Heather McDonald is inspiring and insightful. Her strength, a big wow!! Thank you P.L. for another great conversation that has me pondering the applicability of psychiatrist and scholar John Bowlby’s theory of attachment, as it pertains to all people in this race conversation. The work of Mary Ainsworth is also notable here, and there are decades of clinical research, studies and science to support attachment theory. Put simply, it is a theory which speaks about the foundational need for a secure base to develop genuinely independent, adult human beings, and why the first five years of life are the greatest predictor of a life lived to the fullest potential, or a life lived in a troubled manner.
The work of horse trainer Monty Roberts also comes mind. Humans are animals, literally, this is not a pejorative or cynical statement. For that reason, humans share instincts for survival akin to other mammal species. In the horse world, the mare is the leader of the herd. When young horses get to the teenage stage and start to challenge the authority of the herd matriarch, that young horse is pushed out of the circle, for a time. Circle’s are safe, within the circle, the horse is less likely to fall prey to a predating mountain lion or wolf. However, when that young horse is left to its own resources without the protection of the herd, it usually comes around within a 24 hour cycle to gain entry back into the circle, tail between its legs so to speak, where it’s survival is more likely to advance it to mature adulthood. It is a needed initiation of sorts to maintain the health of the entire herd.
Seems to me like we could use some pretty solid, but ultimately benevolent, horse sense In our world today.
Well, that was certainly a good listen. Thanks, Glenn. After the first 10 minutes, I half-expected Heather to say she was going to dye her hair pink or something.
Seriously, though, I love her dedication to the lofty ideals and thoughts she articulated in that first segment, in gracious and flowing words. Very inspiring. I needed that.
It does seem as if we keep having this same discussion over and over, year after year, and yet, here we still are. Please don't get tired of fighting this good fight, either of you, as even if it's a slim hope, it's our only hope.
Heather MacDonald really has almost no understanding of “the left”. She (like many people on the left too) suffers from the same culture war brain rot that is infecting “intellectuals” all over this country. Beyond just her ridiculous notion that tolerance is unique to the west, the cartoonish straw man that that is somehow a knockdown of “left” philosophy is… hm I don’t know what to call it.
Glenn if you ever get a chance I think a good conservative with a solid understanding of the left would be Michael Lind. Check him out.
The Economist recently questioned BLM protests/democratic leaderships as a cause of rising crime stating that other states which were more under republican control have had similar rises. Not a perfect test, but seems like important data to speak to that hypothesis. I have not been able to find a good comprehensive analysis of this, but https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/ shows that many states with highest increases are more republican leaning.
Dan I noticed this too inside the USA. I am still trying to make sense of the 2020 and 2021 data.
Why do you think that only the USA saw a massive increase in homicide and agg. assault from late May 2020? Why did most other countries have falling crime or flat crime?
Consider Kentucky, which Trump won handily, losing only two counties. One of those two counties contains Louisville, with a Democrat mayor. Guess where the big murder increase has been taking place?
The idea that "It's really Republicans who are soft on crime" belongs in the same trash bin as "white supremacists are the ones attacking Asians."
I think you make a good point, but do hope we can get beyond these sorts of anecdotes (my evidence was weak and anecdotal as well) to more systematic analysis of this empirical question.
Right, agreed. And I had intended to mention that the graphic and article was interesting and thank you for it.
Still, I would not be honest if I didn't say that I've had more than my fill of fanciful politically-purposed narratives that deny reality. Exhibit A would be the multitudes of articles insisting falsely that whites were the primary attackers of Asians.
Probably the best place to start is with the SF Chronicle article, "Dirty secret of black-on-Asian violence is out." It's from 2010, so it predates today's political climate. For statistics, the DOJ is a good resource, and shows Blacks commit the highest percentage of violent crimes against Asians.
Thanks, but could you say how one can find the data you mention on the DOJ website? The SF Chronicle article mentions only a survey on robberies. According to this article http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/viral-images-show-people-color-anti-asian-perpetrators-misses-big-n1270821 "official crime statistics and other studies revealed more than three-quarters of offenders of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents, from both before and during the pandemic, have been white".
What Dems have done to keep racial politics alive and well in this country is sickening, and Joy Reid is perhaps the leading mouthpiece. Examples discussed here: https://brianhrobertson.substack.com/p/my-answer-to-joy-reid-part-ii
Quoting Heather Mac Donald: "Everybody that's committing a so-called crime of poverty has a smartphone nobody who has a smartphone is poor I'm sorry."
I was taken aback by that statement. Maybe the situation in the US is different from what it is in Europe but over here the only people not having a smartphone are some of the very elderly and those that voluntarily abstain. Correct me if I am wrong in assuming a similar situation in the US but as it is I consider that statement to be inducing a lot of prima facie disbelief in the veracity of the other data points she presents to support her arguments. This I say as someone who is way above 85% in agreement with what Glenn Loury and John McWhorter argue for in their podcasts. I would really liked to have put this link forward to the more liberal minded than I but I am quite certain a priori that they will conveniently take this as a reason to bail out from watching or at least taking her way less seriously.
I feel
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/
or https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
combined with https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html
support my hunch there.
Input greatly appreciated. = )
Heather MacDonald claims that no one who has a smartphone is poor. This shows how totally disconnected from reality she is. She does not even understand what it means to be poor. A smartphone will not feed someone, pay their rent and other bills. Plenty of poor people, including in countries much poorer than the US, own smartphones. Doesn't Ms MacDonald realize that even in Africa many ordinary people have smartphones?
It is also astonishing that she calls the riots after George Floyd's death "savage and sadistic" - this is wildly hyperbolic and I see a subtle racial undertone here. The really savage and sadistic thing was kneeling on a man's neck until he died. And when Heather MacDonald mentions the "inner city pathologies", again it is interesting that she chooses to see poor Black people who break the law as pathological or immoral, but does not think about the socioeconomic circumstances which encourage the poor *all over the world*, including poor WHITES, to break the law.
Of course people are responsible for their crimes, but it is utterly ridiculous to claim that there is no poverty in the inner cities. Ms MacDonald mentions all these famous Black authors, but to me it just sounds like empty virtue signalling and an attempt to prove that she is not racist. She claims that she has been reading Malcolm X and even Eldridge Cleaver, but she continues to look at the problems of poor Black people from the perspective of a judgemental upper-middle class white lady unaware of her privileges and prejudice.
Re: singularity of our violence in he wake of the pandemic, the fact that everyone was fine(ish) March through Floyd's death actually aligns with "phases of a disaster", which I just happened to learn about during my employer's (municipal) resiliency training. Evidently directly after a disaster's impact there are two phases (Hero and Honeymoon) when everyone comes together and feels optimistic, actually boosting our collective happiness. Then comes disillusionment, and the long slow climb back to normalcy.
I'm not disputing that our violence rates aren't singular, or causally tied to the anti police sentiment drummed up in the wake of Floyd's death, just that to omit that established pattern struck me as dubious.
Thank you greatly for this impassioned and powerful discourse. Just as you were considering the lack of female participation in this landscape, in walks Heather MacDonald, and what a voice she has. I nominate today's self-proclaimed "rant" to serve as a highlight on the next Best Of The Glenn Show. Please keep up this very important work.
Black Lives Matters comes out every Presidential Election cycle, we had BLM riots in 2016 and 2020. Got to vote Team Blue o' else Whitey gonna kill U. Got to vote Team Blue or you are Nazi. If Team Red wins, its gonna be a return to the Slave Patrol.
No, of course they don't care about Black Lives. Its about promoting racial division and animosity against whites and "white-adjacent" institutions like policing. Remember the Klan? Remember they only got worked up about rape when it was Black man on a white woman? Why is that? Its the same reason BLM doesn't care about Black men killing Blacks. [Conservatives debating Klan: But Grand Dragon, sexual assaults against white women actually went up after you lynched and castrated those WWII veterans trying to register to vote.]
BLM is all about firing people up through appeals based on racial hatred and turning them out to vote. In other words, its about power, and utilizing racial hatred, which is the lowest common denominator in so-called democracies, to increase power. The Left doesn't actually believe in the rainbow b.s. that spout on about, not for one second. Conservatives who take this stuff at face value are fools, everything the Left says is just instrumental. You don't win by calling them hypocrites, because they don't believe in anything other than naked power.
Thanks for having Heather Mac Donald as guest. It's sad how our populace is lied to for political reasons. The patently false narratives from Democrats and the media about crime and law enforcement have done incredible damage to our nation's stability.
Republicans are far from angels, but their tirades about taxes haven't yet created a narrative wherein they supposedly worry about IRS agents murdering their children for walking down the street. To borrow a phrase: Democrats, have you no decency?
72 minutes in Heather mentions that in 2021:
---73 police were murdered
---4 unarmed african americans were killed by the police (using the liberal definition of unarmed and "black" used by the Washington Post)
---A "black" civilian is about 400 times as likely to kill a police officer as a police officers is to kill an unarmed "black" civilian assuming that 40% of the 73 police officers murdered were murdered by an african american suspect in 2021
Look forward to verifying this calculation. What was the population of US police officers in 2021?
By my estimates about 14,000 non latino african americans were murdered in 2020. Look forward to verifying this as the FBI releases revised statistics.
In reality police killed 33 unarmed Black people in 2021. http://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ssinyangwe/viz/PoliceViolenceperPD/PoliceKillingsOverTime
14 minutes in, Glenn says everything is not quid pro quo . . . some of it is about grace, some of it is about embracing a spiritual thing"
Almost teared up.
This is why Glenn Loury is one of the few American greats and American elders left.
10 minutes 20 seconds in she talks about lgbtq+ rights and implies that Lagos doesn't have as much of it.
Lagos, from what I understand, has a thriving lbgtq+ community. The suppression of lbgtq+ rights in Nigeria has come from extreme Islamists and Churchianity extremists, both of which were foreign imperialistic hegemonic invaders. Pre these invaders, I would argue that lgbtq+ had more rights in Nigeria.
Can Nigerians please share their thoughts about this?
A lot of what Heather says is useful and valuable. I am writing as a long time admirer of Heather who has learned a lot from her.
From the internet: "According to the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project, 97 percent of Nigerian residents believe that homosexuality is a way of life that society should not accept, which was the second-highest rate of non-acceptance in the 45 countries surveyed."
But anti-gay sentiment in Nigeria (and not only there) is linked to the condemnation of homosexuality by Christianity. Heather MacDonald does not mention the impact of *Western* colonialism and neocolonialism on Nigerians' attitudes towards homosexuality. Moreover, Western pressure to embrace "LGBT rights" is often perceived as a new form of colonialism.
I think the way to promote LBGTQ+ rights is to reference great LBGTQ+ luminaries who lived in Africa before Christian and Muslim influence; all the amazing things they did, their ideas, math, science, technology, art, poetry, spirituality.
To reference pre Abrahamic African religion on LBGTQ+ and refer to LBGTQ+ rights as part of African decolonialism, African freedom and African independence.
Currently Nigeria is locked into a death match with Daesh Boko Haram (a splinter from Al Qaeda) and there is a significant chance that millions of Nigerians might be killed.
The global nonmuslim woke back extreme Islamists such as Al Qaeda and Daesh against liberal muslims, nonmuslims and Nigerians. Ergo, the Nigerian government has to be very careful about promoting LBGTQ+ rights to avoid being demonized by the global nonmuslim woke as black white supremacist islamaphobic fascist supporters of structural racism. I wish this was a joke, but it is not.
A large part of the lbgtq+ challenge inside Nigeria is driven by powerful foreign imperialist actors:
1) nonmuslim woke
2) extreme islamists
3) extreme churchianity (I won't deem to call it "Christianity" . . . I think Americans have no idea how extreme and bad some evangelical churches are to poor people in poor countries. They behave much better with Americans inside the USA)
Philip van Zandt, I blame the extreme islamists in part on nonmuslims who support extreme islamists against good liberal muslims. Nonmuslims (Say Charlie Wilson and Jimmy Carter) also often use extreme Islamists to attack other nonmuslims that they don't like (say communists and the eastern block).
The problem is that the "LGBTQ+" concept is a very recent Western concept which does not reflect people's attitudes and perceptions in the past. Many powerful men had sex with young men and even boys, but they did not see themselves as a sexual minority. Moreover, these young men and boys had to obey the demands of the powerful men. It is impossible to celebrate nonheterosexual African rulers etc. without taking into account their power to subjugate other people.
Interesting. I can see examples of this in many Abrahamic societies, Roman societies and Greek societies.
Can you share examples of this in pre Abrahamic influenced African societies?
Many ancient civilization leaders were outright lbgtq+ my our current understanding.
The only African example of such an abusive man I know is king Mwanga II of Buganda. In 1886 22 of his pages were burnt alive because they no longer agreed to have sex with him after converting to Christianity.
I'm listening through the discussion now, but I think remembering John McWhorter's point that for progressives it's all combating disparities in power can help make sense of liberal hypocrisy. A Black person killing another Black person in the hood doesn't exhibit the sort of power differential between perp and victim that would exist if a white cop killed a Black civilian, at least in the minds of erstwhile progressives. I agree with Heather that the phrase Black Lives Matter seems misleading given how little the Left oftentimes cares about Black lives that are lost. The movement would be better off branding itself as Power Disparities Matter, because ultimately those are the types incidents they choose to focus on, where there supposedly exists some power differential between the prepetrator and the victim that feeds into a larger narrative about societal inequity.
"A Black person killing another Black person in the hood doesn't exhibit the sort of power differential between perp and victim that would exist if a white cop killed a Black civilian, at least in the minds of erstwhile progressives."
I agree with you Yan that they really think something similar to this. But I can't understand it for the life of me. It seems like gobbly gook.
I think it is extremely racist to assume that people of african ancestry lack power, free will, intelligence, agency. Even if these are limited in this exact moment of time, these are fluid things that we can sharply improve.
We know that in the past ADOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery) were far less likely to be victims of property and violent crime than is the case now. The fact that some people are okay with this is cruel and mean.
Some "progressive" people actually imply that any "person of colour" who is incarcerated - no matter what s/he did - is enslaved by white oppressors. The scholar Jackie Wang has allegedly never revealed why her brother was sentenced to life behind bars at the age of 17. She claims that his crimes are not important and sees him as a victim. http://www.theliftedbrow.com/liftedbrow/2018/4/20/to-freedom-that-blooms-on-stumps-a-review-of-jackie-wangs-carceral-capitalism-by-cher-tan
"tolerence and openness, those are exclusively western concepts". These concepts were held by many great ancient civilizations.
They were "ALSO" held by the USA, which is why the USA has similarities with many great ancient civilizations and many around the world emphathize with the USA and associate with the USA.
For me, Heather McDonald is inspiring and insightful. Her strength, a big wow!! Thank you P.L. for another great conversation that has me pondering the applicability of psychiatrist and scholar John Bowlby’s theory of attachment, as it pertains to all people in this race conversation. The work of Mary Ainsworth is also notable here, and there are decades of clinical research, studies and science to support attachment theory. Put simply, it is a theory which speaks about the foundational need for a secure base to develop genuinely independent, adult human beings, and why the first five years of life are the greatest predictor of a life lived to the fullest potential, or a life lived in a troubled manner.
The work of horse trainer Monty Roberts also comes mind. Humans are animals, literally, this is not a pejorative or cynical statement. For that reason, humans share instincts for survival akin to other mammal species. In the horse world, the mare is the leader of the herd. When young horses get to the teenage stage and start to challenge the authority of the herd matriarch, that young horse is pushed out of the circle, for a time. Circle’s are safe, within the circle, the horse is less likely to fall prey to a predating mountain lion or wolf. However, when that young horse is left to its own resources without the protection of the herd, it usually comes around within a 24 hour cycle to gain entry back into the circle, tail between its legs so to speak, where it’s survival is more likely to advance it to mature adulthood. It is a needed initiation of sorts to maintain the health of the entire herd.
Seems to me like we could use some pretty solid, but ultimately benevolent, horse sense In our world today.
Well, that was certainly a good listen. Thanks, Glenn. After the first 10 minutes, I half-expected Heather to say she was going to dye her hair pink or something.
Seriously, though, I love her dedication to the lofty ideals and thoughts she articulated in that first segment, in gracious and flowing words. Very inspiring. I needed that.
It does seem as if we keep having this same discussion over and over, year after year, and yet, here we still are. Please don't get tired of fighting this good fight, either of you, as even if it's a slim hope, it's our only hope.
Heather MacDonald really has almost no understanding of “the left”. She (like many people on the left too) suffers from the same culture war brain rot that is infecting “intellectuals” all over this country. Beyond just her ridiculous notion that tolerance is unique to the west, the cartoonish straw man that that is somehow a knockdown of “left” philosophy is… hm I don’t know what to call it.
Glenn if you ever get a chance I think a good conservative with a solid understanding of the left would be Michael Lind. Check him out.
The Economist recently questioned BLM protests/democratic leaderships as a cause of rising crime stating that other states which were more under republican control have had similar rises. Not a perfect test, but seems like important data to speak to that hypothesis. I have not been able to find a good comprehensive analysis of this, but https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/ shows that many states with highest increases are more republican leaning.
Dan I noticed this too inside the USA. I am still trying to make sense of the 2020 and 2021 data.
Why do you think that only the USA saw a massive increase in homicide and agg. assault from late May 2020? Why did most other countries have falling crime or flat crime?
Consider Kentucky, which Trump won handily, losing only two counties. One of those two counties contains Louisville, with a Democrat mayor. Guess where the big murder increase has been taking place?
The idea that "It's really Republicans who are soft on crime" belongs in the same trash bin as "white supremacists are the ones attacking Asians."
I think you make a good point, but do hope we can get beyond these sorts of anecdotes (my evidence was weak and anecdotal as well) to more systematic analysis of this empirical question.
Right, agreed. And I had intended to mention that the graphic and article was interesting and thank you for it.
Still, I would not be honest if I didn't say that I've had more than my fill of fanciful politically-purposed narratives that deny reality. Exhibit A would be the multitudes of articles insisting falsely that whites were the primary attackers of Asians.
Why "falsely"? What is the actual basis for your belief that whites are NOT the perpetrators of most acts of anti-Asian violence?
Probably the best place to start is with the SF Chronicle article, "Dirty secret of black-on-Asian violence is out." It's from 2010, so it predates today's political climate. For statistics, the DOJ is a good resource, and shows Blacks commit the highest percentage of violent crimes against Asians.
Thanks, but could you say how one can find the data you mention on the DOJ website? The SF Chronicle article mentions only a survey on robberies. According to this article http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/viral-images-show-people-color-anti-asian-perpetrators-misses-big-n1270821 "official crime statistics and other studies revealed more than three-quarters of offenders of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents, from both before and during the pandemic, have been white".