Glen, You said something very profound "... If you allow identity to infiltrate your judgements of excellence at the very pinnacle of human achievement, you are going to undermine the effectiveness of what you do." This is so very true. Taking your analogy a little further; I think a way to show that people are not racist would be that if your doctor told you they were going to get you the best heart surgeon in the world, would you (anyone) be surprised if, when introduced to the greatest heart surgeon in the world that they were any specific race or gender? Or, as I think all of us would feel, greatly relieved that the best surgeon in the world just walked into the room, not noticing gender or race, but simply reassured that this surgeon is the best. We as a culture seem to be forgetting this simple fact.
To John and Glenn , by the time you next meet, Russia will likely have completely conquered Ukraine . I would like you to ponder if our societies focus on DEI and the implicit message that we are a bad nation , has had any impact on our ability to defend our values in a competition between deferent values. Are we just another bad place in a sea of bad places? I fear I have not made myself clear , but what the heck.
This was fantastic, thank you. The surgeon analogy is spot on. I truly believe that most people are not the least bit concerned or upset or whatever about a black woman being a SCOTUS justice, but are very, very uneasy that the search for candidates starts with looking at their gender and skin color. Wasn't that the whole point of Dr. King's quest?
It's also incredibly unfair to the candidates themselves. It looks like Ketanji Jackson will be the nominee, and she'll likely be confirmed, and I hope she does a great job. But her term will forever be overshadowed by the fact that she got the job because she's a black woman. That's a horrible thing to say, but Biden publicly and literally made those the #1 job requirements.
I analogize affirmative action to a foot race in which one racer (in this analogy, a black
guy) has a ball and chain around their ankle. As the race goes on, the person with the ball and chain naturally falls further and further and behind, even if both racers are trying their hardest. Affirmative action’s solution is to magically teleport the guy with the ball and chain to the finish line halfway through the race and declare him the winner. This of course upsets the unfettered guy, who understandably feels he was just doing his best and is now being denied the fruits of his hard work. And the ball and chain guy still has a ball and chain around his ankle, and questions abound on all sides (including in his own mind) as to whether he “really” would have won the race if he hadn’t been teleported to the finish line.
My solution is TO CUT OFF THE FUCKING BALL AND CHAIN and then let everyone compete on a level playing field. In the educational context, this means expanding educational opportunities for underprivileged communities, and also those communities themselves recognizing and committing to the importance of working hard to get a good education. That is, promote equality of opportunity and not equality of result. Then when the guy who used to have a ball and chain around his leg wins, he won fair and square, and neither he nor anyone else can deny the legitimacy of his accomplishment. But this cannot be done entirely by outside fiat — it requires equalization of opportunity yes, but it also requires a commitment on behalf of the ball and chain guy to try as hard as he can to make the most of the opportunities presented to him.
"My solution is TO CUT OFF THE FUCKING BALL AND CHAIN..." Directionally, one couldn't agree more. Sadly, as long as opportunity itself is an outcome, equality of outcome is unattainable. IOW, some components of our balls and chains are immutable, organic, and unbreakable. IQ -- mental horsepower matters. Cultural values, such as a love for education or the value of hard work inform motivation.
As long as political power accrues to the clever, we'll be dispossessed.
I don’t consider equality of outcome to be a desirable goal at all. All I want is a reasonably level field for people to compete on, and then may the best prevail — yes, that does result in a certain unfairness, in that talent in any given field is not equally distributed by nature, but the alternative is much worse.
Our colleges teach White students that they are immoral and contemptible if they don’t support the White Genocide that’s being carried out by unlimited third-world immigration and FORCED assimilation i.e diversity for EVERY White country and ONLY White countries.
Their professors never tell them, “White self-hatred is SICK!!!“
Those professors claim to be anti-racist. What they are is anti-White.
I’d quibble with the word “genocide”, but I do think this relentless anti-whiteness (not just the ridiculous idea that, especially by 2022, there remains an all-encompassing, ubiquitous conspiracy of culturally-constructed whiteness as a means of domination, which somehow wildly advantages literally all white people, while dehumanizing, marginalizing, oppressing all non-white people, but an actual open, sometimes giddy hatred toward all human beings born with a certain complexion) is itself incredibly racist and hypocritical. No one claims we must force Japan or Korea to “diversify” (meaning proportionally far, far fewer of those pesky “overachieving” Asians in their own countries - why can’t inherently much more noble black and brown people (bodies?!) benefit from a planned, heavily funded relentless mass illegal immigration and redistribution of all those countries have built and accomplished? No one claims this about anywhere else than Western countries with majority Caucasian populations. There used to be these fairly ridiculous bumper stickers you’d very occasionally see (or see reported about) which, taking off on a conservation campaign slogan, said something like “Save the White Males”. I used to think this was utterly deluded and paranoid - half-baked reactionary victimology that denied most population statistics about how most white American men were still doing in relation to most other populations. That was about thirty years ago. As silly as that slogan sounds it also now sounds prescient. The open demonization, the schadenfreude, the almost sadistic mockery that’s so celebrated across our culture now toward white Americans and especially men who actually have had the fewest advantages, whose life expectancy is declining, who are suffering more and more suicides and overdoes and other deaths of despair. But it’s not a coincidence or really even ironic that it’s the least advantaged white people who are being mocked, in some ways almost persecuted for being. It’s part and parcel of the disappearance of class and any concept of transracial working class solidarity from most of the left. Those who derive so much enjoyment and attract so much praise for hating more downtrodden white people gladly worship and aspire to ascending to join the cliques of wealth and power of some of the cruelest, most callous white elites who do things like posting BLM™️ logos and mission statements while sending usurious, trap-laden credit card offers en masse to poor and working poor black households.
Things are getting pretty ugly for the white Americans who never had many resources, connections, or privileges to speak of, and who are aging and becoming more vulnerable as societal hatred and scapegoating toward them grows and intensifies. This has begun to happen much sooner than one might have predicted based on demographics, not only because of the funded, organized mass illegal immigration that’s so privileged by the Democratic Party as long as the immigrants aren’t white, and not only because of the explosion of toxic, hateful pseudo-academic racial caste politics from universities into positions of power of across society. It’s happened while white Americans are still a fairly large if aging majority, because white elites who have far more power, connections, resources than they’ll ever need to buffer themselves and their offspring for generations, have placed their bets on elevating themselves and extirpating any actual guilt or responsibility they may have for ill-gotten gains, by performatively pretending to prostrate themselves - such communal narcissism - while actually transferring the hatred, contempt, and blame and enforcing a real marginalization in resources and standing and even basic human dignity on the white people who never had their advantages and in most cases never benefited from hurting or exploiting others. I’ve never seen such hatred and contempt and mockery toward one’s fellow citizens. But America’s white elites have bene done with the shared rights and responsibilities of citizenship for a while. They instead associate with other global elites and like to symbolically associate themselves with what our culture considers trendier more righteous and noble identities.
So, Jo Jones , instead of throwing a cymbal at Charlie Parker when Parker couldn’t cut it playing Cherokee, should have said Charlie, you can’t play. well because of racism . Instead , he threw the cymbal , Parker left the stage embarrassed and spent the next two years practicing his ass off until he deserved to be on the stage and changed music forever.
Glenn, your analogy is brilliant about your hypothetical surgeon. Of course someone would want the very best possible. I believe we are all here for a reason. We all have something to fulfill for humanity. Is it about what color we are? Think about how short sided, narrow minded, and self destructive that is! I have admired so many African Americans in my lifetime. The list could go on and on. Why is there this push. This is controlled and not the natural order of things. It is not dignified or honorable. It is like giving a trophy to someone for something when they did not deserve it or reach that excellence. Talk about creating a phony society!
Are we just a hedonistic society, that only cares about self? Look at the past civilizations that became, hedonistic with no morals. They became extinct. I believe, we will not be blessed for this. The opposite will occur and is happening now! We have to think of the good of everyone, mankind! These things are not done with self respect. I am ashamed that African Americans believe it is right to go this direction. It is, quite frankly beneath you as a people. You have contributed so much to my life. I cry when I think about it. Even, the torched souls. You all have saved my life in many ways. I wish you could see what an amazing contributions you have already made. In my book, beginning with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Well, with the current prerequisite qualifications necessary, it's good to see Ru Paul on the short list of the next Supreme Court nomination. A couple of trips to the tanning bed and the choice should be obvious.
Wow. So many brave words spoken during this podcast. I'm worried it's just not going to resonate with the younger generation and the implications of this.
Equity and Excellence are antithetical. Our VP was selected solely for her race and gender despite winning only 1% of her own party's primary votes, now she embarrasses us every time she opens her mouth.
Leaving race out if it, the generalized problem with “equity” (aka “equality of outcome”) is that it can only result in the more talented being artificially chopped down to the level of the less talented, since it is of course unlikely that the less talented will prevail over the more talented assuming both are provided with the training and skills to maximize their talents. For example, if we had “equity” in professional basketball or beach volleyball where every height quintile were proportionally represented, the overall quality of basketball and volleyball would drop, as height is a huge factor in success in those sports and the best players are almost universally taller than average.
The push for “equity” must inevitably result in mediocrity. This is essentially the plot of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, so these are not new discussions, just old wine in new bottles.
Her performance in Munich - so vacuous and out of her depth she tried on her “total phony tries to condescend to a room full of 4th graders” voice - was a new sort of low even for her. I’m sure Biden’s SC pick will possess some intellectual ability, even if she is as much an activist as she is a jurist or scholar. But Sonia Sotomayor will be forever tainted by her intense identitarianism. I was actually a pretty strong Obama supporter at the time and her “wise Latina” comments, in particular, well before most of us were hearing about standpoint epistemology and enhanced, sometimes exclusive “knowledges” based on one’s identity alone, made a bad impression that’s never left. I don’t know if it’s true as reported that Scalia remarked to someone, re: the second vacancy during the Obama Administration, “I know you’re going to send us a liberal, but at least send us a smart one”. But whatever Sotomayor’s intellectual merits relative to those her peers or others recently shortlisted, her own obsession with her own identity and her supporters’ emphasis on it during her nomination is unfortunately a significant part of how she’s perceived, in a way Elena Kagan is not.
Tremendous episode. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I apprecite your reflection, intelligence and heart. Be well.
AN's grasp of science is, how shall we say, scant. Her entire oeuvre is that science is racist.
Glen, You said something very profound "... If you allow identity to infiltrate your judgements of excellence at the very pinnacle of human achievement, you are going to undermine the effectiveness of what you do." This is so very true. Taking your analogy a little further; I think a way to show that people are not racist would be that if your doctor told you they were going to get you the best heart surgeon in the world, would you (anyone) be surprised if, when introduced to the greatest heart surgeon in the world that they were any specific race or gender? Or, as I think all of us would feel, greatly relieved that the best surgeon in the world just walked into the room, not noticing gender or race, but simply reassured that this surgeon is the best. We as a culture seem to be forgetting this simple fact.
To John and Glenn , by the time you next meet, Russia will likely have completely conquered Ukraine . I would like you to ponder if our societies focus on DEI and the implicit message that we are a bad nation , has had any impact on our ability to defend our values in a competition between deferent values. Are we just another bad place in a sea of bad places? I fear I have not made myself clear , but what the heck.
"But those sorts of benefits, important as they are to an individual, do not capture the real social value of higher education."
There is no "social value" to higher education. It simply provides you tools and business contacts to improve your position in life.
This was fantastic, thank you. The surgeon analogy is spot on. I truly believe that most people are not the least bit concerned or upset or whatever about a black woman being a SCOTUS justice, but are very, very uneasy that the search for candidates starts with looking at their gender and skin color. Wasn't that the whole point of Dr. King's quest?
It's also incredibly unfair to the candidates themselves. It looks like Ketanji Jackson will be the nominee, and she'll likely be confirmed, and I hope she does a great job. But her term will forever be overshadowed by the fact that she got the job because she's a black woman. That's a horrible thing to say, but Biden publicly and literally made those the #1 job requirements.
I analogize affirmative action to a foot race in which one racer (in this analogy, a black
guy) has a ball and chain around their ankle. As the race goes on, the person with the ball and chain naturally falls further and further and behind, even if both racers are trying their hardest. Affirmative action’s solution is to magically teleport the guy with the ball and chain to the finish line halfway through the race and declare him the winner. This of course upsets the unfettered guy, who understandably feels he was just doing his best and is now being denied the fruits of his hard work. And the ball and chain guy still has a ball and chain around his ankle, and questions abound on all sides (including in his own mind) as to whether he “really” would have won the race if he hadn’t been teleported to the finish line.
My solution is TO CUT OFF THE FUCKING BALL AND CHAIN and then let everyone compete on a level playing field. In the educational context, this means expanding educational opportunities for underprivileged communities, and also those communities themselves recognizing and committing to the importance of working hard to get a good education. That is, promote equality of opportunity and not equality of result. Then when the guy who used to have a ball and chain around his leg wins, he won fair and square, and neither he nor anyone else can deny the legitimacy of his accomplishment. But this cannot be done entirely by outside fiat — it requires equalization of opportunity yes, but it also requires a commitment on behalf of the ball and chain guy to try as hard as he can to make the most of the opportunities presented to him.
"My solution is TO CUT OFF THE FUCKING BALL AND CHAIN..." Directionally, one couldn't agree more. Sadly, as long as opportunity itself is an outcome, equality of outcome is unattainable. IOW, some components of our balls and chains are immutable, organic, and unbreakable. IQ -- mental horsepower matters. Cultural values, such as a love for education or the value of hard work inform motivation.
As long as political power accrues to the clever, we'll be dispossessed.
I don’t consider equality of outcome to be a desirable goal at all. All I want is a reasonably level field for people to compete on, and then may the best prevail — yes, that does result in a certain unfairness, in that talent in any given field is not equally distributed by nature, but the alternative is much worse.
As an aside re affirmative action, see what liberals did to the program:
Affirmative action failed black families where it matters most, after liberals, especially feminists, hijacked it to benefit whites. https://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-affirmative-action-has-failed-black-families/
Our colleges teach White students that they are immoral and contemptible if they don’t support the White Genocide that’s being carried out by unlimited third-world immigration and FORCED assimilation i.e diversity for EVERY White country and ONLY White countries.
Their professors never tell them, “White self-hatred is SICK!!!“
Those professors claim to be anti-racist. What they are is anti-White.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.
I’d quibble with the word “genocide”, but I do think this relentless anti-whiteness (not just the ridiculous idea that, especially by 2022, there remains an all-encompassing, ubiquitous conspiracy of culturally-constructed whiteness as a means of domination, which somehow wildly advantages literally all white people, while dehumanizing, marginalizing, oppressing all non-white people, but an actual open, sometimes giddy hatred toward all human beings born with a certain complexion) is itself incredibly racist and hypocritical. No one claims we must force Japan or Korea to “diversify” (meaning proportionally far, far fewer of those pesky “overachieving” Asians in their own countries - why can’t inherently much more noble black and brown people (bodies?!) benefit from a planned, heavily funded relentless mass illegal immigration and redistribution of all those countries have built and accomplished? No one claims this about anywhere else than Western countries with majority Caucasian populations. There used to be these fairly ridiculous bumper stickers you’d very occasionally see (or see reported about) which, taking off on a conservation campaign slogan, said something like “Save the White Males”. I used to think this was utterly deluded and paranoid - half-baked reactionary victimology that denied most population statistics about how most white American men were still doing in relation to most other populations. That was about thirty years ago. As silly as that slogan sounds it also now sounds prescient. The open demonization, the schadenfreude, the almost sadistic mockery that’s so celebrated across our culture now toward white Americans and especially men who actually have had the fewest advantages, whose life expectancy is declining, who are suffering more and more suicides and overdoes and other deaths of despair. But it’s not a coincidence or really even ironic that it’s the least advantaged white people who are being mocked, in some ways almost persecuted for being. It’s part and parcel of the disappearance of class and any concept of transracial working class solidarity from most of the left. Those who derive so much enjoyment and attract so much praise for hating more downtrodden white people gladly worship and aspire to ascending to join the cliques of wealth and power of some of the cruelest, most callous white elites who do things like posting BLM™️ logos and mission statements while sending usurious, trap-laden credit card offers en masse to poor and working poor black households.
Things are getting pretty ugly for the white Americans who never had many resources, connections, or privileges to speak of, and who are aging and becoming more vulnerable as societal hatred and scapegoating toward them grows and intensifies. This has begun to happen much sooner than one might have predicted based on demographics, not only because of the funded, organized mass illegal immigration that’s so privileged by the Democratic Party as long as the immigrants aren’t white, and not only because of the explosion of toxic, hateful pseudo-academic racial caste politics from universities into positions of power of across society. It’s happened while white Americans are still a fairly large if aging majority, because white elites who have far more power, connections, resources than they’ll ever need to buffer themselves and their offspring for generations, have placed their bets on elevating themselves and extirpating any actual guilt or responsibility they may have for ill-gotten gains, by performatively pretending to prostrate themselves - such communal narcissism - while actually transferring the hatred, contempt, and blame and enforcing a real marginalization in resources and standing and even basic human dignity on the white people who never had their advantages and in most cases never benefited from hurting or exploiting others. I’ve never seen such hatred and contempt and mockery toward one’s fellow citizens. But America’s white elites have bene done with the shared rights and responsibilities of citizenship for a while. They instead associate with other global elites and like to symbolically associate themselves with what our culture considers trendier more righteous and noble identities.
So, Jo Jones , instead of throwing a cymbal at Charlie Parker when Parker couldn’t cut it playing Cherokee, should have said Charlie, you can’t play. well because of racism . Instead , he threw the cymbal , Parker left the stage embarrassed and spent the next two years practicing his ass off until he deserved to be on the stage and changed music forever.
Glenn, your analogy is brilliant about your hypothetical surgeon. Of course someone would want the very best possible. I believe we are all here for a reason. We all have something to fulfill for humanity. Is it about what color we are? Think about how short sided, narrow minded, and self destructive that is! I have admired so many African Americans in my lifetime. The list could go on and on. Why is there this push. This is controlled and not the natural order of things. It is not dignified or honorable. It is like giving a trophy to someone for something when they did not deserve it or reach that excellence. Talk about creating a phony society!
Are we just a hedonistic society, that only cares about self? Look at the past civilizations that became, hedonistic with no morals. They became extinct. I believe, we will not be blessed for this. The opposite will occur and is happening now! We have to think of the good of everyone, mankind! These things are not done with self respect. I am ashamed that African Americans believe it is right to go this direction. It is, quite frankly beneath you as a people. You have contributed so much to my life. I cry when I think about it. Even, the torched souls. You all have saved my life in many ways. I wish you could see what an amazing contributions you have already made. In my book, beginning with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Well, with the current prerequisite qualifications necessary, it's good to see Ru Paul on the short list of the next Supreme Court nomination. A couple of trips to the tanning bed and the choice should be obvious.
Did they really appoint a sociologist to lead the US Office of Science and Technology??
Really!??!
Never mind what color she is, but...a sociologist? The most pseudo of all pseudosciences?!?!
BIDEN/LYSENKO 2024
That's wrong. She's the acting head until a replacement for Eric Lander is found.
oh hey good to know thx
Wow. So many brave words spoken during this podcast. I'm worried it's just not going to resonate with the younger generation and the implications of this.
Equity and Excellence are antithetical. Our VP was selected solely for her race and gender despite winning only 1% of her own party's primary votes, now she embarrasses us every time she opens her mouth.
Leaving race out if it, the generalized problem with “equity” (aka “equality of outcome”) is that it can only result in the more talented being artificially chopped down to the level of the less talented, since it is of course unlikely that the less talented will prevail over the more talented assuming both are provided with the training and skills to maximize their talents. For example, if we had “equity” in professional basketball or beach volleyball where every height quintile were proportionally represented, the overall quality of basketball and volleyball would drop, as height is a huge factor in success in those sports and the best players are almost universally taller than average.
The push for “equity” must inevitably result in mediocrity. This is essentially the plot of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, so these are not new discussions, just old wine in new bottles.
Her performance in Munich - so vacuous and out of her depth she tried on her “total phony tries to condescend to a room full of 4th graders” voice - was a new sort of low even for her. I’m sure Biden’s SC pick will possess some intellectual ability, even if she is as much an activist as she is a jurist or scholar. But Sonia Sotomayor will be forever tainted by her intense identitarianism. I was actually a pretty strong Obama supporter at the time and her “wise Latina” comments, in particular, well before most of us were hearing about standpoint epistemology and enhanced, sometimes exclusive “knowledges” based on one’s identity alone, made a bad impression that’s never left. I don’t know if it’s true as reported that Scalia remarked to someone, re: the second vacancy during the Obama Administration, “I know you’re going to send us a liberal, but at least send us a smart one”. But whatever Sotomayor’s intellectual merits relative to those her peers or others recently shortlisted, her own obsession with her own identity and her supporters’ emphasis on it during her nomination is unfortunately a significant part of how she’s perceived, in a way Elena Kagan is not.