wokeness
February 9, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
“Diversity statements” are the latest device the left has come up with to impose and enforce woke conformity in education. Stanley Kurtz explains how they work: Let’s say you’re applying for a teaching job at a university. In addition to submitting a CV and a description of your academic research, many universities now require you to answer a series of questions designed to prove your commitment to the ideology and
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February 2, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Those who recognize the name Aaron Wildavsky will rightly wonder how the great political scientist could possibly comment on the Whoopi’s whoopsie, since he died in 1993. But I want to suggest he was highly prescient about what is going on today on racial politics in America. In a classic 1990 essay on “The Search for the Oppressed” (not available online unfortunately), Wildavsky noted how the left was trying to
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February 1, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Tomorrow, the Washington Football Team will announce its new name. The team will do so on NBC’s Today Show. Apparently, those in charge of the team and the network think there’s significant national interest in what the former Redskins will call themselves. I doubt there is. Most fans of the team are interested in the new name, but I’m not among them. I don’t care. Here are my two predictions
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January 27, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Princeton University Ballet, a student-run ballet company, has gone full woke. So has Princeton’s EDI in the Arts Circuit, which apparently is tied to the University’s administration. Responding to my first post on the subject, a friend called my attention to this passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story “Harris Bergeron.”: THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law.
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January 26, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
In Part One of this series, I reported on the plan of student leaders of the Princeton University Ballet to (among other things) “decolonize” their practice of ballet, “deemphasize technique,” and exclude from membership Princeton ballet enthusiasts who are unwilling to engage in their brand of activism. In Part II, I want to consider Princeton’s stance on these matters. As I understand it, the EDI [equity, diversity, and inclusion] in
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January 25, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Perhaps I should have called this post “Why ballet at Princeton?” A document sent by the leaders of the Princeton University Ballet (PUB), the student-run ballet club, seems to argue by implication for ditching ballet altogether. The document begins: Ballet is rooted in white supremacy and perfectionism. We are all entering this space with a mindset that what we see as perfect is a white standard. Unlearning that will be
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January 18, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya doesn’t. He made this clear in a podcast. Among other things, he said: Nobody cares about it. Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay?… Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line, okay? These comments turned out not to be “okay.” The pushback was such that Palihapitiya later tried to walk his callousness back. After a day
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January 16, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve written a few posts about common-good/national conservatism and its challenge to the mainstream conservative movement as it has existed since the 1960s. Two of these posts are basically summaries of presentations in a forum hosted by The New Criterion. Among other things, my posts summarized the lead, anti-common-good conservatism piece by Kim Holmes and a rebuttal by Josh Hammer. Peter Berkowitz covers this ground in an article called “The
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January 14, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A reader directed me to this Twitter thread from someone who goes by the name Hazard Harrington, who works in Silicon Valley. I have no way of verifying the truth of the person or his position, but it certainly squares with a lot of other accounts of how woefully woke Silicon Valley has become—the more so in the time of COVID—so I am reasonably confident it is authentic: I work
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January 12, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Unilever is a massive international conglomerate headquartered in London that predominantly sells food products. Like many other companies Unilever has gone “woke,” as its web site reflects. Unilever claims to be all about its “values,” a company that “take[s] action on the issues affecting our world.” But many observers are not convinced. The Telegraph headlines: “Investment star Terry Smith attacks Unilever for ‘ludicrous’ focus on social and environmental issues.” One
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December 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
On December 15, the Guardian, a lefty British newspaper, ran a “person of the year” contest. The paper asked: “Time Magazine chose billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk – but who would be your choice?” The Daily Wire reports that J.K. Rowling quickly emerged as the runaway leader in the poll. Whereupon the voting form disappeared, as did the results. A message in small print stated: “This form has been deactivated
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December 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the war on grades and homework in some of California’s largest school district. Inevitably, that war is spreading. It has come to Arlington County, Virginia, for example. Naturally, there is pushback in Arlington. Surprising, perhaps, some of the pushers are liberal. Let’s start by examining what the Arlington School Board is considering. Its preliminary proposal calls for the following: No late penalties for homework. No extra
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December 28, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
“Being the Ricardos” is a film about a week in the life of the cast of “I Love Lucy.” With so many sports events cancelled due to the Wuhan coronavirus, I watched this movie on Amazon Prime last week. The plot centers around (1) the marital problems of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and (2) the turmoil stemming from reports that Ball once registered to vote as a Communist. There’s
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December 23, 2021 — Scott Johnson
You may have heard that Elon Musk sat down with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, EIC Kyle Mann, and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle for an in-depth interview on wokeness, Elizabeth Warren, taxing the rich, the Metaverse, which superhero Elon would be, and how the left is killing comedy. The interview has made news on those subjects and more. The conversation occasionally flags, especially in the second half, but Musk himself
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December 16, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post moans that “despite diversity vows, wide racial gaps persist in corporate leadership” (the quote is from the print edition headline). The “vows” occurred after the death of George Floyd. The “wide gap” amounts to the difference between black representation in the U.S. population (12 percent) and black representation among the “highest corporate leaders” (8 percent, according to the Post). If one takes this story at face value,
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December 13, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
One of the happiest developments of 2021 has been the national movement of parents pushing back against woke education. As Stanley Kurtz says: Nothing can beat parents organized to halt the erosion of core American ideals like freedom of expression or equality before the law. Thankfully, a record of early successes is rapidly building a larger movement to take back our schools. But Stanley warns that the movement risks committing
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December 9, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Increasingly, school districts are asking candidates for teaching positions questions about “cultural competency,” race, and “equity” during the application and interview process. Education Week has the details. They aren’t pretty. Lauren Dachille, CEO of a company that peddles teacher screening software to around 500 districts across the country, says: Now that we’ve become a little more aware of the concept of anti-racism and maybe a little more woke as a
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