Why does Omar do it? Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and Richard Wright’s Native Son have some insight. Existentialist murder novels are in, prestige TV is out.
Last week, I played basketball on 3 separate days; - for the first time in about 40+ years. I was alone on the in-door court, so I ran in circles while throwing the ball. I noticed that my skill improved each day. I am not tall. I realized that basketball skill involves the following components:
1:Laws of physics:
Gravity; Weight of basketball and me; My running speed and throwing speed; Direction of my aim; Angle of throw; Distance between me and basket.
2: Mental focus on correct basketball technique.
3: Hand-eye coordination.
4: Theorizing about what I wanted to avoid (missing the basket).
5: Mental Feedback from immediate outcome of “basket” or “miss” as instructive per technique.
6: Intra-group Interaction: my non-existent team-mates that one cooperates with so that you win.
7: Inter-group interaction: Navigating the enemies who belong to the other team - they will try to make you fail. 6 and 7 also are dependent upon rules (Do’s and Don’t).
8: Confidence based on reality of the court.
If I didn’t know better, I would think that basketball experience were a pre-requisite for college-level physics. Every basketball player “who makes a basket” experiences components 1-8, above. And every basketball player has to constantly think about “physics” during every game. Their thought words may be different- but it is definitely physics.
Throwing an object outward (baseball, football) or downward is normal and common, but throwing an object to a specific upward location is very unusual. I didn’t have any historical precedent to draw upon as experience to guide me. I was forced to mentally analyze the physics of basketball technique on-the-fly.
Any kid who can do basketball is actually preparing for a career as physicist.
Glenn, what is up with blaming feminists? I am a proud feminist (I believe women should have economic and social equality with men) and have for over 15 years been a married, stay at home mother (of three). I would have gone back sooner, but COVID happened. I went to college (studied engineering), bought a starter home, and saved for retirement before I met my husband. We are far more comfortable because of it. Feminism gave us our (including the kids) comfortable life.
My grandmother was forced to stay married to and support her free-loading husband before feminism fought for her to have some semblance of economic equality. It was a rough life for all involved.
I had a boss that argued the Civil Rights Act ruined society. I think that was equally wrong to argue. People should have equality. People should also have values. But the rights don’t take away values, they just reveal more clearly what those values are.
Feminism does not proscribe what a woman should do with her life, just that she should be able to choose. Some feminists may not value traditional families, but from my experience, most do. In fact, the only single parents I know of are conservative, anti-abortion women or married women who have divorced. If your problem is, as I think it is, that children are growing up without fathers please blame that phenomenon, not women having some measure of rights and economic autonomy. Thanks.
If the original Critical Race Theory had evolved in good faith (rather than falling in the same trap of Deconstructivism becoming Utopian visions rather than just another analytical tool) it could actually help clarify certain conversations. For example CRT could give us the language to differentiate between Black as a race and Black as a unique American ethnic group. This discussion is really about how to constructively discuss and engage with the issues of an ethnic culture, not about race at all. That alone would make these conversations easier.
I'm white. I have always imagined that, if I were black, I would resent the young trouble-makers because it is they that inflame the tensions and distrust between the races thereby, making life more difficult for me.
The nuclear family is not a healthy social model given witnessed deterioration of society; the support for each child isn't sufficient with 2 parents working or not. Comparing absent or unknown fathers in the Black American community to e.g. the July 4th murderer, we have an example of non-existent parenting and neglect of child socialization and healthy support in White America. American lifestyle of prioritized daily viewing TV, movies, and social media heightens corporate grooming and individual isolation. Not only are we mainly eating packaged food but not widely socializing, cut off from natural healthy mingling inclinations and settings. Instead the American lifestyle of cultivating fear of unknown persons or cultural variations made out to be different from who we are groomed to be quashing the significant experiences of greater commonality of all people, because we are all people. Government forms ask race listing Black White, neither of which is an actual race and promote that visual not ethnic difference. Black and White, we all come from a variety of countries even of unknown specificity. Like grocery shopping, walking through aisles of justified plastic covered everything, corporations tell us we cause the pollution problem while grooming us without options to optimize a problem they cause and continue at tax payer expense while destroying healthy living habitat, as they do with manipulating all human behavior for the sake of corporate earnings packaged in green.
I commented on a similar Common Sense posting this weekend and noted you two for your courage. Ty. “ Vast majority of shooting is black men on black men crime. Democrats have optimized black on black crime by a) not prosecuting crimes leaving more criminals out on street longer, b) defunding police leaving fewer cops out there, c) crippling blacks with horrific, albeit expensive, education, rendering many unemployable, d) securing Teacher’s Union so that blacks can’t practically escape the machine. Forget the words; look at the data. Blacks kill blacks in overwhelming numbers. Democrats control black vote and black life. And the Democrat Machine is much too strong for all but the most determined blacks (eg Glenn and John).”
sad that most of the social and professional rewards go to cowards who feel they must flee truth and/or knowingly embrace falsehood. in either case, it was great to finally catch you and John live at the Comedy Cellar last week.
I used to walk to high school with a black man. We were neighbors. Our freshman year, we both studied together, did our homework together, and both had dreams of attending MIT. Both of us went to Boston Latin, which is a public exam school.
Like most blacks, his mother raised him alone. I often had dinner at their house. She would remind us to keep our elbows off the table, to be kind with other students, to speak in complete sentences -- in short, she was a positive role model.
Sadly, when my friend left the house he was vehemently attacked by other blacks in the neighborhood. They would call him an uncle tom, a little bitch, a loser, a nerd, a dork, a race-traitor and they would often ask him why he walked with a cracker. Eventually, he became convinced that he was betraying his "people".
To make a long story short, my friend chose to join a Dorchester gang his junior year. His grades declined, he dropped out, and he ended up in prison.
Did the merit based system oppress him? Did it crush his dreams?
Malicious truths have two characteristics: they can hurt delicate sensibilities and they are also accurate. No one likes to hear unpleasant things, especially unpleasant things that run counter to one's confirmation biases. It's hard to blame "racist" cops when each week brings new black victims of black-perpetrated crime; it's hypocritical to blame the system that perpetuates single parent birth when one keeps voting for those who engineer it.
I have to disagree with one line from Glenn and perhaps it is at the heart of the problem - "There is every reason in the world to ignore an unpopular argument."
Unpopular arguments should NOT be ignored. Maybe they should just be argued. Or debated, discussed, talked about, and whatever other term you prefer. Either way, it appears that we can no longer afford to dismiss such arguments or those who make them. Because doing so neither invalidates the points being raised nor does it make them go away. The arguments become the proverbial elephant that we pretend is not making a mess of the living room.
Excellent. It is about being on the side of the heretics rather than those who would do the burning.
My problem with CRT is that I am not sure what it accomplishes.
For example, if you have 100k unprocessed rape test kits and you do the research and it says 80% are from black women (it is my understanding that this is what the research says btw), how many untested rape kits do you have at the end? 100k -- and they still have to be processed.
So if you process them and prioritize the black women's, chances are, because studies show that most rape victims know their attacker or the attacker is from their community, that when these men are prosecuted, you are going to end up with more black men in jail. Rape is a serious crime and the sentences are quite right heavy for it.
Is the attempt to clear the rape test kit backlog now racist because the policy has led to more violent black men being incarcerated? Or more importantly, is the community, in particular the women contained within that community, as a whole safer? Something which would have happened sooner if the police had done their job and processed the rape test kits in a timely fashion. in other words does knowing the genetic make up of the victims actually help in the processing? Or is it more important to focus on solving the unsolved crimes across all communities?
You almost have to feel sorry for how addled and neurotic upstanding white liberals are about black people. (I think it's partially bc they dont really know any.)
Even before the Kendi/DiAngelo White Guilt propaganda campaign, they've had to endure 50 yrs of cultural conditioning reminding them that what's most important is hewing as closely as poss to all the proper Good opinions, which are basically whatever the opposite of what the conservatives say. (And I just want to say that much of this cultural conditioning was good, healthy and helpful.) This has erected a set of electric fences in their brains and like a zapped rat they know to steer clear: black people have agency? ZAP! can't say that, it sounds rightwing; black families need fathers like every family does? ZAP cant say that!; black culture obviously has issues around violence and misogyny and glorification of the gangster life? well, u can sing along to that on the radio but ZAP if u say it; black people are not helped but hurt by the lowering of standards and social expectations? ZAP! only Repubs say things like that; America is not apartheid South Africa and has come a very long way in its efforts to integrate and support black people? ZAP! no tenure for u!
(Really the best book on this is Shelby Steele's "White Guilt")
Glenn, if you lose hope, there’s no hope for anyone. Listening to you has given me so much more understanding and has opened up so many minds beyond mine. People need your wisdom! Don’t give up yet.
Why does Omar do it? Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and Richard Wright’s Native Son have some insight. Existentialist murder novels are in, prestige TV is out.
Basketball:
Last week, I played basketball on 3 separate days; - for the first time in about 40+ years. I was alone on the in-door court, so I ran in circles while throwing the ball. I noticed that my skill improved each day. I am not tall. I realized that basketball skill involves the following components:
1:Laws of physics:
Gravity; Weight of basketball and me; My running speed and throwing speed; Direction of my aim; Angle of throw; Distance between me and basket.
2: Mental focus on correct basketball technique.
3: Hand-eye coordination.
4: Theorizing about what I wanted to avoid (missing the basket).
5: Mental Feedback from immediate outcome of “basket” or “miss” as instructive per technique.
6: Intra-group Interaction: my non-existent team-mates that one cooperates with so that you win.
7: Inter-group interaction: Navigating the enemies who belong to the other team - they will try to make you fail. 6 and 7 also are dependent upon rules (Do’s and Don’t).
8: Confidence based on reality of the court.
If I didn’t know better, I would think that basketball experience were a pre-requisite for college-level physics. Every basketball player “who makes a basket” experiences components 1-8, above. And every basketball player has to constantly think about “physics” during every game. Their thought words may be different- but it is definitely physics.
Throwing an object outward (baseball, football) or downward is normal and common, but throwing an object to a specific upward location is very unusual. I didn’t have any historical precedent to draw upon as experience to guide me. I was forced to mentally analyze the physics of basketball technique on-the-fly.
Any kid who can do basketball is actually preparing for a career as physicist.
Glenn, what is up with blaming feminists? I am a proud feminist (I believe women should have economic and social equality with men) and have for over 15 years been a married, stay at home mother (of three). I would have gone back sooner, but COVID happened. I went to college (studied engineering), bought a starter home, and saved for retirement before I met my husband. We are far more comfortable because of it. Feminism gave us our (including the kids) comfortable life.
My grandmother was forced to stay married to and support her free-loading husband before feminism fought for her to have some semblance of economic equality. It was a rough life for all involved.
I had a boss that argued the Civil Rights Act ruined society. I think that was equally wrong to argue. People should have equality. People should also have values. But the rights don’t take away values, they just reveal more clearly what those values are.
Feminism does not proscribe what a woman should do with her life, just that she should be able to choose. Some feminists may not value traditional families, but from my experience, most do. In fact, the only single parents I know of are conservative, anti-abortion women or married women who have divorced. If your problem is, as I think it is, that children are growing up without fathers please blame that phenomenon, not women having some measure of rights and economic autonomy. Thanks.
If the original Critical Race Theory had evolved in good faith (rather than falling in the same trap of Deconstructivism becoming Utopian visions rather than just another analytical tool) it could actually help clarify certain conversations. For example CRT could give us the language to differentiate between Black as a race and Black as a unique American ethnic group. This discussion is really about how to constructively discuss and engage with the issues of an ethnic culture, not about race at all. That alone would make these conversations easier.
I'm white. I have always imagined that, if I were black, I would resent the young trouble-makers because it is they that inflame the tensions and distrust between the races thereby, making life more difficult for me.
What is with the democrat party's sick, perverted obsession with sex and race?!
Mr Loury:
You nailed it. There are others who feel the same way as you.
The nuclear family is not a healthy social model given witnessed deterioration of society; the support for each child isn't sufficient with 2 parents working or not. Comparing absent or unknown fathers in the Black American community to e.g. the July 4th murderer, we have an example of non-existent parenting and neglect of child socialization and healthy support in White America. American lifestyle of prioritized daily viewing TV, movies, and social media heightens corporate grooming and individual isolation. Not only are we mainly eating packaged food but not widely socializing, cut off from natural healthy mingling inclinations and settings. Instead the American lifestyle of cultivating fear of unknown persons or cultural variations made out to be different from who we are groomed to be quashing the significant experiences of greater commonality of all people, because we are all people. Government forms ask race listing Black White, neither of which is an actual race and promote that visual not ethnic difference. Black and White, we all come from a variety of countries even of unknown specificity. Like grocery shopping, walking through aisles of justified plastic covered everything, corporations tell us we cause the pollution problem while grooming us without options to optimize a problem they cause and continue at tax payer expense while destroying healthy living habitat, as they do with manipulating all human behavior for the sake of corporate earnings packaged in green.
Hey Glenn and John,
I commented on a similar Common Sense posting this weekend and noted you two for your courage. Ty. “ Vast majority of shooting is black men on black men crime. Democrats have optimized black on black crime by a) not prosecuting crimes leaving more criminals out on street longer, b) defunding police leaving fewer cops out there, c) crippling blacks with horrific, albeit expensive, education, rendering many unemployable, d) securing Teacher’s Union so that blacks can’t practically escape the machine. Forget the words; look at the data. Blacks kill blacks in overwhelming numbers. Democrats control black vote and black life. And the Democrat Machine is much too strong for all but the most determined blacks (eg Glenn and John).”
sad that most of the social and professional rewards go to cowards who feel they must flee truth and/or knowingly embrace falsehood. in either case, it was great to finally catch you and John live at the Comedy Cellar last week.
Thank you!
I used to walk to high school with a black man. We were neighbors. Our freshman year, we both studied together, did our homework together, and both had dreams of attending MIT. Both of us went to Boston Latin, which is a public exam school.
Like most blacks, his mother raised him alone. I often had dinner at their house. She would remind us to keep our elbows off the table, to be kind with other students, to speak in complete sentences -- in short, she was a positive role model.
Sadly, when my friend left the house he was vehemently attacked by other blacks in the neighborhood. They would call him an uncle tom, a little bitch, a loser, a nerd, a dork, a race-traitor and they would often ask him why he walked with a cracker. Eventually, he became convinced that he was betraying his "people".
To make a long story short, my friend chose to join a Dorchester gang his junior year. His grades declined, he dropped out, and he ended up in prison.
Did the merit based system oppress him? Did it crush his dreams?
I don't think so.
Malicious truths have two characteristics: they can hurt delicate sensibilities and they are also accurate. No one likes to hear unpleasant things, especially unpleasant things that run counter to one's confirmation biases. It's hard to blame "racist" cops when each week brings new black victims of black-perpetrated crime; it's hypocritical to blame the system that perpetuates single parent birth when one keeps voting for those who engineer it.
I have to disagree with one line from Glenn and perhaps it is at the heart of the problem - "There is every reason in the world to ignore an unpopular argument."
Unpopular arguments should NOT be ignored. Maybe they should just be argued. Or debated, discussed, talked about, and whatever other term you prefer. Either way, it appears that we can no longer afford to dismiss such arguments or those who make them. Because doing so neither invalidates the points being raised nor does it make them go away. The arguments become the proverbial elephant that we pretend is not making a mess of the living room.
Excellent. It is about being on the side of the heretics rather than those who would do the burning.
My problem with CRT is that I am not sure what it accomplishes.
For example, if you have 100k unprocessed rape test kits and you do the research and it says 80% are from black women (it is my understanding that this is what the research says btw), how many untested rape kits do you have at the end? 100k -- and they still have to be processed.
So if you process them and prioritize the black women's, chances are, because studies show that most rape victims know their attacker or the attacker is from their community, that when these men are prosecuted, you are going to end up with more black men in jail. Rape is a serious crime and the sentences are quite right heavy for it.
Is the attempt to clear the rape test kit backlog now racist because the policy has led to more violent black men being incarcerated? Or more importantly, is the community, in particular the women contained within that community, as a whole safer? Something which would have happened sooner if the police had done their job and processed the rape test kits in a timely fashion. in other words does knowing the genetic make up of the victims actually help in the processing? Or is it more important to focus on solving the unsolved crimes across all communities?
You almost have to feel sorry for how addled and neurotic upstanding white liberals are about black people. (I think it's partially bc they dont really know any.)
Even before the Kendi/DiAngelo White Guilt propaganda campaign, they've had to endure 50 yrs of cultural conditioning reminding them that what's most important is hewing as closely as poss to all the proper Good opinions, which are basically whatever the opposite of what the conservatives say. (And I just want to say that much of this cultural conditioning was good, healthy and helpful.) This has erected a set of electric fences in their brains and like a zapped rat they know to steer clear: black people have agency? ZAP! can't say that, it sounds rightwing; black families need fathers like every family does? ZAP cant say that!; black culture obviously has issues around violence and misogyny and glorification of the gangster life? well, u can sing along to that on the radio but ZAP if u say it; black people are not helped but hurt by the lowering of standards and social expectations? ZAP! only Repubs say things like that; America is not apartheid South Africa and has come a very long way in its efforts to integrate and support black people? ZAP! no tenure for u!
(Really the best book on this is Shelby Steele's "White Guilt")
Glenn, if you lose hope, there’s no hope for anyone. Listening to you has given me so much more understanding and has opened up so many minds beyond mine. People need your wisdom! Don’t give up yet.